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Thoughts on the Sunday readings: “All things are possible for God.” (28th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B)

10 Saturday Oct 2015

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It is said that where a person’s heart is, there his or her will and actions will follow. We strive after that which we value. We set our lives by that which we love. The young man in today’s gospel (Mk. 10:17-30) is in many ways a good person. He is someone who is seeking to live his faith; he is striving to live his life by the commandments of God. He also recognizes or intuits that there is something unique about Jesus. This is why he runs up even kneels down and uses the title, “good teacher”. The young man’s heart is searching but, we come to realize, his heart is also divided.

Our Lord knows this. Our Lord knows the human condition weakened by sin. The gospel passage is not so much about material possessions as it is about the divided human heart and God’s consistent love.

Christ knows this young man. The gospel tells us that Jesus “looking at him, loved him…” Now, imagine being before Christ. Picture yourself being in the full and immediate gaze of Jesus. It is an amazing and humbling thing to stand before the presence of God. Christ knows us through and through. He knows us more than we know ourselves. Christ sees that this young man is seeking to live the commandments but he also recognizes that divisions remain within his heart. We follow our hearts! How can we follow that, which itself, is divided? The young man is divided by even seemingly good intentions. It makes sense to live the commandments. It is logical and philosophically consistent to seek to live the commandments and to do good towards others. We should treat others as we ourselves want to be treated. We can strive to do all things within ourselves and by our own abilities. Even in seeking to do these good things we can remained enclosed within ourselves.

But there is more! And Jesus wants to invite this young man into this “more” which is living not with a distracted and divided heart content within oneself but living fully and authentically in the mystery, living in relationship with Christ. Jesus wants the young man’s heart to be firmly rooted in friendship with God and an ongoing encounter with God. “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Christ is inviting the young man (and us) to true richness – to live fully and authentically with an undivided heart not within an enclosed self but in friendship with God and others.

The young man goes away sad because, we are told, “…he had many possessions.” This is where we need to remember our Lord’s reaction to the young man; “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…” Our Lord’s love for the young man remains even as the young man is conflicted with a divided heart. Our Lord’s love for us remains even as we are conflicted with divided hearts!

On our own we cannot overcome the divisions and distractions in our hearts. Jesus himself tells us. “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.”

The gospel does not tell us where the young man’s life took him but I have hope that eventually he came around to the recognition that it is not about the ability to live the commandments by one’s own effort but rather about receiving the love and friendship of God into one’s heart. I have hope because the gospel says that Jesus loved the young man and that love remained even as the young man went away sad in the moment. I have hope that the young man learned that for God “all things are possible”.

The same hope remains for us. Yes, we all too often, have divided hearts but Christ looks on us with love, Christ continually invites us into friendship and for God “all things are possible”.

I have no flag to wave

28 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by in authenticy, image and likeness of God, personhood

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no flagThere are a number of flags being waved these days.  On the news and all over social media I have seen various flags being posted and waved – the Confederate battle flag, the gay pride rainbow flag and the American flag.  As I have watched this virtual parade of flags I have realized that I have no flag to wave.

I will not wave the Confederate battle flag.  Even though I live in a state that was part of the Confederate South (though East Tennessee was pro-Union I would note), I will not wave this flag.  I recognize what is good and true in the south and southern culture but for too many of my African-American brothers and sisters this flag is an all-too-painful symbol of oppression and slavery and I cannot abide that.  This flag holds none of my identity.  I will not wave this flag.

The gay pride rainbow flag?  No, I cannot wave this flag either.  I recognize that homosexuals also have experienced oppression and pain throughout history and I sadly recognize that Christianity has been warped to legitimate this oppression and hatred but this flag also holds none of my identity.  Despite the appeal to diversity, this flag equates for me the tendency to reduce the fullness of the human person to one single component – sexual orientation – and to state that this one component holds primacy and even dominance over all others.  I cannot accept this.  As a Christian I hold the deepest core identity of a person to not be orientation, gender, race, nationality, or economic class but rather the Imago Dei – the image of God in which every man and woman is made.  Although these components are important to a person’s identity and not to be dismissed, no one component should ever eclipse the Imago Dei.  Sadly, though, this happens far too often and we forget the full truth of who we are and we get lost.  I cannot applaud this when I see it happening.  It is, in essence, a form of tyranny.  I cannot wave this flag.

The American flag?  Sadly, I am beginning to wonder if I can wave this flag and I do not say this lightly.  Since my youngest days I have been taught that religious freedom was one of the foundational principles of which this nation was based.  Yet, I currently see a secularism developing and being triumphed in our society that makes no room for religious freedom and its expression outside of the privacy of the home.  It seems that just as the activities of the bedroom are being celebrated and paraded in the open public square; religion is being told that it must be content with remaining behind the locked doors of one’s home.  No, I claim my religion to be just as constitutive to my identity as any other qualifier out there.  Therefore, I cannot leave it behind when I walk out the front door each morning – to do so would be to live a schizophrenic life.  Does the secularism developing in our society have room for me or will I and my core beliefs be written off as either too antiquated or even bigoted?  The answer seems uncertain.  Will I be able to authentically wave the American flag or even be allowed to?  I am not sure and I say this even as I love this country and what is so good about it.

So, at this point, I have no flag to wave.  What I do have though, is the empty tomb of our resurrected Lord and here is where I will remain and here is where I will draw my strength, my inspiration, my resolve, my joy and my decision to love.  In a way I am grateful for this recent virtual parade of flags because it has reminded me that as a Christian there never really is any flag that we can ever truly wrap ourselves in – whether that be national, social or ideological.  Flags can quickly become idols and idols quickly turn into tyrants.  All that the Christian has is the empty tomb and in this is found our freedom which the world can neither comprehend nor contain.  The Christian, it has been said, is in the world but not of it.

The good people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston have witnessed this freedom of the Christian to our entire nation.

I will not squander my freedom.  I have no flag to wave.  All I have is the empty tomb.  All we have, as Christians, is the empty tomb but here is found our freedom – a life that has overcome even death itself.

I will remain at the empty tomb.