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 A)

Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

John 9 is masterly in showing how those who cannot see are led to ever clearer sight and those who think they can see become uncertain, confused and eventually blind. The central characters are Jesus and the man who was born blind. The blind man’s journey takes him from darkness to light. He comes to see not just the things around him, which he had not seen before, but the reality of Jesus.  At first he refers to him simply as ‘the man called Jesus’. Under pressure from the Pharisees he comes to see further: ‘he is a prophet’. Further pressure leads to him saying ‘if this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything’. Finally, meeting Jesus now as one who can see, the man is asked whether he believes in the Son of Man. ‘Who is he that I may believe in him’, he asks. Just as he revealed himself to the woman of Samaria so now Jesus says ‘You have seen him, the one speaking to you is he’. And the man believes, and worships, ‘I do believe, Lord’.

The people wonder whether it is the same man or not. Their confidence in the testimony of their own eyes is shaken. It looks like the man who was born blind, and some are certain it is he, but others are not so sure: ‘it only looks like him’. Appearances and reality become confused, and people’s confidence in the testimony of their eyes is weakened.

But the parents and their son speak confidently of what they know without exaggeration and without ambiguity. They seem to be holy people rather than sinners, since they are simply honest and are not moved by the intimidation of the powerful. The parents of the man born blind are involved from the beginning, referred to in the opening question of the disciples: ‘who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ This confident way of seeing the world, to which both disciples and Pharisees subscribe, is immediately and decisively rejected by Jesus. This is not at all how he sees things: the man’s blindness, far from being evidence of somebody’s sin, is rather for the sake of making visible the wonders of God.

Like their son, the parents answer simply and honestly about what they know to be certain. They are not prepared to get into theological arguments with the Pharisees but simply speak what they know, what the witness of their own eyes tells them, and they do not lose confidence in that. ‘He is old enough, ask him’, they say. The blind man likewise is not disposed to speculation (which is a kind of imaginary seeing) but stays simply with what he knows to be true. It makes the witness of his faith at the end all the more compelling: here is a man prepared to speak only what he is certain to be true and he has come to believe in Jesus as the Son of Man.

The Pharisees begin with supreme confidence in how they see the world. For them it is obvious that somebody has sinned here, either the man or his parents, and this explains his blindness. His healing by Jesus disturbs their world. Once again he has acted on the Sabbath, but that is only the beginning. They try to force the man, and then his parents, to confirm that the Pharisees’ way of seeing things is correct and that what is going on must be from the evil one rather than from God. The man and his parents resist this pressure as we have seen: a simple and straightforward ‘whatever about all that (theological speculation), what we know is this …’

The Pharisees stand on their authority to teach and interpret the law and so cannot receive the man’s testimony. They must squeeze his experience into their way of seeing and cannot allow what has happened to illuminate the world in a new way. They persist in thinking they are the ones who see correctly and that the man, his parents, Jesus, the disciples – these are all getting it wrong, colluding in sinful activity rather than making visible the wonderful works of God.

But the transformation in their case is as complete as the transformation of the man born blind. He was blind and now he can see. They thought they could see, persist in their belief, and so are blind in a way that is more difficult to heal. The whole story is rounded off by Jesus directly contradicting the premise with which it began: ‘if you were blind you would have no sin’, he says to them, but because you persist in saying ‘we see’, your sin remains.

So what position do we take up in all this? Are we among those confident of their own way of seeing the world to the point of being closed to any new revelation or illumination? Have we identified ourselves so completely with our way of seeing things that it would require a miracle to shift us to something broader, wider, and deeper? In the presence of Jesus, the light of the world, are we among those who reach out for his help in order to see, or do we prefer to stand like bats in the sunlight, relying on our familiar way of seeing, unaware that we are still dealing only with shadows, images, vain speculations?

Lent Week 3 Saturday

Readings: Hosea 6:1-6; Psalm 51; 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’.

Lent Week 3 Thursday

Readings: Jeremiah 7:23-28; Psalm 94; Luke 11:14-23

The best known 'finger of God' is the one painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Across the gap between the tip of God's finger and the tip of Adam's finger the mysterious energy of creation is transmitted. The phrase has also become part of the hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus as a title for the Holy Spirit who is dextrae Dei digitus, the finger of God's right hand.

The image is not used very often in the Bible but whenever it is, it is in relation to the most significant things. In the Book of Exodus, the magicians of Pharaoh describe the power working through Aaron as the finger of God (Exodus 8:19). The law or wisdom of God was inscribed by the finger of God on the tablets of stone given to Moses (Exodus 31:18). Psalm 8 celebrates God's power as Creator: 'when I see the heavens, the work of your fingers'. 

So in creation, in the giving of the Law, in mysterious events, in the casting out of demons, the 'finger of God' means the power of God is at work.

There are two other references, less clear but each of them intriguing. At Belshazzar's feast, as recounted in Daniel 5, the writing on the wall is done by the fingers of a human hand. But it is another divine intervention, a revelation of God's providence for the people concerned. In John 8 Jesus wrote on the ground with his finger in the presence of the woman taken in adultery. Nobody knows what he wrote or what the gesture meant but presumably something to do with God's providence in relation to the woman and to her accusers.

So an ordinary thing, the finger, applied to God as an image, is used rarely in the Scriptures but always in contexts of great significance: creation, revelation, covenant, providence. As a result it finds its way into one of the great hymns of the liturgy and onto the ceiling of Christianity's most famous chapel.

Lent Week 3 Wednesday

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9; Ps 147; Matthew 5:17-19

The 'end', or 'purpose', of the Law is that the holiness of God be revealed, and that a people living according to that law might be brought into communion - a sharing of life and love - with God who is holy. What does the word 'holy' mean? We know it means infinitely just and loving, and we know this from Christ who is the fulness of the Law.

The verses of Matthew read today are said to be the most controverisal in that gospel. If we have a narrow understanding of law and of what the term refers to here, then these verses are very difficult to reconcile with, for example, some of Paul's statements about the Law. But if the term 'law' is understood more profoundly, as it is for example in Baruch or in Psalm 119/118, then it refers to God's wisdom, God's word, God's way for His people. We know where that way, that truth, and that life, are revealed fully. It is he, Jesus, who is the fulness of the Law, he is the one who keeps it to the letter, because he is himself the Word (= wisdom; = law).

Two words in the gospel support this interpretation. Jesus says he has come not to abolish but to complete or fulfill the Law, to bring it to its pleroma. He is the pleroma, the fulness of time and the fulness of things, and God's wisdom, word and way are all complete in him.

The other phrase is variously translated. Nothing disappears from the law 'until its purpose is achieved', or 'until all things are accomplished'. At this point in Lent we cannot but think of Jesus' 'hour', the fulness of time, when all that has been foretold and all that has been promised will be fulfilled. God's holiness will be revealed as never before, God's heart of justice and love exposed as never before.

The new and eternal covenant sealed in his blood does not replace the old but brings it to its full flourishing. The Lord our God is nearer to us now than when we first believed, is how Paul puts it, the wisdom of God's Word now dwelling in our hearts through the Spirit that has been poured into them.

As we turn the corner of this mid-point of Lent we begin to look away from ourselves and our own spiritual and moral efforts, to look simply at Christ in whom those efforts dissolve on the one hand (come to their end) and in whom they find their destination on the other (fulfill their purpose).