HerbEly

Not Bad, Just Blind

    In reflecting on the lectionary readings for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, please note that the rich man of Luke 16:19-31 is not a bad person, just blind. Even after death and in torment, he seeks to warn his brothers of his fate. He still considers Lazarus to be a mere servant who should be sent to warn his brothers to be more compassionate in this life. His sense of compassion came to late. his vision excluded the impoverished state of Lazarus during his life. Perhaps he was blinded by his wealth.

How then, is a Christian, to avoid blindness and use his wealth properly?

St Francis De Sales has some advice in part III, chapter 14, On Poverty of Spirit Amid Riches of The Introduction to the Devout Life:

"There is a wide difference between having poison and being poisoned. All apothecaries have poisons ready for special uses, but they are not consequently poisoned, because the poison is only in their shop, not in themselves; and so you may possess riches without being poisoned by them, so long as they are in your house or purse only, and not in your heart. It is the Christian’s privilege to be rich in material things, and poor in attachment to them, thereby having the use of riches in this world and the merit of poverty in the next."

    We might think that this lets us off the hook, that it is ok to have a level of modest wealth. Maybe so, but it presents a challenge that the followers of that other Francis (Assisi) will never have. They become voluntarily poor and avoid the temptations of being poisoned by wealth.

 

 

Going to Any Length

Desperate people have to take chances. Sometimes even the most outrageous gamble is rewarded. This is the story we read in the Luke 16:1-13, the gospel for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. A steward, caught in dishonesty, proceeds to ask his masters creditors to pay their debts at 80% or less. He hoped that this unauthorized discount will at least earn the gratitude of the creditors. The fact that he is cheating his master even further does not seem to bother him. 

Jesus commends him for at least acting boldly when faced with losing his livelihood. He was willing to go to any length to preserve his livlihood. What about those of us who are not desperate? If we were desperate we could gamble everything.  Can we take a small gamble and do the next right thing, even when we are not? Perhaps this is the point of this puzzling gospel.

 

The Parable of the "Crazy" Father

Most often called the parable of the Prodigal Son, this story is the gospel reading for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Our teacher, Msgr. Chester P. Michael used to tell us that the story was really about the father.  In the gospel we see a father who only wants to see his son return and who rejoices when he does. This father is "crazy" in the everyday sense of the word. He doesn't care that his son has wished him as good as dead and left home for a life of women and wine. He only wants his son back.

It is a great image for those who, like the son, recognize that we are beyond being able to help ourselves and decide to return, willing turn their lives over to their father's care. It is a much tougher image for Spiritual Directors. Too often we find a difficulty in projecting this image of a loving father. Many who are seeking direction have experienced a father who fell far too short of the image in the parable.  For that matter, it is a tough image for  those of us who are fathers and are well aware of our own shortcomings. 

The best that any of us can do, as directors or fathers, is project a partial image of the "crazy" father. God's grace will  have to do the rest. If we can learn to turn our lives and wills over to the care of God, our directees (and children) will see it. That will be enough.

 

Get Out from Under the Bed

     There is, to my mind, a convergence between a recent Peanuts cartoon and the Gospel reading for the 23 Sunday in Ordinary Time.  In the cartoon:

• Lucy: "Why are you hiding under the bed?"
• Charlie: "School starts next week."
• Lucy: "You hid under the bed last year and it didn't work."
• Charlie: "I'm better at it now."

In Luke 14:23 we hear Jesus saying "...anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple." This seems to be an impossibly hard saying. A few, like Francis of Assisi, have taken it literally. Others, like Francis de Sales, advocate a life of devotion compatible with the life of a soldier, prince, tradesman or married woman. Even these must come to terms with Luke 14:23 in a spiritual, if not literal, sense.

     In the cartoon Charlie Brown gives us a clue. He has adopted a behavior that protects him from an apparently hostile world. He fools himself into thinking that, even though it didn't work last year, he can make it work this year. He clings to what Thomas Keating calls "programs for happiness" - those behaviors that we adopt to protect basic needs. At some point in life we discover that those programs no longer work for us. They worked before, but now they are self-defeating. At that point we can cling to them even more tightly. Ben Franklin defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Charlie Brown is clinging to his behavior of hiding from trouble even though he knows it won't work. 

     The gospel give us a different choice. We can renounce our preferred behavior and take the chance of turning over our life to the care of God. Most of us will not do this until, unlike Charlie, we recognize our insanity. When we do, we will find a new freedom and a new happiness. We will be able to march out of our home and go to school.

 

The gospel choice only looks hard while we are hiding under the bed.