The Great Englishman GK Chesterton once wrote…Reason is always kind of brutal…those who appeal to the head rather than the heart…however polite they might be…often end up doing harm rather than good.  We speak of “touching” someone’s heart…but we can do nothing to the head but hit it.  There’s no doubt about it…today our nation is mired in a difficult conversation…a conversation about what is right and wrong…a conversation about good and bad…a conversation about freedom.  Maybe at no other time in history…at least for the United States…is the tension between Church and State so unsettling. 

How should we manage health care in our country…should people be able to possess guns of any kind or descript…should someone have the “freedom” to kill an unborn baby…should we kill killers on death row as a lesson to the world that killing is wrong...should we (who have so much love and respect for the Holy Family themselves immigrants many times over in their lives) tell immigrants today that they may not come here or stay here?  These…and many more…are the excruciating questions of our time.  We can’t hide from them and we can’t wish them away and nothing I say in this homily will solve the dilemma that you and I encounter each time we come here to this place and engage in conversation with God as Americans. 

It’s so interesting when we look at the beautiful processional cross over there…Christ crucified for all to see…and on either side…the Church and the State…our beloved Catholic Church and our Beloved United States of America.   And one thing I believe is true…as Chesterton so eloquently explained…if we only deal with these issues in the head and have no place for them in the heart we will surely do damage to the human experience…reason only can be quite brutal. 

I bring all of this up because of just one line from our first reading in the Acts of the Apostles that I’d like to concentrate on for this weekend…Peter and the Apostles are being interrogated by the Jewish authorities as to why they continue to spread the Truth of the Gospel…to which they reply very simply…We must obey God rather than Men.  And this is precisely…also for you and me here in this Modern American dilemma…where the grind exists. 

This whole week in our daily readings we’ve been hearing the post resurrection stories from the Acts of the Apostles.  Each day we’ve seen this tension between God and Society played out.  Monday – Peter and John were released from the Sanhedrin jail and met with the other disciples and as they came together they prayed psalm 2…the kings of the earth took their stand and the princes gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.  Tuesday’s reading - the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  Wednesday’s - The high priest laid hands on the Apostles and put them in jail again but in the middle of the night the Lord opened the gates of the prison and told them to go and tell everyone about Him.  Thursday – the very same gospel passage from today where Peter says we must obey God rather than men.  And then Friday…a very interesting scene…the Sanhedrin again look to attack…they’re very angry with the Apostles and a wise member of the Jewish court…Gamaliel…explains…let them go…we’ve seen false prophets and false movements come and go before…if they are false it will be obvious…if they are true…if they come from God…you won’t be able to stop them anyway…you may even find yourselves against God. 

We must obey God rather than men.   This doesn’t mean to not obey the laws of our country either…Jesus was very clear about this when he said…render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s.  But really…that does answer the question…actually.  Give to society what rightfully belongs to society and Give to God what rightfully belongs to God.  Speed limits…taxes to run the infrastructure of a country…laws about stealing and laws about opening businesses…these are clearly Society’s not Gods.  But Laws about life…and love…and peace…and goodness…and the soul…these belong to God and as such must be obeyed by all societies.

You’ll notice in the reading of the Acts of the Apostles…they put up almost no fight…the early Christians.  In fact when they were reprimanded and chided by the Jewish and Roman authorities they considered it a great gift…it even says so from Friday’s reading from Acts…they left the presence of the Sanhedrin rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the Name. 

So what’s our lesson?  I think Pope Francis is the best place to go for that.  In his short time as the Successor to Peter he’s made it quite clear…don’t ever stop telling the story of Jesus…just like the Apostles…and tell the story most often without words…tell it by the way you live your life.  I promise you Pope Francis is quite aware of the battle against Secularism and the battle for Religious Freedom in our time…just as John Paul II and Benedict XVI was.  But he wants to take a different tack…he sees that maybe digging our heals in will only force the other side to dig their heels in…only ending in frustration for all sides.  Just maybe Francis wants to battle it like the Apostles…he wants to obey God rather than Men like the apostles.   They never put up a fight…in fact the government and Jewish authorities were the ones who got angry…not the Apostles.  Gameliel was right to tell the Sanhedrin not be angry with these Christians…if it is true what they say…and it is…that truth won’t be able to be held down and covered up in darkness.  The Truth will have no choice but to show itself.   It will show itself most obviously in hearts. 

This is why Pope Francis has been so effective in his ministry of the heart.  He’s not so much explaining the gospel as much as he is living the gospel.  People when to Rome to see John Paul II…he was like a rock star…in fact he even met with rock stars…people went to Rome to hear Benedict XVI…the great writer and theologian Pope…now they will go to Rome “to be” like Francis…to preach the gospel without fear and without any reason to get angry or frustrated.  He’s not weak…Francis makes no apology for kissing the feet of men and women prisoners…saying mass every day so far in his pontificate for the employees of the Vatican…living in a couple of simple dorm rooms rather than a palace.  He doesn’t get angry and want to fight the modern secular world…he simply lives in contradiction to the modern secular world.  And of course as we’ve seen…it speaks volumes…and interestingly enough…it’s the secular media who are so intrigued…after just one month.  Maybe this is one of the reasons he took the name Francis after Francis of Assisi who once said…preach the gospel at all times…and when necessary use words.

The Apostles used words for sure…you and I need to use words…there’s no doubt…as part of the dialogue between God and America.  But the Apostles weren’t the ones who got angry…they joyfully accepted the overwhelming false-ness and disrespect of the Romans and Jewish Sanhedrin as the grace filled purification they needed to see through the mission…a mission by the way that was so true that today in Rome sits the successor to Peter while the Caesars have been lost to history books.

We’re called to do the same thing…never shy away from God’s truth…speak it when we need to…but more so to live God’s truth and eventually…maybe not today or this year or this decade even…but eventually God’s truth will be seen by all as they see the way we live.  Let’s make the gospel obvious by the way we live…it seems to me that’s the best way to obey God rather than men.