Homework Is a Human Rights Violation
32nd Sunday of the Year
You change a lot as you get older. You learn more, have new and different experiences, get knocked around by life a few times, and what you discover is that what mattered most to you as a child no longer matters as much to you; what you believed as a child is no longer what you believe now; what you understood as a child pales in comparison to what you now know and understand. We change a lot as we get older; interests changes; passions change; friend groups and family dynamics—almost everything changes between childhood and life lived as an adult.
I wanted to make those opening remarks because I want you to know that I have changed in almost every conceivable way moving from childhood to adulthood except one: as a child, as a young adult, and now as a man approaching middle-age, I have always considered giving students homework a human rights violation. I hate homework. I have always hated homework, and I will always hate homework. I do not care if homework helps anyone learn. As far as I am concerned, education is supposed to form you for adult life well-lived, and in a well-lived adult life you stop working when your shift ends, and you go home and do something else that matters to you. Homework is a human rights violation; I am almost certain.
Maybe because of my intolerance for homework, I have always struggled with people who go home and do their homework. You know the kinds of students I am talking about: good students. The students who get to class on time, submit each assignment when it is due, stay current with class reading, raise hands to answer questions as quickly as possible, stay after class to ask more questions. When you are someone who wants to avoid homework as much as possible, the worst possible turn of events is walking into a classroom and realizing that there is a good—a GOOD—student sitting there in the first row, completely invested, polished apple on the teacher’s desk, a model of wholehearted academic dedication.
The problem is shame and knowing that we need to do better: the student who is committed wholeheartedly to learning while we hold back our investment sits there in the front row as a reminder that we ought to be trying harder than we are. The experience of shame causes us to judge and criticize; maybe mockery and scorn become normative for us. We work hard to place the blame on the other person rather than recognize that we are the problem because we are not wholeheartedly invested and could be doing more, doing better. We go to great lengths (as children and as adults) to justify our behavior, our choices, our beliefs.
When I am honest with myself, I know that as an adult who believes in Jesus, what makes me uncomfortable is finding people who give their two coins to Christ—total commitment, wholehearted investment, holding nothing back. Much like the good student who sits in the front row, homework completed and ready to learn, the Jesus-follower who holds nothing back is sometimes an inspiration to me but more often a cause for shame. My comfort zone, on average, is to give Christ about 1.3 coins (assuming two coins is what I have to give). I am old enough now, and I know myself, and I am intimately familiar with the .7 coins I am holding back from Jesus. How about you?
The readings today are brutal for anyone who wants to avoid total commitment, wholehearted investment, holding nothing back from discipleship and following Jesus. The widow in the Gospel gets most of the attention but we cannot overlook the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath in the first reading. The widow and her son are experiencing famine, close to death, and will soon prepare a final meal before dying. Elijah arrives, hungry and thirsty, and commands the widow to give him water and something to eat. The widow explains that if she gives the food to Elijah, he will deprive her and her son of their last meal before death.
How does Elijah respond? Give me your last meal before dying, and God will reward you; total commitment, wholehearted investment, holding nothing back.
The first reading teaches us that the claim God makes on us is substantial, and appropriately terrifying: your two coins, your final meal, is really your free will, your freedom, your ability to think and choose and believe for yourself, the source of your faith, the cause for your hope, what you love in life—that is what God is asking of you. The widow of Zarephath is told by God to carry the worst of human crosses: obedience. Hear the word of God, receive it into your heart, live your life in response to God’s word, and you will experience blessing beyond imagine.
We do not talk about obedience much today, probably because no Christ-following reality runs up more against our natural instincts and American-culture-shaped identities than the demand to submit your freedom to another person. But there are other reasons. The design of God for the working of salvation is hard on the mind, the heart, the soul. We are asked to give our two coins, our final meal, our everything, to Christ in obedience but the way we meet Christ and the place we find Christ and the source of our relationship Christ is the Church, and the Church is a mess. The Church is a mess now, has always been a mess, and the divine expectation levied upon us is that we submit our freedom to a mess of an institution filled with broken people, many of whom come nowhere close to giving two coins—how is that real life?
Obedience to Christ is brutal, hard on the heart, mind, and soul. We are told in the Gospel today that the widow gives her whole livelihood to God, and if you look up the original Greek, you will discover that the word Christ uses basically means ‘life’! The widow gives up her life to God; total commitment, wholehearted investment, holding nothing back.
We need a reason to give our two coins to Christ because what is asked of us is everything; the stakes are high for discipleship. I suppose that salvation is one good reason. You will die one day, and the promise of God is that giving your two coins is how you participate in Christ’s work of redemption. Christ does the saving, you do the two-coin giving, and eternal life becomes real for you. The offer is a pretty good one, when you think about it.
For me, I want more. I want more reasons, and Christ gives us another reason in Matthew’s Gospel: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest . . . take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls . . . for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
The work of non-total commitment, non-wholehearted investment, the constant holding-of-something-back is exhausting. To live divided within yourself about what matters to you the most in life is the source of perpetual fatigue and stress. To not do your homework and try to get away with it is not only the cause of anxiety and interior unrest, but also requires more work than simply doing what is asked of you. I am 41 years old, I still hate homework, and on average my comfort zone finds me giving 1.3 coins to Christ, but I know—I believe, I am certain—that what comes from total commitment, wholehearted investment, holding nothing back is peace, rest, the absence of stress and interior division about what matters the most in life; a light burden and an easy yolk.
We work so hard in life to exhaust ourselves, and the cause of our exhaustion is us: our pride, our holding onto our freedom, our failures in the life of obedience.
The student who sits in the front row, assignments completed, ready to learn is the student who experiences about as much peace as possible in academic life. There is still stress and anxiety for that kid because life is still hard, but the cause of the stress and anxiety comes from outside because on the inside is unity and total commitment and wholehearted investment and the absence of division.
The analogy that matters for us is the lives of the saints. The saints are to Jesus-following as good students who always do their homework are to academic life. To be a saint is to hold nothing back from Christ, give your two coins, even though the place you find Christ is a broken, messy Church. In the curious design of God’s providence, what is messy and broken is also the place where beauty takes root, holiness flourishes, and charity abounds—and what is as true of the Church is true of our broken, messy lives. The cost is your livelihood, your everything. But the upside of giving your two coins is eternal life later, and interior peace now; the absence of division. We are called to live as saints, to build a Church filled with saints, and we should want to make that commitment.
Homily preached at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the parish of Corpus Christi, on November 10th, 2024.