Romans 13:8-10 / Luke 14:25-33 (2019)
To express some spiritual realities, it may be helpful to use ordinary and understandable everyday life experiences and realities.
When St. Paul wanted to talk about sin and its consequences, he used the idea of a debt as an analogy.
He put it in such a way that when we sin, we owe God something. Maybe that is where we get this idea that we will have to pay for our sins.
Today's 1st reading tells us to avoid getting into debt. It means that we must not owe anyone money or borrow things without returning it back.
It also means that we must avoid getting into sin and to "owe" God an explanation for not keeping His commandments.
And we know what God's commandments are. And we also know that they are not impossible to keep.
And we also know that to love God and love neighbour will be for our good and our salvation.
Yes, we know that in keeping God's commandments we live in the freedom of truth and love.
When we sin, we not only put ourselves in debt, we also do not know the cost of our sins.
Hence Jesus tells us in the gospel to "work out the costs". If we have a sinful intention or motive, do we know what is the cost and can we ever pay it?
The debt of sin is painful and destructive. But the debt of love cannot hurt anyone because it is the answer to every one of the commandments. Hence, let us continue to love God and our neighbour.