Full-text of Pope Benedict's "Message to the American People":
3rd Week of Easter (M): Acts 6.8-15 and John6.22-29It would make a fascinating study to look closely at the way those who follow Jesus around in crowds often utterly fail to understand what he is saying and doing. Once again, Jesus finds himself performing a miracle in order to teach and then being very disappointed when no bulbs go bright. Jesus uses this failure to instruct. When the recently fed crowd find him in
What does Jesus know about those in the crowd that they probably don’t know about themselves? Looking at the answer he gives to the question about why the crowds follow him, we can say that Jesus understands human motivation with a great deal of clarity and depth. Not surprising given who he is, but perhaps a little frustrating given that he often doesn’t connect with his students or the crowd with his odd-ball parables and cryptic sayings. We know that we must have ears to hear and eyes to see.
How does Jesus answer the question about why the crowds follow him around? Ignoring the question actually put to him—“when did you get here?”—Jesus says, “…you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” In other words, you aren’t here because you believe I am who I say I am, but because I’ve proven that I can fill your bellies. What’s interesting here is that Jesus doesn’t seem at all put off by this rather pedestrian motivation for stalking him across the sea. He moves blithely on to attempt again to teach them the truth of why he multiplied the fishes and loaves for them. He says, “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life…” I can see most in the crowd nodding their heads at first. . .and then getting this look on their face something like, “Uh?” And it might have been the last little bit of that sentence that confuses them: “. . .[the food of eternal life] which the Son of Man will give you.” Again, “Uh?” To their credit they overcome their initial confusion and manage to ask a sensible question: “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”
We don’t want to be too hard on our Lord so early in the morning, but can we really say that we know what to do with his answer: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He sent.” OK. Do they understand this answer? No. Tomorrow we will hear them ask for a sign so that they might believe! Here’s a suggestion: how about, oh I don’t know, maybe Jesus could fed five thousand grown men with five loaves of bread and two fish!? Seems like a good start to me. That they are still clamoring for signs is a sure sign that they are willing not to believe in the face of one mighty work after another.
So, what’s going on here? Jesus is teaching but his students aren’t getting it. The students are listening but Jesus seems to be teaching them cryptic gibberish. Like most of us, probably most of the time, those in the crowd are looking for physical proof, “scientific evidence” that Jesus is the Son of Man sent by the Father. They want to understand before they believe. Most of Jesus’ post-resurrection teaching falls on the tired and frightened ears of the disciples. But here he is still with the crowds and yet they cannot see, cannot hear. Much like those in the Synagogue of Freemen who hear Stephen witnessing to them, “they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.” And we are left again with the question: why not?
Why not? Jesus is appealing to their hearts of flesh, that is, the Law of desire for God gifted to us all at our creation. They are listening with their hearts of stone, that is, hearts trained in the Law of Moses. What they must do, what we must do, is crack that stone and fling open the gates that guard the beauty of God revealed through us. Until they can do this, until we can do this, Jesus will always speak cryptic gibberish, utter nonsense. So, to quote my father when there’s work to be done: “Come on, boys! Let’s get crackin’!”
3rd Sunday of Easter: Acts 2.14, 22-23; 1 Peter 1.17-21; Luke 24.13-35Our Lord is risen! We know that both the cross and the tomb are empty. The witness of his resurrection spreads from his gravesite like a bomb-blast—fast, hot, loud, and wild. And for a while his people wait for the coming of the Spirit. He appears in the locked room to his friends and breathes his spirit on them, charging them by sending them out just as his Father sent him out. His peace settles on them like fire. Everything but the Good News is burned away. Acting like the spirit-possessed students that they are, the disciples run wild through the countryside, spreading the Good News. And they find themselves standing before judges, kings, priests, standing in front of both gospel-hungry crowds and angry crowds. This is where they are: in their world, the sighted and hearing among the deaf and the blind. What road are you on this morning/evening? What road do you travel? And why?
These are Easter questions. We need these answers because the answers are our roadmap. We watch and listen as Peter and the Eleven stand before their fellow Jews and remind them of who Jesus is: “Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God. . .[a man commended to you] with mighty deed, wonders, and signs, [deeds, wonders, and signs] which God worked through him in your midst. . .This man […] you killed, using lawless men to crucify him. But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death because it was impossible for him to be held by [death].” We read Peter’s letter, “. . .conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct […] not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ […].” And so, you must know: What road are you on this morning/evening? What road do you travel?
Do you really need to be told about the dangerous paths available to you? Is there anyone here who hasn’t stepped off the Way and found himself/herself in a briar patch, a mud hole, or a heading toward a cliff? When we strike out with Christ to give witness to his gospel we are immediately tempted with a whole host of alternative roads, attractive shortcuts and by-ways. Some are more subtle than others, some are obvious frauds, others are weak imitations, off-brand knock-offs—cheap but glamorous. Dressed up in contemporary fashion, they are all as old as the Tree in the garden, as old as the serpent himself. Like silver and gold they are perishable, mortal, temporary. . .and deadly. There is one path to God, one road to abounding joy, one Way, one Truth, one Life. Jesus Christ. And him alone.
On the road into Emmaus, two of Jesus’ disciples lament the death of their Master and wonder when he will return. They tell the stranger who has joined them that they were hoping that “[Jesus] would be the one to redeem
What does it mean to travel the road with Christ? At its most basic, we are obliged by the vows of baptism to take up the apostolic charge to teach and preach the gospel in season and out. To live for others as Christ died for us. Our road does not lead to personal enlightenment, earth-consciousness, cosmic assimilation, or the fulfillment of “felt-needs.” Our road is not paved with dollars or gold; haute-couture fashion or academic novelty; intellectual prowess or religious athleticism. Along the way, we are not to exit at those stops that tempt us with political utopias, spiritualist oasises, or philosophical escapes. Our road is not a virtual paradise of motherboards, WiFi connections, or cell-phone towers. We are a pilgrim people in route, on parade, in procession with one another to our perfection in Christ. Anything or anyone that/who tells us or tempts us to believe that the road is a lonely, solitary way; or that the road we travel is straight and downhill all the way; or that we travel for our health, wealth, or the building up of community; these, all of these voices, we must shut out, and listen carefully to the Lord: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer. . .?”
A hard question. And one we might take to heart and refuse to answer because the answer frightens us. Of course, it is terrible to think that Jesus had to die for us. That one man was sacrificed for our sins. But this is a truth we have to face head on, a truth that millions have died to affirm. Putting aside all strained traveling metaphors, let’s say what we mean to say plainly: Peter and the Eleven before the Sanhedrin, Cleopas and the other disciple on the road to Emmaus, Peter again in his letter, and Simon and those gathered with him, proclaim one truth, one Easter answer for all our questions of faith: God, our Father, commended to us the man, Jesus of Nazareth, with mighty deeds, works, and signs, so that we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit, our eternal lives in him. Our response, the way we walk the Way of Faith, is best expressed in our psalm: “Lord, you will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence forever!” There is no other Way, no other Truth, no other Life but the way and truth and the life of Jesus Christ.
Let me ask you again those Easter questions: Where you we going? What you are doing? And why?
Second Week of Easter (W): Acts 5.17-26 and John 3.16-21
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP, PhD
St Albert the Great Priory
Laid over the scene of the Sadducees’ expression of jealousy and the public arrest of the apostle’s is a gentle voice, saying “God so loved the world that he have his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” Then we might think, watching and listening, why are they jealous? All they have to do is believe!
Then the whole scene brightens white and the angel releases the apostles from jail. The angel tells them to go to the temple area to teach. As they move silently into position outside the temple, that gentle narrator’s voice rises again and says, “…God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned…whoever does not believe has already been condemned.” We can see the lips of all the apostles moving as they teach, hands flying in emphasis, and we hear, as if each is speaking one Word together: “Listen, God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son. . .”
This scene fades and the lights come up on the Sanhedrin convening, readying itself for a trial of heresy. The high priest gestures for the jailed apostles to be brought forward. Over the action, we hear that gospel voice again, saying, “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light. . .” The guards report that the prisoners were not in the cells—cells securely locked and guarded. The gospel voice rises again, “God did NOT send his Son into the world to condemn the world…”* And the chief priests and the guards become agitated, miming dismay among themselves, wondering what this might mean. The Chief Priest wants the apostles found. The guards, under orders but also in the darkness, begin their search—“because their works were evil”—the voice whispers just for us.
The little chaos of the court is stopped when someone comes in and indicates that the apostles are in the temple area teaching: “For God so loved the world”—they teach—“that he gave us his only Son for our redemption. . .” The captain and his guards run to the temple area and find the apostles there preaching: “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light…so that his works might not be exposed.” The guards collect the apostles without using any force because they were afraid that the people would stone them. And the gospel voice says, “…whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.” Walking back to the Sanhedrin with the bound apostles, the guards hide their eyes. The voice says, “people preferred the darkness, people preferred the darkness.”
Finally, the captain stands the apostles before the Sanhedrin, his eyes firmly shut. The Chief Priest opens his mouth to pronounce his verdict on the heretics and rebels…we see his mouth move but we hear another voice say these words, “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred the darkness to light. . .” We see the guards look confused. The Chief Priest is panicked by his own words. The Apostles nod knowingly, lovingly, smiling. Then the Chief Priest, hesitantly, very reluctantly opens his mouth again, and we hear our gospel voice again say with his lips, “. . .they preferred the darkness to light because their works were evil.” Eyes wide open, the Chief Priest closes his mouth.
The Apostles turn. Their bound hands now unbounded rise in praise. There’s a long silence. No movement. As the guards and priests watch over the apostles’ shoulders, the gospel voice, again with a loud whisper, one not to be ignored, proclaims, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The Chief and his guards step back, out of scene.
Fade to black. Cue credits.
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Cast: Fr. Philip and Br. Michael
*I left out this crucial "not" in the printed text and Br. Michael dutifully read my incorrect text for the Podcast...
Solemnity of the Annunciation: Isa 7.10-14, 8.10; Heb 10.4-10; Luke 1.26-38And though we do not celebrate Mary this morning, we do honor her faith in the Word. Our Testaments testify to the fact that God has revealed Himself to prophets, priests, kings, and even children, pulling back the Creator/creature veil to allow us to glimpse through their witness the glory that reigns supreme. Mary encounters more than an archangel, more than a mere angelic invitation; she is confronted with the fulfillment of the Messianic promise; she is shown, head on, face up the culmination of her people’s historic anticipation of their salvation. In effect, she is shown the end and the beginning of the promise that our Father spoke to Ahaz: Emmanuel, “God is with us!” Mary’s faith in the divine achievement of the impossible moves this promise from the Word to the world.
Fr. Danielou writes, “Faith is the recognition of revelation, and of equal importance in going to make up saving history. Faith is the special mark of biblical man”(24). Mary’s trust in the truth of Gabriel’s announcement that she will bear the Word into World is exemplary; it is also prophetic and priestly: she brings us to our end in Christ and she stands between us and the divine, offering herself as sacrifice, giving herself to God as a bloodless holocaust to bring our final and true Mediator into the flesh. With her Son, Mary says, “Behold, I come to do your will, O God!” but it is Christ who alone who accomplishes his Father’s will for us on the Cross. Word made flesh, he dies for us so that we might live.
Our eucharist this morning, this early morning party of praise and thanksgiving, brings that same Word into the world, making us carriers of the hope of creation’s salvation. St Peter says that we are a “living hope.” Jesus himself sends us out to be that living hope for others. Mary says yes to the work of bearing the Word. And so do we. Every “amen” we exclaim this morning binds us to the annunciation, to the revelation that God not only speaks to us, but he also holds us to our baptismal promise to speak of Him, to be His revelation in the world to every heart and mind free to see and hear. So, when you pray “amen” this morning, you pray a promise along with Christ and his Mother: “Here I am, Lord; I come to your will.”
Pic credit: Henry Tanner
2nd Sunday of Easter: Acts 2.42-47; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-31On this second Sunday of Easter, celebrating the Divine Mercy of God, we are asked to brave a closer look at fear, an eyes-wide-open stare at what it means for a follower of Christ to live dreadfully, panicked. Just look at the disciples who lock themselves away, afraid of the Jewish leaders. Look at the Jewish leaders who chase and threaten, afraid of the disciples and their teacher. Look at Thomas, fearful of disappointment and despair, he denies the resurrected Christ, “I will not believe.” Look at us. . .are we afraid? Are you afraid? The Psalmist this morning-evening sings, “I was hard pressed and was falling. . .” Peter must remind his brothers and sisters, in the midst of their “various trials,” that their inheritance in Christ is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading…” Jesus appears among his friends, with them behind their locked door, and he must say to them, “Peace be with you.” He breathes the Holy Spirit on them, charging his friends to go out and preach. He shows them that security is not the Christian answer to fear. It is his peace that trumps our fear, and our commission from Jesus himself—“I send you as the Father has sent me”—this commission is the source of our peace.
So, what is peace for a Christian? We might have this idea that Christian peace is pacifist; that is, we might tend to conflate “peace” with “being passive” and call “pacifism” the only proper attitude for a Christian to take in the face of violence, persecution, or trial. And why not? Surely, it is the case that when faced with the ire of the Jewish leaders, the disciples run home and lock their doors. Surely, it is case that in the early church one soul after another drops out when the way gets to be too much to handle. Surely, it is better to live another day to preach than it is to die inopportunely? Surely, Thomas is right to deny the bizarre claims of his brothers that the dead and buried Jesus has appeared to them. With both the temple and the state chasing you for being a heretic and a traitor, surely, it is best to shut up, run away, hide, and wait. Surely, surely, this cannot be true for the peaceful Christian! Thanks be to God, it is not.
Our peace as a risen Church is not rooted in pacifism, a passive lounging about in the face of opposition. Our peace as a risen Church is rooted in what Peter calls our “new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. . .” Our peace is “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,” gifted to us by our Father, we “who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith…,” we who are ordered by the Spirit to rejoice “so that the genuineness of [our] faith, more precious than gold…even though tested by fire, may prove to be for the praise, glory, and honor” of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our peace as the risen Body of Christ is our “indescribable and glorious joy. . .” We do not live with hope. We do not live in hope. We are Hope—embodied, living, growing, spreading; we are attaining “the goal of [our] faith, the salvation of [our] souls.”
It is not enough that I achieve the goals of faith for myself. We, all of us, the whole Church, we are charged with “going out,” with “being sent” and with sending others out. To live as if the single end of our living hope is my personal salvation in is to live fearfully, dreadfully, passively; to live against the hard, bare witness of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. To believe that I alone am saved by the Cross and the Empty Tomb, to believe that my salvation is sufficient and that now all I need do is wait—this is another betrayal, another act of Judas, another discount on the ministry of Christ. Luke tells us in his Acts that “awe came upon everyone. . .All who believed were together and had all things in common. . .Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together. . .They ate their meals. . .praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.” We defeat fear together as Hope, or we live in dread. . .alone.
Look at Thomas. The disciples, locked behind their fearful door, witness the risen Christ—his wounds, his peace—they witness Christ as they have never seen him before. Thomas is not there. And when his brothers testify to Christ’s visit, he says, “Unless I see the marks. . .I will not believe.” One week passes and we can only imagine what happens in that single week. Do the disciples plead with Thomas to believe? Do they challenge his lack of faith? Do they argue with his skepticism, his need for physical evidence? Why do they need for Thomas to believe? Maybe Thomas regrets his willful rejection of his brothers’ witness. Or, maybe he becomes more and more obstinate in the face of their cajoling. Maybe Thomas, exhausted from the pressure, resolves to live alone, outside the witness of his friends. In just one week, maybe everything he learned from his Master sours, and he grows in fear. Who knows? We don’t. What we do know is that one week later, our Lord appears to them again and he gives Thomas what Thomas believes he needs to believe: physical proof. But lest Thomas or any of us begin to think that this faithless demand for evidence is ordinary, Jesus teaches them and us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Let’s say here that Thomas’ sin is not unbelief per se, but a failure to be “a living hope” with his brothers. Rather than hope with his friends, Thomas demands a demonstration for his security; he needs to know before he believes. And so his peace, freely given through God’s hope, is ruined. Fortunately for him, our Lord decides to restore his peace and teach him a lesson.
In this you rejoice: “Peace be with you!” And what a peace it is! First, Jesus says to the frightened disciples: Peace be with you. Then he says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Let’s see. . .where did the Father send Jesus? A three year teaching and preaching trek across the home country with angry Jewish leaders and Romans soldiers on his heels with little more than twelve guys who sometimes got it but most of the time didn’t, one of whom will eventually sell him as a criminal to the authorities, and the others will run like whipped puppies into the night right before his trial and execution! Peace be with you. . .here’s your suffering and death, have fun with it. Obviously, Christian peace is not a form of pacifism but a radical means of being the living hope of God for others…despite the risks, despite the trials, despite the costs. And despite the risks, the trials and the costs, we have this truth from Peter: the Lord our God and Father in his great mercy has given us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That living hope has been given to US not to you or to me but to US and nothing can stand against it, nothing, if we but take the peace of Christ, our living hope for eternal life, and spread it thick like spring seed. We have seen the Lord! Now, peace be with you. . .
Octave of Easter (F): Acts 4.1-12 and John 21.1-14At the very core of our being-here, we desire intimacy with God; our imperfection as creatures yearns for His perfection as our Creator. That yearning, that sometimes near painful desire to be with God throws up for our choosing a radical choice: (very simply put) I either embrace my lack of perfection and run after the perfection God offers through Christ; or in my folly, I make my lack of perfection a god and worship it with my whole being, pushing God further and further away, adding to the distance btw us, divinizing my desire, my lacks, filling up all my God-shaped with misshapened deities. For most of us, we walk the fine, razor-thin line somewhere btw these two forms of surrender and spend our time praying (desperately praying!) for help in choosing.
Look at the disciples, squatting near the fire while Jesus serves them fish and bread. John reports: “. . .none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they realized it was the Lord.” What’s the problem here? Why the anxiety? John has already told us that once Jesus asks—“Children, have you caught anything to eat?”—the disciples recognize him. Having obeyed the Lord’s command to stay together as his family in faith, the disciples are “sighted to see” him; that is, they are properly illuminated to see, gifted to recognize the Lord after his resurrection, but notice that they still need a prompt to understand fully.
The beloved disciple shouts, “It is the Lord.” Simon Peter jumps into the sea and wades ashore. The other disciples follow soon enough. But none will ask him who he is, none will dare to request a confirmation of what they know to be true. Why? It could be fear of offending their Lord with such an obviously doubting question. It could be that they simply want to respect his presence without pestering him with student questions. It could be that they are hoping that they are wrong. Likely, it is b/c they understand—if only in the head—what this appearance of the Lord means for them. Do you think that they are squatting there eating bread and fish and remembering back over the last three years all the promises of their Master? The promise of political and religious persecution? The promise of familial strife? Brotherly conflict? The truly frightening promise that they too—if they follow him on his Way—that they too will die horribly with a prayer to the Father on their lips? Of course, of course. And so they squat there, knowing and remembering and sweating through all those promises of violence and inevitable glory. And we, like them, sit and stand here, btw our choices of radical surrender, and pray for courage, stout hearts: give up to God all that is His and be wildly transformed, or cling to our imperfect creatureliness and worship all the little gods of deficiency?
Here’s what we are to do: go fishing! Wade into the deep! Shout: he is the Lord! Row ashore with our nets bulging and eat and drink with the Lord! He is risen. . .he is dead, buried, risen again, and when he comes for us, he will count us among his wondrous fishes!
Octave of Easter (W): Acts 3.1-10 and Luke 24.13-35After nearly twenty decades of exile in the woodshed for barbaric acts against humanity and a slow rehabilitation on the continent with French and German philosophers, I am happy to report that Belief is once again welcomed among us as an acceptable weapon against the encroaching hordes of nihilism. With those hordes shaking the ground right outside our gates, some in the civilized world line up for defense behind the utopian promises of secular scientism; some behind the ever more suicidal versions of Christless Christianity; some behind the absurd absolutes of religious fundamentalism; and some have even come to understand the wisdom of the West’s Catholic heritage and have, as a result, embraced the power of basic belief as the first best step in the dangerous project of shining a bright beacon into the darkness. Luke’s gospel story of meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus greatly clarifies this last option: if our eyes are to be opened, we must first believe and only then will the need for sight disappear.
As the disciples walk to Emmaus, Jesus joins them. Since “their eyes were prevented from recognizing him,” the disciples confess their deepest doubts about the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday: “…we were hoping that [Jesus] would be the one to redeem
Jesus patiently teaches them—again!—the heart and soul of the prophetic tradition: God will come to His people in the person of a savior. This is a promise fulfilled in their hearing. But it is not until Jesus blesses, breaks, and gives them the bread at table that their eyes are opened and they see. The instant they recognize him for who he is, “he vanishe[s] from their sight.” They believe, they recognize. They see him. And seeing is no longer necessary. Remember just last week or so that Jesus stood before an angry crowd busy gathering stones to throw at him. He urges the crowd to believe in his good works so that they may come to “realize and understand” that he is the Christ sent by the Father. The evidence he offers is only good as evidence if we first believe. This is basic. Comes first. Primary.
Belief is fashionable again b/c we have exhausted the modernist project of scientific absolutes, and we have discovered along the way that for all its usefulness science is a story we tell about the world. Like most stories, it has characters, plots, settings, action. Unlike most stories, it does an excellent job of explaining we think we see and hear and taste and touch. What it cannot do as a story is tell us about how to live in wonder at creation, how to thrive in love with the very fact of just being-here. Scientism demands that we place our faith in a investigative method. Christless Christianity demands that we place our faith in the bastard children of the hard sciences: sociology, psychology, economics, history. Fundamentalism demands that we place our faith in the infallible genius of the individual’s zeal for absolutes. What does Christ demand? How do those hearts so slow to believe catch fire? As Jesus and the disciples approached Emmaus, Jesus “gave the impression that he was going on farther. But [the disciples] urged him, ‘Stay with us…’ So he went in to stay with them.”
Pic credit: Stefan Blondal
I also found the four volume set, The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers. Just let me say that I only bumped my thick head once on the ceiling jumping for joy to see this available from Amazon.com!
5th Week of Lent: Jer 20.10-13 and John 10.31-42
The Italian philosopher of religion, Gianni Vattimo, was once asked in an interview, “Do you now once again believe in God?” Vattimo, a scholar of Heidegger and Nietzsche and a proponent of Christian nihilism, answered, “I believe that I believe.” Unpacking this enigmatic response would take most of Spring Break, so let me get quickly to the point: Vattimo believes in belief, that is, he holds that believing in God is a desirable practice even if we cannot assert that believing in God is properly rational. Vattimo argues that science has done Christianity a huge favor by showing that most of what we call “religious belief” is nonsense. Why is this a “huge favor”? Because in a futile effort to prove itself “true,” Christian belief, Christian religious practice, has become weighed down by the excessive baggage of metaphysical philosophies, or ways of thinking that constantly add packages of myth, magic, and mystical gibberish to our basic commitment to God. His answer—“I believe that I believe”—is the first step to emptying out our belief so that we might simply love God and one another. Vattimo’s argument is most often linked to Philippians 2.6-8: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God,. . . emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. . .” Just as Christ emptied himself to become a slave, so our beliefs must be emptied of any metaphysical speculation that we might confuse with revealed truth—to believe is enough. Now, is this the commitment that Jesus urges on the Jews as they collect their stones?
Let’s see what Jesus is asking of them and us. Confused as to why the Jews want to stone him for doing good works, Jesus professes his relationship to the Father and urges the Jews to believe that he is the Son of God. He pleads: “…if I perform [these good works], even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” What is he asking? Jesus is asking the Jews (and us) to “realize and understand” who he is, and we are to do so first by an act of belief, specifically an act of belief in his word or, if not his word, in his good works. Belief is prior to our understanding. Belief, therefore, is basic. And basic in this sense: belief constitutes the possibility of our understanding. Without prior belief subsequent understanding is impossible.
It should be clear that Jesus is not urging the Jews to believe in belief; that is, he is not pleading with them to trust in trust or to be convicted by conviction. Jesus is urging the Jews (and us) to trust him when he says that he is the Son of God. And by trusting that he is the Christ, we come to understand that he is the Christ. You may say that this is just blind faith. Maybe so. But if so, it is a blinded faith that finds itself brilliantly healed and gifted with every possibility of seeing Christ as he is for us: the only Son of God, betrayed, tried, convicted, humiliated, hung on a cross, dead and risen again for our redemption. Our philosopher-friend, Vattimo, is right about the need to empty ourselves out, but it is not metaphysical speculation that crowds our believing hearts. What stunts out growth in holiness is our desire to know before we believe; that is, our need to be sure before we trust, our need to be shown proof and evidence before we begin to hope; this need puts the work of human genius in front of trust and gives reign to the methods and prejudices and limitations of the human mind.
Our Lord says that we must first believe and then understand. In no way does he mean that all we have to do is believe. As creatures of intellect and will, we are also obligated to know, to comprehend. But we must pour out what we think we know, what we think we understand, and begin again in trust. Without this beginning in the divine, we start and finish as little more than stone-throwers, maybe even highly advanced, technologically superior stone-throwers; but without a heart for God’s love, you are just a smart monkey with shiny gadgets driven by your stomach.
Belief is basic. Trust God, seek to understand, grow in holiness. In that order.
