|
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Time and again we hear this parable of Christ. If we only received it
deep in our hearts, if we only saw ourselves as we are depicted in it,
both to our shame and to our glory, to our hope! How many of us are
those who are described there, are the people who could say when they
are called by God - not to do anything in particular, but simply to be
with Him, to share His joy, to be partakers of the grace - how many of
us would say to Him (and we do, but are we aware of it?): Lord, I belong
to the earth; didn’t You take me out of the earth, have I not been
fashioned out of the dust? The earth is my mother, the earth is the
closest thing to me, I belong to it… Forgetting that indeed, we belong
to it; we are taken out of it, fashioned out of it, but we shall return
to it as dust, unless there is the other dimension that has grown in us,
unless we realize, not only with our mind - with all our being, that we
were indeed made out of earth, but by the powerful, the creative word of
God, and that we belong to Him Who spoke this word, we are akin to Him
more than we are to this earth, if that is possible. We feel as though
we have set roots deep, deep into the earth, as though we derived from
it all that we are: our life - yes, called out of it; but also all that
it produces, beauty and joy, and everything; and it is so easy to forget
that we are called to be more than just the dust of this earth!
And then, how often do we think, there is no time for me to spend in the
intimacy of God, to be with Him, just to be, just to be happy, to be
together with Him: haven’t I got a task? It may be something that I feel
is important! It may even be something that we imagine is important to
God - is there time for me to be with Him? We may be with Him later, one
day, when all things are fulfilled, or when death has severed our
fetters, our link with the earth and with what we imagine is our task.
And our tasks are endless; one or another of the divines of the past had
said that the image of the five yokes of oxen indeed speaks of the work
we feel we must fulfill; but also perhaps, do they not represent our
five senses? Do they not represent the five senses which we use
continuously, in all directions, anarchically, unpurposefully being by
them blinded to the invisible? Isn’t it true that the demon of the
noonday is this moment when everything created, all the visible becomes
so intensely, powerfully perceptible to us and blinds us to the
invisible?
And then, the last man said, I can’t share your joy, oh Lord, I have my
own. I have taken a bride, my heart is full of rejoicing! Can I turn
away from my joy, forget it for one moment, let go of it and share
yours? Let this joy of mine become every day’s life; loose its newness
perhaps, and then I will share yours.
Isn’t that the various images which depict us? And what can God do about
it? He offers Himself; He wants to share with us all there is: yes, even
this earth, but on His terms; to use an image of Saint Ephraim of Syria,
to make for us this very earth a sacrament of initiation: a sacrament, a
divine act by which He Himself is disclosed, and the means by which He
discloses Himself become holy, sacred, shining with glory divine... Yes,
He wants us to fulfill a task on earth, but that this task should be
what He is doing, make us co-workers with Him, not people sent away from
His presence, but people who had become so perfectly one with Him that
what we do is what He does and what we are is what He is, ultimately,
and that His joy should be ours, the joy that cannot be contained in our
hearts, so great it is - it fills the heart of God.
But isn’t there a way? Yes! Become like the people to whom the King send
His servants: they were lame, they were beggars, they were in rags, they
were the scum of the earth; but because they were deprived of
everything, their longing was for all; and ‘all’ was not simply the
little things of the earth that seem so great to us, but something
greater: the Kingdom of God, where all should be love, beauty, truth,
justice they have longed all their lives; and it is to them the Angels
of God, the servants of the King were sent!
What about us? Couldn't we become, each of us, one of these people?
Aren’t we as blind as the blind, as lame as the lame, as poor as the
poorest? Why not turn to God and receive the earth, and our task, and
all that can fill our life and our hearts on God's own terms, with Him?
And this is what He is offering us on this day of the Nativity which we
will keep next week; the day when He became one of us to show us that
while being human totally, perfectly, unreservedly human, and yet,
totally pervaded with divinity, we can become one with Him, partakers of
the divine nature, partakers of His cross and of His glory. Let us
reflect on this; let us become the lame, and the poor, and the blind,
and the hungry; and then as the Beatitude tells us we shall be fed.
Amen.
|
