Underlying Motives

Gospel: Luke 7: 31-35

Today's Gospel portion reveals our hypocrisy and hidden motives behind judgments we make about matters of the spirit.  The judgments we make are largely superficial about externals, and they are often contradictory in nature.  We mock John the Baptist's fasting; we belittle the feasting of Jesus.  But our judgments have little to do with their culinary habits or even their exterior appearance.  Our unspoken motives run much deeper than we care to admit.

John the Baptist called us to repentance.  Jesus came to invite us to a life of extending mercy and love for others.  We want to do neither of these things.  We have made peace with our sins over the years and comfortable with who we are.  We have established biases and resentments toward others that we would rather not set aside to care for others and extend mercy to them.  We cannot say these things aloud.  So we invent other reasons for not following the messages of John and Jesus, contradictory though they may be.

We so desperately want the world to change while simultaneously not wanting to change anything about ourselves.  If we will not repent of our sins and end our animus toward others, we cannot expect others to do so.  So, neither we nor they change and make progress in the life of the spirit.  The world goes on as it has always done.  We will put John and Jesus to death again and again in many different ways and in the many we consign to death each day.   

Reimagining the Scene

Gospel: John 19: 25-27

John is the only Gospel that records Mary and the Beloved Disciple present at the crucifixion of Jesus; the other three Gospels are united in their accounting that Mary Magdalene and other women were at the cross.  John is not interested in historical accuracy in this scene.  The interest is in making a theological point about the event of Jesus' death and what it all means in the grand scope of salvation history to the very beginning.

John places Mary and the Beloved Disciple at the cross - a woman and a man before a tree.  Two streams flow around them leading to a garden.  Jesus entrusts the woman and the man to each other in a relationship of mutual care.  John has recreated the Garden of Eden.  This event of Jesus' death has restored humanity to its original innocence, restored the relationships of mutual trust and care among human beings.  

The Way of Jesus leads us to death to self, and in so doing leads us to the innocence of Eden before the Fall.  The death of the self leads to restored relationships among human beings.  The death of Jesus is not cosmic magic.  It is an event we must live within ourselves, putting our own selves upon the gibbet of the cross.  We might weep at the death of the self until we realize where it leads - a new way of life free of conflict with others, full of the innocence of our original creation.   

Salvation, Not Condemnation

Gospel: John 3: 13-17

Today's Gospel portion reminds us that the cross of Jesus is not an occasion for condemnation but rather is the means and vehicle for salvation.  Yet, how often is the cross used to condemn.  Many have used it to condemn the Jewish people, blaming them perpetually for the death of Jesus.  Others will use the cross to condemn unjust structures and systems of oppression in its conspiracy to put Jesus to death.  How often has the cross through history been used to coerce, threaten, and frighten others!

Yet we are reminded here that Jesus came not to condemn but to save. In fact, on this very cross Jesus will forgive all who put him to death, uttering not one word of condemnation.  Instead, he prays Psalm 22 as a means of comfort, a psalm that ends with these words: "All the ends of the earth will worship and turn to the Lord; all the families of nations will bow low before you."  It is not a prayer of condemnation Jesus utters, but one of hope and a promise of salvation.

When we wear the cross about our necks, we take upon ourselves this posture of the Lord himself.  It is for us an instrument of forgiveness, of hope and promise of salvation for all people.  If we brandish the cross as a threat or menace to others, we do so to our own condemnation and judgment.  We abuse the symbol of our faith and hope and love.  Let our prayer today be that of the ancient Christians: "O crux ave spes unica" - O hail Cross, our only hope.