Lent 5

Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33

As some of you might know,
in my life outside of the Cathedral
I am a professor of theology at Loyola University.
And what I do as a professor of theology
is not simply to make students learn 
the content of Christian faith and practice—
doctrines, history, rituals, moral teachings—
but also to help them think through the Christian faith,
to show them how reason can illuminate
the doctrines, history, rituals, 
and moral teachings of Christianity.
I try to get them to see how 
the extraordinary claims of the Christian faith
can be understood in a way that fits 
with our ordinary way of reasoning about the world,
so that the faith is not seen as something
that you need to kill your intellect
in order to embrace.

And I think this is a pretty worthwhile endeavor.
One of the glories of the Catholic approach to faith
is our insistence that faith and reason 
are not opposed to one another,
and that we number among our saints
not only those who devoted themselves to prayer
or to serving the bodily needs of their neighbor
but also those who devoted themselves
to the life of the mind, 
scholar-saints like Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas,
or the philosopher and Carmelite nun Edith Stein,
better known as St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross.
These saints show us that thinking and holiness
are not opposed to each other,
that indeed thinking rigorously about the faith
can be its own sort of path to holiness.
These scholar-saints show us the value 
of applying the same mind that we use 
to grasp a mathematical proof
or the laws of physical motion
or the psychology of human behavior
to the mysteries of the Christian faith.
They show us that the power of thought
that we use to think about mundane realities,
can, by God’s grace, help us to better grasp
supernatural truths.

But, at the end of the day, all our efforts 
to understand the heart of Christianity
can only take us up to the edge of faith,
so that we peer over into an abyss 
that human reason cannot fathom.
All our efforts at explanation
run up against the reality that 
in Jesus—in his words and actions—
we are confronted with the very mystery of God,
a mystery that cannot be “solved,”
cannot be explained,
but must be embraced by the light of faith,
a light so dazzling that it looks like darkness
to our ordinary ways of thinking.

In our Gospel today we hear stated 
with absolute clarity and precision
the mystery that lies at the heart of our faith:
“unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, 
it remains just a grain of wheat; 
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”
As the hour of Jesus approaches,
the hour in which he will be
lifted up from the earth 
on the wood of the cross
so as to draw all people to himself,
he reveals to his followers the mystery:
our life can bear no fruit
except through death;
the life that seeks 
to preserve itself at all cost
remains a sterile, fruitless life.
And from this fundamental mystery
of life gained through death
further paradoxes pour forth:
if you love your life you will lose it,
but if you hate your life you will find it;
the world’s condemnation of Jesus 
is God’s judgment passed on the world;
the shame of the cross is the glory of Christ.
These are words that scandalize our reason
and over which our attempts at explanation stumble;
these are words that dazzle and blind our minds
but through the grace of faith enflame our hearts.

Let me be clear: 

I am not saying that we should not apply our minds
in order to understand our faith as much as possible.
Stupidity is not a virtue,
and we should work as diligently 
to understand the doctrines, history, rituals, 
and moral teachings of the Church
as we do to understand 
the natural world or human behavior.
After all, God gave us our minds
and expects us to use them 
to ponder God’s mysteries.
But, as all of the great scholar-saints
of the Catholic tradition knew, 
our understanding can only take us 
to the edge of mystery
and it is love that must peer over that edge
into the depths of God.
The mystery of life through death 
of which Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel
applies in a certain way 
to the life of the mind as well.
We may not have to kill our intellects
in order to be believers,
but when we have exhausted our minds 
in pursuit of God,
we must then plant them in the soil of love
so that, dying, they can bear fruit.

As we prepare to celebrate 
the great mysteries of our faith
in the coming days of Holy Week and Easter,
as we prepare to ponder Christ’s passing over
from death to life,
let us pay heed to the words 
of another great scholar-saint, St. Bonaventure,
who bids us, once we have spent our minds
in seeking understanding: 
“Let us then die and pass over into darkness; 
let us impose silence on cares, desires, and images; 
let us pass over with the crucified Christ 
from this world to the Father.”
And may God have mercy on us all.

 

Lent 3

Readings: Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

“Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
I think we Catholics today can congratulate ourselves
on having avoided this.
Well, apart from bingo and raffles 
and bake sales and holiday craft fairs
and sales of fairly-traded coffee and chocolate
and also Lenten fish fries.
But apart from those, we’re doing really well.
And even those things are relatively harmless,
and may even serve salutary purposes
of raising money for good causes 
and of building a sense of community.

But Jesus is, I think, criticizing 
something more than mere commerce.
He is offended by something more
than money changing hands in a sacred place.
Throughout his ministry,
both in his words and in his actions,
Jesus teaches that our relationship with God
should not be thought of as a transaction
in which I give something to God—
some slice of my time and attention,
some thing that I give up as a sacrifice, 
some number of good deeds—
in order to receive some benefit,
whether this be a crude expectation
of prosperity and material gain
or, perhaps more likely, 
the more sophisticated desire
for peace of mind and spiritual consolation.
This is the idea that I can give God 
some determinate amount of my love,
or at least of my obedience,
in order to receive some specific reward.

The entire life of Jesus is an assault on this idea.
In embodying for us the God who is love,
the God with whom we can strike no bargain
but to whom we can give nothing less than everything,
and from whom we can only receive with gratitude,
Jesus seeks to drive from the temple of our hearts
the idea that our relationship with God
is an exchange or transaction,
lashing this idea with the cords 
of God’s mercy and love,
offered to us free of charge.

Jesus does this just so that we 
can come to know God truly,
to grasp what it means 
to love and be loved by God.
We generally don’t approach as transactions
the relationships that matter to us most.
I don’t offer my wife a kiss
just so she will mow the lawn;
I don’t take out the garbage
just so she will do the laundry;
or, at least, if I do, 
I feel slightly ashamed of myself.
Because love is not a matter 
of calculating costs and benefits.
Love is a matter of giving everything 
when you have nothing to gain in return,
of receiving everything
when you have nothing of your own to give.
In love’s economy 
we are all both generous donors 
and humble beggars. 

And this is true above all with God.
Jesus teaches us through his life
that God’s love cannot be purchased,
that God’s laws are not 
the price sticker on divine favor,
that our obedience is not the currency 
with which we purchase prosperity 
or inner peace 
or even our salvation. 
Jesus teaches us this 
with agonizing clarity
in his death on the cross,
when he gives himself totally 
into his Father’s loving hands
to win for us the precious gift of eternal life.
The shocking message of the Gospel
is that the love that is God 
is most fully shown forth
in the pain and shame 
of Christ crucified,
which St. Paul tells us is
“a stumbling block to Jews 
and foolishness to Gentiles.”

As anyone who has ever fallen in love can tell you, 
love can make you look weak and foolish
in the eyes of the world.
It can make you look weak and foolish
because it pulls you out of the economy
of reasonable exchanges,
of calculating costs and benefits,
of giving in order to get.
Spouses, parents, or anyone blessed
with a true and lasting friendship
all know the weakness of being overwhelmed by love,
the foolishness of not caring whether what you give
is balanced out by what you get.

And Jesus tells us that this is what God is.
Think of the deepest 
and most enduring love you have known.
Think of the sacrifices 
you have made for that love.
Think of the unrepayable gifts 
you have gained from that love.
Think of the ways that love 
has broken open your heart.
God is all of that and more.
On the cross God embraces 
weakness and foolishness
because that is simply what love does.
And in that embrace God reveals 
the power and wisdom of love,
for, as St. Paul says,
“the foolishness of God 
is wiser than human wisdom, 
and the weakness of God 
is stronger than human strength.”

Our souls are God’s temple;
our hearts are God’s house.
Let us not make them marketplaces
in which we seek to transact the business
of bargaining with God for our salvation.
Let us rather let Jesus cleanse them.
Let us allow ourselves to be weak and foolish
for the sake of crucified love.
Let us make our hearts into homes 
within which we welcome
the power and wisdom of God.
And may God have mercy on us all.