Welcome to the promise that you will
"Renew the Face of the Earth!"
During
these final weeks (22 to 34) of “Ordinary Time” we focus on establishing the Kingdom of God on earth. We do this by taking responsibility for initiating change.
These
reflections focus on showing us how to live out our baptismal anointing as stewards of the kingship of Christ.
Christ
the king has already won the victory. We are just working to establish his
reign throughout the world in preparation for his return.
At
Baptism each one of us was solemnly anointed with chrism on the top of the head
and consecrated to continue the triple mission of Jesus. The words of anointing
were, “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so live always as a
member of his body.”
There
is only one King, Jesus Christ. But everyone who “becomes Christ” by Baptism
shares in the responsibilities of his kingship. Every baptized Christian is
dedicated to leadership in establishing the reign of God on earth. In family
and social life. In education, business and politics. Wherever human beings
live and work and act.
To
those who accept this baptismal consecration, Jesus promises victory. “Whoever is born of God
conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our
faith.” [1]
These
reflections encourage us to work and wait,
as the Rite of Communion reminds us, “in joyful hope for the coming of our
Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Humility, Trust and Love
THE
TWENTY--SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C
August 29, 2016
Inventory
Could
our desire to impress others, our “power trips,” and our insistence on
receiving “the honor that is our due” all come from the same root? Could their
common source be the radical insecurity that comes from our awareness, so deep
we may not be conscious of it, that our very existence is just an ongoing act
of God? That we have no power of ourselves even to breathe, move or think? That
our life is totally dependent on God’s continuing will to preserve us?
Input
The
Entrance Antiphon (Psalm 85) encourages us to call on God
out of trust based not on what we are, but on God’s mercy. “Listen, Lord, and
answer me. Save your servant who trusts in you. I call to you all day long,
have mercy on me, O Lord.” If we really do have trust based on what God is, that
trust should never waver. If it does waver, we are probably trusting in
ourselves or in something other than God.
In
the Opening Prayer we ask for help to
“seek the values that will bring us lasting joy in this changing world.” Again,
if we find our joy in God, no changes on earth should affect it. The alternate Opening Prayer identifies that joy, in
part, as the joy of “hearing your word in every sound and of longing for your
presence more than for life itself.” If that is where we find joy, what can
ever cause us to lose it? We ask God for “the peace of your kingdom, which this
world does not give.” What the world does not give, the world cannot take away.
Not if all our trust, and everything we hope for, is in God. The Responsorial (Psalm 68) celebrates this and gives us a key to the readings: “God, in your goodness you have made a home
for the poor.”
Peaceful
with the truth
Sirach 3:17-29 counsels us: “Humble yourself the
more, the greater you are.” Why? It is because being “great” usually consists
in being, or being treated as if, in some way we are “higher” than others. But
since on the scale of being, everything we are, have or do depends completely
on the presence of God within us “breathing into us” existence itself and the
power to do with it whatever we are doing, there doesn’t seem to be much
meaning in anyone’s being “higher” or greater than anyone else. Of ourselves we
can do nothing — whether by nature or by grace.[2]
The only real way to be “great” is to humble ourselves in surrender to God
speaking through his Spirit and let Jesus, whose body we are, do whatever he
wants to do with, in and through us. Want to be great? Say the WIT prayer.[3]
Why
does Sirach say, “Humble yourself the more,
the greater you are.” First, he is
talking about greatness as perceived, not necessarily as real. But in either
case, the “higher” we feel ourselves to be, the scarier that can get. No one is
afraid of falling off a curbstone. But walking a tightrope ninety feet above
the ground, knowing there is nothing you can count on to hold you up, might
stimulate some insecurity! In any position, everyone is radically insecure, but
at higher levels we feel it more. The cure is humility.
Sirach
says, “Humble yourself.” Humility has been defined as “being peaceful with the
truth.” Sirach is saying, “Be peaceful that you have nothing you can ultimately
rely on.” What are the grounds for that peace?
God’s
love. If we trust in God’s love, we have no grounds for insecurity about
anything, because our security is grounded in the truth that God is love, and
God loves us. And Jesus has told us not to fear.[4]
We are “home safe” with him always, “like a weaned child on its mother’s lap.[5]
“God, in your goodness you have made a
home for the poor.”
The way up is down
In Luke 14:1-14 Jesus
seems to be just showing us how to avoid being embarrassed “When you are
invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit in the place of honor, in
case some greater dignitary has been invited… and then you would have to proceed
shamefacedly to the lowest place.” But Jesus’ advice goes deeper than avoiding
embarrassment. It makes us ask why anyone would want to be perceived as greater
than others.
The root reason is the radical insecurity of human existence.
People sometimes accuse themselves of being “proud” because they care about
what others think of them or want make an impression on people. In reality,
this is not pride but insecurity. The truly proud are like the truly humble in
this, that they are so confident in their value (although for totally different
reasons) that they don’t need affirmation from anybody. They expect it as their
due, and may get angry if it is not given, but they don’t even bother to “make
a good impression.” If your net worth is over a hundred billion dollars, you
can show up in blue jeans anywhere!
Like the humble, the truly, sinfully proud can be peaceful, but in
the falsehood, not in the truth, of what they perceive themselves to be. Pride
and conceit differ in this, that the conceited just think they are better than
others in some respect. If they actually are, they are not conceited, just
right. And if they aren’t, they are just mistaken. Fools, perhaps, but not
evil. The proud, however, believe they are the criterion: that they are so good or smart that whatever think or do
is right because they think it or do it. This is to make oneself God.[6] It is the worst of sins.
Those whose apparent pride is really insecurity feel the need to
be treated as important precisely because they doubt how good they are. They
seek a false peace from constant reassurance of others’ opinion of them, or
from piling up achievements that are respected in their society. The only true
peace they will ever find is that of the humble who are “peaceful in the truth”
about themselves, whatever it is. But for this they have to go “down” to their
radical nothingness — and discover God’s love.
The ultimate — and the only — truth that lets us be peaceful in
all other truths is the truth of God’s love. God’s love is not based on what we
have made of ourselves, but on what, by his grace, we can make of ourselves.
His love is his free and self-identifying choice to invest everything he is in what we can become. As long as we have
the capacity to respond with free choices, God simply invests his gifts in us,
like a “faithful steward” of his own goodness, so that we might esse et bene esse, “be and become all we
can be” (St. Augustine).
With the same fidelity, as “good stewards of the manifold
grace of God,” we need to “serve one
another with whatever gift each… has received” and to keep “building up the body of Christ, until
we… form that perfect man who is Christ
come to full stature.”[7] We do it with total trust in God’s love, confident that,
“the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day
of Jesus Christ.”[8] In
this there is both humility and peace.
“At home” with God
Hebrews
12:18-24 encourages
us not to let the radical nothingness of our being in contrast to the All of
God hold us back from seeking intimacy with him in trust:
You have not drawn near to an untouchable mountain
and a blazing fire… and a voice speaking words such that those who heard begged
that they be not addressed to them.[9]
On the contrary: “You have come… to the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem… to the assembly of the firstborn who
are enrolled in heaven.” To your Father’s house. To peace in his love. “God, in your goodness you have made a home
for the poor.”
Insight
Do I measure my value
by what I can do or by what God can do in me?
Initiative
Be a faithful
steward: keep investing in what you and others can become.
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