Come back to me Part 2

A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

*****

Today’s gospel (Luke 11: 29-32) sees Jesus surrounded by a crowd who have assembled to hear His preaching. They certainly get an ear full, not to say a tongue lashing. It is not clear what unleashes it. Immediately before this extract, a woman had cried out from the crowd that His mother was blessed. Jesus responded that those who do the will of God (like his mother in fact) are blessed, not to dishonour His mother but to dishonour the assumption that a person’s connections are what really count.

And, then, comes the tongue lashing: This is a wicked generation. Oh, how the PR agents, the diplomats, and justice and peace advocates must have shaken their heads in dismay. How on earth could Jesus build bridges with such cutting language? The thing is: Jesus is the bridge and the bridge builder – the ponti-fex, as the Latin has it – who connects us back to God, saving us from the abyss of perdition. The problem with this generation is not that they have not really had the chance to understand; the problem is that they are, like most of humanity, in revolt against God in various ways. But how?

There are perhaps two problems that emerge from the judgement Jesus delivers. The first of these is that, like most of us, the people in their generation believe they are an exception, and as an exception, they merit special treatment. The odd thing is that by this time in Jesus' ministry, anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had heard about the abundant signs of Jesus, but, oh no, they still claim they need another one. Yet this exceptionalism is a sin of pride, masquerading perhaps as fervent religiosity, the pretence that their need for a sign is required for a sensible discernment of Jesus’ authenticity. There are few if any among them with the faith of the centurion who even dispenses Jesus from the need to attend his beloved servant in person if only He will cure him; the centurion knows Jesus can cure him, and this is enough.

The second problem of this generation – the problem that their feeling of being an exception actually covers up – is that they are sensationalists, seeking the thrill of the special and miraculous, demanding the dopamine hit of God’s spectacular intervention on their behalf. They are collectors who invest in collectable religious experiences. Many among them will have turned up their noses at the preaching of those dishevelled seventy-two disciples who only had one coat each, because, you know, this lot don’t like peer-led preaching; instead, they want the real deal, a zingy homily like Jesus preached during the Sermon on the Mount. They want the showstopping number from the big guy in the sandals; not a cover version from the apostles’ tribute band. But no sign will be given them except the sign of Jonas.

Now, these two problems of exceptionalism and sensationalism lead to a third: the problem of complacency. They have been given all these chances to hear and embrace the truth from Jesus (and indeed from the seventy-two disciples with one coat each), but for many their search for the sensational probably rests on a hardcore foundation of self-belief – belief in their piety and their being deserving. This crowd believed they knew the divine score, and the divine score was in their favour. We will see that only a few verses later when Jesus visits the house of a Pharisee. But they are here now, in this crowd, the unwittingly complacent religious enthusiasts who believe in their own competence. They have learned nothing from the example of the men of Ninevah, even though they will know the story well. They have learned nothing from the wisdom of Solomon, even though they have heard it read countless times in their synagogues. All the wisdom of the Old Testament has bounced off the surface of their souls that have been rendered impenetrable to God’s inspirations by a panoply of religious observances that wrap them in a safety-blanket of selfish reassurance. Thus, they struggle to expose themselves to, or even conceive of, the dangerous liberation of intimacy with God. They have all the latest colours of phylactery; they treasure the memory of meeting the High Priest as he sailed by them into the Temple during last Passover in a wave of incense. They have confidently purchased the latest Pharisee guide on 365 ways to wash your hands up to the elbows to maintain ritual purity. And yet they have not repented. They are too complacent.

They have not heard the voice of God, echoing in the words of the prophet Joel:

Even now, declares the Lord,

    return to me with all your heart,

    with fasting and weeping and mourning.

There comes a time when preaching must cease and dialogue must begin, or maybe when dialogue must cease, and preaching begin. But it seems there also comes a time when neither preaching nor dialogue can continue; when preaching and perhaps especially dialogue, can be manipulated and rendered sterile by the listener; when all attempts at reaching out are simply drawn into the spectacular web of hypocrisy that the human heart builds to protect itself from its deepest responsibilities to hear and answer God’s call.

Then, if nothing more can be humanly done, the sign of Jonah is all that remains. The sign of Jonah is, we know, the resurrection, but in a spiritual sense, it is resurrection from sin after redemptive suffering. Talk and listening are good but not even Jesus proposed to talk people all the way to heaven. There is work to be done. This generation of complacent sensationalists, who believe in their own exceptionalism, suffer a kind of locked-in syndrome, unable to take another spiritual step forward, incapable of seeing the urgency of shedding their own wisdom and replacing it with the wisdom of God. For this wisdom would remind them that they suffer from the poison of sin, but that they are also immeasurably blessed by a Saviour who will endure the night of Jonah to lead them into the day of salvation.

Come back to me

A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

****

Today’s gospel (Luke 11: 15-26) is a complex not to say confusing extract. Saint Luke does not identify those who were raising objections or criticisms about the exorcisms of Jesus. However, we can surmise that they were probably egged on by Jesus’ enemies. Yet, what comes next is hard to decipher. It seems to be, on the one hand, a kind of treatise in demonology that explains not only the inner logic of the kingdom of the devil, but also the power battles for souls that are waged by the fallen angels.

As always, we know that Jesus is teaching us here, leaving His lessons to be the food of slow reflection, rather than turning them into flash media campaigns that press everyone’s buttons without winning their hearts. One sign that there is more to it, is that Jesus verges in these exchanges almost on banter, reducing his critic’s arguments wittily to an absurdity. His argument about Satan's kingdom standing is a good debating point but, underneath it all, it is a poor argument, for we know that Satan's kingdom will not stand. Indeed, the fallen angels are in a very real sense fallen and divided; fallen from their friendship with God, fallen from their exalted status, fallen from the vocations. What can He mean, then, by arguing that kingdoms who are divided against themselves cannot stand?

One clue may lie in that apparently random remark that sits in the middle of this demonology: he who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters. Who is it who is not with Him or who does not gather with Him if not ourselves? Not that we are wholly in revolt, far from it, no more than the Sons of Thunder were in revolt; no more then brash Simon Peter was in revolt.

But, we are divided against ourselves. The further from God we are, the more scattered we are. We have our good intentions, but then we are all complicated. The pure light shines into us but refracts out of us in gaudy rainbow colours that fail to illuminate. We are the adopted children of God, and yet in our worse moments, as Shakespeare says,

Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die.

This is not false abasement but a cause for humble joy for truth brings us insight. The demonology that Jesus sets out in this part of the gospel is of course about the fallen angels, but perhaps in another way, it is about ourselves. The devil in Latin is diabolus but this word comes from Greek and, according to some, it means to be thrown apart; in a sense, to be scattered. In truth, all our kingdoms are divided: the kingdom of Satan and the kingdoms of this world which are in fact ruled by the prince of this world, as we learn in the moment of the temptation of Christ. There is only one kingdom that is based on unity and it is the kingdom of God.

For God is one and sufficient unto Himself, yet He chose to share His goodness by creating the world and calling us into it. But, then the unity of God calls all things back to Himself, and by a special and extraordinary privilege, the call for the human race was to share in God's very happiness, in the inner life of love that belongs to the Holy Trinity. This is why we need forgiveness: for sin is brokenness, and a retreat from that original unity to which we were called. And this is also why, insofar as we do not gather with Christ, in all those parts of our inner life that do not strive towards unity with Him, we are scattering ourselves and our heritage to the four winds.

Mercy of mercies, however; over the din that is made by the forces that shatter our hearts, we hear those words related by the prophet Joel:

Even now, declares the Lord,

    return to me with all your heart,

    with fasting and weeping and mourning.

 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

****

Today’s gospel (Luke 10: 25-37) relates the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. A lawyer questions Jesus, wanting to wrongfoot him, and Jesus, as always, side steps the trap, this time by shining the light of divine truth right into this lawyer’s eyes. And then comes the question: who is my neighbour? The fulfilment of the law that dictates that one must love one’s neighbour as oneself, depends entirely on a proper understanding of who one’s neighbour is. And so, the lawyer is anxious. He does not seek union with God but perfection. And in this way, his actions and attitudes already anticipate part of the parable to come.

The outline of the parable is, of course, well known. A man is waylaid by brigands on his way to Jericho, a priest and a levite pass him by and do not help him, and it is only because of the actions of a Samaritan - a member of a sect in schism from the main body of Judaism - that this poor man is helped. So many Saints and Doctors of the Church have commented on this passage. The man travelling to Jericho is often seen as a symbol of fallen humanity, attacked by the violence of the devil and left for dead. The priest and the levite symbolise the Law and the Prophets that cannot deliver the man from his misfortune. And the Samaritan is none other than Jesus, the one who was rejected, who becomes the source of the man's salvation, and pays the price of his care and rehabilitation.

There are always spiritual lights to be found in these parables, however. Can we imagine, for example, that the priest and the levite are so entirely indifferent to the fate of the man who has been attacked? Personally, I doubt it. So then, the question arises as to why they took no action to look after him? What afflicts them to prevent then caring for him in his grievous need? And what has this to do with us who have probably never crossed the path of a Jewish priest or levite?

We might see in these two figures two different kinds of spiritual disease that corrupt the exercise of love of neighbour. In the case of the priest, for example, we might see the kind of service or ministry which has become so official that all fervour has drained out of it. The priest is busy about his business. He has places to go and people to see. He has meetings to attend, forms to fill in, reports to write, and appointments that cannot be missed. And this is how ministry of any kind, not just the ministry of a priest, can turn from an exercise in the unction of the Holy Spirit into a fossilised object that serves nobody's benefit but its own. This is the kind of ministry which sees people as clients, rather then as suppliants whose chief need is mercy. It no longer seeks to battle with sin but only with disorganisation. It wishes to deal with symptoms and not with causes. It prefers to place cushions beneath the elbows of sinners, rather than perform the uncomfortable service of challenging their complacency. This is a ministry that seeks control of its beneficiaries, rather than looking for Christ in their eyes. It is a ministry of jargon, propped up by cliché, that probably feels like a burden but a burden that cannot be put down. What is missing in all this is the inner dynamic, the life at the roots, the energy that makes the Samaritan stop in his tracks and adjust himself to the needs of the person who lies by the side of the road, abandoning the schedules and appointments he has fixed in his diary, to tend the man’s wounds that suppurate with the poison of sin. When officiousness has replaced care, charity has already fled.

Those of us who have no particular ministry may feel such lessons do not apply to us. But not so fast: for here comes the levite. The priest suffered from one kind of disease, but at least his focus was still on things around him, even if his ministry was supposed to make him care for people rather than things. The levite, on the other hand, is another kettle of fish. The levite does not want to touch the man, not because he has other things to do, but probably because he perceives that in touching the man, he may become ritually unclean. His focus is not on organisation, planning, appointments, official meetings and all the paraphernalia of a busy priestly ministry. Rather, it is fixed on just how well he is doing himself. After all, he is trying to be as perfect as his Heavenly Father. He has fallen in love, not with God Himself but with the idea of loving God, or perhaps with the idea that proof of his loving God might be found in the approval that other people show for his patent devotion, his exactitude in the performance of his religious duties, for by their fruits you will know them. It is not so much that he does not love his neighbour; he will know he loves his neighbour when others observe him loving his neighbour, just not here on this lonely road where his neighbour appears so frightening and hideous. He remembers ultimately that the law commands him to love his neighbour as himself, and he loves himself so very much…

Between the minister who is lost in officialdom and the devotee who is lost to a project of self perfection, it is little surprise if wounds go unhealed, sins go unforgiven, broken hearts lie unmended, and wandering sheep remain lost. It is little wonder that the priest and levite both are dying from a poison they have little hope of understanding or seeking the remedy to.

And yet in the midst of it all, the answer to the riddle of the love of neighbour is lived out in the actions of a Samaritan who attends wholly to the victim in front of him, without ever shifting his attention away from the source of all love. The secret is compassion the origin of which word is to suffer with. We must bear each other's burdens; for that is how we fulfil this law of love.

Away, then, with officialdom and away with cold perfection. Let us allow the love of God to make us docile tools in the hands of the Potter himself.

 

 

With great power comes great responsibility

A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

*****

Today’s gospel (Luke 10:13-16) shows Jesus in a mood we are less than comfortable with. There are no imaginative parables to soften the sharp edge of His analysis. Instead, we hear a dressing down for the towns and villages where He has preached: Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. The towns He compares them to, Tyre and Sidon, were no doubt dens of vice and iniquity. So, what was their problem? And, were they really quite as bad as Jesus implied?

The problem is very simply stated. Their streets had been filled with crowds desperately following after the Lord, straining to hear His voice which echoed off the stones and tiles. Their main squares had heard the preaching of the Son of God, delivering His message of good news, of mercy and forgiveness, of healing and peace. Their denizens had witnessed Him exercising extraordinary and miraculous powers, curing diseases and healing disfigurements that some had endured since they were born. And through it all, these towns did not truly know the hour of their visitation or grasp who it was that walked among them.

They saw the power of God, but they did not do penance. Their ambitions had been set alight by the seeming dignity that came from the visitation of this local superstar. Perhaps most tellingly, the cash registers of their shops and the money boxes of their merchants were probably filled to overflowing by the wave of humanity that lapped at Jesus’ feet. And all these things were their undoing.

For they sinned both by omission and by commission: by omission, first, because they did not realise that they could not bear fruit unless they were prepared to undergo the penitential pruning and dunging that every good garden must endure. They had not understood that in the logic of the Lord, death is the condition of life, and that every good tree that brings forth fruit must be cut back to deliver another yield. And they sinned by commission: for they missed the real import of Jesus’ message and they only thought about what it brought to them. Instead of the gold of the love of God, their hearts were won over by the fool's gold of the love of self. The gospel does not say explicitly that these towns revelled in the money that flowed into them thanks to the crowds who came to listen to Jesus. But since we know that humans either serve God or mammon, we can be sure that there was money involved.

Who are they then, these obscure towns, who treated the Lord in such a vile way? Who are they to have neglected penance after all that they had heard? Who are they to think of self-glory - to be puffed up as the destinations favoured by the miracle worker - when they had seen with their own eyes the glorious intervention of divine power upon the earth? Who are they to have such base interests when Jesus had pointed them towards the eternal horizon, and shown them the path to an everlasting Kingdom? Who are they if not ourselves?

For how often have we understood that we needed to do penance, and found some excuse to leave it undone? How often have we, perhaps secretly and surreptitiously, considered ourselves better than those whose reddest sins are painted in huge letters on the front pages of the tabloids? How often have we gone after the illusions that deceive us, putting first our own glory and our own earthly gain in whatever currency we happen to value: human respect, material possessions, vainglory, illicit pleasures? And as for you [here say your own name to yourself], did you want to be exalted high as heaven? You shall be thrown down to hell. Jesus’ words. O Lord, prayed St Philip Neri, don’t trust Philip!

So, what ought we to do, apart from daily penance and from seeking true self-knowledge? The answer comes in the final sentence of this gospel: anyone who listens to you listens to me. We must listen, keeping our ear close to the Apostolic tradition, the tradition that teaches total self-gift to God who has given Himself in total self-gift to us. The Apostolic tradition is a tradition of listening, for in hearing the voice of Jesus, we hear the voice of the Father, and in hearing the voice of the Apostolic tradition, we hear the voice of Jesus. I have passed on what I have received, wrote St Paul, for goodness shares itself.

In the revelation of Jesus, received through a grace-given faith, perfected by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, we find all we need to know to convince our hearts of this simple truth: that the power to love God is a greater gift than any other, and that with great power comes great responsibility.