On astute parables

 Most of the time, the gospel teaches us the doctrines and moral truths that belong to Divine Revelation. But sometimes, the gospel teaches us other things besides. Today's gospel (Luke 16: 1-8) is a good example of this.

On the surface of it, if we were drawing up a league table of Jesus’ best parables, I'm afraid to say this parable would probably come close to the bottom if we judged it by what the lectionary has served up for us here. The lesson of the parable appears to be that the children of this world are cleverer in their own business than the children of light. In fact, the parable’s complete meaning does not become apparent until we read the following section of the gospel where Jesus warns us that we cannot be the servant of God and the servant of money. Even then, the parable seems confusing, especially given that the rich master ends up praising his dishonest servant.

So, when it comes to reading such a parable, what should we do? Here is where I think the gospel teaches us other things indirectly. We cannot understand this gospel if we simply stop at the level of its words. In order to understand this gospel, we have to be able to think about the wider context in which Jesus is speaking. Moreover, this is true of other things that people might say to us in other circumstances in our lives. As I often say to my wife, it's not about what it's about.

There is a very simple way to understand this. If I sit down at the table and say, “Where’s my supper?” my question is not simply begging to know the location of my food; I am asking to be fed. If, when I am served my supper, I then say, “Is there any salt?”, my question is not trying to ascertain whether there is salt in the house. I am asking for someone to pass me the salt. My words are not about what they appear to be about on the surface. In how many other circumstances is this the case!

So, why is any of this important? It is important precisely because the children of this world - who understand such things - are cleverer in their day than the children of light. While the children of light attribute the best of motives to their neighbour,  goodwill to all and rose-tinted blessings all round, the children of this world know that much of this world's affairs, even among the children of light, are woven from deceit.

While this gospel’s parable will eventually warn us not to be the servants of money, indirectly it is training us to look below the surface of what people say. It is training us not to be content with being superficial in how we understand what is said to us. It is urging us to understand and to practise the difference between being simple and being simplistic. It is begging us to grasp the difference between confidence and caution. It is asking us to confront in the end the truth about ourselves and the truth about others while we hold to the truth about our loving Father. The Father of Truth, not the father of lies.

The children of this world are more astute in their dealings than the children of light. And let us not forget: this reflects badly - very badly - on the children of light.

Sharing like the Father

 Today’s gospel (Luke 14: 12-14)  is one of those nuggets of Jesus’ wisdom which have the potential to echo in all kinds of circumstances. On the surface, it is about the motives for giving a dinner. “Don’t invite those who can invite you back,” he tells the leading Pharisees.  Don’t just do the socially acceptable thing, or -  worse still - don’t just play your part in the social round of getting and spending, darling.

Yet this logic should exist in other areas of our life. It is not just about the giving of concrete things (like fine dinners) but also about more intangible things like respect, esteem or even friendliness. How easy it is only to pay these things out to those who return them to us. How easy and yet how purely contractual. Hilaire Belloc, who was famously cantankerous, wrote, nevertheless, about courtesy as the crown and sign of love. And if we are called to love our neighbour, whoever they may be, then might we not be called to pay them our respect and courtesy, regardless of whether they pay it back to us? And if we could manage this, would our neighbour then perhaps meet in us the “Word made flesh in Mary”, as we pray after Holy Communion?

There is, nevertheless, one further reason underpinning Jesus’ counsel to the Pharisee in today’s gospel. When we give to those who do not or cannot give to us, and when we show courtesy and love to those who show none to us, we have stepped outside of the human logic of contract and exchange and adopted God’s logic of gift and self-giving. In St Matthew’s gospel, Jesus commands us: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The essence of goodness is to give of itself. Good wishes to share itself. Sometimes, the only way goodness can conquer is through that self-sharing.

There is no imbalance ultimately, Jesus tells us. God will settle all accounts; there is yet abundance in heaven for those who sowed here on earth and received nothing. In the meanwhile, we only need share ourselves – by His grace and depending on His power -  like He shares Himself with us.

Longing like Christ

 Today’s reading (Romans 9: 1-5) gives expression to a sentiment that is increasingly rare: a deeply felt solicitude and concern for the salvation of souls (in this case, Paul’s fellow Jews). St Paul’s words are almost confessional in this passage from his great Letter to the Romans: “my sorrow is so great, my mental anguish so endless”. These are powerful feelings indeed. After all, this is the same St Paul who can do all things in Christ who strengthens him, so what is the source of his acute sorrow? How can this man who lives so deeply in Christ feel like this?

St Paul avoids saying it explicitly, but he announces it indirectly and paradoxically: “I would willingly be condemned and be cut off from Christ if it could help my brothers of Israel”.  The source of his anguish is the separation of the Jews from Christ. And yet, these words too are paradoxical, for how could St Paul feel like this unless he were deeply united to Christ and wished to remain so; unless Christ lived in him?

We hear echoes – or see a foreshadowing -  of these words in Jesus’ own sentiments as He sat with the disciples looking upon the temple. On that occasion, he blurted out these surprising words:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing (Matthew 23: 37).

The sorrow and mental anguish of St Paul is not his at all but Christ’s. The longing of St Paul is a sharing in the deeper, passionate longing of Jesus to recover His chosen people.

And yet, by corollary, we can say that this passion extends also to us and especially to those who are not part of the Mystical Body or whose union with it is imperfect. Only union with Jesus can bring us to the Father’s house. And while there are ways in which that union through grace can come about outside the visible confines of the communion of the Church, the only proper attitude to separation is this anguish of Jesus that is echoed by St Paul.

If everyone is going to heaven in the end, then such anguish would be pointless. That said, when did we last sound like St Paul – when did we last feel like St Paul – with regard to his Jewish brethren or those we are separated from?

Like St Paul, in the end we should long to be dissolved and to be with Christ. And we should long to see others longing for the same blessed end.

A town called Malice

Today’s gospel (Luke 13:10-17) shows Jesus affirming a certain way of interpreting the moral law. He heals a woman on the Sabbath. To some, the fact that this action was a miracle appears to be irrelevant; for them, He was wrong to heal on the day of rest. Should we see this as a peculiar blindness in those committed to a strict legal framework? Not necessarily.

It would be a mistake to imagine that Jesus’ action is an overturning of the law. The healing of the woman is not a lawless action. In fact, in some ways it is as strictly legal as the interpretation of the sabbatarians. After all, the law that Jesus observes as He cures the woman is the law of mercy by which a lower law gives way to a higher law. Moreover, Jesus himself points out that even his critics would have watered their animals on the Sabbath day.

We might say, therefore, that the real problem in this gospel is not the legalism of Jesus' critics but their hypocritical malice; they condemn in Him an action that they would have permitted themselves. In other words, theirs is a fake accusation, an insincere indictment.

Jesus’ command not to judge others seems to urge us to blame all wrongdoing on ignorance or error in the mind. In an endeavour to be charitable, we prefer to think that it is an exaggerated legalism that leads Jesus’ critics down the wrong path. Yet, it seems rather that their criticism arises from simple bad will. They were not being high minded. They were actually being perverse.

We have to consider this carefully. Human malice and hypocrisy are real factors in the shaping of our lives and the shaping of the lives of others. They are real and present dangers for the human heart, tethered to this earth by jealousy, pride, self-regard, anger, or the unregulated neediness that turns neighbour into an idol and makes a fetish of the fashionable.

What we need in this case is the healing touch of the merciful Lord, coming to our aid even after many years of our slavery. Our salvation lies neither in legalism, nor in some form of deluded largesse about observing the law, but in embracing the eternal law of divine love which alone can cure us of our malice, heal us of our sins, cast the mighty from their thrones, and raise the lowly.

Of true poverty and fake riches

Today’s gospel passage (Luke 12:13-21) might tempt us into thinking that as long as we are not grasping at money, then we are probably doing okay. We stand back and look askance at the man in the parable who planned to build up his wealth, only for God to require his soul of him that very night. But, as we listen to the parable, I also wonder whether there is not a tiny corner of us which is really muttering to itself, “I thank you, Lord, that I am not like that man.”

The problem here is that there are different kinds of wealth and riches that we can be tempted to pursue. In reality, money has little value in itself. Its value arises from social convention and legal recognition. So, in a sense it is quite possible for us to be as grasping as the man who wants to build up his barns if we are in pursuit of those things which by social convention are considered to be valuable. People talk a lot these days about virtue signalling: the performance of some good act not because it is good but because it is perceived by others to be good and to reflect well upon the doer of the act. But what good is it to have a barn full of social recognition if, beneath it all, our love extends so far and no further?

Let us push this further, however. Perhaps there is one more level to this kind of grasping that Jesus identifies in the gospel. Is it not also possible for those of us who are considered devout, or at least regular in our religious observance, to live a kind of grasping in our faith? Thereby, we keep one eye on our religious bank balance, our merit, our worth and our value, as we try to live our faith. In this case, is it not easy to be tempted to do more, rather than to go deeper?

Yet, in God’s eyes, those who do more are principally those who are loving more. The devout philanthropist is a pygmy beside the obscure religious whose joyous heart celebrates the love of God and offers penance for the sins of the world, unless of course the celebrated philanthropist is a saint behind closed doors. It is not the all-powerful chair of the parish council who props up the parish but the unnoticed penitent who prays in the shadows. 

This is not a reason not to do great things or even useful things. It is just a reminder that God's barns can only be built by humble, recklessly open-handed love. Every attempt at grasping - grasping even the things of God -  falls foul of Jesus' censure.

Give witness, repentant and don't worry

Today's gospel passage (Luke 12: 8-12) appears to be a random set of counsels, but seen from another perspective there is a logic about them.

Jesus' first command is both an order and a warning. The order is that we must give witness. There are many ways of giving witness in this world, and no doubt discipleship allows us to call on these different modes at different moments. Nevertheless, the essence of things is this: we must be who we are, and if we are the sons and daughters of God, then we should appear to be the sons and daughters of God. We must be true to God and to ourselves. There is a psychological idea called the looking glass theory according to which we consider ourselves to be who we think others think we are. If we project ourselves in this way, as many do on social media, then we are lost. We are not who others think we are; we are in fact whom God knows us to be.

For some people, this call to witness might manifest itself as a kind of self display or showiness. But this would be to ignore Jesus’ second counsel today. In this counsel, Jesus offers this mysterious guidance: that those who sin against the Son will be forgiven, while those who sin against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. What happened, we might wonder, to the need to forgive seventy times seven if to be unforgiven it suffices to commit this sin against the Holy Spirit? But that would be to misunderstand how the Church sees this text. It is not that those who sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, as if God were powerless to do so; it is that by sinning against the Holy Spirit, they have withdrawn themselves from His almighty power. For the limits of His almighty power stop at the threshold of the individual heart whom He will not force to love him. What, then, is Jesus’ second counsel today but that we must remain in an attitude of repentance even while we are giving witness to the God who has saved us? Let us give witness to being the sons and daughters of God, but let us do so knowing that we are unprofitable servants.

And then comes Jesus’ third counsel: we are not to worry about what to say if indeed Providence brings us to stand before human accusers who find fault with our profession of the faith. There is something very contemporary about this scenario because we seem to be living in a moment where even quite fundamental Christian convictions - one might think, for example, of the belief that marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman - are increasingly seen as toxic. There is even the suggestion by some people that this commitment to retaining a biblical understanding of spousal relations is unchristian - the fruit of rigid minds that are stuck in the past.

But, as Jesus says, let us not worry about what the accusers might throw at us. Let us bear witness humbly and repentantly, and we will have obeyed His word. The rest is in His hands.

  

Knowing our blessings

Today's gospel (Luke 11: 29-32) could be seen as another difficult passage but below the surface it is all illumination. We hear the pain of Jesus who has preached to the people the good news of the coming of the Kingdom and has found them indifferent. They have heard something greater than the Queen of Sheba when she came to listen to Solomon. They have been given greater reason to embrace repentance than the people of Nineveh who repented when Jonah preached to them. Jesus draws on these iconic moments in the history of the people of Israel, and in so doing he holds up a mirror to His listeners who were so fond of claiming their lineage but not so fond of emulating it.

Where are we in this gospel passage? Is there something we share in common with “this wicked generation” that Jesus preaches to? Unlike them, perhaps we have to consider what blessings we have received and (like them) not embraced with a full and generous heart. We should not do this as an exercise in self-hatred but rather as an exercise in self-knowledge. As we journey towards God, we grow not only in knowledge of Him but in knowledge of ourselves, and that self-knowledge becomes less of a burden or an obstacle to union with Him.

What those blessings are is known to each individual alone. There are many moments of grace in the heart of each of us. God works with us all where we are, tracking our steps like a shepherd in pursuit of his wandering flock, or to use the image of Frances Thompson once more, like the hound of heaven,

with unhurrying chase

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy.

To know a person's desires is to know them in their very depths. It is, then, an extraordinary grace that Jesus has revealed to us the depths of His longing for us. Do we think enough on this visitation?

The people of Jesus’ generation wanted a sign, but had they stopped for a moment to question this obsession, they would have realised that God spoke to them, and had long been speaking to them, through the holy scriptures, through the circumstances of their everyday lives, and in their prayers. Sometimes we can be like them when we tend towards forms of religion that are subtly self aggrandizing - because we think they can assure us of our virtue - and in which we are all too readily like the people in this gospel scene who place show above sincerity. In contrast, grace is always a path of gentle, self-effacing and attentive love. 

Our prime duties lie daily in listening to wisdom (like the Queen of Sheba) and embracing repentance (like the people of Nineveh). Then, we can know our blessings better, and try to return some semblance of love to the One who has first loved us.

RSVP

The meaning of today's gospel (Matthew 11: 1-14) changes somewhat depending on whether you read the short version or the long version. Both long and short versions, however, are full of resonances for those following the path of COLW.

The parable begins with the festive invitation from a king who wants guests to join him for the wedding of his son. As Christians, we instantly recognise the meaning of this story. To recover its freshness, we ought almost to introduce it with the words, “Once upon a time”. From a COLW perspective, we hear in these words the call that goes out from the heart of the Trinity to the fallen hearts of humanity: come back to Me with all your heart. This is the plan of God who, after being rejected by our first parents, sends His only begotten Son to rescue those who are lost. The invitation is the call, the appeal of God for our return. When we speak about vocation - whether it is seen as our state in life or as our particular vocation that shapes the intimacy between God and ourselves - we are talking about how God’s plan for the world’s salvation is realised in the concrete details of our own lives.

Then, the parable shows the drama that arises from those who say ‘no’ to the invitation. God does not give up on those who say ‘no’. He continues to strive to call them in. He does not accept their refusal. He does not sign a peace accord with their rejection. He will not tolerate the fact they consign him to irrelevance. He does not even consider an alternative plan in which these guests can skip the wedding but perhaps come along to the after party. So, this is an invitation, but because it is from the king, it is also an imperative. It does more honour to its unworthy recipients then they can even begin to fathom. And, without their really understanding its implications, it exposes their priorities for what they are worth.

It is important to dwell on their reasons for saying ‘no’. The gospel says they were not interested. Rather, they were too much entangled in their own affairs and their pursuit of commerce and money. They even turned on the servants of the king, no doubt accusing them of hate speech against the legitimate pursuit of wealth. I imagine a newspaper article in the land of those who refuse the king's invitation saying something like this:

Does the king not realise the disruption that this frivolous and extravagant party will cause? Does the king not value the making of money at a time when so many of his subjects suffer from poverty? Is there any greater proof of the king’s tyranny than his anger at those who have refused the invitation? Why do we really have need of such a king?

Then comes the next act in the drama of this gospel: the invitation goes out to the waifs and strays to come to the wedding. The gospel glosses over what happens when the new invitation reaches this wider audience, but only one thing was required from any of the invitees: ‘yes’ at the crossroads, ‘yes’ in the dark places, and ‘yes’ from saints and sinners alike. Some who say ‘yes’ clearly look the part. Others who say ‘yes’ appear decidedly unsuitable. Go fetch the bad and good alike, is the king’s instruction. What matters is not where we have been, so much as what we do with the invitation that has come to us: will we say ‘yes’? Will we say ‘yes’ in every moment of our lives and fill up the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of ‘yeses’ to the Lord who loves us? Our ‘yes’ to the Lord determines the extent to which the wedding hall will be filled with guests.

If we only hear the short version of this gospel, however, we miss an important nuance that Jesus places at the end of the parable. In the final scene, the king approaches one man who is not wearing a wedding garment and questions how he managed to get into the party. When the man does not answer, the king orders his servants to bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the darkness where there is weeping and grinding of teeth. Many are called but few are chosen, is Jesus’ alarming conclusion. What are we to think of this? I've had some appalling guests in my time, but I don't think I've ever banished them from my table in that way!

This little coda to the parable changes everything. The King's invitation had seemed like unstinting largesse but now we find it is not free of conditions. There is need for a wedding garment. In fact, the lack of a wedding garment merits ejection from the wedding feast. But did not this man say ‘yes’ to the Lord in the first place? Does his presence not show that he has put the king's priorities before his own? On the surface, it does, but something deeper down has gone wrong.

The wedding garment in this parable is evoked by the symbol of the white garment in the baptismal ceremony. Quite simply, the wedding garment is the state of grace. The wedding garment is the sign that we have put on Christ - put on Christ and have not cast him off again for anything in this world. The mistake this man has made, therefore, is that he has put a price on his own ‘yes’. He has said ‘yes’ with certain actions - after all he is at the feast - but his ‘yes’ has been partial. Either there is something he has not surrendered, or perhaps he has somehow taken back part of his ‘yes’. Our model Mary’s ‘yes’ was the perfect ‘yes’: be it done unto me, according to your word.  How much it would it have changed the meaning and value of her fiat had she said, be it done unto me, according to my word?

‘Well, does the king need to be so pedantic?’ I hear the man say. 

But there, the man would be mistaken. This invitation was no mere social convention or civil nicety. The king was not inviting him for cocktail fizz until carriages at midnight. This was not the kind of party for which he could simply dress casual.

This was an invitation to the greatest friendship and intimacy with the king himself. One wedding feast with the king was worth more than a farm, a business, and a million thrills the invitees would like to allow themselves. Even if, therefore, the man said a cheap ‘yes’ to the invitation, he has not understood the hour of his visitation.

Of deafness and fake listening

Today’s gospel (Luke 11: 15-26) is complex and sees Jesus speaking at his most rabbinical and paradoxical. It was quite necessary too. Some of the people in this passage of the gospel argued that He was casting out devils by Beelzebub.

What follows is Jesus' complex refutation of what was a perverse account of His actions among the possessed. Anyone with a fair mind could have seen that what Jesus brought the possessed was liberation and freedom. The gospel frequently comments on the peace and calm of those delivered of an evil spirit. Had we seen it ourselves, we might have tasted the tranquillity that hung in the air after such an act of mercy. But the naysayers have their way with accusations: Jesus is of the devil.

We might not like to recognise it, but this gospel shows us to what extent some people place themselves beyond dialogue or at least beyond help. To take one contemporary example, those who said Jesus cast out devils by Beelzebub are like those who today say defending the rights of the unborn brings misery to women. It is absurd, and the literal definition of ‘absurdity’ is deafness. Just as there are none so blind as those who will not see, there are none so deaf as those who will not hear.  

If we have the wit to be apologists, we should of course speak out. Be ready always to give a reason for that hope that is within you, says St Peter. On the other hand, dialogue has its limits. Dialogue means ‘through words’, but what can be done when we speak words to humans who no longer hear them, whose minds are locked up in a perverse understanding of the world? Jesus also gives us the response: don't despair. Some devils are only cast out through prayer and fasting. Now, many prayers are words, but they are words directed to God, not people. The only thing we can do for some people – like those who are determined to see Jesus as a servant of Beelzebub - is to carry our daily cross for them and commend them to the mercy of God which longs to shine on them if only they will consider its possibility. It is not that we withdraw; rather we leave room for them possibly to hear their own absurdity. We need here the supernatural wisdom to know when to scatter the seed freely, and when not to cast pearls before swine.

One could think the opposite of absurdity and deafness is, therefore, for us to listen to everyone. Of course, we must listen, especially to those in distress, but when we listen, we cannot do so uncritically, as if everyone had an equally valid point. We must recognise the truth where we find it, but we are not bound to honour nonsense or error. Jesus warns again in the gospel: he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Overly comfortable harmonies can be as deceptive and  destructive as open division. Easy compatibility can be a lazy way to disguise wounds that run deeper and require more honesty. The human heart is so prone to myth, especially about itself, that sometimes it needs a storm to clear the air and make the truth visible again. If you doubt that, don’t forget Jesus overturned the tables of money changers in the temple, not because He had lost control, but because -  in a way - they had. Of course, some clouds cannot even be dispersed by such an intervention; sometimes the air cannot be cleared. At those times, we have to endure the darkness. God is in charge, and we can also realise that He is with us in the darkest moments. 

We must not give in to despair: Jesus delivers. We must not give in to false peace: Jesus demands more. 

The challenge of the fisherman's haul

 Today's gospel (Matthew 13: 47-52) contains a lesson that may chill us but one which we must listen to.

 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 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 things in the popular imagination, I suspect that the stereotype of hellfire preaching has always 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 the tragedy of damnation. Our existence is not just like 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. 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.

The fundamental reason for His refusal to accept certain things is that disorder and wickedness are real. So too, we can add, is the universal human instinct to lie and deceive the self about the wickedness one has wrought. 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; He is our only 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'.

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, moreover, while our ignorance diminishes our guilt, 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.