How to Be a True Shepherd

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How does one know a good shepherd from a bad one? In the opening verses of John 10, Jesus says a good shepherd enters by the gate and no other way. The gatekeeper recognizes the good shepherd and opens the gate, while bad shepherds won’t be recognized so that their only recourse is to try breaking in by other ways. Jesus goes on to say that the sheep recognize the right shepherd’s voice and that is why they follow him through the gate. They will not follow the voice of a stranger.

John then says that the people did not understand this figure of speech, so Jesus tries again. This time he says that he is the gate, which actually seems to add to the confusion. The gatekeeper (whoever he or she was) disappears, no longer needed if Jesus himself is the gate. Through this gate, the sheep come in and out and by so doing, find pasture. When Jesus says that everyone who came before were thieves and bandits, the implication is that they pretended to be the gate but weren’t. What makes Jesus the true gate? Jesus says that he came so that the sheep can have life abundantly while thieves and bandits only come to kill.

Does this clarify things? Not altogether, but maybe it’s easier to understand this passage in John if we don’t try to put all the ducks in an ordered row. Throughout, we have an emphasis on the voice. The voice of another person is important to humans, but it is helpful to try to empathize with animals, the sheep in this case. Sheep get acclimated to a certain voice, or maybe several, and respond to those voices, but once habituated, don’t trust a strange voice. The tone of voice is important. The intonation of words is important to us humans, but comprehending the actual words can be distracting to the subtleties of the tone of voice. Animals have only the intonation to go on, so all of their attention is directed to that. This is why we talk to our pets with exaggerated tones to get our feelings across to them.

Jesus says that the right voice is a voice offering life, abundant life. He also says that the shepherd with the right, familiar voice, will lead the sheep out to pasture, which is where they feed. This promise of feeding echoes Jesus’ earlier promise, after he had fed the multitude in the wilderness, to give his people the bread from Heaven. Not only that, but Jesus discloses that he himself is the bread from Heaven that feeds them. This is an example of how a few basic themes in John’s Gospel keep circling round in different ways to enrich these themes.

The liturgical setting for this Gospel reading is the middle of Eastertide, which places the discourse of the Good Shepherd in the context of the Paschal Mystery. The Paschal Mystery is also, of course, the context for the whole Gospel of John. The crucified and risen Christ is now speaking to us when Jesus offers to shepherd us out of the gate to pasture. So the circling themes in the Gospel, such as that of feeding, are different ways of referring to the Paschal Mystery. In fact, just a bit further in this chapter, Jesus will say that a true shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The lectionary further accentuates the Paschal dimension of this Gospel by coupling it with these words from First Peter: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” The reason given that Jesus had to suffer so is that we, the sheep, had been going astray, but we have now returned to “the shepherd and guardian of our souls.” (1 Pet. 2: 24–25) Here, the voice of Jesus is connected with what Jesus does.

The image of the Good Shepherd who feeds us by laying down his life may seem remote from our everyday lives, although in tense times such as these, it behooves us to look ahead to such possibilities. Meanwhile, the second chapter of Acts gives us a more everyday look at living the life of the true shepherd. The followers of the True Shepherd shared possessions and distributed to those in need. That is, they fed the sheep as Jesus feeds his sheep. (Acts 2: 45) To do otherwise is to be a thief and a bandit. If we feed others to give abundant life to them, we will also naturally speak with the voice of Jesus. We can all do as much as this. There is no other gate to life than this.

On Looking Forward to Easter

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In Matthew’s Gospel, the Resurrection starts off with a bang in the form of an earthquake. It’s the sort of thing that grabs our attention and makes us take notice that something of great significance has happened. After this bang, the narrative in Matthew, not to speak of the other three gospels, is surprisingly quiet. It’s sort of like one of those symphonies that starts with a bold statement and then subsides to build up musical ideas for the long haul. And the Resurrection, far from being over-and-done-with, is an event for the long haul. We’re still hauling, and so is God.

When Matthew tells of the earthquake, we get a sense of Jesus exerting a huge amount of force to break out of the tomb. That would not be surprising. The stone that Joseph of Arimathea put at the opening was heavy enough, but the Pharisees had put a seal on the tomb and posted a guard. One would think it would take something like an atomic explosion to set Jesus free. But that isn’t what Matthew describes here. What Matthew describes is the angel coming down during the earthquake and rolling away the stone to show that Jesus was already gone! Jesus had quietly slipped away to begin his resurrected life before anyone knew anything had happened.

St. Benedict’s admonition to spend Lent looking forward to Easter with joy and spiritual longing has haunted me many times over the years and I have commented on this before. This year, it haunts me more than ever. Does Benedict’s admonition mean that now Easter is here, we don’t need to look forward to it any more? I don’t think so. Benedict introduces his chapter on Lent by saying that a monastic should live a continuous Lent, which means we should look forward to Easter all the time as well. That means that even on Easter Day we also look forward to Easter. This circles back to the notion that Easter is for the long haul.

What are we celebrating in celebrating Easter, and what are we looking forward to in looking forward to Easter? There are many good answers to these questions, but the answer that keeps coming to me is gathering. By the time of his death, Jesus’s disciples had scattered. Only a few women and the Beloved Disciple in John were at the cross. After his Resurrection, Jesus began gathering the disciples, starting with the women who had come to the grave to anoint the body that wasn’t there. Matthew fast forwards to the disciples being gathered at Galilee where Jesus told the women he would meet them. There, he sends them on the mission of gathering all people of all nations. Considering the scattering of people occurring today, that job of gathering is still a work in progress.

The scattering that we see, both in the many wars occurring at this time, and the intensifying racial tensions in the US are much more like a continuation of Passiontide than a celebration of Easter, even when the calendar turns to that day. This should not be surprising because the Passion of Jesus took place on account of a severe resistance to Jesus’ life of gathering. We’re still trying to seal up the tomb to try and keep Jesus there and find ways to keep people apart. Although Jesus has proved to be the ultimate escape artist, Jesus continues to live the resurrected life as the Lamb slain since the foundation of the world, as the Book of Revelation shows us. (Rev. 5: 6) Just as Jesus allowed the religious and political authorities to crucify him rather than commit violence against them, the risen Jesus did not and does not come in violence or vengeance, but comes in self-sacrificing peace and forgiveness. That means that the risen Lord continues to suffer through his members everywhere who are persecuted by those who prefer to scatter. Jesus is the leaven in the bread and the fermentation in the wine served at the altar at every Eucharist to leaven and ferment our lives with his life of gathering.

Unfortunately, pointing out the ways other people try to reseal the tomb seems to be everybody’s blood sport. It is worth recalling that at the Last Supper, Jesus was still dealing with resistance from his closest disciples. It is also telling that, after the Resurrection, when the disciples met with the risen Lord, Matthew says that even then “some doubted.” (Mt. 28: 17) If some disciples still held back from the risen Lord’s gathering of all people, what about us? In the subject of racism, for example, I find myself having to peel away layer after layer of my own racism, as if it were an onion. I suggest that a helpful Easter exercise would be to examine ourselves for the ways we seal the tomb and set up obstacles to the Risen Life Jesus would have us lead. We need more earthquakes that send angels to roll away the stone and remind us that Jesus is alive among us, suffering every time we try to put the stone back. Meanwhile, Jesus remains with us for all time, strengthening us to gather with others and giving us much to look forward to in looking forward to Easter.

Jesus’ Legacy

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It is normal and laudable to think ahead to the legacy one might leave for posterity, hopefully a legacy to the good for others. In the case of Jesus, his sights for an enduring legacy must have been very high, high enough to cause much anxiety on account of the heavy resistance he had encountered, not least from his closest disciples. It seems highly likely that he had become conscious of being a messianic figure by the close of his life, made all the more problematic in that the Davidic model didn’t seem to fit the life he had felt led to lead. Given that he had reason to believe that there was no escaping the death close on the horizon, much as he would have wanted to, the model of the Suffering Messiah of Isaiah 52-53 seemed more like what was in store for him. But how could dying at the hands of the religious and political authorities lead to anything after his death? The need to firm up his legacy as best he could reached its climax at what has gone down in history as The Last Supper. On Maundy Thursday, we commemorate the two last things recorded of Jesus before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The first event is Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. The resistance he encountered from his closest disciple, Peter, could not have been encouraging. Jesus reacted to this resistance with a firm reproof that seems to have done its job, as Peter seems finally to have gotten on board with the notion of being a leader by being a servant. Jesus’ act is easy for anyone to understand provided one’s heart is not so clouded as to find such a humble act of service incomprehensible. The problem is, it is easy to let our hearts cloud over in such matters and it is very difficult to clear up our hearts when they have been so clouded. However, Jesus’ act of washing the disciples’ feet is about a clear a beacon as he could have given to his followers and to us.

Jesus’ second and last act is to host the supper, possibly a Passover meal, but not necessarily. In serving the bread, he says cryptically that it is his body for them, and when serving the wine, he says. just as cryptically, that it is his blood of the new covenant. (1 Cor. 11: 24-25). He then instructed his disciples to eat the bread and drink the wine in his memory. We have been doing this ever since with the conviction that in some mysterious way, Christ continues to give of his substance through the bread and wine. What was Jesus thinking at the time of making these gestures? He didn’t have a theological manual on sacramental theology to help him out and presumably didn’t need such a prop. A deep dependency on his heavenly Abba would have been enough. When I think of the stiff resistance Jesus was experiencing at the time, even from his disciples, I begin to suspect that the bread and wine was something of an escape hatch, an end run around the resistance. In many mysterious ways, eating the bread and drinking the wine not only teaches us more and more over the years what Jesus is all about, but these acts keep Jesus alive within us. It is of profound significance that the two disciples who walked the road to Emmaus recognized the risen Lord in the breaking of the bread.

When Jesus died on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea buried him and put a stone at the opening of tomb. This stone was just to protect the body. For Caiaphas, that was not enough as he did not want to take any chances that the dead man would get away. So he had the stone sealed just to make sure. Three days later, we’ll see how that worked out.

Annunciation

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Few words of Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, are recorded in scripture. Among these few words, the most momentous are: “Let it be to me according to your word.” With these words, Mary accepted the conception of the Christ Child in her womb. It is a deep wonder that God, the Master of the Universe, would deign to be dependent on a human being in order to enter the world. It is this same deep wonder that God continues to depend on us to let the Christ Child continue to be born and live in the world that God has made.

In his poem The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe, Gerard Manley Hopkins explores this mystery among many others with these lines:

Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.

Note that Hopkins is telling us that saying Yes to God is not something done once and for all; saying Yes is something that must be said time and time again, every day, every hour, without ceasing. The New Self, the nobler us takes time.

A Servant of God — a Servant to the English

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Pope Gregory I is a most fitting patron saint for an Episcopalian Benedictine monastery. After all, he is the one who sent a Roman mission to the English people in 597, arguably making him the founder of the English Church. One might wonder why Gregory would have been so concerned about an obscure people of little significance in a distant part of the known world when there were so many pressing problems right in Rome where he was serving as the Pope. In his own neighborhood, he had to deal with a plague, which had carried off his predecessor Pelagius II, economic hardships, and invading Lombards.

Although neglect of needs close at hand in favor of needs far away is a favorite target of satirical jabs, that is hardly the case with Pope Gregory. He took initiatives in food relief and in diplomatic negotiations with the Lombards. In distributing alms throughout the city, he showed great competence in accounting to make sure that his distributions were as efficient as possible. He was also attentive to the needs of the Church in many ways. He is credited with important reforms in the Roman liturgy and Gregorian chant is named after him. That doesn’t mean he wrote the music himself, but it does mean that he encouraged the development of the music. He also enjoined protection of Jews and their traditions, setting up the Papal tradition of sustaining these protections in the centuries to come.

As if all this is not enough, Pope Gregory was important to the development of monasticism. He lived the life himself when he could by founding a monastery on one of his inherited estates. Although he had to lead a more active life than he would have preferred, first as a papal ambassador to Constantinople, and then the Pope, he continued to practice contemplative prayer and he left us many teachings on the subject. He is also credited with writing the only biography of St. Benedict that we have.

As both a monk and a church leader, Gregory certainly followed the teachings of the Book of Wisdom by praying for wisdom and receiving it, (Wis. 7: 7) a quality that shows in his own teaching ministry. As is particularly clear from his Gospel Homilies, Gregory also followed St. Paul’s example of not preaching himself, but preaching Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. 4: 5) He was strict with others in matters of honesty and devotion to truth, but he was at least as strict with himself as he was with others. He also followed the example of Jesus in being uncommonly diligent about being among us as one who served. (Lk. 22: 27) The untiring social work he accomplished attests to this.

Fundamental to Christianity is caring for the least of people, which brings us back to the English mission that Gregory arranged for with great care. The Venerable Bede has preserved some of Gregory’s correspondence with St. Augustine of Canterbury to show his concern that the mission be carried out with dedication and good sense. According to Bede, Gregory was inspired to order the English mission by seeing some young men and boys in a slave market and being told they were Angles, from an obscure island at the end of the known world. Why should the sight of a few slaves inspire such a thing? Because even such as these are as important as the poor in a beleaguered Rome that he was also serving.

The glory of Sheer Silence

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The story of the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor is as disorienting as it is blinding. It was also disorienting and blinding for the three apostles Jesus had taken up with him. Obviously, Peter didn’t know what to say, so we shouldn’t feel bad if we don’t know what to say, either.

One of the more fascinating and powerful reflections on this story is at the heart of the theology of the 14th century Greek theologian St. Gregory Palamas. He suggested that the light of Tabor was the working of the uncreated energies of God. This energetic light, the Light of Tabor, embodies God’s self-giving to us, a giving of Godself, that is deification. Not human self-deification, but deification as a gift from God who gives us everything that God has. This concept hasn’t gained much traction in Western Christianity, partly because it doesn’t compute well with many forms of Western theology. However, for those who find traditional Western theology problematic, the Palamite notion is perhaps an attractive alternative. For what it’s worth, I think the clash between Western and Palamite notions explodes into a powerful mystery which is deeper than one set of concepts alone.

There is much more to the radiance than blinding brilliance. The Hebrew word kabod, also means glory in the sense of honor. This is also true of the Greek word doxa that translates the Hebrew. When we glorify a human being for great accomplishments, there is a sort of radiance we put around them. Saints are often painted with a nimbus when portrayed in art. However, there is a tension at the root of glorification. It almost always seems to be accompanied by derision and dishonor. In fact, the Greek word doxa means dishonor as much as it means honor. The people we honor by putting on a pedestal are knocked over in a heartbeat if they don’t meet our expectations. Artists like Igor Stravinsky and Bob Dylan have both been greatly honored, but both were denigrated when they changed their artistic visions away from projected expectations. This is what happens when fans make idols of the people they adore; they create little boxes to put them in.

What about Jesus? Jesus had received much glory and honor from his numerous followers, not least the three disciples who Jesus took up the mountain with him. But the more some praised Jesus, the more energetically others denounced him. In all three synoptic Gospels, the Transfiguration marks a turning point where Jesus heads towards Jerusalem where he will be denounced, mocked, and crucified. The honor given Jesus turns to dishonor. What about the disciples who experienced the Transfiguration? When Jesus told them what was coming, they resisted Jesus’ resolve and argued among each other as to who was the greatest. I can’t help but suspect that they were basking in the derived honor given Jesus up to that point and, rather than receiving glory from God, wanted to receive glory from the other followers of Jesus. Like modern day fans of celebrities, they were putting Jesus into boxes of their own making, turning Jesus into an idol. The disciples were blinded by their warped understanding of honor at least as much as they were blinded by the brilliance of Jesus’ shining garments.

We can gain more insight into glory by reflecting on the presence of Moses and Elijah with Jesus on the mountain. They were the two most glorified figures in Jewish history. Moses, by receiving the Law on Mount Sinai from God himself shone with the reflection of God ‘s light to the extent that he had to wear a veil. Elijah was the greatest of prophets. Both, however, also experienced dishonor. Several times the people threatened to stone Moses, and Elijah was a fugitive from royal power. Both were implicated in violence, especially Elijah in his contest with the prophets of Baal. They were in the position to know well what was going to happen to Jesus. Moses’ best moments, when he was most Christlike, was when he was interceding for the people to turn God’s wrath from them, even when the same people were directing wrath at him. Elijah, alone in a cave, heard God in the sheer silence of the wilderness. As for Jesus’ disciples, the Book of Acts shows them breaking out of the idolatrous boxes they had made and acting like their Master in self-giving, preaching, and healing, the divine energies clearly working through them.

There is reason to believe that the Transfiguration of Jesus was, at least in part, to prepare the disciples for the suffering Jesus would have to endure, and that they, too, would have to endure. At a deeper level, they were being prepared for the challenges of the Resurrection Life of Jesus that would energize them when the time came. As we prepare for Lent, perhaps we can make it our Lenten project to let the light of the transfigured Christ reveal our own warped notions of honor and dishonor so that the divine energies championed by Gregory Palamas can energize prayer on behalf of other people, especially those who dishonor God, a prayer enveloped in sheer silence.

The People Who Walk in Darkness

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For most of the millennia since humanity appeared on earth, humans lived in darkness when the sun set. On moonless nights, the darkness was total. People did not know where they were going. The harnessing of electricity in the nineteenth century changed that for most people, especially for those living in cities. It allowed for a lively night life in New York and other places. But when the electricity failed, as in the 1965 blackout, or had to be given up, as in the London Blitz, the darkness was worse than it had ever been, not least because people were used to having light at night. All of this is recounted in a fascinating book by Jane Brox titled Brilliant: the Evolution of Artificial light.

The blackouts to protect against the Blitz, especially under the severe restrictions at the beginning of the War, were darker than almost anything experienced before. In medieval times, street lamps hadn’t been invented yet, but people could carry torches to give them sone sense of direction, but during the earliest days of the Blitz blackout, flashlights were forbidden as well as use of headlights on cars. People literally did not know where they were or where they were going. They didn’t know where there houses were. Thousands of Londoners died in accidents in the dark.

When Isaiah said that the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light, he was giving great news. Life really was dark in his day. The chaos and misdirection of living in the dark gives rise to many evils. It is understandable that darkness is traditionally a symbol of evil and light a symbol of goodness. During times of war, such as the days of Midian referred to by Isaiah or World War II, people do not know which end is up. With truth being the first casualty of war, moral compasses go haywire. We don’t know where we are going, we don’t know where our homes are. The 1965 New York blackout caused many problems, but many people helped out other people. But during the 1977 blackout, there was much looting and arson. The physical darkness had become moral darkness. This violence seems to have been a response to the darkness of injustice and racism that was blanketing the city and the nation. Back in time, Isaiah was prophesying the birth of a king who would give people the light of a moral compass. This is the kind of political leader we need today.

In his Gospel, Matthew quotes these verses from Isaiah right after noting the arrest of John the Baptist. This arrest is a particularly prominent example of the moral darkness fallen on Palestine and the Roman Empire as a whole. John the Baptist, a shining lamp, according to John, was put out, but a great light is still shining. Another prophet, who turns out to be more than a prophet, is preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Mt. 4: 17) This preacher is telling us that we are all going in the wrong direction, but if we turn around and follow him, we will be following a light that shows us the way.

While preaching repentance and being the light, Jesus calls his first four disciples. By leaving their nets and following Jesus, they are turning their lives around in a totally new direction. Even for those of us who can pinpoint a particular time and place when we were converted, repentance isn’t something that is over with in a day or a year. Repenting is something we must do every day, every hour, for the rest of our lives. It is so easy to allow darkness to come over us and to turn us off in a wrong direction. We need to hear Jesus calling us in the darkness and turn to where we see the light.

Right after calling his first four disciples, Matthew gives us Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This is a sermon full of light, showing us the way. It is also full of teaching that is quite opposite of the way we habitually do things in life. To follow these teachings, we will have to turn continually so as to be facing the light and to be walking in the right direction and towards the Kingdom of God.

See also: Blueprint of the Kingdon

Growing in Wisdom with Jesus

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The Christmas season is a time when we celebrate many wonders wrought by God, not least the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos. Among the many marvels performed by God in the past are the deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptians at the Red Sea and the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian exile. Jeremiah, who prophesied the defeat and subsequent exile, and earned himself the reputation of being a most gloomy prophet, suddenly became unbuttoned in his excitement over the return that he knew God would bring about: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations.” (Jer. 3: 7) Jeremiah goes on to exult that the blind and the lame and the women in labor would all be returning with great rejoicing. The joy of the returning exiles “radiant over the goodness of the Lord” spills over into the Christmas celebration. Surely the God who had done such a great wonder as to bring the exiles back home had many other wonders up God’s sleeve. But who could have guessed that the wonder would be a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger?

In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul says that God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” (Eph. 3: 3) that God has “destined us for adoption” as God’s sons and daughters. As if the wonders of the Return from Exile and the birth of Jesus were not enough, God has a plan that in the fulness of time God will gather all things in heaven and earth in God .

Compared to the drama of the return from the Babylonian Exile and St. Paul’s excited proclamation of God’s plan to adopt all of us as sons and daughters through God’s Son Jesus, the story of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve seems relatively prosaic, for all of the story’s charm and hints of mystery. (Lk. 2: 41-52) It is common for parents to have anxious moments when they don’t know where their child is, although it doesn’t feel common, let alone routine, at the time. The story shows Jesus as a typical boy in the sense of needing to begin finding his own way in life, building on what his parents have taught him, but going beyond that.

It is important to realize, however, that this very human event is part of the cosmic drama announced by St. Paul. God is reconciling the world by sending God’s Son into the world, and reconciling the world involves living through the stages of growth as a human being. This may be the only story of Jesus’ youth, but it tells us all we need to know about Jesus’ feeling his way from childhood to adolescence and on to adulthood. The earthly life of Jesus, then, gives the concrete lives of each of us the same cosmic importance. As Jesus seeks to grow in wisdom, Jesus leads us in our search for wisdom, to fulfill St. Paul’s prayer: that we will come to know the riches of God’s glorious inheritance among the saints and the immeasurable greatness of God’s power. (Eph. 1: 18–19)

God’s Christmas Gift

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At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of a baby. Babies are born all the time but this one is different. The baby we celebrate this night is God incarnate. What’s so special about that? Don’t we tend to treat babies like little gods, revolving our lives around them? Weren’t the shepherds oohing and aahing the way people do when they see a pretty baby? Such is the appeal of Christmas.

However, the startling claim made by various church fathers, Irenaeus probably being the first and Athanasius another early witness, is that God became human so that humans could become God. The antiphon for the Feast of the Holy Name is: “O marvelous exchange! [Our] Creator has become [human], born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” It’s like a billionaire offering a person living homeless on the streets his or her bank account for the few coins the street person has collected that day. Who would do such a thing? The divine exchange is infinitely more lopsided that this. What kind of God would think of giving God’s divinity for the sake of our humanity? I suppose the answer is that only an infinitely and unbelievably generous god would do such a thing.

What these church fathers and the author of this antiphon are proclaiming is that our humanity has been radically altered for all time by this glorious exchange. There is a divine presence in each of us waiting for us to allow it to unfold in unbelievable and mysterious ways. Some people get the impression that the notion of humans becoming God leads to blurring distinctions between humans and God, or humans even supplanting God. There have been thinkers who have made suggestions along those lines, but in sound Christian doctrine that is not the case. In 2 Peter 1: 4, the phrase that inspired Irenaeus and Athanasius is “partakers of the Divine Nature.” That is, we participate in the divine nature. This leaves our humanity fully intact, just as Jesus’ humanity is fully intact even though he is fully divine. Moreover, this partaking of the divine nature is a gift from God, not an accomplishment on our part.

Before getting too excited about partaking of the divine nature, it behooves us to reflect on what we’re getting into. Since we don’t have any experience of being God, we don’t know much about it. All of us have fantasies about what we would do if we were God. For myself, I would readjust the social and political structures worldwide to my satisfaction. Never mind that everybody else with similar fantasies would do the same thing and we’d have an in infinite mess. However, the fact that God would exchange God’s divinity for our humanity does give us an important clue as to what being God, the true God, is about. The billionaire in the analogy who traded his or her bank account for the coins of a street person is amazingly generous, but God is infinitely generous. If I’m not so sure about being as generous as this fantasy billionaire, then maybe I’m not up to being as generous as God.

Partaking of the divine nature has some far-reaching consequences for our sense of identity. If I am inclined to clutch at what I think my identity is, I won’t want God coming in to mess with that and throw me off course; never mind that my own course is out of the ballpark. In order to partake of God’s nature, receiving it as a gift, I have to empty myself of all my favorite illusions about who I think I am. Mary pondered the mystery of her son’s birth in her heart. We, like Mary, need to spend time in stillness, pondering God’s Christmas gift to us, letting it sink into our depths with the new life it brings. As we ponder, we might think ahead to where the story of this birth took Jesus in a few years and where it will take us in a few months. Partaking of the divine nature entails partaking of the divine generosity of the Paschal Mystery.

On Welcoming Jesus

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Advent is a time when we anticipate God’s coming into our lives in mysterious ways. But are we really looking forward to God coming to us, or are we expecting business as usual, even if business isn’t all that good? Do we believe that God can affect our lives, or do we live on the assumption that such does not happen?

During a time of crisis, King Ahaz is urged to ask a sign of God but refuses to do so. (Is. 7: 1-12) Why? Asking God for a sign would alert him to the possibility that God might enter his life in some way. Business is bad, with the Assyrians threatening Jerusalem, but maybe he would rather be trampled by a powerful army then open himself up to what God might do. In the face of the king’s closing himself off, the prophet Isaiah announces a sign whether the king likes it or not. The sign doesn’t seem like much up against an invading army. How is a new born child going to solve the problem? Well, it isn’t exactly the baby who solves the problem; it’s God who solves the problem with a nudge that sends the invading army away. The baby was a sign of hope for the future, as babies often are. Nothing happens here that conflicts with the laws of nature. After all, God can accomplish much with the laws of nature. (The old translation that had a “virgin” conceiving in Isaiah’s time is considered by almost all scholars to be a mistranslation.) Now God’s little but decisive nudge wasn’t so bad was it? The only problem was that the king wasn’t in control of the situation. Not letting God control his situation would lead to Assyria controlling the situation. Is it easier to cope with being controlled by other humans that in some mysterious way being controlled, or at least led, by God? That is a particularly good question for us to ask ourselves during Advent.

Fast forward to Joseph confronted with a betrothed woman who has become pregnant, but not by him. Knowing the laws of nature as well as any modern gynecologist, Joseph decides to divorce Mary discretely, but before he can carry out his resolve, he is challenged by a dream to believe that God has intervened directly in violation to normal natural law. One could say it is once again just a little nudge. Once the conception of the child has taken place, the child develops in Mary’s womb like any other child and, when born, is just as fully human as any other child. But this little wedge, or nudge, is a big one, even a cosmic one. It is a nudge that has fundamentally changed the world for all time. And yet this little nudge, in spite of being contrary to natural law, did not send an army away. The Roman army stuck around and did its work, including the crucifixion of criminals, one of whom turned out to be the child conceived by the Holy Spirit. On the surface it doesn’t look like much of an intervention.

At this point we might ask ourselves: Do we need a decisive intervention from God such as Matthew claims to have happened with the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary? Maybe business as usual has been bad, but at least we’re used to it. St. Paul, however, insisted that humanity had become a train wreck and needed the direct presence of God within humanity before anything could get better. St. Augustine and subsequent theologians have seconded the motion. The modern thinker René Girard has offered us anthropological insights to suggest that we are too entangled in rivalrous relationships for any of them to be disentangled unless there is intervention from outside the system, which to say: from God. So, business is bad, as I said, but do we prefer the bad business as usual to the unknown possibilities that might emerge if we embrace the child born of the Virgin Mary? Christmas is coming. Do we really want Christ to come?