20th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Cycle C 21-22
TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10 | Hebrews 12:1-4 | Luke 12:49-53
Oh God, who have prepared for those who love you good things, which no eye can see, fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love so that loving you in all things and above all things, we may attain your promises, which surpass every human desire. 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 is such an interesting set of readings for me to work on, because I feel I’m so close to what they’re talking about, and what I want to start with is the whole notion of sin. What is it? Well, there’s a theme in this particular set of readings that really does expose what sin really is, and that is it’s based in a lie, and it’s when somebody believes that lie and starts living and basing their life on that lie. They’re living in a place of darkness and sin, and the interesting thing about that is that there’s this sense of missing the mark. And that’s what sin, is sometimes missing it right under our noses, and we don’t even realize we’re missing it. Let me see if I can explain.
Let’s take right away the gospel we just listened to, and what is interesting in that is what you’re hearing so clearly is that this thing that God calls the truth, what it is, is a way of seeing the world, and we identify with that way we see the world. So if you’re living — let’s say you’re living a faith life and you believe so much in God as the heart of everything, and everything about you and around you is happening because God is in charge, and he’s taking you on a journey where he’s going to teach you how to trust in him more than trust in yourselves. That’s one image of religion, and I believe it’s the true one. It’s the one I believe and the one I teach. But there’s other ways of imagining religion, and the other way is the way I grew up with religion, where it seemed that it was based not so much on what it is that I am supposed to become in relationship to my dependence on God, but it’s more about what I need to become so that I can please God, to earn salvation. If you look at so much of what was going on at the time Christ entered the world, there was a way in which a person could get God’s favor by doing exactly what he asked them to do. Follow every one of the rules and laws, and God would bless you. What are you doing in that relationship? You are the one at the center of it. Your ego’s at the center of it, and you’re performing so that you can get something from God. I don't know about your family of origin, but my family of origin, and along with the religion that I was living with in the ‘40s and ‘50s, really did underscore that by telling me and reminding me that God had asked me to do all these things that are required. Not to sin was the big one. Be sure to go to mass on Sundays and go to confession and all that, and I would please God, and he would love me. And that was the way my parents loved me. I always felt that I was having to prove to them that I was worthy of their love. So if you can feel this, I’m trying to say that there’s something in us, in a relationship, that is out of balance when we’re talking about our relationship with God, when we’re the one at the center, we’re the one creating the relationship. And there’s nothing, nothing really true about that.
Look at the first reading. It’s about the truth coming into the world. It’s about, if you’re in a world of earning salvation by what you do, your performance, then that truth is something that is grounded in you, and you’re not ready to let go of it. And so when you’re in an error and sin comes, there’s a reaction that you have to it, and that is, “I don’t want to listen to it. I want to get rid of it.” And I love this story from Jeremiah, because he’s such an interesting prophet. He was young. He was excited about wanting to change the world, and the more he tried to change the world by giving the truth, I think he thought, maybe I’m projecting, that he would be really successful and they would look up to him. “Thank you for giving us the truth.” No, they did the opposite. They rejected him completely, and the image of the truth being rejected here is so fascinating to me, because what’s done in this image is these people, who want the people of the city to be successful in a battle that’s coming up. And the king is not in favor of it. The princes are. That’s a long story, why the princes were stronger than the king, but the princes were running it, and they wanted success. They wanted to win the battle like we want to win the battle against sin so God will love us. And so Jeremiah’s going around and said, “There’s another way to do this. Right now you guys in this city are in trouble, because the people are going to come to attack you. You’ll never be able to withstand their strength, and you will be destroyed. So the best thing you can do is surrender. Surrender lest you be destroyed.” Hang on to that thought. So what it means is that there’s something about the truth that, when you surrender to it, that usually means you’re going to surrender to something that exposes yourself as not the center, not strong enough to gain your own salvation, not perfect enough. All those kind of fears are hidden in a person who’s earning their salvation. So they’re in this situation where they’re in great danger unless they give in to the reality of who God is and who they are and that God is not interesting in you earning anything from him. In fact, if you’re doing that, he’s not able to reach you. He’s not able to convince you that the only way in which you make it through this world is through his generous, loving, forgiving presence that aids you through an experience that we call baptism.
Baptism, what is it? I love the image in the scripture where it talks about what Jesus wants to do, what his goal in life is. He’s come to set a fire on the earth. You know what the fire represents. Purification. He wants to purify the world of all its illusions and all of its attraction that engages a human being in the process of earning his salvation by pleasing God with his actions. A relationship based on that, based on your performance is not the relationship that you want. It’s not pure enough. It’s not open to the flow of life between you and the source of all goodness. It blocks it, and so what you’re hearing in this image then is that God is saying that you tend to put too much emphasis on you, on you, on you. Let go of that.
So I want to go back to something I learned a long, long time ago about human nature, and there’s something about the books, early books of the Bible, especially the book of Genesis. There’s so much truth, so much wisdom in it. I remember listening to those early stories of the human race and their relationship with God, and I remember the first one, of course, is the Adam and Eve story. And you all know that story so well. You’ve heard me preach on it and teach on it, but it may be true that you could look at this story and realize that the disobedience of our first parents not doing what God asked them to do, that that was the origin of all evil in the world. I suppose that makes sense in one way, to say, “Well, God didn’t make bad people. God made the good people, and then they acted badly, and that’s where sin came from.” Well, that doesn’t really make that much sense to me when I think about what the story is really saying. In a way, Adam and Eve seem innocent to me about what they did. They didn’t know much. They didn’t know what life was like. They didn’t know about how to develop a relationship with God. They were infants, in a sense, in their consciousness, and what they were told is, “Do anything, except don’t eat of that one tree.” And of course they probably thought, “Okay, we won’t.” But then when they get there, there’s another voice that people don’t give enough credit to Adam and Eve, that they were seduced by another voice, a strong, powerful figure. We don’t know what it was. It’s depicted as a serpent, but it was something stronger than them. They said, “No, no. You misunderstood God. He wants you to eat of this tree so that you can be like him.” Isn’t that interesting? To be like God. God is perfect. God doesn’t sin. So if we want to please God, doesn’t it make sense that we should be perfect and not sin? And so they were kind of seduced into this. So what I really think it’s saying is that in each human being there is a desire to earn, to please someone else by their efforts. It’s our ego. It’s our desire to be someone that achieves things. I always love thinking of the story that they didn’t like living in the garden, because everything was taken care of, and they wanted to do some of their own work. So just imagine this story is about human nature needing to be in charge and needing to be powerful and effective.
Notice the next two stories: Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother Abel, because Abel pleased God — there it is again — pleased God with his offering, and God liked him better. And Cain was insanely jealous, because he wanted to be the best. Adam and Eve, human beings want to achieve something of value. Cain and Abel, they want to be the best at it. The tower of Babel is next. They want to be able to do anything they set their mind to. All of that is about the ego that’s in human beings, and when that ego gets in the way of a relationship with God, you’re going to experience a baptism. And what is a baptism? It’s learning how to die to everything that isn’t real and true and to rise to a new life.
So in your relationship with God, what you’re going to find him doing at one point — it’s called the dark night of the soul — he’s going to let you feel the impotence of your efforts to please God by your performance. He’s not interested in you performing. He’s interested in you being remade, reformed, renewed in an understanding that you have never been the source of the reason God loves you. God loves you in your sinfulness, in your brokenness, and what he wants you to realize is that not only do you not need to earn his love, but you don’t need to be the source of your own sense of value — your own sense of value. If I’m working in a relationship to please you because I want you to love me, I’m putting myself at the center again, and I am counting on my performance to give me the sense that I am loved. Think of that. In your relationship with God, how can he love you in your imperfection? Because that’s who you really are. When you experience that imperfection not being enough, and that’s the dark night of the soul, you will come to the point where the thing you rely upon most to give you a sense of security is impotent and can’t do it. It’s like God takes away from you, in some mysterious way — maybe it’s a disease. Maybe it’s the loss of some ability you have to perform at a high level, and that’s gone, and you’re left with nothing. That’s because it’s too much of you, too much of me. So those moments when you feel panicky and worried and scared that you’re not going to be enough to gain the relationship you want with God, you know that he’s doing something beautiful for you. He’s saying, “It has nothing to do with your performances. It has nothing to do with what you think makes you valuable in my eyes. You are already valuable in my eyes, and if you don’t know that, you can’t experience the depths of my love.” And the love is not just telling you you’re safe and everything’s going to work out. No, it’s giving you your value. The God that created you isn’t looking for you to do anything to please him so that he will love you. He loves you as his very essence. He is love, and I don't know how to say this, but when you believe that, your life is changed. And the core of you works out of another source, not you but God in you and you in God.
Free us from the fear of failing, the fear of not being acceptable. Take away that anxiety. In its a place, a peace, not as the world gives it, not because things are going the way they’re supposed to. Because you are in charge of everything, and everything works together for our good and the good of our relationship with you. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.