7th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Cycle C 21-22
SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 | 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 | Luke 6:27-38
Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that always pondering spiritual things, we may carry out both in word and deed that which is pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen.
This set of readings has a wonderful way of awakening us to a reality that we are engaged in that we may not be thinking much about, and that is the nature that we have inside of us, our human nature, and this call to be more like the divine figure that has created us. That tension is something we all live with, and I just have to say something to you that really maybe sounds strange from a priest who’s been around for so many — been preaching for over 52, [5]3 years, whatever it is. Basically I don’t remember this second reading from Paul. I don’t know why it never imprinted itself on me, and it’s so loaded with such a wonderful, wonderful teaching. So I want to start with that, that second reading.
What it is, is Paul is trying to explain to people this transition, I think, that has happened in him. At one moment, he was out there destroying all those who believed in Christ. He was anti-Jesus. He was pro the temple. He was the antithesis of what God wants us to become, and he was resistant, as many people are, to the transforming power of grace. And so he was in this place, and then all of a sudden, he had this awakening, this experience that changed everything for him. And he’s describing, I think, in this reading what he realized for the first time, that there are two dimensions to all of us. We have a natural state. It’s called our humanity, and it’s basically — I think we know how the evolution of human nature is, and I think we can look at this first part, when Paul is saying, “Remember, the first was the natural, and then came the spiritual.” The first was the natural; then came the spiritual, meaning in the evolution of God’s revelation to people in salvation history, as well as if we look at the individual life that each of us lead, we realize that, in the beginning, we come into this world, and we have some basic needs that need to be cared for. I would call those the natural state of a human being. We need safety. We need a comfortable place to begin our life. We need to know that we’ve been loved and that there’s food, there’s shelter, there’s warmth. That feeds our human nature in a healthy way. So we go to the next stage where, as we develop, we realize we need relationships. We can’t live autonomously by ourselves. We need other people. The pandemic has taught us that more than anything else recently. We need human communication, and when we don’t have it, we get a little crazy. So the need for a safe environment, the need to have a relationship, and then the next thing that develops in the human nature, and also in the evolution in the human race, is a sense of who we are, that we have value, that we’re unique, that we’re different than someone else. That’s the natural. That’s the way we are in nature. But then something happens, and this is what happened when Jesus came into the world to reveal who God really is fully and to do something for us called redemption, which is very mysterious. But this redemptive event is somehow shifting, is shifting in us so that we become not just the natural, but we then become spiritual. I think it’s interesting that we use that word spiritual, but I’m not sure I’ve used it in a way that might really capture what I’m trying to say right now. But the spiritual nature that we are called to is not a change in us, not evolving more in a natural state, but rather it’s an infusion into us of a spiritual force, a spiritual presence. And that’s the mysterious of salvation, of salvation history.
We went from rules and laws outside of us to something inside of us that shifts the whole focus of who we are from self to others, and so we want to follow that level of evolution from a safe environment to something that is communal to something that gives a sense of value. Then when this infusion of divinity comes into us and all of a sudden we discover that we have something has been given to us, a destiny — a destiny. You know that time when you were young and you started thinking, “What do I want to do with my life? What do I want to be?” People say, “I want to be in law.” “I want to be in medicine.” “I want to do this,” or, “I don’t know what I want to be,” or, “I just want to be around people that I love. I want to be loved.” Whatever it is, we have a sense of something that we are called to be, and then in the evolution of the spiritual side of us, we allow this Spirit, this power to enter into us that gives us a sense of clarity to why we’re here. Then we begin to develop it. We say, “I want to do this.” We find people that know something about this part of life, and we enter a medical school, or we go to the seminary, or we go just into life more fully to find out who we are and what we really want. And so you have this beginning of awareness of, “What is my passion?” And then the next to highest stage is we develop that. We find people around us to teach us that, and then we give it away.
The first part is, the natural, is more self-centered, in a healthy way really, and the second is centered on a force that’s greater than us that comes into us that enables us to then become what I would say is our destiny here on this earth, why we’re here. The truth is what I always try to teach. The truth is what I want you to know, and one of the things about the truth is that I — the way I like to describe it is you need to know who you are, who God is and why you’re here. And who we are is these evolving creatures that continue to move and develop in the world. Each of us go through this stage of development, but the whole human race has been going through something very similar. People that lived 2,000 years, 4,000 years ago, maybe even 30 years ago are different than when we start off. So there’s an evolution of the whole process where we’re getting closer and closer to the fullness of who we are, but the beautiful thing about this reading is the fullness of who we are is more than just us. It’s a spiritual dimension that enters into us. I used to think being spiritual meant you went to church, you said prayers, all that. That was a spiritual person. No, a spiritual person, the way Paul’s talking about it, is a person aware that something has been infused into them that is more than them.
And we see it in the experience of the first reading, of the story between David and Saul. We know that story, pretty much, from the Old Testament, but basically, Saul was the first king that the Israelites received from God. The Israelites wanted a king. They wanted to be like the other nations, having a strong leader to conquer the enemy, and Saul comes into it. And so many of the kings that were chosen, they all went south. They all went negative. They were just filled with self-indulgence and self-importance, and the kings were a disaster, except for one, for David. David is the greatest of the kings of Israel. He’s the one that conquered enemies, won Jerusalem back, started building the first temple. He’s also the one that wrote the Psalms. He was a poet and a lover. He had a great friendship with Jonathan, but we see in this figure of — what we see in him, in David is this expression of what it means to be infused with something way beyond human nature. He was so far ahead of those others around him that were leading, trying to lead the Israelite community, and what he had in him was this spiritual dimension where you could say without it, in the natural state, we are basically looking out for ourselves. But in the other state, the spiritual state, we are always looking out for others, to take care of them, to be life-givers. Natural people want to live, sometimes becoming selfish about it, and the spiritual is that we’re life-givers. So we have that image in the first reading of a life-giver versus a life-taker, let’s say. So it’s — this call to go beyond ourselves was there from the very beginning, Old Testament, and finds its fullness in the New Testament.
But then let’s look at the gospel, because it’s got a hidden secret in it, I think, that I hope I can help you to see. And it goes like this: Jesus is talking to his disciples. Let’s say he’s talking to the natural human nature that we all have. Now, the Old Testament — something natural about us is justice. Justice seems pretty fair, pretty even. The natural man says, “Yeah, if somebody takes from me, I can take from them. If someone hurts me, I can hurt them.” That’s the natural, but the spiritual takes it above that, much higher level of consciousness, of awareness of who we really are meant to be. And so we see, when Jesus is just stating these things, that the disciples must have been shaking their heads, saying, “Are you serious? Somebody slaps me, and I should offer them the other cheek? Somebody comes and steals my sheep, I should go back and give them all the ones they missed? I should care for those who hate me and do awful things to me?” It just goes so against the natural state of a human being, and I listen to that, and it’s like always don’t do things because they give something to you. Don’t do them for a selfish reason, but at the same time that he’s saying all that, at the end he says, “If you do what I’m asking you to do, you will get something. Don’t do anything just to get it, but if you do what I ask you to do, by loving, giving, sharing, you’re going to get something back. A thousand times as much as you’ve given, you’re going to get back.” So it’s almost contradictory. Don’t do things to get something, but if you do things, you will get something. So how can I explain that? It’s very, very simple. It’s all about intention. Intention — why do you do anything for someone else? If your intention when you’re doing it is to get something from them, even to follow the logic of this gospel passage, “I will give you to, because I know God promised me that whatever I give you to, I’ll get a hundredfold back. That’s why I’m giving to you.” That’s the wrong intention, and the minute that intention is there, what you’ve excluded is the spiritual. You’ve fallen back into the natural man, and the spiritual, remember, is not just your evolution to a higher state of consciousness. It is that, but it’s caused by the indwelling presence of God. The indwelling presence of God is in you, and when he’s in you, he has this capacity to awaken in you a longing that is core to who you really are meant to be. “I want to give, because it’s so beautiful and wonderful an experience for me to see me being a source of life for someone else.” It’s satisfying on a level that we can’t ever find in the natural state of humanity, the joy of loving, the joy of giving life, and when you’re doing it just because it’s what you know you should do — it’s not, “I’m obligated to do it. I have to do it.” No, it’s just who I am. This is what I do. That would imply to me that you have an intention in your essence, in your being. “I want to be here in this world, because I’d like to add something to it. I’d like to make the world better. I’d like to help the people that are in my circle of friends enjoy life more. I want to be that which God is calling me to be. That’s my intention.” And when that’s there and you’re giving without any need to get something back, boy, the flood gates open, and you receive the fullness of everything. What an interesting way to describe life in this world with divinity, being filled with divinity. The kings always had a problem, because they were so filled with power and authority that they thought they were special, and they become threatened by everyone else. And in a simple way, we could say, in a mindset that you are working hard to perform at a high level because you want the authority or the power or the importance of that, that’s the wrong intention. And when you’re in that, you know you’re in it, because it doesn’t satisfy the most basic human need.
I love the fact that, when God enters into us and gives us the fullness of who we are intended to be, the joy being in that spiritual, natural state — intertwine the two so they become one — is just filled with a kind of inner peace that you can’t describe, that you can’t get from getting something from someone. So the goal is to integrate the spiritual and the natural and to know that that isn’t something that’s our work. It’s rather something that we believe and we allow. Believing, allowing, believing, allowing, those are the two things that have to be a part of who we become, and if we’re longing to find the peace that is our inheritance, then the task is pretty simple. Listen attentively, not just to scripture, not just to advice from somebody like me. But listen to who you really are, and you’ll hear the longing that you have to be a life-giver and never to be somebody who takes any kind of joy in seeking life from others or taking life from others.
Father, you call us to a life that is like yours, and it’s out of our reach. And we try over and over again, and when we experience our failures, we lose hope. So create in us a deep longing for, an understanding of this great gift of your indwelling presence so that we know that, when we turn to you and open our hearts to you to flow through us, that we will always be able to be exactly who you call us to be. So free us from the doubts and the shame that come from too much trust in our own ability to be who you call us to be, and open us to this beautiful gift that you have given us, your presence living in us, feeding us and enlightening us. Amen.