Sunday Readings

Decided and Doubtful

Regardless of who they are or what they did, every hero will say, during the interview, that they were scared. We find this unsettling. We think of heroes as people without fear. But this is our mistake. A hero is some one who does something heroic and who does it despite their own fear of doing it. We wonder how these two seemingly opposite realities can co-exist in the same space. But they do.

Let’s use another example. How can some one who doubts also be someone of faith? There on the mountain, right before the ascension, Matthew throws in a real zinger. Some doubted even though they stood there seeing the risen Lord and heard the great commission to go into the world and proclaim the Trinity. The whole Christian enterprise was not in a good place if the beginning was marked by a profound and central doubt. It would be as if the Continental Congress was unsure of separating from a king . How could resolve and indecision have a part in the project?

Welcome to Christianity. Oh sure, we could come up with a simpler religion without mystery and contradiction. Many have done just that. And we don’t leave the paradox to the Divine. We see sin and grace taking root in the same place. We accept the virtues and the vices of fallen human nature as a package deal. Again, we can come up with a belief system that sugar-coats this but it is not a Christian understanding.

Who cares and what difference could this possibly make in my life?

Well first of all, if we are speaking of the Trinity, we are speaking of God. The mystery of one God in three Persons is the core of all we believe and do as people of faith. This is not something we can wrap our minds around and conquer. No, it is a challenge to embrace with our heart and soul. This is a revealed mystery and not a fabricated puzzle.

This implies something wonderful. It sets forth, at the heart of religion, the reality of mystery – true mystery. Yes, we all love the chanting and incense and candle-light of the enigma. I call this the ‘Spooky-woo’ of faith. But the Christian mystery is not a matter of setting the mood or decoration. It is a matter of embracing and not solving. It is a faith of separating by joining. It says that perfection is left to God alone even though we are striving for it. In the majesty of this mystery, we are free. We can fall on the way up. We can trip as we dance. We can have doubts as we worship. We get together because we clearly do not have it together. We are in the right place because we can be so wrong. The key for those disciples on that mountain was not their understanding of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor was it the role their doubts had or did not have for the future of grace. What mattered then, as it does today, is that Jesus was there. In that strange but all-too common convergence of belief and question, the answer has nothing to do with either. Instead it is the Divine presence beyond words, descriptions and theology. And, ultimately, it is all that counts.

When we see the news or follow the latest thing, so many have reduced the Church to a political model of liberal and conservative. From within the Church we hear of the progressives and the traditionalists. We see everything from morality to devotions as a checklist of options that define where we are.

Who cares? Never do you hear of the silence before the mystery of God. Nary a word of wonder is uttered about the incomprehensibly familiar. How can I be shocked at what you think when I don’t seen you awed by what is there? Our God is a consuming fire that wonderfully is so very close to each of us. We have been brought into this mystery because of grace and we go deeper as we see it within ourselves. The pundits and pagans, baptized or not, are not concerned with this. They spend their time evaluating and processing when that is – from the eternal perspective - of limited value. Yes, we are enraptured by this thing and should use our minds as well as our hearts. But we can never confuse the two. The mystery of God is more than our minds and His presence is greater than our hearts,

So on Trinity Sunday, we proclaim what we can never grasp. We join those first disciples as we worship with our questions and confusion. We bow before the truth at the time we entertain doubts. And clearly, it’s okay with God.

Now that’s some real good religion!

Sunday Readings

The Mighty Wind

How do you prove the existence a living God when so little seems to be any usable evidence? Or better, how do you show the activity of God when there is not a lot going on? It is a strange, but valid question to ask on Pentecost Sunday.

Think about all the definitions of this day and all the imagery we use. Today is a driving wind, tongues of fire, strange abilities and fantastic marvels. It has all the needed elements of a big special-effects movie and we start to treat it like one – we start to admire it while knowing it has nothing to do with our real lives.

If we go back to the original question and link it to the Feast we celebrate today, we are in a position to ask if the Pentecost event was so spectacular and so real, can we see the evidence of this same powerful activity of God in the world today?

I answer yes and no. Like a tremendous thunderstorm, the Pentecost event is a high-voltage spectacle. But what really counts is the lingering effect. The lightning show may be good, but I am more interested in the reservoirs filling up. The booming thunder can be impressive but the wind and rain cleaning up the roads is much better. Pentecost today is not the original earth-shattering event we hear described in the readings. So if that is what you need as proof of God’s activity, you’re out of luck.

But there is something more subtle and more lasting that still resonates from that dramatic day. Like the deeply soaked rain, it goes to unseen places that clearly change the world. It sinks into soul long after it passes through the emotions and feelings. The excitement of Confirmation and Baptism and the other moments of grace begin to fade, the newness of experiencing the presence of God starts to seem more familiar and even ordinary. But don’t be misled! The activity is still there, working and deepening in often-unseen ways.

Sounds good, eh?

It is not a bad justification for the clearly absent and the tremendously dull? The cynic would say that this is typical of religious types who revert to mystery when the obvious is not to be found. I am often in that same boat myself. We ask if the grace of God is that transforming and the Easter event so transfiguring, where did everyone go? Why aren’t all the 8th graders who were Confirmed a few months ago parading around as the new ‘Soldiers of Christ’ they thought they became? What about the parents - faithful, pagan and some where in between – who Baptized their babies and saw the handiwork of God? In other words, where is that evidence when all we seem to notice are the cultural Catholics who see faith as a thing when you are hatched, matched and dispatched?

Well that is not the evidence of the power of the Spirit. It neither proves nor disproves the Presence of the creator-God in the world. Sure, we wish it were. That would be easy. Imagine if the power of grace were such that people who knew it couldn’t help but be totally faithful. If we had that, we’d have no free will. We would reduce faith to a robotic function like any other. And worse, we would stifle the working of the Holy Spirit.

One of the images of the Holy Spirit is a fountain or a gentle rain. Water is always the same but is used by every created thing differently. The tree uses it to grow, the mountain to erode, the river to carve a gorge. The Holy Spirit is the same. Working in each person uniquely, the final product is unique. The effects are as different as the subjects involved. And there is one aspect which matters little to an eternal God but means the world to us mortals. It is the Divine gift and the human burden of time.

What we like about Pentecost and all the other terrific manifestations of God’s glory in the Bible is how immediate and historical they clearly are meant to be. We are people who are impatient with the 12 seconds of the microwave. We wonder how we lived without the perpetually available ATMs. No, we want it now and that attitude migrates to our faith. We want the effects and conversions to be immediate and total. We want Pentecost in full or we may not believe.

But how refreshing to see the quiet movements of that fiery grace in ways we could have never predicted or planned. We are happily surprised when the gift of courage or perseverance shines out as a grace in us or some one we know that wasn’t there naturally. Who can deny that God is doing something in the sinner who finally believes when they had no good reason to do so. And I could go on and on. Although hard to point out and never to be scheduled, God is at work. Sure the sacraments are His powerful manifestations. Yes, the glory of the created world is a testament to His beauty. But when that whisper of holiness becomes a powerful chorus of prayer, Pentecost is as real as anything. When the relief and refreshment of absolution is given in Confession, God’s mighty glory is so real.

So leave the quest for the brilliant evidence of God’s presence and activity to others. Look deeper. See within you and those in your life that God is moving and working and doing in ways that are so strong and so unnoticed. Worshipping and reflecting on this day is a clear sign that it is already happening.

Can you hear that driving wind of grace as the Apostles did? Listen, it’s there.