St. Dominic Catholic Church

Homilies

What Kind of God Do You Believe In? Christmas 2020 Fr. Roberto

Homily for Christmas
Fr. Roberto Corral, OP
St. Dominic’s Church, Los Angeles, CA
December 25, 2020

Title: What Kind of God Do You Believe In?
Theme: The one, true God is loving, mysterious and cannot be manipulated or controlled.
Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

Once upon a time, there was a little eight-year-old boy who desperately wanted a new bicycle for Christmas, and to guarantee that he would get it, he decided to sit down and write Jesus a letter. This is what he wrote: “Dear Jesus, if you make sure I get a bicycle for Christmas, I promise I will be good for two months.” But then he realized that two months was way too long for him to be good. So he crumpled up the letter, took out another sheet of paper and wrote: “Dear Jesus, if you make sure I get a bicycle for Christmas, I promise I will be good for one month.” But again, he wasn’t sure he could do that, so he crumpled up the letter and took out another sheet. 

“Dear Jesus, if you give me bicycle for Christmas, I promise I will be good for two weeks.” 
But even that seemed like too much to ask of himself. So, he sat there for a while and wondered what he was going to do. Then, he got a brilliant idea. He got up from his desk, ran to his parents’ bedroom, took his mother’s statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, carefully carried it to his bedroom, wrapped it in a towel and then stuck the statue way in the back of his closet. Then he sat down and wrote: “Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again…”

It is a cute story, but I think it is also pretty insightful, because so often you and I can be like that little boy by trying to make God give us what we want. For example, sometimes when we desperately want something for ourselves or for a loved one, we try to bribe God by promising to go to church, say extra prayers, cuss less, be a nicer person, etc. Or similarly, we think we have to earn God’s love or blessings by doing good things. We can think that the more good things we do, the more God owes us. This is treating God like a divine vending machine: we think that if we just put in the money and press the right buttons, so to speak, then – voila! – we will get what we want from God. 

Or, worse yet, we can actually try to blackmail God by threatening him. We can say to God, “God, you better give me what I want or else…I will stop going to church, I will stop praying or I will stop believing in you, etc.” Sadly, I have known numerous people who have stopped going to church and/or stopped believing in God because he did not answer their prayers: their child died, their parents got divorced, the person they wanted to marry said no, or some other crisis took place in their lives.

Now, on the one hand, it is normal to want God to give us what we desire or what we think we need, and it is also normal to be disappointed or even angry with God when things do not work out the way we want – for a while. But, at some point, these attitudes reveal an immature faith. And, in fact, they should challenge us to ask ourselves the question, “What kind of God do I believe in?” Do I believe in a God who requires me to earn his love and blessings by doing good things? Do I believe in a God that is simply a divine vending machine, a God I come to only when I want something from him? Do I believe in a God I can manipulate or control or blackmail to give me what I want by doing good things or by threatening him?

Well, my brothers and sisters, this beautiful feast of Christmas that we celebrate every year proves to us and reminds us what our God is really like, and he’s not like any of those gods I just mentioned. The real God we believe in as Christians is a God who gave up being God to become one of us, not to judge or condemn us, but to show us how much he loves us. Our God is a God who loves us so much that he lived, suffered and died for us, even though we are sinners and imperfect, so that we could live with him forever. Our God is a God who is always faithful even though we have been unfaithful. Our God is a God who loves us more than we can imagine and who will always love us no matter what bad things we might do, even if we turn our back on him. 

And all of this means that we do not have to earn God’s love, that God loves us without conditions or limits, not because we are good, but because he is good. But at the same time it also means that our God is not a God that we can manipulate, bribe, blackmail or control. We have to let God be God, not us; we have to accept life on God’s terms, not ours. Our God is good, loving and forgiving, but he is also a God who is mysterious and who allows things like pandemics, earthquakes, fires and all the craziness of this year. God did not want any of these things, and God did not send them, but our mysterious God allows these kinds of things, not to punish us, but to draw us closer to him and to help us realize how much we need him.

So, my brothers and sisters, on this beautiful feast of Christmas, we have to remember that the two most important things our Catholic Christian faith teaches us are #1: There is a God, and #2: It’s not you. Therefore, in the midst of this pandemic, in spite of our losses and suffering, in spite of the uncertainties that lie before us, let us give thanks and praise to the one true God who is the light in our darkness, who has given us all that we have and all that we are, and who loves us more than we can imagine. That is the God we celebrate at Christmas. That is the God we believe in. That is our God. Merry Christmas!