2 July 2014 - self, upgraded

2 July 2014 - self, upgraded 

“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”

Jesus insists on integrity.  He demands continuity between what we profess and what we do.  He wants us to be doers of the word and not hearers only (cf. Jam. 1:22).  He has strong words condemning Pharisees and Scribes.  He says they "preach but they do not practice" (cf. Mat. 23:3) going so far as to call them whitewashed tombs (cf. Mat. 23:27).  He doesn't just value what we do but why we do it.  It isn't about how we appear in the eyes of others or even really our appearance to ourselves (cf. 1 Cor. 4:4).  We are called to take steps to ensure that our motives are not subverted.  We are called to pray in our inner rooms, hidden from the world.  We are called to give alms, not letting our right hand know what the left is doing.  He has no place for empty show, matters of appearance that have nothing to do with holiness.

Insofar as our piety stems from our desire for self-image it stems from pride.  It ignores that we are sinners in need of God's mercy, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (cf. Rom. 3:23).  Self-image ignores our utter dependence on God. Without God we can do nothing good.  As Paul as all too aware, "For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want" (cf. Rom 7:20).

We must therefore be wary of an attitude that acts piously because it somehow helps God.  We do not feed the most high with our sacrifices.  Even when we feed the poor or spread the gospel it is not that we are needed.  We are privileged to be allowed to share in his work, to be his partners (cf. 2 Cor. 6:1).  We earn nothing thereby and should consider ourselves unprofitable servants (cf. Luk. 17:10).

“If I were hungry, I should not tell you,
for mine are the world and its fullness.
Do I eat the flesh of strong bulls,
or is the blood of goats my drink?”

When we pray, it isn't because he doesn't know what is going on down here.  We pray because it is for our good that we be involved and made agents of his grace.  He values the relationships that this fosters.  He could have created a world in which all individuals were created directly by himself.  Instead, he delights to share the task with mothers and fathers.  He could havepreached the gospel to the whole world himself.  Instead he delights to share it through his family at large, the Church.

Not realizing that he is the source of all things insulates us from the true intimacy to which we are called.  We can't help but look down on some and be jealous with others when we believe that we stand on our own strength.

The Son of God is the only one who can drive these demons from our hearts.  The demons themselves look around us and see a wide world into which they think they can run.  Pride looks within us and thinks it can move from one habit and vice to the next with impunity.  The demons imagine that the herd of swine around us and inside us is allied territory into which they can escape.  They think that such places are off limits to Jesus.  But they are not safe in the swine.  Jesus  allows no shelter for demons.  He drives them back into the very chaos from which they come.
And he said to them, “Go then!”
They came out and entered the swine,
and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea
where they drowned.

Once we realize that nowhere is safe from the healing hand of Jesus we might be tempted, insofar as our pride is invested in our old self-image, to be afraid.

Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus,
and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.

This is why we need to take off the old man and put on Christ (cf. Eph. 4:22-24).  We need to get invested in the new identity we have through baptism.

We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life (cf. Rom. 6:4).

He truly wants to show us his saving power.  He wants us to let that power free until we "let justice surge like water, and goodness like an unfailing stream."  He really wants us to live, to have life abundantly (cf. Joh. 10:10).  He wants to be with us, to be Emmanuel for each of us individually.  So let us cast off the works of darkness which keep him at a distance.  He doesn't want our bulls and goats, he wants our hearts.  And our hearts will be ever restless until they rest in the one for whom they are created.