Speaking Truth to Power

A 24-year old man afflicted with leprosy

The first reading in today's mass is the story of Naaman being healed of leprosy. For the purposes of the liturgy, it concentrates only on Naaman bathing in the Jordan and returning to give thanks. There is an interesting backstory, though.

When Naaman presented himself at Elisha's house, the prophet sent his servant out to give the instruction to bathe seven times in the Jordan. Now Naaman was a bigshot, the commanding general of King Ben-Hadad's Syrian army and possibly second only to the king himself. He expected to be tended by other bigshots - by King Joram of Israel to whom he had gone first, and at least by Elisha personally when he was sent there. Nope. A scruffy servant directed him to go take not one bath but seven. So he was about to take his bruised ego (and his ravaged body) back to Syria. But a servant asked him, "Father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, surely you should have done it: how much rather what he now has said to you: Wash, and you shall be clean?"

Naaman almost missed the greatest blessing of his life because he was putting his ego above the simple Word of the Lord. That servant was probably risking his life to speak without being spoken to. But his apparent love and compassion for his master overcame his fear and he spoke the truth in that love, Let us pray the people around us will love us enough to arrest us when we're about to be hoist with our own foibles. And let us pray that when it is our turn to correct another we will receive grace to do it lovingly, knowing we are afflicted also and in need of healing.

Gotta get back to the garden

One of today's recurring themes is respristination, the restoration of the Earth to its pristine state, the garden of Eden. This idea finds artistic expression in Joni Mitchell's song Woodstock:

We are stardust,
Billion year old carbon
We are golden,
Caught in the devil¹s bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Well, we left Yasgur's farm looking like something other than a garden, let alone the garden. But at least we got an anthem to go with our arrogance. Yes, arrogance because we will never get ourselves back to the garden; its gate is guarded by a cherubim, one of God's throne angels, with a flaming sword no less.

The notion of getting ourselves back to the garden is expressed in a number of ways socially and politically. Some are benign, even a little silly, like holding hands across the country and thinking peaceful thoughts. Others ally themselves with the secular religion of the age and even have the sanction and power of government - aggressive global warming environmentalism and human embryonic stem cell research advocacy are examples. Those who have a form of godliness (we are stardust; we are golden) while denying its power (we are billion year old carbon) will inevitably lay hold of the only power that poses a credible challenge to real power: the power of Satan, though they scoff and call it reason. Reason divorced from faith says we can apply the same failed thinking by new techniques and get breakthrough results - a frontal assault on that flaming sword. It's a Pelagian attack to the rear, of course, but the arrogant will never learn. "Until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force."

The garden of Eden is closed forever. God's mandate to Adam and Eve (and to us) was "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." The garden was to be the starting place, and the whole earth was supposed to look like it. That opportunity is lost forever. Now we are on a pilgrimage to the City of God. It is there we will find the Tree of Life, not here. Here we will have to put up with the taunts of the grinning serpent, "Has God truly said..." Like I said, the arrogant never learn.

Dives Agonistes

“'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"

I can’t add to the many things that have been said about the final conditions of the wretched Lazarus and the rich Dives. But I think these final words of Jesus bear examination.

Abraham, of course, was the father of both men, in covenant as well as in flesh. So when he called Dives “my son”, his hearers understood immediately and intimately. It was the core of their corporate life. They likewise understood that Dives was living in scorn of the covenants of both Abraham and Moses by refusing help to Lazarus. That is why Jesus has Abraham saying, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.”

Jesus, I think, was being a bit sly in this parable. Remember that he was on his way to Jerusalem and the cross. He knew he would consummate the fulfillment of the law and the prophets by his passion and death. And he also knew (and would say many more times) that he would rise from the dead as the supreme persuasion of that fulfillment.

Yet how many times have we seen his parable fulfilled in that respect also? How many have risen to deny the Resurrection? And if we declare our faith in it, we are subjected to pop psychoanalysis – we’re deluded, hysterical and fundamentalist (a synonym for crazy). In all the Muslim lands, as well as in Africa, in India and in Asia, we are persecuted for it. The stiff-necked contumacy of men defies belief, but Jesus promised it and promised help in enduring it.

That They May Be One

Pope Benedict's visit to the United Kingdom reminded me of St. John's account of the Last Supper. It begins with the breathtaking phrase

... having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. (ch13, v1)

This finds its culmination in chapter 17, that majestic high priestly prayer in which Jesus commends the apostles to His Father's care, asking Him to keep them while He's busy dying on the cross. I find it a stunningly tender passage. Of course, He had already given them the lesson of washing one another's feet and the most precious Eucharist. He could have stopped there. But not Jesus. He loved them to the end. He wanted to seal them in the very unity of the Godhead.

Look at verses 21 through 23.

20."I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;

21."that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.

22."And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:

23."I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

Jesus exhausts the possibilities of "in-ness", of who is in whom. Just as important is the "as" of His dedication. Read "in the identical manner". In the identical manner that the Father is in Jesus, He desires that the apostles (and all those who believe in Him through their word - that's us!) be in Them also. It makes me tremble to understand what He is asking, and what we know the Father will not refuse - that we be in Them and They in us - that the same Godhead that was fully in Jesus' clay be in our clay. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it. (Ps 139:6)

Which returns me to the pope's visit to Britain. The Eucharist is certainly the premier sign of the unity Jesus entreated for that night, but it is not the only sign. The supremacy of Peter and his successors is another. He is the emblem of the very authority Jesus entrusted to the apostles that night, the Magisterium of the Church.

Jesus and His Brothers

The story of Joseph is one of my favorites in the Bible because it is so human. I especially enjoy the scene in chapter 45 in which Joseph, after having dismissed all the Egyptians, revealed his identity to his brothers. But his brothers were too dismayed by his royal presence to comprehend it. What follows is especially tender:

And Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come near to me." So they came near. Then he said: "I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.” v. 4.

I once heard a commentator say that Joseph showed him the sign of his circumcision, which they would understand never to be possible for an Egyptian satrap. We don’t know what he really did but clearly they believed him.

Signs and wonders are the currency of the Lord. The Bible shows without detail that the Jews will someday rule the earth with Jesus as Lord and King. I can imagine at some future time Jesus calling them all and saying, “Please come near to me. I am Jesus your brother, whom you crucified.”

Lest anyone think I am engaging in anti-Semitic, God-killer rant, consider v.5:

"But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

We are all guilty of the crucifixion and death of Jesus for so we proclaim every Good Friday. The Jews were merely our proxy. What we all intended for evil, God intends for good. Jesus banishes Death and gives Life.

Jesus will make some persuasive revelation of Himself and His forgiveness to them. Signs and wonders that they will believe as they did not in the past and do not now. Then perhaps we will all see how gloriously the wall of separation between us is broken down. (Eph 2:11-14)

Consider the Peach and the Coconut

As they might illustrate a person, which do you suppose God wants us to be? The quick, seemingly obvious, answer would be the peach. Someone cannier, suspecting a trap (you know who you are), would say the coconut. But why? Why either one?

The peach is beautiful to look at: golden and...well, peachy. Its flesh is luscious, its nectar sweet. The coconut is coarse and shaggy. Its rocky exterior makes the flesh a pain in the neck to get at, hardly worth the effort sometimes. So the peach seems like a good choice for our metaphorical person favored by God.

But that's seeing the way humans see, superficial and carnal. The peach's flesh is soft, easily bruised, and decays quickly. It's heart is a stone that no one wants. The coconut's exterior is hard as rock but its heart is large, hollow and filled with sweet nectar. I'd say Jesus was a coconut. He took all kinds of abuse and still had room in his heart for sinners, lepers, other human wrecks, and even his abusers. And for me.

See? One of the losses of the Fall was our God-like vision. The veil of flesh falls over the luminous beings that we really are and we know to our shame that we are naked. We even become accustomed to think of this aberrant vision as the only way to see. We sometimes need to be reminded that "man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).