Lent Week 4 Thursday

Readings: Exodus 32:7-14 ; Psalm 106; John 5:31-47

It is strange how the conversation between Moses and God in Exodus 32 parallels the conversation between the prodigal father and the elder brother in Luke 15. In the parable, which we have heard a few times recently, the elder brother disowns the prodigal son, referring to him when speaking to his father as ‘your son’. The father reminds his elder son that the prodigal is not just his (the father’s) son but is his (the elder brother’s) brother: ‘this, your brother, was lost and is found, he was dead and is returned to life’.

In today’s first reading it is God who seeks to disown the prodigal people, saying to Moses ‘go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved’. Moses then takes the place of the prodigal father saying back to God, ‘why should your wrath blaze up against your own people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt?’ Jesus in the gospel reading sends his listeners back to this point also: if they will not believe what Moses wrote then they will not listen to what Jesus is saying.

The most fascinating thing about this combination of readings is that it seems to be the Lord, the God of Israel, who was the first to listen to Moses and to believe in him! Moses called God back to Himself, as the prodigal son needs to come to himself. Moses reminds God of who He is, as the prodigal son needed to remember who he was. You are the One, says Moses, who brought your people out with mighty hand and marvelous works. They are not my people, thank you very much, they are your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt. What are the nations to say now about your purpose in doing this? Was it with an evil intention, to deceive and mislead this people and only, in the end, to destroy them?

And if that does not work, Moses makes a deeper, more ancient appeal. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he says to God, and your promises to them. You are the God of our fathers, not just the God of this recent wonder at the Red Sea, these recent marvels in Egypt. You are the God who has been involved with your people from way back, fashioning a people for yourself from ancient times. You swore to these promises by your own self: are you to be true to yourself, to who you are, the God of our fathers, now revealed as the Lord, the God of Israel?

It is stirring stuff, these dramas of betrayal and reconciliation, of forgetfulness and remembrance.  And we are approaching the final act of the definitive drama. Now, says Jesus, there are many witnesses to me. There is John the Baptist and there are the works I have been doing. There is the testimony of the Father speaking through these but to accept this you must believe in the Son whom the Father has sent. There is the scripture, the Word of God, written down by Moses but also remaining in the hearts of believers. With all these witnesses, a great cloud on every side we might say, why is it that you still do not believe?

Because you are stiff-necked, we hear God saying to Moses in the first reading. And Moses’ response is not to deny the people’s sinfulness and forgetfulness, just as the prodigal father does not deny the prodigal’s mistakes. Moses’ response is to remind God of who they are and who God is – they are your people whom you called long ago, and you are the God who swore by your own self that you would be their God and they your people.

Like an old married couple who have fought long and hard God and the people are inextricably bound to each other, they have grown into each other. This is not to minimize the consequences of their sins, which are great. It is to exalt the way in which God will now once again swear by His own self that He is committed to this covenant: He will seal it now in the blood of the Son, a new and eternal covenant which is yet as old as Abraham.

So God relents and repents of what he intended to do. Once again He visits His people and once again He faces into their sins and forgetfulness, to remind them and to restore them to His family: He forever their God, they - we! - forever His people.

Lent Week 4 Wednesday

Readings: Isaiah 49:8-15; Psalm 144; John 5:17-30

Christ is our judge, appointed to this office by the Father who has seated him at his right hand. What do we hear in the sentence 'Christ is our judge'? It may be that the word 'judge' stands out, making us fearful. Contemporary culture encourages the non-judgemental which strengthens what seems like a natural anxiety about our lives, our work, or our actions being judged.

It is, however, part of the wonderful good news that Christ is our judge. The word in the sentence that stood out for the first Christian believers was the word 'Christ' and not the word 'judge'. What a blessed relief it is, and what a gift, that the judge of our lives, our work, and our actions, is Jesus Christ. Nobody else, in the end. Of course we are all the time judging others and being judged by them. But the import of this gospel is that in the end, fundamentally, and most radically, we are judged by Christ, and by him alone.

There is even more, since for those who believe in him there will be a judgement without judgement - 'without being brought to judgement they pass from death to life' (John 5:24). Those who believe in him know the truth and there is no need for a further moment in which the relationship between their lives and the truth needs to be pointed out. In seeing the truth, those who believe see the distance between themselves and truth. They see their lives, their work, and their actions, in the light of truth, at once perfectly just and infinitely compassionate - and so they are judged without being judged.

Two great representations of the Last Judgement illustrate the point. The best known Last Judgement scene is that of Michelangelo, in the Sistine Chapel. A huge, brooding Christ comes to separate sheep and goats, just and unjust, and his presence is formidable and terrifying. The fact that this has become the best known Last Judgement scene serves to confirm that we know more about fear than we do about love.

A less well-known Last Judgement, whose theology is much sounder than Michelangelo's, is that of Fra Angelico in the priory of San Marco in Florence. There is the same separation of sheep and goats, of just and unjust, but Christ is not terrifying. He is gentle, and beautiful, and all he does is show his wounds. Those who believe in him do not need any further evaluation or criterion for assessing their lives, work, and actions. They are judged by the truth of his loving sacrifice and glorious resurrection and in the light of that truth can judge themselves: they see what is the case.

The saintly person knows that he falls seven times a day. Those of us whose consciences have become less sharp are not equipped to see the true state of our lives, work, and actions. Then judgement is needed, we need help, that things be pointed out and made clear for us. Jesus says further on in Saint John's gospel, 'the word that I have spoken will be (your) judge on the last day', the Word from the Father that is truth (John 12:48; 17:17).

Lent Week 4 Tuesday

Readings: Ezekiel 47:1-9,12; Psalm 45; John 5:1-3,5-16

There is a wonderful hospitality in Jesus' question, 'do you want to be well again?' It can seem a bit strange: surely the answer is obvious. But Jesus does not presume. As well as his hospitality there is his obedience in the literal sense of the term: his listening, the way he provides a space in which the other person can speak and be heard. It is at the heart of all loving, that we allow the other to be, to speak, to tell us what it is they want, to listen to what they want to say and not just hear what we think they want to say.

It makes Jesus' comment towards the end even more perplexing: 'be sure not to sin any more, or something worse may happen to you'. Worse than what, we might wonder. Worse than being ill for thirty eight years? But surely Jesus himself has been fighting hard against this connection of sin and suffering, has been trying to break that link. In Chapter 9 of St John's gospel we will find him resisting the idea very strongly, in the case of the man born blind.

'Something worse' can only mean spiritual paralysis, worse than the physical disability from which he had suffered. It brings this story close to that of the paralysed man let down through the roof to whom Jesus says 'your sins are forgiven'. Which is more difficult, to say your sins are forgiven or to say arise and walk? To forgive sins must be the more difficult, the healing of humanity at that radical level where desire is confused, understanding is clouded, and the will is distorted.

But this is the healing promised by the paschal mystery. All who have entered the waters of baptism (the Sheep Pool) are made new, born again, set right, made able to walk in the way of Jesus. He is never sentimental and always truthful. The sick man is brought into the light of that truth. He is healed but he must continue now to walk in the same light. And so the man becomes an apostle, telling them that it was Jesus who had cured him.

Lent Week 4 Monday

Readings: Isaiah 65:17-21; Psalm 29; John 4:43-54

Here we are told that Jesus is going down well with the Galileans. Perhaps it was only in his home town of Nazareth that he was not welcomed. But a mis-match continues between people's expectations and desires on the one hand, and the teaching and call of Jesus on the other. We find it here again. The man's request seems innocent and straightforward: his son is ill and he would like him to be healed. It is now Jesus who seems to get it wrong: 'so you will not believe unless you see signs and portents'. We can imagine the poor man saying, 'well no, actually, I just want my son to be well again'.

But Jesus receives the expression of any desire - for healing, for teaching, for more wine - as a desire for faith and seeks to lead all who approach him to the deeper level of faith. So it is with the disciples, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, Martha and Mary, even his mother Mary. God's gift is not simply the meeting of our need. Faith is a gift that opens us beyond our need to the reality and truth of God.

So all gifts of God also have the character of 'signs and portents' because they always point beyond themselves to God who is infinite and eternal. God is not just 'our size'. He has become our size - the Word was made flesh - in order that we might grow beyond our immediate needs and basic desires. The theological virtues of faith, hope and love open us up in this way. These are the capacities or virtues of the new creature, the one who is being transformed by God's grace, the one who is being divinised.

So the court official receives the gift of his son's healing but he - and all his household - also receive the gift of faith in Jesus. From now on the liturgies of Lent focus more and more on the coming paschal mystery through which Christ not only fulfills the thirst of creation but reveals the thirst of God for creation. The fulfillment of that divine thirst is the new creation established in the Resurrection, a new heavens and a new earth, a city that is 'Joy' and a people that is 'Gladness', things beyond what the human heart can imagine, what God has prepared for those who love him.

Lent Week 4 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Joshua 5:9a, 10-12; Psalm 34; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

The turning point in the story is when the prodigal son remembers something: he came to his senses, he came to himself, he remembered who he was. The road to reconciliation and forgiveness lies through remembering. Popular wisdom might encourage us to forgive and forget but we know from experience that forgiveness comes rather through remembering. The 'truth and reconciliation' commissions set up to establish good relations between people who before had been at war with each other operated on this basis. Only by remembering truthfully, by remembering everything that needs to be remembered, can we hope to find reconciliation and a new beginning.

So we must remember our need and our weakness. We must remember that we are indebted to the Father for his forgiveness. We must remember the judgement of our lives in the light of God's truth and love. We must remember the covenants and the law. We must remember the sacrifice of Christ that seals the new and eternal covenant and which he asked us to repeat in memory of Him. If the damaged network of relationships is to be healed and given new life then it needs to be remembered in all its parts and the wounds of each one need to be acknowledged and honoured.

The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas raises serious questions about forgiveness. Is there not, he says, an acceptance of injustice inherent in the concept of forgiveness? Is it not inhuman to try to set limits to a person's need for forgiveness, to set the boundaries within which forgiveness must be given? When we remember what it is that has been suffered by some victims of injustice, how can we dare to think that we have the resources to undo that injustice, to remove that victimisation, to create a situation where what people have suffered no longer matters.

These are powerful and pertinent questions. They oblige us to think again about what it means for one person to say to another 'I forgive you for what you did to me'. It is a very different matter, more complicated, where a person or group apologises, seeks forgiveness, on behalf of a third party: 'I forgive you for what you did to them' (my family, my ancestors), 'I apologise for what they did to you' (my ancestors to your ancestors). How can anybody ever feel able to say such a thing?

In the Christian understanding, as Paul says in today's second reading, forgiveness and reconciliation are only possible if there is a 'new creation'. Paul would have understood Levinas's questions, and as a zealous Pharisee would have seen - and shared - the problems he raises. How is the righteousness of God to be defended? How can the broken order of justice ever be mended? What is the cost of forgiveness? Is there any 'rate of exchange', any currency, in which forgiveness can be given?

The sinless one is made to be sin so that those who are sinful might become the righteousness of God. This is Paul's account of the exchange, the currency in which the new creation is established. It gives the basis in truth for Alexander Pope's comment that 'to forgive is divine'. If it involves a new creation then it can only be from God because only God can create. To claim such a possibility for ourselves would be blasphemous. So we can only think of forgiveness if we stand with others before God, stand on a ground of equality with them and have the courage to look at our offences against them.

Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman who perished in Auschwitz, has left a remarkable diary of her spiritual journey in the last years of her life. On this topic she says the following: 'Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate'. Christians believe that God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself. In other words God was giving in himself all the space and shelter due to the world's sorrow. We believe that Jesus, the Christ, bore this grief of the world honestly and courageously. Although it might seem that the sorrow that fills the world has not abated, we believe that in Him it has found its way to the heart of God, the only place from which truth and reconciliation can arise.

You will find here another homily on today's gospel

Lent Week 3 Saturday

Readings: Hosea 6:1-6; Psalm 50; Luke 18:9-14

A friend told me about a teacher who, in explaining the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, was horrified to hear herself saying to the children in her class,  'so let us thank God that we are not like the Pharisee'. This is the wonderful trap set by this parable. We cannot imagine the publican returning home, kicking the air in delight, and saying to himself (and perhaps to others), 'I did it. I made it. I am not like the Pharisee.' So we need to be very careful in reading this story and thinking about it.

There is a prayer that reaches heaven and there is a way of praying which, it seems, does not reach heaven. It sets obstacles to its own success. We are told that the Pharisee said his prayer 'to himself'. His prayer involves a kind of mathematics which he believes ought to justify him in the sight of God. In fact he does more than he is strictly obliged to do and so ought to be really safe and sound. It is essential to his mathematics that he should compare himself with others: this is how mathematics works, with proportions, sizes, comparisons.

But prayer does not work this way. The publican, or tax-collector, does not pray to himself, he prays to God. He is unable to raise his eyes to heaven, but his prayer is in the right direction. He is not comparing himself with others, he looks just at himself and at God, and he sees all he needs to see in that comparison. He stands in a kind of solitude before God and sees his poverty in the light of that solitude. There is a long tradition in the Bible of recognising this kind of prayer as the one that is truly effective, the prayer of the humble person, the one who is broken hearted, the person who is truly contrite for their sins. This is the prayer that pierces the clouds and reaches the throne of grace.

There is no time now to compare oneself with others, the matter is too urgent, too critical, and comparisons with others have become a luxury. If life is a contest, a struggle or 'agonia', then it is not against others that we must struggle but only with ourselves. And also with God. Prayer is the only weapon we have for the struggle with ourselves and with God, the struggle to live in the truth. George Herbert in his wonderful poem about prayer speaks of its power. It is, he says, 'Engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower, / Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear'. The prayer of the humble person pierces the clouds and reaches the throne of grace.

At this point in Lent we should, by God's grace, have found our way to this kind of praying. The sacrament of penance is a gift of Christ to the Church which allows us to confess God's mercy, to seal our repentance, and to return home justified. But that justification is not on the basis of our own performance: it is completely God's mercy and something that is ours on the basis of our hope in God.

Lent Week 3 Friday

Readings: Hosea 14:2-10; Psalm 81; Mark 12:28-34

‘Take with you words’, the Lord says through the prophet Hosea. ‘Prepare a speech’ is another translation of the phrase. Like somebody trying to figure out the best words for a difficult meeting with another person, we are to think hard and decide on the best thing to say. ‘You have collapsed through your guilt’, the prophet says, which will make the people feel powerless and probably speechless. If it is so – and it is so, very often – what words can ever be adequate to bring with us into God’s presence?

And yet a simple effort at repentance, acknowledging their helplessness, immediately wins the Lord’s renewed attention and His renewed care. ‘I have humbled him but I will prosper him’. This in response to words that are ordinary, honest, and not dramatic. It means that any turning back towards the Lord immediately wins his forgiveness. Once again the father in the story of the Prodigal Son comes to mind, watching out for the first sign of the son’s return, ready to rush out to welcome him back.

We now say each day at Mass ‘say but the word and my soul shall be healed’. What word is it that will immediately heal the soul? One candidate is, clearly, the Word of God Himself, the Word incarnate in Jesus. Is this the word uttered by the Father and which effects the healing of our souls? Yes has to be the answer: Jesus is the one who saves us from our sins. It might also be the word ‘love’ or ‘come to me’ or ‘do not fear’ or ‘your sins are forgiven’ or ‘I will, be healed’. All of these simple words effect great things in the gospels: all that is needed on our side is the acknowledgment of our need and the request for help (however fumbling our words).

This faltering conversation between God who speaks a word to us and we finding words with which to come to him means we are ‘not far from the kingdom of God’. As long as the exchange continues we are in the right place. The temptation is to give up on the exchange, to stop the conversation, and then we are really lost. Pope Francis says that we tire of asking for forgiveness long before God tires of showing mercy. In fact God is tireless – infinite – in showing mercy. It encourages us to continue the Lenten journey, to continue trying to find words even when we know that what really counts is the word that comes from God. ‘Say but the word and my soul shall be healed’.  Or (Hosea puts these words too on God’s lips) ‘because of me you bear fruit’.