From darkness to light

An audio recording of today's reflection can be accessed here.

****

Today's gospel (Matthew 13: 47-52) contains a lesson that may chill us but one which we must listen to. Jesus sets out a parable about fishermen sorting fish, and then interprets it for the crowd, applying the sorting to the Last Judgement and the sifting of the good from the wicked.  

 We do not like to think about the risks to our salvation. Yet the parable that Jesus tells clearly indicates that final judgement is a feature, indeed the penultimate feature, on the landscape of humanity. There are many mysteries that lie ahead for those whom the fishermen collect in the basket. May we be among this number. For those that the fishermen throw away, however, one truth is crystal clear even now: that it is possible to lose God, and that if we lose God, we will pay the price.

 Perhaps there was a time when Christians dwelt rather too much on damnation, although like so many myths in the popular imagination, I suspect that the stereotype of hellfire preaching has often been prone to exaggeration. Nevertheless, what the prospect or possibility of heaven or hell both have in common is that they show to what degree our actions have a real importance and real-world consequences. According to the parable – Jesus’ parable, not mine – it is possible for our existence to conclude with, I might almost say evolve into, the tragedy of damnation. Our existence is not just like having a life in a video game which we can unplug and walk away from, or which we can renew by pushing another coin into the machine or switching it off and on again. Naturally, it reassures us to dwell on God’s mercy, but we must not take God for a fool. It is comforting to say that God loves us unconditionally but there are certain things He simply does not accept. Happily, we live now in the hour of His mercy which is never more than a prayer away from us but which comes with this double paradox: that we must lose our lives to save ourselves, or else we keep our lives but lose ourselves and lose God.

The fundamental reason for His refusal to accept certain things is that disorder and wickedness are real and yet not real. So too, we can add, is the universal human instinct to lie and deceive the self about the wickedness one has wrought. Why is this a real thing? Because God respects our free will. Our liberty is a real power. And yet it is not real; for its fruits can be an attempt to uncrown the Lord of all, a sin we cannot commit without undoing the very logic of our existence which is called to the Divine Beauty like a body following the space-time continuum. Every sin is a rebellious act of violence against the kingdom, and every attempt to disguise that rebellion is a myth. 

In contrast, Jesus' forgiveness brings not only pardon but enlightenment - enlightenment about God but also about ourselves. Jesus does not treat the sinner like a leper but neither does He behave towards them like a sugar daddy, or like a well-meaning, holy social worker, or indeed a shop assistant catering to sir’s or madam’s requirements. God is not a subcontractor to our self-esteem; the one who is necessary makes us unnecessary ones so close to His heart that He describes Himself as our lover with full rights to be jealous of our love. The embrace of this Saviour means we will have to let go of everything we have wrongfully laid our hands on. We must, therefore, be like Zacchaeus, come down from our tree, and make restoration for the wrong we have done. We cannot stay in the tree simply for the view or perhaps because we identify as a 'tree person', or because God only made trees for us to climb. There is work to do; there is a responsibility that surpasses our immediate view of the world. We must climb down from the tree that undid us in the garden.

Moreover, if He came to die to save us from sin, it is not only because He wants to invite us into the extraordinary mystery of His friendship. It is also because sin is a real, fundamental, and profound problem in our lives, no matter how much we dress it up with our self-deceit and our self-indulgence, and no matter how fruitless and unproductive of the real sin can be. Our ignorance diminishes our guilt – Father, forgive them - but it does not save us from the disorder that arises from living as if God's plans did not matter.

There are, therefore, some things in our lives that - with God’s help and grace - we must exclude, for fear that in choosing them over God, we too could become part of the catch that the fisherman can find no use for.

Are we who aspire to be good, therefore, no more than dead fish, even if we are a good catch? Perhaps there lies the sense of the last enigmatic remark of Jesus today:

Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

We are not meant to be like dead fish: there, the parable breaks down. We are meant rather to be fruitful. Our hearts are meant to multiply love and share its effects wherever we are in our lives, witnessing to the ancient truths that cast their light on history’s newest every day; illuminating them, exposing the things that hide in the dark, or bringing into the light new-born beauty and claiming it for the gospel.