Is your Spiritual life in Cruise Control?

Homily:
About twenty years ago I was driving with someone who bought a brand new fully loaded car. He was so proud of this car that as we were driving he kept saying “look, look” then he began to press almost every single button and turn every single knob in the car.

Finally, it came time to show me the most impressive feature that his previous car did not have: the impressive cruise control. “Look, look, you press one button” he told me “then you take your foot off the gas pedal, and the car keeps going at exactly the same speed.” He was so excited he lifted his knee up next to the steering wheel and said: “Look, look, my foot is not even near the gas pedal.”

He then got a little too excited. In addition to lifting his foot off the pedal, he took both hands off the steering wheel and said: “Look, look, no feet and no hands. I’m in cruise control.” I immediately grabbed the steering wheel and said: “That is not how cruise control works. You can take your foot off the gas pedal for a few minutes but you can’t take your hands off the steering wheel even for one second.”

As odd as this may sound, we sometimes live our spiritual lives like we are driving a car with cruise control. We believe in the basics of our faith, but then take our feet off the gas pedal and say: “Look, look, I’m still a good person. I don’t need to learn new things about the Bible anymore.” Regardless of whether we’re making progress or not, we’re sometimes content that our speed is just fine. Then we might start taking our spiritual life for granted a little more. After taking our feet off the pedal, we then take one hand off the wheel by saying: “Look, look, everything is still ok even when I skip my daily prayers or stop praying at all.” “Look, look, I’m still making good decisions in life.”

We then might end up taking the other hand off the wheel and start to drive down the highway of life with our feet nowhere near the gas or brake pedals and our hands nowhere near the steering wheel and we say “Look, look, things are still ok, without all that religion stuff.”

If there is no one around us and the road is flat, then for a few seconds we can drive in cruise control with our hands and feet up in the air, but that thrill doesn’t last very long. Likewise, if we do not hold on to our spiritual wheel of faith to remind ourselves that our spiritual lives cannot be lived in cruise control then we will not be on a spiritual highway for very long.

We heard in today’s Gospel: “Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ ” (Matthew 4:17). The word “repent” can mean different things. One way to understand this rich word is by looking at how cruise control works. God made all of us with more exciting features than any new car. But despite all these features we always have to keep our eyes on the road and our hands on the steering wheel. We always have to be careful and we can never completely let go of the steering wheel nor keep our feet far from the pedal. Repenting reminds us that we always have to “look, look.”

We may be a talented athlete or singer, we might really excel in school, we might be very successful at work or other aspects of our life, but these will not endure if we take our hands off the steering wheel. Professional athletes and singers practice for hours not because they are not good but because they want to make sure they are the best they can be. They are the best in their field because they are willing to spend ten hours a day to make sure that their 10-minute performance is as close to perfect as possible.

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