Getting These Things Out Of My Way: Roadblocks to
Eternity
Lent
2004
Sin – Death - Vengeance - Regret - Loss
In the presence of God Himself, we assert the following: we
are immortal. While we are created in time, we have a
future no different from our God. Created in His image, we
never have an end. If we believe this truth, things have to
be different. We are no longer subject to the limits of
time. Our understanding of life itself takes on a whole new
dimension. Being called to this immortal destiny should
shift how we understand the events and people who make up
the various parts of our days.
But clearly, things are often the same. Even as we grow in
grace, we are still bound by history and the present. The
trinkets and souvenirs of our sad mistakes weigh us down.
Before we know it, we have more junk than we can handle.
And this encumbrance stacks up so fast and soon, we loose
that eternal perspective. Caught by the constant reminders
of the past, we fail to perceive the eternal.
But what are these things that stifle us? In Lent, we go
into the desert to be vulnerable and simple. Through
prayer, fasting, and charity, we examine and discern what
in our life needs to be strengthened or thrown out. This is
the season of true house cleaning. In this series, we will
try to identify some areas of our life that need to be
evaluated. There are lessons to be kept and failures to be
discarded. As we move through this life to an eternal
destiny, we ask the grace of God to guide our parish, to
shine the light of His wisdom and to give us the energy to
move forward.
1.
Sin
Roman 5:18-21 Then as one
man's trespass led to condemnation for all people, so one
man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for
all. For as by one man's disobedience many were made
sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made
righteous. Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where
sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin
reigned in death, grace also might reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
The first and most obvious roadblock to eternity is sin. It
was the ultimate barrier to the promise beyond words. As
fallen human beings, we have within us an inclination to
rebellion. We see what is right and choose to ignore it. I
believe that few choose outright the rebellion of Adam and
Eve. Instead the brilliance within is tarnished by the
numerous small sins we commit.
But do you see what we are doing? We are asserting that the
very worst part of us is real and at the same time, we
proclaim how – in mercy – it is impotent. This
is a paradox. Any one with even a slightly developed
conscience knows right from wrong. And some one with a
modicum of faith will perceive that this has a bearing on
an eternal destiny. In this seeming contradiction, our
journey is even more clearly marked out as a narrow one.
The opposing forces of grace and sin may act like opposing
magnets to hold us precariously in one place.
But is sin that powerful?
We give sin its greatest victory when we assign it an
authority it should never have. Yes, the path is narrow but
not razor-thin. We are not sinners dangling from a string
ready to be snapped. God is not that capricious and we are
not that creative. It is actually a childish view of sin to
think the slightest offence will negate omnipotent grace.
In our pride, we decree that our offences are greater than
God Himself. What we do is we tell God that we are the ones
who define sin. We are the arbiters of eternity and we are
the referees in the biggest game of all.
Not true. Yes, we are sinful but we are also graceful. We
are working out these two things and carry that cross. We
are there but not yet. This is the anxiety we pray to avoid
when we say “protect us from all anxiety.” Sin
deserves less than we often give it and sets up an
imaginary boundary to redemption. We fall back on the easy
spirituality of legalism. We seek out the spiritual
bankbook when we should be looking for a prayer book.
It is almost self-evident to say that sin is a blockage to
eternity. And it is. But remember that the devil is in the
details. And it is the petty and specific that keeps us
locked in sin. It denies us that “unfathomable ocean
of mercy.” If our arms are too short to box with God,
our sins are too weak to punch Him away. As people who have
made the personal commitment to the Redeemer, we are called
by the very sins we commit on a daily basis to run to His
arms. When the bee stings, the child does not march himself
off to the nearest orphanage. Why should we do the same? If
we can call Jesus “Lord” and ask him to
“have mercy,” we have to believe both. And
while sin whispers ‘no’, we spit in its face
and turn to the one who took away the sins of the world.
Will sin keep us from eternity? Only if we let it.
2.
Death
1Thes 4.12-13 Beloved: we do not want you to be ignorant
about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like those who
have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and
so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have
fallen asleep in him.
This
should surprise us. How can death be a roadblock to
eternity? There is no more tangible moment to assert the
eternal than this one. Yet as we stand on the brink of
eternity, we look into the chasm and get spiritual vertigo.
This, it stands to reason, is the moment of faith. We
gather up all our resources in the face the reality of
death. Or do we?
But
in our modern world, we have taken something out of death.
In fact, we are regressing to a concept of immortality more
akin to the ancient Egyptians than people of the Gospel. We
say things like: “they’ll live for ever in our
heart. She will never be forgotten. He will live on if his
family remembers his name.”
Do
you notice something missing? Yes, there is no mention of
God. But I think there is a more glaring lack of reality
going on here. What happens if the heart stops beating?
Does everyone in there just stop? What happens if amnesia
sets in? Will they be forgotten in oblivion? What happens
if all the family members die in a car crash? Does this not
mean that the person ‘is’ no longer?
Doesn’t it place an awesome burden on the living?
I often say at funerals that most of us cannot remember
what we had for dinner a few weeks ago. How can we presume
that the soul of a human being depends on us? We filter,
edit, add and subtract our memories all the time. Can God
be so cruel to lay that responsibility on us for all time?
Well He did not. We take the task of eternity on ourselves
n when it properly does not belong to us. Once again, pride
comes into play. We build memorials to help us remember
events and persons, but they – and our memory –
do not determine their perpetuation. Every person faces
death regardless of what they believe. The Christian faces
death quite differently.
Death is death is death. Is it a test of faith? Absolutely.
Do our emotions run high and anxious? As well they should.
But we take one more step. We do not need to create rituals
or follow the protocols of etiquette. We do so only because
they bring us comfort in a human way. And, yes, they are
also expressions of solidarity and even faith. But what we
see, what we contemplate, is more. We engage the engine of
faith over the puttering motor of emotion. We assert again
that immortal quality God has given us. We defiantly stand
with endless mercy against the onslaught of despair.
Instead of meaningful gestures and signs, we commend a soul
– and ours – to the God who gave it in the
first place. We relinquish the crushing duty of maintaining
the universe to the God who has the job already.
There are people who have a problem with this. They are so
caught up in the past, and even with the present. They fear
even the mention of death and euphemize it away. There can
be no higher calling when they can only cover their eyes.
People who are eternal and who – for lack of a better
expression – know their place, are different
Talk about closure! We understand sadness to be for
ourselves only. We see hope when there is none. And we
hear, far off, a call even to rejoice. This is true peace
in a place of true pain. This is real faith confronting
real fear. As the illusion of temporal control slips away,
we discover something more lasting. And freed from the
shadow of death, even in the midst of it, we move on toward
an eternal life greater than ourselves.
3.
Vengeance
Mat
5.43-48“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love
your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He
causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends
rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love
those who love you, what reward is in that? Are not even
the tax collectors doing that. And if you greet only your
brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even
pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly
Father is perfect.
While we profess faith in the Almighty, we wouldn’t
mind the job. In particular, we wouldn’t object to
helping out with the judicial wing of Divinity. The human
past is littered with the corpses of those who took on that
job. Not that history has often stopped us. We see the
horrors of World War II starting in the vengeance of
Versailles. And the tragedy continues with those who
confuse their justice with God’s.
When something bad happens to us, we ask if we or some one
else is responsible. If there is a person or group who
caused or had anything to do with what hurt us, we spring
into action. We demand what we call ‘justice’
and that it be ‘satisfied.’ Retribution and
reparation are taken as a right and anything less will
shake the order of the universe.
We saw this in the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the
Okalahoma City Bomber. We witnessed angry people quoting
Scripture to legitimize his death. Some were regulars on TV
in the days before and they seemed to dress better each
time the cameras came out. The professional victims came
out of the woodwork and the drama queens were getting their
tiaras shiny. And we watched because we identified with
them. They had been hurt in a monstrous act of barbarism
and what they demanded and did seemed right and legal and
just.
But was it really? Was their vengence a good thing? At
least for them and so many others, they were consumed by
their crusade. It’s amazing that we can find a
legitimate and seemingly moral reason for a cause and let
it become our very life. And more amazing is the way we are
prohibited from commenting on it. We are told we must be
silent because it is their experience and not ours. We are
moralized into quiet by the ethos of the call to
“remember the children!” Those who disagree
from the safety of remote locations are condemned for the
greatest modern crime: they don’t feel their pain.
And we watch the Vengeance Brigade of Victims implode into
their revenge. They achieve what seems to have been their
dream. When their names appear at the bottom of the TV
screen, they are given the moniker of their quest. They are
now a victim – with all the rights and privledges of
that noble rank.
Vengeance – and the desire for it – is an act
halting the progress of the soul. It arms the heart against
the invasion of anything contrary to its stated purpose. No
calls for mercy or forgiveness are heard, no barbs of
rational thought or higher concepts can penetrate.
Vengeance is so caught in the moment it cannot see beyond
itself. We are so wounded that healing is perceived as yet
another assault. It powers the self to remain in one place
and discards the possibility of movement. It cements us as
victims and prohibits a victory of mercy.
How sad! Its immobility is defended by its righteousness. I
think there is precious little we can do to jar some one
out of this self-destructing place. But we can identify the
desire for vengeance within ourselves and our own
experience. We can ask, hard as it is, if vengeful
consumption has robbed us of mercy. There is a reason
Christ cautioned us to reject the validity of revenge. He
knew it would prevent us from knowing His mercy, His
compassion. He knew that the sad inward gaze of pain
prevented His children from seeing life moving along.
The afternoon of McVeigh’s execution, a reporter
asked a priest who had been called several hours before to
meet with the condemned man. Asked if McVeigh could
possibly be in heaven, the priest reflectively said yes.
The reporter was stunned and further asked if he would be
there with the people he killed. The priest nodded and said
yes again. And with shock and incredulity, the reporter
plaintively added “and with the children he
killed?” Again, the priest said yes. Clearly the
reporter was disgusted and the segment was not broadcast
again. We rarely see more clearly the conflict vengeance
brings home to the soul. Revenge says ‘no’ to
the possibility of temporal and eternal mercy. Christ, the
most innocent of Victims, who had more reason than we ever
could for revenge, nods quietly and says ‘yes’
to mercy.
The Christian, living with an eye on forever, knows that
‘yes’. The soul bound for eternity experiences
the calm that suffocates the fires of justice and
retribution,
Our question in Lent, is do we know and live that
‘yes?’
4.
Regret
Philippians 3:12-16
Beloved: Not that I have
already obtained all this, or have already been made
perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which
Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet
to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting
what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press
on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has
called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are
mature should take such a view of things. And if on some
point you think differently, that too God will make clear
to you. Only let us live up to what we have already
attained.
“If only I had some one to look out for me then,
things now would be so much different.” So said the
older brother of the kid who got the scholarship. He looked
at his brother and saw in him the opportunities he might
have had. He saw in himself the sad and flat results of his
own failed attempts to succeed.
Don’t you want to just slap people like this?
Welcome to the land of Regret. It’s motto is
“You Poor Thing” and its national anthem is an
inarticulate whine. There is no Future Planning Committee
because they are too busy cataloguing their regrets. Their
only products are the bruised peaches of their own egos.
What is regret? It is the speculative repentance of the
perceived consequences that result from opportunities not
taken. In graphic and monolithic certainty, today is the
inescapable effect of implacable chance. It is the
inheritance of the innately passive. They do not choose one
of the two roads diverging in the snowy wood; they are
forced down one by the undeniable power of distant and
malicious forces. Regret is the after-shock of too many
human foibles to enumerate here. And like many
after-shocks, it can be more damaging than big quake.
Living with regret is like driving a car with a gaping hole
in the gas tank. Yes, we croon the supposed virtue of
living without regrets – even if they are “too
few to mention” - but we don’t always live as
if we do. There is a certain lack of inertia to regret
– it has the dull power of paralysis. It’s not
like the others roadblocks. We seem to slowly stop rather
than hit a wall. The batteries progressively go dead
instead of pulling the plug. We are overshadowed with
melancholy but cannot cry. It is the fuel of quiet
desperation.
How many contemporary images do we see of regret? We have
to look. This slow leak is not always easy to find. The
adult who wants to live again as the teenager is easy to
see: the poor Cinderella imagining her true destiny as a
princess; the cars, creams and colas of Madison Avenue
telling us that these are the keys to going back before we
were swept up in the maelstrom of life which leads to our
regretting the past.
And there it is – there is the roadblock. It falsely
says that where we are now is not only wrong, it can be
changed. The fabric of time can be reshaped by our regrets.
If we do something – anything – to remove the
sting of regret, we will dispose of what causes it. We can
look to a cloudy past and re-create an even stranger
present. Regret is free of the future which is, after all,
only fertile ground for more regret.
Christians do not regret; they repent.
Repentance is very different. It examines the past for the
sake of future correction. Are there opportunities missed
to live a better and more holy life? Of course. The Bible
itself is one long series of missed possibilities of grace.
The eternal God does not knock just once – as if he
was that proverbial opportunity. No, He stands there,
“knocking at the door” of the human heart. He
is ever offering His grace. In this life, He never stops
until we do. When the Christian examines their life, they
do find things which could have lead to a deeper prayer
life. But instead of regretting their loss or trying to
re-create the same circumstances, they grow in awareness
and vigilance of what comes next. Repentance means a
turning from a certain slowness of spirit to a watchful
waiting of the in-breaking of God.
Sin is a missed virtue, a lesser good chosen in place of a
greater. Instead of a fatalism that says there is no hope,
the Christian dares the absolution of a crucified
carpenter. Christian repentance relies on the forgiveness
of God, self and others. It looks behind to gather up for
the next stage. It chooses to forget what has been for the
sake of what lies ahead. In other words, unlike regret, it
won’t stay there. It will not become an exercise of
self-immolation or false deprecation. It sees an eternal
component while it stares for a moment at the ruins of
today. It offers praise to God instead of decorating
shrines to failure.
Christians called to an eternal destiny can have nothing to
do with time-bound regrets. They move on with the assurance
of God’s own forgiveness. If He puts our sins as far
from His mind as the ‘east is from the west’,
who are we – once forgiven - not to do the
same?
5.
Loss
Philippians 3.7-12
Whatever gain I had, I
counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count
everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered
the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order
that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is
through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that
depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his
resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like
him in his death, that if possible I may attain the
resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already
obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make
it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his
own.
A friend of mine was amused back in the early 80’s
when Robert Ballard found the wreck of the Titanic. One of
the survivors, well on in years, was reflecting on that
terrible night. She then said to Ballard in a weak but
quaint voice, “if you come across a little green
clock, it’s mine.” My friend often mimicked her
accent and the absurdity of the comment.
I believe that when the saints are admitted into the halls
of heaven, there is a room with our name on it. In those
rooms are every thing we have ever lost. Time, toys,
clothes, opportunities – everything. The
administrators are St. Jude and St. Anthony who offer their
apology since this room contains everything marked as
“unrecoverable.” As we rummage through it all,
we are both delighted and surprised. We experience the joy
of finding things we lost. We are also surprised by how
much we missed them.
No wonder we can’t see beyond the present when we are
consumed by the things of the past. Not that the Titanic
survivor was living to recover her lost green clock, but we
can see how the smallest of things can hold our attention
for so long. And it’s not just lost timepieces or
socks. We see so much of global history as a conflict of
recovering what is long lost or taken. Flags, territories,
crowns, and jewels have been the cause of untold human
suffering. Lost games, contests, lotteries, and chances are
never forgotten even in the best of lives.
Why do we do this? Why do we permit things past to hold our
hearts and minds in the present? Why do give them
permission to block our progress toward the future?
Ultimately, the loss of anything is an offence to our false
understanding of justice. We are insulted by the weakness
of human ability and memory. Perhaps even deep-down, we
think that we really can take it with us. It is yet another
of those insulting reminders that we are not God.
Come on now, are you saying that when I loose my keys it is
a message from Heaven striking down the demonic pretence of
omnipotence? Well, maybe I am. Some people loose their keys
and make another set. Others loose their keys and then
loose their minds. What is lost, and how it is lost, is
ancillary to what is going on inside. A quick reminder of
human limitation is not a bad thing. Lamenting it on
one’s deathbed after many years is.
Loss is sad but not sorrowful. To mistake this difference
is to yield to all things contrary to the virtue of hope.
These small things taken – small in the eternal
perspective – are too often little anchors that drag
us to a full stop. Individually, they are of little weight.
But add up enough of them, and the slip-stream of growth
begins to get bogged down. We loose the momentum to glory
ever so slowly as these petty and material blocks erode the
course of our life.
I am sure St. Peter took the coin from the fish’s
mouth to pay the tax and called it a loss. But the message
of Christ was to drop it and move on. If loss conquers our
heart, we can’t move. We are caught staring at the
empty case which once held whatever we valued. We imagine
turning back time, even for just a few seconds, to stop the
glass from falling. Maybe hell is really a place of
perpetual looking for things forgotten and never found. And
maybe heaven is where we never have to look and yet they
are there.
A line from an Irish song says: “What’s done is
done and what’s won is won. What’s lost is lost
and gone forever.” Not a bad philosophy, is it?
Christians believe this. We understand that the past is
wonderful, as are the things of the past, but we are never
to stop there. Eternity is more than just a goal or high
ideal. It is a way of life. It lets go – it even
forgets – because whatever keeps us from it is really
just a burden.
And whether we are looking for a little green clock, a lost
shaker of salt or a few more moments – we have been
given the freedom to drop it and let it go. The only things
we can take with us is never these things
anyway.
6.
Doubt
St. John 20.24-29 Thomas, one of the twelve,
called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the
other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he
said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the
nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and
place my hand in his side, I will not believe." Eight days
later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas
was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and
stood among them, and said, "Peace be with you." Then he
said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands;
and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be
faithless, but believing." Thomas answered him, "My Lord
and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because
you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and
yet believe."
Ever since the Apostle Thomas earned the nickname, doubting
God has been a fashionable thing. We hear so often - from
many types of people - things like: “I have a real
problem with a God who can let the innocent suffer. I
can’t believe in a God who can let that happen. How
can there be a God who lets children die?”
Are these real doubts? In the modern world, we say they
are. I doubt – no pun intended - a person who says
this will spend the time answering their dubious statement.
But to question them in return is a considered a violation
of modern sensitivities and a serious no-no for the
pastoral types.
On the other hand, there is another kind of doubt –
and it’s a real one.
Out of a false sense of reverence, some feel that to
question faith is wrong. People will not engage in a
dialogue of faith because they do not want to see the
difference between discussion and revolution. They claim a
simplicity that is actually a detriment to a vibrant
fidelity.
It has been said that a million questions do not equal a
single doubt. Faith is a muscle. It is given by God to be
worked. If not, it atrophies. The human intellect always
seeks to grow and know more. Like a child in school, we
seek to know more about what interests us and we slack off
on things not exciting.
Hopefully a Christian is interested in faith. When a church
or parish stops exercising its faith, the Body of Christ
becomes obese. The muscle of faith turns flabby and
useless. When it is fed the junk food of false teaching, it
turns septic. Masquerading as piety, the lazy stagnate and
then wonder why there are so few in their lives who believe
and live the Faith.
Would you go to an accountant whose knowledge is limited to
the 1954 tax code? Would you be treated by a doctor who
believes x-rays are the breath of the devil? God help you
if you do. We know we should never stop learning, adjusting
and progressing. We fear those who do stop because they end
up hurting themselves and others. Still, we give ourselves
a wide berth. We are not upset with ignorance because we
take comfort in its illusive bliss. We can have real
questions that challenge the faith as we understand it. In
not answering these, we impede our journey. They stop us
into a pause.
Let’s go deeper. It’s not just a kind of
spiritual laziness we are addressing. We have to be honest
and admit there are things we find troubling. We are
sometimes riddled with the questions we never want
answered. There are situations we do not crave to be
resolved. We frame these in the language of doubt. We
attribute their existence to a sort of pervasive,
mysterious quality. We chalk it up to fate or destiny or
the status quo.
But this is not the truth. After all, truth is the enemy of
doubt. Gospel teaching banishes the permission of
ignorance. In our deepest questions and fears, we again
engage a false piety and pretend to quietly accept things
from the hand of God. Deep down, however, we may be at the
boiling point, but outside all is good.
That simmering beast pretends that a good person will never
ask God why they have such troubles or difficulties. It
masquerades as a faithful soul but grabs a moment here and
there to rage against injustice and sorrow. It
surreptitiously lobs the occasional doubt against the walls
of the kingdom of God.
God just shakes His head. He sees the silent tantrum of our
souls and seems to do nothing. We remind Him of His servant
Job. We question why things have to be this way and scream
with all our heart. We make so much noise, we often miss
the answer. Our doubts are satisfied with only the Presence
of the Divine; our questions are answered with the silence
of the Cross. God speaks to our hearts, not our anger. He
ministers to the soul, not the rage. But both the answer
and the question are real and they part of our eternal
journey of faith.
We may not like what we hear, but we would then be
confusing comfort with consolation. It is not doubt we
fear, but resolution. Why? Because we are reminded once
again that we are not in control, that God does not do
everything we ask and that He, not us, is the First Cause
of the Universe. So what do we do? We halt; we stop asking
and wondering. We choose where we are because it’s
easier than going forward. We raise what we call questions
and doubts to prevent being dislodged.
Where we are now may or may not be the best. But where we
are heading – if indeed we are moving - is. And the
only way to arrive is to question each step along the way.
I seriously doubt there is anything wrong with that.
Nunc Dimmittis
From the earliest times, human beings have been fascinated
by eternity. The Egyptians tried (in their tombs) to
re-create their lives on earth. The Celts drew swirls of
never-ending knots. The child is enthralled by two opposing
mirrors. The longing for things lasting has been sanctified
in our faith as we accept the most lasting promise of glory
in hope. But like anything good, don’t we seem to
engage our own self-destructive tendencies to dull and
delay things? We cling to sins and guilt as we regret our
losses and demand satisfaction. And before long, we doubt
the possibility of it all.
We stare at the ruins of our sand castles and fail to see
the power and majesty of the incoming tide. We weep and
pout even as we are embraced by One greater than ourselves
who tells us that it will all be okay. This Lent has been
period in time to see long beyond the limits of time. We
strain through the haze to see a Pascal light of sure hope.
The fire of Easter we light is mingled with stars of heaven
itself. Every Disciple who seeks to conquer these stumbling
blocks raised against hope join in that candle-lit
procession. We carry that spark of Eternal Divinity within
our souls. Divided, but undimmed, we offer it to the
un-ending brilliance of Heaven. The Light of the World has
Himself given us the authority of His own victory to
conquer all in the temporal realm which tries to stop us or
slow us down.
To those most worldly of obstacles, from within or without,
we raise our heads and repeat the eternal anthem of the
Alpha and the Omega “Rejoice, I have conquered the
world.” And that triumph, which is His, is ours now
and forever and forever. Amen.