Last week we reflected on the nature of a God whose thoughts, as the first reading that day put it, are not our thoughts, and whose ways are not our ways. And we saw how, with this God, there are no deals, no quid pro quos, no earning and no deserving. Nothing we do can make God love us any more or any less. Everything we receive from God is freely given. Since God is love, nothing we do can either increase or diminish the love that is God. Nor can we persuade God to give us what we need, because, if it’s for our good, if it is consistent with God’s dream for us, then God is already giving it before we even realise we need it. And we saw how the traditional religious word to describe this is ‘grace’. Everything that comes from God is grace. Or to put it another way, everything is gift.
But there’s a question around all this which may have already struck some of you. And it’s this. If God loves us so much; if nothing we do can increase or diminish this love; if God loves us when we are bad and when we are good, then what’s the point in being good in the first place? Why not do what everybody else does because, in the end, God loves us all the same anyway? These are, of course, religious rather than faith questions, belonging to a world where people are good, not because they really want to be but because they are afraid not to, but they are important questions nevertheless. And that’s why I would like to try and deal with them now. And the clue is in today’s story of the two brothers.
If it’s hard for us to get our heads round a God whose love is so freely given that there are no strings attached, then it is almost as hard to grasp the other side of the mystery we call grace which is our freedom to choose So free is God in God’s self that the very idea of forcing anyone into anything is a contradiction in terms. As every tyrant in history has discovered, you can make people fear you – which is what religion does – but you can never make people love you. And so at the heart of everything that exists there is the most amazing drama unfolding. It’s the drama of a God who offers us everything, the only problem being that we have to exercise the greatest gift we have as human beings created in the image and likeness of God, and freely choose it. And since we have to choose it, and this is not some great game where the board is folded up at the end and everyone goes home, there must exist the possibility at least of our rejecting it. And that’s the drama that’s unfolding, not only in history, but in the life of each one of us. If there are people in hell – whatever that means - then it’s not because God has sent them there but because to be ‘in hell’ is the only logical conclusion to the way an individual has chosen to live his/her life, although there are theologians who would say that the degree of freedom required to make such a choice is so great that nobody is actually ‘in hell’. In other words, what saves us in the end is our stupidity and the fact that a lot of the time we are so blind to what we are doing that we can’t be held fully responsible for our actions. The problem with that is that if there is anybody in hell it will be people like us who, having been exposed so often to the teaching of Jesus and having been fed and nourished each week by the Word and the Eucharist, should have known better. In other words, we run the risk of being the son who said he would go into his father’s vineyard but didn’t.
But the choice we are talking about is not one that is made once and for all. Rather, it is one that goes on all our lives with, as we heard in the first reading, the constant possibility of change and conversion. Nothing, in other words, is predestined, as the people in Ezekiel’s day thought and as some Christians still think today. The choice we make builds up all through our lives. Every day we are making it by the way we choose to live our lives. It is nothing to do with keeping rules or performing religious actions but about the choice Moses offered the people of Israel long ago in the book of Deuteronomy. ‘Today’ he says, ‘I set before you life or death. Choose life then so that you and your descendants may live in the love of the Lord your God.’ This is the heart of it. LIFE! To choose God is to choose life in all its shapes and forms, rejecting everything that is harmful and destructive in our human nature as well as in our individual personalities. In general terms this means becoming more like Jesus and learning to live by the values of the Gospel, but for each one of us it means looking into our own hearts and recognizing there everything that is negative and destructive and, with God’s help, dealing with it.
But on this weekend when politicians in America are struggling to deal with the crisis in the world’s financial system, it is surely right to say something about that too. For years we have talked here about the worship of the goddess money with her commandments written on stone, the laws of the market-place. Over and over again I have invited you to recognize the ultimately unsustainable nature of our consumer-driven society and the deeply ungodly nature of an economic system where the rich get richer and the poor poorer. And now, for a few days at least, we can see it exposed in all its ugliness. We have seen greed almost destroy the world banking system. We have seen the effects of years when the credit card companies kept pushing up our credit limits, encouraging us to spend money we didn’t have and buy things we didn’t need or couldn’t afford. And now this house built on sand is falling about our ears.
And yet it’s potentially a very important moment in history, an opportunity, if only we can grasp it, to escape the tyranny of the goddess money and choose life, not only for ourselves, but for people everywhere. So pray that, in the midst of this crisis, the world will have the insight and vision it needs to make the kind of choices which will lay the foundations for a more just world..
BIDDING PRAYERS
Much of the apparent prosperity we have enjoyed in recent years has been built on credit. For years, banks have inundated us with offers of credit and, as a result, many people, driven by a variety of forces, have spent money they did not have or could not afford to spend. And so we pray today for all those in the community around us who are now facing debts they cannot pay and whose lives have been devastated by what is happening to them...........Lord hear us
While we are all responsible for our own actions and our own decisions, we are also, in today’s world, subjected everywhere we turn to the influence of advertising. Using all the insights of psychology and playing on our deepest fears weaknesses, the advertising industry, always in pursuit of our money, has conned us into confusing want with need. And so we pray for the wisdom we need to see what is happening to us and the courage to resist it.............Lord hear us
But, of course, we cannot blame it all on advertising. The greed which has caused so much trouble in the banking system in recent times is in each one of us. We have seen a bonus system at work which has encouraged people to put short-term personal gain before the good of society and of other people. This is the ‘I’m alright Jack’ approach to life, and we pray for the wisdom we need to see the ways in which it is at work in ourselves........Lord hear us
Although we are created free human beings, there are things which, in the course of daily life, limit our freedom. In the Christian tradition these are known as ‘inordinate attachments,’ and we all have them: things in ourselves which stop us doing what we want to do and keep us doing what we don’t want to do. In their extreme form they become addictive and can almost destroy the freedom in us. And so we pray for the insight to recognize addictive, un-free behaviour in ourselves.....Lord hear us
Religion based on fear has done great harm. In the short term it can work as a way of controlling people’s behaviour, but, in the longer-term, it is very destructive. It is one of the main reasons so many in the world today have turned their back on the whole notion of God and for many who remain it is the cause of deep anxiety and even mental health problems. And so we pray for all who are caught up in fear of a god who does not exist except in our heads........Lord hear us
The first reading today spoke of how conversion and change are possible for everyone. Sometimes they may be very difficult, but, with God’s grace, they are never impossible. And so we pray that, both as individuals and as a society, we will never give up on any person, no matter what they may have done, but will always be open to the possibility that they may change and so willing to give them a second, third or fourth chance........Lord hear us
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Saturday, 20 September 2008
25th Sunday of the Year A
At one level the meaning of today’s parable is obvious enough. In the context of the early Church those who worked hard all day in the vineyard were clearly the Jewish people, while those who came at the eleventh hour were the gentile nations, the message being that the Jews, despite their history as God’s chosen people, were to have no advantage over the gentiles within the Church. Not that this was clear to people then. It gave rise, as we know, to the first great crisis in the Church over whether the gentiles should be circumcised or not and on more than one occasion St Paul had to remind people that, in Christ, there was no more distinction between Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free-man; in the kingdom of God all men and women are equal. And although it might seem that this issue has long ago been resolved, it’s still possible, in parishes up and down the country, whenever new people appear, to hear things like, ‘who does he think he is. I’ve been in this parish for forty years.’ It happened here twenty three years ago, when a recent arrival in the parish took on a leadership role in the Renew programme.
But at a deeper level the parable means much more than that, the clue being in the first reading. There, Isaiah tells us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways, and that the heavens are as high above the earth as God’s ways are above our ways. God simply does not think as we do and at this critical moment in history perhaps the greatest challenge facing humanity – greater even than global warming and far far greater than the current turmoil in the financial markets – is the challenge to move beyond failed human ways of thinking – symbolized in the story by those who complained because the landowner was generous - and embrace the ways of the kingdom which demand a whole new mindset and way of seeing the world which makes no sense in traditional human terms. And so Jesus calls us to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us and so on. But there is one particular idea I would like to focus on today and it’s the question of grace. Because that’s ultimately what today’s parable is about.
The expectation on the part of those who had worked all day that they would be paid more than those who had come at the eleventh hour was, of course, entirely justified in human terms. That’s how the world works. We get what we deserve. Success is rewarded. Good behaviour wins approval, and from our very earliest years we are conditioned to think in this way. ‘Eat your cabbage and then you can have your pudding; tidy your room first and then you can go out.’ And all through our lives this way of thinking is reinforced for us, not only through the working of the market – buying and selling, payment for work done and so on – but by sayings like, ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ or ‘one good turn deserves another’. And I suppose it’s all summed up in that other well known saying, ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ Everything in life has to be paid for somewhere. There’s no such thing as something for nothing. If it seems too good to be true then it probably is. And what happens, of course, is that we carry this way of thinking into our relationship with God where it becomes the engine that drives the thing we have spent years trying to move beyond, the thing we call religion without faith.
With God, you see – and this is almost impossible for us to get our minds round – none of the things we have been talking about for the last few minutes apply. There’s no ‘quid pro quo’ with God. There’s no rewarding, no deserving and no earning. Since God is love and God’s love is eternal and unchanging, nothing we could ever do can increase or diminish the love that is God. We cannot earn God’s love, we cannot deserve God’s love, and God’s love is never a reward for something we have done, no matter how holy or religious it might appear. And herein lies the tragedy of religion without faith, as those who inhabit this Godless world – and to varying degrees that is all of us – expend enormous energy performing religious actions and doing good works in an attempt to keep God happy, deflect his anger and earn the reward we call heaven. And it’s not that there is anything wrong with the actions or good works in themselves. The problem is that in this world of religion without faith they are motivated by fear rather than love. And it is all so unnecessary for the very simple reason that everything that comes from God is already freely given. Or, to put it another way, there is no need to earn it because it is all GRACE. And that’s what the parable is really about. Those who complained were thinking in human terms. The landowner was talking about something completely different. And yet even as I say this to you, I am aware how hard it is to understand it. Such love is found nowhere else in the whole of creation; only in God. And it is because it is so different from everything that we experience that we find it almost impossible to get our heads round it. And so I invite you to reflect on something that happened to me this week.
It was on Thursday afternoon when I said Mass in the prison for those who are ‘on protection’ – separated from the other prisoners for their own safety. When the time came, I asked if anyone wanted to go to Holy Communion, and among those who came was one boy who, judging by his eyes, was on drugs. It could have been medication, but I doubt it. He also, as it happened, had a cup of coffee in one hand as he held out the other one for Communion. And as I went to put the host in his hand he said to me. ‘What is it?’ I saw immediatelt the enormity of the question and wanted to say that it was the body and blood of Jesus, but what I actually said was that it was Holy Communion. I then asked him if he had never been to Holy Communion before, to which he answered ‘no’. ‘But I want it.’ He said.
So what should I have done? I’d love to know what you think. And you could even use our new website, the address of which you will find again in this week’s bulletin.
BIDDING PRAYERS
Called to be people of faith means putting our complete trust in God. This, in its turn, means letting go of the notion that we can achieve salvation by our own efforts through performing religious actions or doing good works. This illusion, based on fear in the face of a hostile world, is at the root of all primitive religions and, despite the coming of Jesus, we are still infected by it, And so we pray again today for the grace we need to move beyond this...................Lord hear us
When we ask God for things that are consistent with who God is we are not asking for anything that God is not already longing and trying to give us. Our prayers do not so much influence what God does as help us recognize our own needs and begin to open us up to the very things we ask for. And so we pray that the needs we express to God here each week in our bidding prayers will have this effect on us, stirring in us a real desire for the things we seek.....................Lord hear us
‘Seek the Lord while he is still to be found,’ the first reading told us. But often the biggest obstacle to finding God in our lives is our attachment to limited ways of thinking. But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways not our ways, the prophet Isaiah told us. And so we pray for a willingness to let go of cherished but limited ways of thinking and a willingness, when necessary, to go where God leads, especially when we would rather not go..............Lord hear us
The workers who stood all day in the market-place because no one had hired them are a reminder to us of the millions of men, women and children in the world today whose gifts and talents lie dormant and un-used through a lack of opportunity. The real tragedy of world poverty is the inability of so many human beings to become the people God longs for them to be and we look forward to and pray for the coming of the day when this terrible waste will become a thing of the past in every part of the world....................Lord hear us
In recent days, the world has had an opportunity to see, in all its ugliness, the greed that drives our financial system. The evils of uncontrolled market forces have, for a few days at least, been exposed to the light for all to see. And it has been a truly frightening experience. And so we pray that, if and when the current crisis passes, the world will not choose to forget what it has seen during these days and that what has happened will lead to a profound change in the way we live......................Lord hear us
The parish website which has recently come into existence is potentially very important. It can become a way of reaching out to others, a means by which the people of the parish learn to communicate with each other in new ways, a focus for discussion and education and, through the various links, a way out into the wider Church. But this will only happen if we grasp the opportunities offered and we pray for the insight and foresight we need to do this.....Lord hear us
But at a deeper level the parable means much more than that, the clue being in the first reading. There, Isaiah tells us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways, and that the heavens are as high above the earth as God’s ways are above our ways. God simply does not think as we do and at this critical moment in history perhaps the greatest challenge facing humanity – greater even than global warming and far far greater than the current turmoil in the financial markets – is the challenge to move beyond failed human ways of thinking – symbolized in the story by those who complained because the landowner was generous - and embrace the ways of the kingdom which demand a whole new mindset and way of seeing the world which makes no sense in traditional human terms. And so Jesus calls us to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us and so on. But there is one particular idea I would like to focus on today and it’s the question of grace. Because that’s ultimately what today’s parable is about.
The expectation on the part of those who had worked all day that they would be paid more than those who had come at the eleventh hour was, of course, entirely justified in human terms. That’s how the world works. We get what we deserve. Success is rewarded. Good behaviour wins approval, and from our very earliest years we are conditioned to think in this way. ‘Eat your cabbage and then you can have your pudding; tidy your room first and then you can go out.’ And all through our lives this way of thinking is reinforced for us, not only through the working of the market – buying and selling, payment for work done and so on – but by sayings like, ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ or ‘one good turn deserves another’. And I suppose it’s all summed up in that other well known saying, ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ Everything in life has to be paid for somewhere. There’s no such thing as something for nothing. If it seems too good to be true then it probably is. And what happens, of course, is that we carry this way of thinking into our relationship with God where it becomes the engine that drives the thing we have spent years trying to move beyond, the thing we call religion without faith.
With God, you see – and this is almost impossible for us to get our minds round – none of the things we have been talking about for the last few minutes apply. There’s no ‘quid pro quo’ with God. There’s no rewarding, no deserving and no earning. Since God is love and God’s love is eternal and unchanging, nothing we could ever do can increase or diminish the love that is God. We cannot earn God’s love, we cannot deserve God’s love, and God’s love is never a reward for something we have done, no matter how holy or religious it might appear. And herein lies the tragedy of religion without faith, as those who inhabit this Godless world – and to varying degrees that is all of us – expend enormous energy performing religious actions and doing good works in an attempt to keep God happy, deflect his anger and earn the reward we call heaven. And it’s not that there is anything wrong with the actions or good works in themselves. The problem is that in this world of religion without faith they are motivated by fear rather than love. And it is all so unnecessary for the very simple reason that everything that comes from God is already freely given. Or, to put it another way, there is no need to earn it because it is all GRACE. And that’s what the parable is really about. Those who complained were thinking in human terms. The landowner was talking about something completely different. And yet even as I say this to you, I am aware how hard it is to understand it. Such love is found nowhere else in the whole of creation; only in God. And it is because it is so different from everything that we experience that we find it almost impossible to get our heads round it. And so I invite you to reflect on something that happened to me this week.
It was on Thursday afternoon when I said Mass in the prison for those who are ‘on protection’ – separated from the other prisoners for their own safety. When the time came, I asked if anyone wanted to go to Holy Communion, and among those who came was one boy who, judging by his eyes, was on drugs. It could have been medication, but I doubt it. He also, as it happened, had a cup of coffee in one hand as he held out the other one for Communion. And as I went to put the host in his hand he said to me. ‘What is it?’ I saw immediatelt the enormity of the question and wanted to say that it was the body and blood of Jesus, but what I actually said was that it was Holy Communion. I then asked him if he had never been to Holy Communion before, to which he answered ‘no’. ‘But I want it.’ He said.
So what should I have done? I’d love to know what you think. And you could even use our new website, the address of which you will find again in this week’s bulletin.
BIDDING PRAYERS
Called to be people of faith means putting our complete trust in God. This, in its turn, means letting go of the notion that we can achieve salvation by our own efforts through performing religious actions or doing good works. This illusion, based on fear in the face of a hostile world, is at the root of all primitive religions and, despite the coming of Jesus, we are still infected by it, And so we pray again today for the grace we need to move beyond this...................Lord hear us
When we ask God for things that are consistent with who God is we are not asking for anything that God is not already longing and trying to give us. Our prayers do not so much influence what God does as help us recognize our own needs and begin to open us up to the very things we ask for. And so we pray that the needs we express to God here each week in our bidding prayers will have this effect on us, stirring in us a real desire for the things we seek.....................Lord hear us
‘Seek the Lord while he is still to be found,’ the first reading told us. But often the biggest obstacle to finding God in our lives is our attachment to limited ways of thinking. But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways not our ways, the prophet Isaiah told us. And so we pray for a willingness to let go of cherished but limited ways of thinking and a willingness, when necessary, to go where God leads, especially when we would rather not go..............Lord hear us
The workers who stood all day in the market-place because no one had hired them are a reminder to us of the millions of men, women and children in the world today whose gifts and talents lie dormant and un-used through a lack of opportunity. The real tragedy of world poverty is the inability of so many human beings to become the people God longs for them to be and we look forward to and pray for the coming of the day when this terrible waste will become a thing of the past in every part of the world....................Lord hear us
In recent days, the world has had an opportunity to see, in all its ugliness, the greed that drives our financial system. The evils of uncontrolled market forces have, for a few days at least, been exposed to the light for all to see. And it has been a truly frightening experience. And so we pray that, if and when the current crisis passes, the world will not choose to forget what it has seen during these days and that what has happened will lead to a profound change in the way we live......................Lord hear us
The parish website which has recently come into existence is potentially very important. It can become a way of reaching out to others, a means by which the people of the parish learn to communicate with each other in new ways, a focus for discussion and education and, through the various links, a way out into the wider Church. But this will only happen if we grasp the opportunities offered and we pray for the insight and foresight we need to do this.....Lord hear us
Saturday, 13 September 2008
24th Sunday of the Year
As I looked at those readings this week and wondered what to say this morning about anger, resentment and forgiveness, it struck me that maybe the best place to start was with myself. So I asked myself some simple questions. Are there people in my life against whom, in the words of the liturgy, I am nursing anger, cherishing resentment or refusing to forgive? And as I thought about it, three situations came almost instantly to mind.
The first happened when I was in primary school. Basically a teacher blamed me for something I hadn’t done, refused to listen when I tried to explain and humiliated me in front of the class. I sometimes share this experience with people and every time I do feel again the deep sense of injustice I felt then. Even now, whenever I see a child getting a row in school, my heart goes out to them in case this is happening to them. And years later, when I was ordained and the same teacher, having forgotten all about the incident, was all over me, part of me wanted to say ‘and what about that book you blamed me for damaging, you old bitch.’.. So was I nursing anger, cherishing resentment or refusing to forgive?
The second incident occurred forty three years ago when I was a student in Spain. What happened would take too long to describe, but the outcome was that I was deeply hurt by two of my fellow students. Again, all I have to do is recall the incident and the feelings I felt then come back to me. Both of them left the seminary before ordination and I have not seen them since, but about fifteen years ago, knowing that they were going to be there, I decided not to attend a small reunion that someone had arranged. I just did not want to get back into all that stuff. So again, was I nursing anger, cherishing resentment and refusing to forgive?
The third incident is much more recent, having happened just a couple of years ago. This time it is not just a case of remembering old wounds. They are still very much alive, continue to disturb me and crop up regularly in my dreams. Sometimes, while driving along in the car or even while sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, I catch myself having imaginary conversations or writing imaginary e-mails where I have the say I didn’t have when the incident occurred. I want to defend myself, put my version of events and point out what appear to me to be the faults of the other person. So am I nursing anger, cherishing resentment and refusing to forgive? Well, I don’t know what you think, but I don’t think I am. And I’ll explain why.
It takes us, really, to the heart of what forgiveness means, the Oxford English Dictionary, which I always quote when we need to define the meaning of a word, not being very helpful in this case. Failing completely to understand the nature of christian morality, it defines forgiveness as ‘to stop feeling angry or resentful towards someone for an offence or mistake.’ But forgiveness is not a feeling. Feelings are things over which we have little or no control. Like authentic love, real forgiveness is a decision, a freely chosen attitude of mind. And so the measure of our ability to forgive another is not how we feel about them – some feelings will stay with us all our lives – but what answer do we give to the following questions: Do I wish this individual well? Can I pray for this person , hold him/her up before God and ask God to bless them? If faced with the choice, would I do the person good rather than harm? And these are the questions I invite you to reflect on today in relation to people in your life who, as you see it, have hurt or wronged you. It would be great if the answer ‘yes’ to all these questions were accompanied by nice feelings and were free of not so nice ones like pain and hurt, but in many cases that can take a long time and in certain cases may never come this side of eternity. But there is no fault or moral responsibility attached to feelings. Only to decisions. Part of me might have felt like calling that teacher names, but it was only a feeling and there was never any chance of my doing so. Nor have I the slightest problem about holding her and the other people I have mentioned up before God and asking him to bless them. At the level of decision and choice I bear them no ill-will whatsoever. But like many of you, I suspect, I am left with a whole load of feelings I cannot control. And so the question arises: what are we going to do with them?
Well, the first thing we must not do, of course, is nurse them and, like Tam O’Shanter’s wife, keep them warm. When that happens, we begin to move from feelings to decisions and so into the realm of morality and culpability. But these feelings which we cannot always control can have another purpose, which is to remind us of the old saying that to err is human but to forgive divine. Quite simply, they are a constant reminder to us that we are not gods and that real forgiveness is only possible through the power of God’s Spirit living in us. Ultimately it’s a gift, a gift we must desire, and, if the feelings are too strong for that, then we must desire to desire it or even desire to desire to desire it. And here we have the real mystery of grace: even the original desire to desire to desire is a grace/gift from God. So spend some time today thinking about people who have hurt you and, if you really want the grace of forgivenss, ask for it..
The reason, of course, why forgiveness is a divine rather than a human quality is that only the one who knows all forgives all. I remember as a child how that same teacher presented us with an image of the last judgement, designed to make us behave ourselves. In it, every wrong thing we ever did would be revealed for all to see, the idea being that, if you don’t want this to happen, behave yourself now. But in more recent years I have come to see this image in a different way. This time, when everything we have al done is revealed there will be the most amazing outburst of joy and laughter when we see how good God has been and how wrong we have been about each other.
It is only an image, but it’s one I like.
BIDDING PRAYERS
The first reading this week tells us that resentment and anger are foul things. Throughout history they have been the cause of endless trouble and violence between tribes and nations. They are a cancer for which there seems to be no cure. And so we ask God to pour into our world the grace of being able to forgive so that, in the course of this new century, the world may see an end to centuries of hatred between peoples which have bedevilled us for so long........Lord hear us
Bitterness and resentment can infect whole families and destroy relationships between parents, children, brothers and sisters. And so we hold up before God families who are affected in this way. We pray that, whatever the original cause of the dispute, and regardless of who was to blame, God will give to those concerned the grace they need to forgive and the courage they need to reach out to each other in a spirit of healing and reconciliation while there is still time............Lord hear us
Sadly such disputes also occur with the Church. Feelings can run high and perceived hurts run deep, but the end result often is that a community called to be a sign of the presence of Jesus in the midst of the world becomes the very opposite, a source of scandal to others and even an obstacle to faith. And so we pray for all within the Church who are at odds with each other, especially where it happens within our own diocese, that we will all hear the words of today’s gospel......................Lord hear us
One of the keys to being open to and accepting the grace of forgiveness is to learn to take the plank out of our own eye first. And so we pray for the grace we need to do this in areas of our lives where there have been fall-outs or disagreements. We ask God to open our minds and hearts to see our own faults rather than those of others and to recognize that, since we cannot see into the heart, our perception of what another person did or intended to do may well be wrong.................Lord hear us
And we pray today for all who are in prison in our country. We can be a very unforgiving society, moved very often by a spirit of vengeance rather than justice or correction. And yet the first reading today speaks of vengeance as an evil thing. And so we pray that our country and our prison system may become more Christ-like in this regard, more willing to forgive and, where possible, give people a second, or even a third or fourth chance.................Lord hear us
And as the Annual Week of Prayer approaches – our twentieth – we ask the Spirit of God to move deeply among us. Not everyone will be called to take part in this annual parish retreat, but some will. And so we ask for the grace of openness to what is involved. We pray in particular for anyone who is experiencing even the beginnings of a desire or an inclination to do so, that, fear, the great enemy of all that God is doing in our lives, may not get in the way..............Lord hear us
The first happened when I was in primary school. Basically a teacher blamed me for something I hadn’t done, refused to listen when I tried to explain and humiliated me in front of the class. I sometimes share this experience with people and every time I do feel again the deep sense of injustice I felt then. Even now, whenever I see a child getting a row in school, my heart goes out to them in case this is happening to them. And years later, when I was ordained and the same teacher, having forgotten all about the incident, was all over me, part of me wanted to say ‘and what about that book you blamed me for damaging, you old bitch.’.. So was I nursing anger, cherishing resentment or refusing to forgive?
The second incident occurred forty three years ago when I was a student in Spain. What happened would take too long to describe, but the outcome was that I was deeply hurt by two of my fellow students. Again, all I have to do is recall the incident and the feelings I felt then come back to me. Both of them left the seminary before ordination and I have not seen them since, but about fifteen years ago, knowing that they were going to be there, I decided not to attend a small reunion that someone had arranged. I just did not want to get back into all that stuff. So again, was I nursing anger, cherishing resentment and refusing to forgive?
The third incident is much more recent, having happened just a couple of years ago. This time it is not just a case of remembering old wounds. They are still very much alive, continue to disturb me and crop up regularly in my dreams. Sometimes, while driving along in the car or even while sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, I catch myself having imaginary conversations or writing imaginary e-mails where I have the say I didn’t have when the incident occurred. I want to defend myself, put my version of events and point out what appear to me to be the faults of the other person. So am I nursing anger, cherishing resentment and refusing to forgive? Well, I don’t know what you think, but I don’t think I am. And I’ll explain why.
It takes us, really, to the heart of what forgiveness means, the Oxford English Dictionary, which I always quote when we need to define the meaning of a word, not being very helpful in this case. Failing completely to understand the nature of christian morality, it defines forgiveness as ‘to stop feeling angry or resentful towards someone for an offence or mistake.’ But forgiveness is not a feeling. Feelings are things over which we have little or no control. Like authentic love, real forgiveness is a decision, a freely chosen attitude of mind. And so the measure of our ability to forgive another is not how we feel about them – some feelings will stay with us all our lives – but what answer do we give to the following questions: Do I wish this individual well? Can I pray for this person , hold him/her up before God and ask God to bless them? If faced with the choice, would I do the person good rather than harm? And these are the questions I invite you to reflect on today in relation to people in your life who, as you see it, have hurt or wronged you. It would be great if the answer ‘yes’ to all these questions were accompanied by nice feelings and were free of not so nice ones like pain and hurt, but in many cases that can take a long time and in certain cases may never come this side of eternity. But there is no fault or moral responsibility attached to feelings. Only to decisions. Part of me might have felt like calling that teacher names, but it was only a feeling and there was never any chance of my doing so. Nor have I the slightest problem about holding her and the other people I have mentioned up before God and asking him to bless them. At the level of decision and choice I bear them no ill-will whatsoever. But like many of you, I suspect, I am left with a whole load of feelings I cannot control. And so the question arises: what are we going to do with them?
Well, the first thing we must not do, of course, is nurse them and, like Tam O’Shanter’s wife, keep them warm. When that happens, we begin to move from feelings to decisions and so into the realm of morality and culpability. But these feelings which we cannot always control can have another purpose, which is to remind us of the old saying that to err is human but to forgive divine. Quite simply, they are a constant reminder to us that we are not gods and that real forgiveness is only possible through the power of God’s Spirit living in us. Ultimately it’s a gift, a gift we must desire, and, if the feelings are too strong for that, then we must desire to desire it or even desire to desire to desire it. And here we have the real mystery of grace: even the original desire to desire to desire is a grace/gift from God. So spend some time today thinking about people who have hurt you and, if you really want the grace of forgivenss, ask for it..
The reason, of course, why forgiveness is a divine rather than a human quality is that only the one who knows all forgives all. I remember as a child how that same teacher presented us with an image of the last judgement, designed to make us behave ourselves. In it, every wrong thing we ever did would be revealed for all to see, the idea being that, if you don’t want this to happen, behave yourself now. But in more recent years I have come to see this image in a different way. This time, when everything we have al done is revealed there will be the most amazing outburst of joy and laughter when we see how good God has been and how wrong we have been about each other.
It is only an image, but it’s one I like.
BIDDING PRAYERS
The first reading this week tells us that resentment and anger are foul things. Throughout history they have been the cause of endless trouble and violence between tribes and nations. They are a cancer for which there seems to be no cure. And so we ask God to pour into our world the grace of being able to forgive so that, in the course of this new century, the world may see an end to centuries of hatred between peoples which have bedevilled us for so long........Lord hear us
Bitterness and resentment can infect whole families and destroy relationships between parents, children, brothers and sisters. And so we hold up before God families who are affected in this way. We pray that, whatever the original cause of the dispute, and regardless of who was to blame, God will give to those concerned the grace they need to forgive and the courage they need to reach out to each other in a spirit of healing and reconciliation while there is still time............Lord hear us
Sadly such disputes also occur with the Church. Feelings can run high and perceived hurts run deep, but the end result often is that a community called to be a sign of the presence of Jesus in the midst of the world becomes the very opposite, a source of scandal to others and even an obstacle to faith. And so we pray for all within the Church who are at odds with each other, especially where it happens within our own diocese, that we will all hear the words of today’s gospel......................Lord hear us
One of the keys to being open to and accepting the grace of forgiveness is to learn to take the plank out of our own eye first. And so we pray for the grace we need to do this in areas of our lives where there have been fall-outs or disagreements. We ask God to open our minds and hearts to see our own faults rather than those of others and to recognize that, since we cannot see into the heart, our perception of what another person did or intended to do may well be wrong.................Lord hear us
And we pray today for all who are in prison in our country. We can be a very unforgiving society, moved very often by a spirit of vengeance rather than justice or correction. And yet the first reading today speaks of vengeance as an evil thing. And so we pray that our country and our prison system may become more Christ-like in this regard, more willing to forgive and, where possible, give people a second, or even a third or fourth chance.................Lord hear us
And as the Annual Week of Prayer approaches – our twentieth – we ask the Spirit of God to move deeply among us. Not everyone will be called to take part in this annual parish retreat, but some will. And so we ask for the grace of openness to what is involved. We pray in particular for anyone who is experiencing even the beginnings of a desire or an inclination to do so, that, fear, the great enemy of all that God is doing in our lives, may not get in the way..............Lord hear us
Saturday, 6 September 2008
23rd Sunday of the Year A
As soon as I read those readings last Sunday, I became aware of a tension between what Paul says in the second reading and what Jesus says in the Gospel. But it was only as the week went on that the full implications of that tension – by which I mean that the two passages are, in some sense, contradictory – began to dawn on me and I was able to see how much people have been affected by it down through the ages and still are today. So what do I mean? Well, let’s examine each reading in turn.
In the letter to the Romans, St Paul tells us that, if we love, then we have kept all the commandments. Several centuries later, St Augustine was to say something very similar in his famous, and often misunderstood phrase, ‘Love, and then do what you will.’ I say ‘often misunderstood’ because to those who see the Christian life in terms of keeping rules and regulations, both Paul’s words and Augustine’s after him, are often seen as a recipe for licence, an excuse for doing whatever we want in the name of love. But, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. There is nothing more demanding than love. Keeping rules – religion without faith – is nothing compared to it. Love asks of us everything we have to give, the great example of this in the early Church being in chapter two of the Acts of the Apostles where we read how the members of the Christian community in Jerusalem sold everything they had, shared out the proceeds and held everything in common. It was a wonderful ideal, one others have attempted to live over the centuries, representing as it does everything that is most beautiful and attractive about the Christian faith.
But there is always conflict at some level between the ideal and what happens on a day to day basis, a conflict we see reflected in chapter six of Acts. There, St Luke describes how a dispute broke out in Jerusalem between the Jewish and Greek sections of the community. The Greeks, rightly or wrongly, believed that their widows were being discriminated against when it came to the distribution of food. And so, as human nature kicked in, the idealism of chapter two went out the window and a dispute broke out not unlike the disputes that happen from time to time in any parish up and down the country. And it’s against this background that we have to read Matthew’s account of how the early Church dealt with such things. Go and see the people concerned; if that doesn’t work, take a couple of witnesses; if there is still no progress, take it to the community; and if that doesn’t work, treat them like a pagan or a tax collector. In other words, excommunicate them. It’s a long way from the ideals in chapter two, but the need to hold those small vulnerable communities together, meant that it was the best they could do in the circumstances. And herein lies a hugely important truth that I invite you to reflect on now.
Essentially, it’s about the profound long-term effects of unrealistic expectations on people both inside and outside the Church, the basic point being that such expectations breed the twin evils of guilt and disillusionment. Guilt is something often associated in the popular mind with Catholicism, although my own experience is that protestants and people of no faith suffer from it at least as much as we do. Some guilt, of course, is justified. We do something wrong and we feel guilty: a perfectly healthy response to what has happened. But the really harmful feeling of guilt is the kind that has no link with reality. In other words, we feel guilty when there is nothing to feel guilty about. Freud, of course, explains this with his theory about the super-ego, a set of unconscious ideals in our heads – what we should be or ought to be – which, because they are not actually achievable, leave the ego – the conscious part of ourselves – feeling permanently guilty, that we have somehow failed or are not good enough. And while the ideals of the Gospel, with their very high demands, belong more to the conscious part of ourselves than the unconscious, they often contribute to that unhealthy, super-ego sense of guilt and failure; what are often referred to in Catholic circles as the ‘hardening of the oughteries.’ And, of course, it’s this that lies at the heart of religion without faith: the constant need to please God and keep him happy; the deep-rooted fear which latches on to religious actions to make ourselves feel better and keep those neurotic fears at bay.
And the second very harmful effect of unrealistic expectations is disillusionment or disappointment. It happens when, in a whole variety of ways, we have unrealistic expectations of the Church itself or of those who hold positions of leadership in it. The weaknesses of both can be disguised or turned a blind eye to for a while, but sooner or later the reality forces itself on us and, as has happened a lot in recent years, many are shocked and lose faith. And, of course, for those outside the Church, these same weaknesses, coupled with the same unrealistic idea of what the Church is or ought to be, provide all the justification they need to write it off and God with it.
And so the challenge is to live with the truths contained in both the second reading and the Gospel. It’s to seek after the ideal but be able to live with the daily reality. It is to know that the world is a vast community of loved sinners. It is to have the patience to live with the struggle without losing faith in the ultimate triumph of God’s grace over human sinfulness. It is to live with our own personal failures, mistakes and weaknesses as well as those of others. It is to stop setting ourselves and others up for failure by demanding or expecting of them things they are never going to be able to do. I remember how clear this became to me more than twenty years ago, when I was heavily involved in schools. The head-teachers in those days were not perfect. They had their faults. But it soon became clear to me from listening to teachers that the person with all the qualities they were looking for in a head-teacher didn’t actually exist except in their heads. And we do it with all kinds of people; politicians, bosses, football managers and even, sometimes, priests.
The worst thing of all is cynicism, seeing only the negative in everything. It blinds us to God and to goodness. But we should never forget that a cynic is no more than a disappointed idealist.
BIDDING PRAYERS
To understand the words of St Paul in today’s second reading, or the words of St Augustine 350 years later, requires moral maturity. Neither of these two great figures in history can be understood if we see humanity’s relationship with God as one of keeping rules or simply avoiding sin. To love in the sense each of them uses the word demands everything of us. It is to become like Jesus, and we pray for the grace to understand this...................Lord hear us
To become like Jesus is not, of course, something we can do ourselves. It is only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. One of the symptoms of religion without faith is the belief that we have to do this by our own efforts and often our ultimately futile attempts to do so result in deep feelings of failure or not being good enough. In more extreme cases it can lead to scruples and other mental health problems. And so we pray for all who suffer in this way.......................Lord hear us
In the Incarnation, God, in Jesus, entered fully into the human condition and lived in the midst of human weakness. He associated with sinners, spoke to them of the Father’s love and encouraged them to believe in themselves. When faced with the woman caught committing adultery he refused to condemn her, telling her to go and sin no more. In a word, he loved people as they were while offering them something new and better. And so we ask for the grace to do the same.......................Lord hear us
The temptation to set others up for failure by placing on them impossible burdens of expectation is deep in us. We do it first as children when we expect our parents to know everything. Then, in adolescence, we discover they don’t and blame them for it. But we do the same with all kinds of people. And so we pray for the wisdom we need to recognize who they are so that we can stop doing it and allow them to be as human and flawed as we ourselves are........................ Lord hear us
To become a cynic is one of the worst things that can happen to us as human beings. The cynic can see no good in anybody or anything. He or she will always put the worst interpretation on everything that happens and on the basis of no evidence whatsoever attribute the lowest motives to everything other people do. And so we ask God to lead us beyond any such tendencies in ourselves...........................Lord hear us
Jesus tells us today that where two or three are gathered together in his name he will be there with them. But it is also true that where two or three human beings are gathered together, sooner or later there will be a row of some kind. And so we pray for the wisdom we need to deal in a Christ-like way with such situations whenever they arise, especially within our own families or within the parishes which make up our diocese here in Galloway.................Lord hear us
In the letter to the Romans, St Paul tells us that, if we love, then we have kept all the commandments. Several centuries later, St Augustine was to say something very similar in his famous, and often misunderstood phrase, ‘Love, and then do what you will.’ I say ‘often misunderstood’ because to those who see the Christian life in terms of keeping rules and regulations, both Paul’s words and Augustine’s after him, are often seen as a recipe for licence, an excuse for doing whatever we want in the name of love. But, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. There is nothing more demanding than love. Keeping rules – religion without faith – is nothing compared to it. Love asks of us everything we have to give, the great example of this in the early Church being in chapter two of the Acts of the Apostles where we read how the members of the Christian community in Jerusalem sold everything they had, shared out the proceeds and held everything in common. It was a wonderful ideal, one others have attempted to live over the centuries, representing as it does everything that is most beautiful and attractive about the Christian faith.
But there is always conflict at some level between the ideal and what happens on a day to day basis, a conflict we see reflected in chapter six of Acts. There, St Luke describes how a dispute broke out in Jerusalem between the Jewish and Greek sections of the community. The Greeks, rightly or wrongly, believed that their widows were being discriminated against when it came to the distribution of food. And so, as human nature kicked in, the idealism of chapter two went out the window and a dispute broke out not unlike the disputes that happen from time to time in any parish up and down the country. And it’s against this background that we have to read Matthew’s account of how the early Church dealt with such things. Go and see the people concerned; if that doesn’t work, take a couple of witnesses; if there is still no progress, take it to the community; and if that doesn’t work, treat them like a pagan or a tax collector. In other words, excommunicate them. It’s a long way from the ideals in chapter two, but the need to hold those small vulnerable communities together, meant that it was the best they could do in the circumstances. And herein lies a hugely important truth that I invite you to reflect on now.
Essentially, it’s about the profound long-term effects of unrealistic expectations on people both inside and outside the Church, the basic point being that such expectations breed the twin evils of guilt and disillusionment. Guilt is something often associated in the popular mind with Catholicism, although my own experience is that protestants and people of no faith suffer from it at least as much as we do. Some guilt, of course, is justified. We do something wrong and we feel guilty: a perfectly healthy response to what has happened. But the really harmful feeling of guilt is the kind that has no link with reality. In other words, we feel guilty when there is nothing to feel guilty about. Freud, of course, explains this with his theory about the super-ego, a set of unconscious ideals in our heads – what we should be or ought to be – which, because they are not actually achievable, leave the ego – the conscious part of ourselves – feeling permanently guilty, that we have somehow failed or are not good enough. And while the ideals of the Gospel, with their very high demands, belong more to the conscious part of ourselves than the unconscious, they often contribute to that unhealthy, super-ego sense of guilt and failure; what are often referred to in Catholic circles as the ‘hardening of the oughteries.’ And, of course, it’s this that lies at the heart of religion without faith: the constant need to please God and keep him happy; the deep-rooted fear which latches on to religious actions to make ourselves feel better and keep those neurotic fears at bay.
And the second very harmful effect of unrealistic expectations is disillusionment or disappointment. It happens when, in a whole variety of ways, we have unrealistic expectations of the Church itself or of those who hold positions of leadership in it. The weaknesses of both can be disguised or turned a blind eye to for a while, but sooner or later the reality forces itself on us and, as has happened a lot in recent years, many are shocked and lose faith. And, of course, for those outside the Church, these same weaknesses, coupled with the same unrealistic idea of what the Church is or ought to be, provide all the justification they need to write it off and God with it.
And so the challenge is to live with the truths contained in both the second reading and the Gospel. It’s to seek after the ideal but be able to live with the daily reality. It is to know that the world is a vast community of loved sinners. It is to have the patience to live with the struggle without losing faith in the ultimate triumph of God’s grace over human sinfulness. It is to live with our own personal failures, mistakes and weaknesses as well as those of others. It is to stop setting ourselves and others up for failure by demanding or expecting of them things they are never going to be able to do. I remember how clear this became to me more than twenty years ago, when I was heavily involved in schools. The head-teachers in those days were not perfect. They had their faults. But it soon became clear to me from listening to teachers that the person with all the qualities they were looking for in a head-teacher didn’t actually exist except in their heads. And we do it with all kinds of people; politicians, bosses, football managers and even, sometimes, priests.
The worst thing of all is cynicism, seeing only the negative in everything. It blinds us to God and to goodness. But we should never forget that a cynic is no more than a disappointed idealist.
BIDDING PRAYERS
To understand the words of St Paul in today’s second reading, or the words of St Augustine 350 years later, requires moral maturity. Neither of these two great figures in history can be understood if we see humanity’s relationship with God as one of keeping rules or simply avoiding sin. To love in the sense each of them uses the word demands everything of us. It is to become like Jesus, and we pray for the grace to understand this...................Lord hear us
To become like Jesus is not, of course, something we can do ourselves. It is only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. One of the symptoms of religion without faith is the belief that we have to do this by our own efforts and often our ultimately futile attempts to do so result in deep feelings of failure or not being good enough. In more extreme cases it can lead to scruples and other mental health problems. And so we pray for all who suffer in this way.......................Lord hear us
In the Incarnation, God, in Jesus, entered fully into the human condition and lived in the midst of human weakness. He associated with sinners, spoke to them of the Father’s love and encouraged them to believe in themselves. When faced with the woman caught committing adultery he refused to condemn her, telling her to go and sin no more. In a word, he loved people as they were while offering them something new and better. And so we ask for the grace to do the same.......................Lord hear us
The temptation to set others up for failure by placing on them impossible burdens of expectation is deep in us. We do it first as children when we expect our parents to know everything. Then, in adolescence, we discover they don’t and blame them for it. But we do the same with all kinds of people. And so we pray for the wisdom we need to recognize who they are so that we can stop doing it and allow them to be as human and flawed as we ourselves are........................ Lord hear us
To become a cynic is one of the worst things that can happen to us as human beings. The cynic can see no good in anybody or anything. He or she will always put the worst interpretation on everything that happens and on the basis of no evidence whatsoever attribute the lowest motives to everything other people do. And so we ask God to lead us beyond any such tendencies in ourselves...........................Lord hear us
Jesus tells us today that where two or three are gathered together in his name he will be there with them. But it is also true that where two or three human beings are gathered together, sooner or later there will be a row of some kind. And so we pray for the wisdom we need to deal in a Christ-like way with such situations whenever they arise, especially within our own families or within the parishes which make up our diocese here in Galloway.................Lord hear us
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