Word Magazine February
1985 Page 20
“WHERE
CAN YOU HIDE?”
Homily By Father James C. Meena
There was
an announcement made not long ago, stating that the government has found that
smoking marijuana is “less harmful than the use of alcohol and cigarettes”.
There was a great sound and fury made by those who diametrically oppose the use
of marijuana under any conditions. I’d like to present another point of view,
a Pastoral one, I trust.
The
indiscriminate use of any drugs, whether harmful or not, must be placed in the
same category with all things having the capacity to alter the personality so
that one loses control of behavior. Those who insist on using such methods to
turn their minds off or on, to drop out of reality and into some misty
existence, only fool themselves into thinking that escapism is going to solve
their problem.
We choose
various forms of escapism. Some people drink excessively thinking they can crawl
into a bottle and pull the cork in after them. As soon as they are sober the
problems from which they are trying to escape are still there and sometimes they
are worse. The use of hallucinogenic drugs is no different, whether or not they
are harmful to the body is not relevant in my point of view. The very fact that
they are used to escape, that even one “Joint” has the potential to alter
the personality and change the characteristics of the individual, means that
they should be rejected out of hand as being totally inconsistent with the
Christian way of life.
People
have been using such escapist techniques for centuries. The excessive use of
wine and distilled alcoholic beverages, even the use of herb drugs has been
known to mankind for hundreds of years and is repeatedly condemned by Scripture.
Noah discovered wine and innocently drank too much. He became drunk and fell
into a stupor. His son, Ham, mocked him, because of his drunkenness but Shem and
Japheth covered their Father’s nakedness. Even though Noah didn’t know that
the excessive drinking of wine would so alter his personality that he would be
derided by Ham, the consequences were unremitting, (Genesis, 9:20-28).
How can
you run away from God? You cannot escape His wrath, His retribution, His law of
averages. The only things from which you can run are His love and His mercy, and
that by your free choice.
When Adam
and Eve committed the first sin, they ran and hid thinking that they could
somehow be inconspicuous when God walked through the garden in the cool of the
day. Jonah first refused to obey God but he finally realized that he was God’s
chosen one and he had to obey. David killed Uriah in order to hide his adultery
but he could not hide from the face of God.
Judas
Iscariot could not hide from the Face of God and you cannot, nor can I. No
matter what opiates we may suck into our lungs or shove into our veins, we
cannot escape from God nor from our responsibilities to one another as children
of God.
Why do we
seek approval from our Governments, with all of its corruption, to convince us
that ‘pot smoking is less harmful than alcohol’? You will still damage
yourself and risk changing that which God gave to you to make up the sum total
of your personality; your talents are stultified when you drink excessively and
when you take into your system any of these personality-changing drugs. You
can’t run from the Face of God or from the realities of life. If you will turn
and face the problems of life with faith, with devotion to Him and not look to
artificial stimulants and depressants to solve your problems, you will find solutions
for our problems.
Do this,
and you will be like the Publican of Jesus’ Parable, (St. Luke 18:10-14). He
had lived a life of corruption and exploitation, had taken advantage of his own
people, and had given himself to the conquerors like a prostitute gives herself
to anyone paying her price, stood before the altar of God, knew he could not
hide from the Face of God and did not even dare to lift up his eyes. He didn’t
run to a wine bottle. He didn’t go out and find some herb root to chew on that
would sedate his feelings. But he faced up to the realities of his own sinfulness
and he asked God to help him to overcome that sinfulness by His mercy. That’s
precisely what we are called upon to do.
