180 Degrees

What might it be like to be closed off totally from God's love?

I can't even imagine that would be possible. Just as I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose totally the love of my mother or my father. No matter how bad things may have gotten between one or another of us - and there were those times - no matter how far apart we seemed to have grown, there was always the possibility of "coming home." I don't mean physically - but always a chance that whatever it was that caused the rift could be healed.

To be sure, there would be scars. My mom was one of those who never forgot. Yes, 30 years later, the event, the hurtful words, the bad action, whatever it was, would surface during an argument or disagreement. She never forgot -- and in fact, the memory might even be a little embellished from what I remembered it to be. That might be the fact that I wanted to forget and so I wasn't so keen on remembering. But I do believe the one who was indeed keen on remembering maybe enhanced that memory just a wee bit - but I digress!

The real point is that all through my life, even when I thought I might have crossed the Rubicon - the point of no return - there was always salvation. Perhaps that is why I find it so hard to think that anyone could actually believe that they were beyond the pale of God's immense love.

Yet, in the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Dives, he is often called), just such an occurrence happens. Dives goes beyond the pale. He seems to have committed the "unforgivable sin." He neglected "the least of these," as Jesus calls the poor, to his own aggrandizement and pleasure. But was the unforgivable thing he had done? I don't think so. I think the real problem comes from his failure to recognize that the pattern of his life is contrary to the life of God.

From the Scriptures, there is no doubt that God has special care for the poor, those that, through no fault of their own, fall on hard times largely because of the greed and selfishness of others in the world. Dives fails to see that. He fails to see the special care of God for "the other" - and when he becomes "the other" he reaps the fruit of the seed he himself had sown. It isn't a matter of God's failure to forgive - God would happily have done so - if Dives would have been forgiven. But how can you be forgiven for something you do not think or believe is wrong? That's the crux of the matter.

The reason I was always able to reconcile with my mom (or my dad for that matter) regardless of how off base I seemed to be, was that there was a willingness on both our parts to admit failure and to recognize that it was more important for us to be together than apart. We succeeded in that because, for some reason, as big as our respective egos were, they were never so big as to become the most important thing in the room. The need for our relationship(s) was always larger than our egos. So, when everybody cooled down, and sometimes with the aid of someone on the "outside" - the blessed dynamic of reconciliation took hold. We could never be totally cut off from one another.

So, too, I believe it is with God. God will never cut us off, regardless of what we may have done or failed to do. There might be an argument or two along the way. There might be scars in our relationship, but reconciliation will always bring things right - that is why God sent the Son. The grace for which I must pray, then, is always to have control over my ego - always to be willing to see that maybe, just maybe, the pattern I have established for myself has to be adjusted. Even a little adjustment will bring me closer to God. The only direction that is fatal is to turn 180 degrees away from God and keep walking. Maybe my compass never read 180 degrees opposite from my God.

-- read Luke 16:19-31

Adam and Eve

For a very long time, I have struggled with the reality of sin and evil in the world. Scholars of philosophy call this struggle the quest for a "theodicy" - otherwise known as "the problem of evil."
I am afraid we will all be totally frustrated if we simply see evil as a "problem" - likened to a mathematical or other problem that works to a solution.

The "problem" as most see it, stems from the seeming contradiction that one of God's properties is to be "all good." The Muslim name for God in this characteristic is "The Beneficent One." Yes. God is "The Beneficent One" - the power beyond human nature that embodies all that is good in the universe. Our small minds, however, cannot hold together the notion of an all-good God and one that would create a universe that contains evil and the possibility of sin, that is, our direct participation in that evil.

In our studies, we are told that the point of reconciliation is in human freedom - that in order to be free, to be able to choose, we need real options, real choices. In other words, in order to be able to love God, we must be able to choose not to love God. While that satisfies on one level, it still does not help to fully reconcile the idea that God (The All Powerful One) could not create us with a freedom capable of choosing only the good! I guess that is relegated to the category of the same question which asks: Can God (the all powerful) create a stone too heavy for God to lift?

What this all does for me is point me away from the feeble attempts of my mind to comprehend what is in the end incomprehensible (God) and grow in my appreciation of "mystery" (something that we seem to be able to know but which defies explanation). Once I engage that awesome element of our knowledge, I am able to sing once more, as the Church has for centuries in the Easter Proclamation, "o felix culpa" - "o happy fault, the necessary sin of Adam, that merited for us so great a Redeemer!"

In the end, I don't need to understand how and why evil came into the world, or why a most beneficent God permits it to exist, all I need to know is that the same God has made it right, by sending us the Son, our Redeemer, to speak to us of a love so great that the Son would freely lay down his mortal life, so great a love.

Thus, even in the face of any evil, even evil that evokes visceral horror, I can stand confident that it need not triumph for we have the promise of this same God, that no evil is stronger than the love of God for God's own creation. Our revulsion at such horrendous events is the marker that we, made in the image and likeness of this beneficent God, are not formed from evil stuff. Rather, we are formed from God's own life. We need only let that life emerge in great love - even if it means laying down our lives for our friends.

The greater temptation, then, is to disbelieve this good news and refuse to accept that our innate goodness and the goodness of others flows from the creative will of God. When we do this, we insist that we must do something else to become like God or become valuable in God’s eyes. It is in this that we begin to sin.

-- read Genesis 3

Not what we always expect

It’s very easy when thinking about God’s plan for our lives to have the attitude: “it’s all about me.” Yes, it’s true that God cares about every intricate detail in our lives.  In fact, Jesus said that even the hairs on our heads are numbered.  We can also mistakenly think that God’s plan is always going to be a “feel good” plan with the intent to make us happy. Jeremiah’s message in these verses is actually radically different.  He’s writing to a group of people who are being held captive, and are in exile from their homeland.  He’s writing to let them know that although they're not where they would have expected, nor where they would have asked God to place them, God has not forgotten them and He still has a plan for their lives. Even in the midst of a difficult situation, God wants them to know His plans

-- read Jeremiah 29:11-14

Why do we always want more?

In both the story of the fall of the Angels and the stories of Genesis 2-4, God's created want more-more than they have been given even though what they have been given is more than enough. In a sense they had everything they could want, but there is always that nagging drive to acquire what is not in their grasp. This is especially so when God tells them what they have is enough and withholds something, anything, from them. Their freedom, God's ultimate gift is not enough for them, so they misuse it and chose to rebel - to move toward that which they really don't need.

Did God place this inner desire for more within us? If so, did he. It plant the seeds of rebellion within us? Why would he do such a thing? Perhaps that desire for more is directed toward himself. After all, Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree so that they would be like God-that was the deceit of the serpent. The defining character of the rebellion is not their desire to be like God, but their desire to control the means by which they were made as God.

How do I participate in this sin? How don't seem to be as God, but on my own terms? I have been given so much - more than enough, really, but want more. And the more I desire is on my terms. In that desire to I misuse my freedom by holding onto that which God has freely given and so can freely take away? Titles. Purple cassocks. "Places of honor." These God has given. When they are taken away, my feelings of anger and betrayal are misplaced, are they not? These things are but means to an end. They are not the path to contentment. By grasping onto those things even as they are taken away, I come no closer to being able to walk with God "in the cool of the day."

My heart is restless O Lord, until it rest  in thee. (St. Augustine)
Let it rest only in thee, O Lord - this is the grace for which I pray.

It wasn't about the money

It wasn't the money Jesus was teaching about but the "grasping" the "holding on." Immediately my mind goes to the kenosis described by Paul in the Philippians hymn: "Though he was in the form of God ..." I have always been fascinated by the term used that is translated "grasped at" or "held on to" in Philippians 2:6: harpagmon - "a thing to be seized or greatly desired, a prize, a piece of good fortune".

The fear of letting go whatever it is that I
genuinely prize in my heart of hearts. Truly, I must say that I do not know what that is. In Mark 10, Jesus knew what this was for the young man. I pray for this grace - that this will be revealed to me - what it is that I prize so greatly that it could keep me from embracing Jesus fully - and that it might cause me to turn away.

-- read Mark 10:17-27

Good news? Really, now.

Good news! At least that's what Gabriel called it. Good news, my ***! What sort of good news comes from nowhere, totally unexpected telling you that all of your plans and dreams are no longer valid-that everything you wanted is now at best "on hold" or more likely gone forever. 

That's what I fear about such so called "good news." 

Someone once said, "Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it." Therein is the problem. Not  the"getting it" but what happens once the prayer is answered. That's the funny thing about God and about grace--it's free for the asking, but once you're in...boy things do change.

It's almost never what you thought it would be. It's always different - and unexpected. Mary's fundamental disposition was one of divine acquiescence. So when Gabriel pops into the picture, it's almost a forgone conclusion what Mary's answer will be. But I am not so disposed.

As I move through this time of seeking, and I seek to make that disposition of acquiescence to the divine will may await around the corner. Who will my Gabriel be? And what his or her message?

my own, I fear what "good news"

--read Luke 1:26-38

In emptiness I am filled up

"All things come from thee, O God, and of thine own have we given thee."

Kenosis. Self-emptying. It's ironic that in seminary, while in direction with Fr. Gerald, this was the constant theme. And yet, as I have progressed through my adult life, I still have not learned that core lesson: before God can fill me, I need to be emptied of self. 

The emptying is not really a throwing away but a deepening realization that I really own nothing and have genuine control over nothing. That realization applies most radically to matters of the Spirit. If I would dare to enter deeply into the Spirit's life, I must be prepared to realize that I am opening myself to the great perichoresis - that inner dance of the Trinity. My emptiness provides a ready conduit for the life of God to course through me giving, taking, receiving . . . not me but God giving, God taking, God receiving from himself, by himself, to himself but all through me. 

I become as a great electrical grid. I am not the source of power. I only provide the means for the power to get from here to there and once there to accomplish "that for which it was purposed", which is ultimately simply the life of God in God's creation. 

Does that diminish my importance? Not really. How could the power of Niagara Falls get to my light fixture to enlighten my dark room if not for "the grid"? It is not only important, it is essential. In all of its sophistication from high tension wires to delicate electronic controls -- it's the means by which power is distributed and accomplishes its purpose.

Is this not the way with God? How else is God's creative, redemptive, and sustaining power to be delivered to this creation except through me and countless others like me? We are "the grid". But it is not MY power -- I am only the means by which that power is delivered. It is through me that God works God's purpose out . . . and only if I am empty of any obstacle. Otherwise the power short circuits, is frustrated, and is set for purposes not intended. In these obstacles, I frustrate the will of God.

My grace for today: show me the obstacles I place in the way.

-- read Ephesians 3:14-21