4th Sunday of Lent: 2 Chr 36.14-16, 19-23; Eph 2.4-10; Jn 3.14-21
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma
Have
you given much thought to the difference it would make in your
self-understanding if you chose to believe that you are a cosmic
accident rather than a created being? Assuming, of course, that you
think of yourself as a creature—a wholly made person, made by a Maker—a
creature gifted with not only biological life but an immortal soul made
for life eternal; assuming you think of yourself in this way, how
different would your life be if you decided this afternoon to believe
that you are nothing more than the fortunate consequence of cosmic
circumstance, an admittedly freakish development wrought from chance
chemical reactions, advantageous climatic conditions, aggressive genetic
survival, and the heir to all the fortunes an opposable thumb gives
this world’s more advanced primates? Would you think, for instance,
that this world, this universe needs you? Needs us? Would we have any
reason at all to believe that we are any more necessary to the other
biological accidents of this planet than if we believe ourselves to be
creatures made for a purpose? I would say, we would have less reason to
believe ourselves necessary, fewer good reasons for thinking ourselves
particularly important. Accidents are accidents; by definition, random
clashes of things tossed at one another by chance in circumstance. If
you don’t think of yourself as an accident, what difference does it make
to you then to read Paul writing to the Ephesians: “. . .we are
[God’s] handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God
has prepared in advance, that we should live in them”?
The great German poet, Rainer M. Rilke, in what is arguably the greatest modern elegy, the “Ninth Elegy” of his
Dunio Elegies,
asks my question this way: “Why, if this interval of being can be
spent serenely/in the form of a laurel[…]: why then/have to be
human—and, escaping from fate,/keeping longing for fate?...” His
question is not an easy one; however, rather pointedly, Rilke is asking:
since we have escaped fate by being human—our human choices design our
futures not fate—, why continue to long for fate, for destiny? Why do
we yearn for a purpose, a story already written out for us? He says, “Oh
not because happiness
exists,/[…]But because
truly
being here is so much; because everything here/apparently needs us,
this fleeting world, which in some strange way/keeps calling to us. Us,
the most fleeting of all.” Fleeting though we are, we are gifted with
the use of words. Rilke argues that the ungifted things of this world
need us to say the unsayable, to name those things that cannot name
themselves, and not only name them but praise them as well, and in
praising them, change them: “[…] transient,/they look to us for
deliverance: us, the most transient of all./They want us to change
them, utterly, in our invisible heart,/within—oh endlessly—within us!
Whoever we may be at last.” Whoever we may be at last. . .
Who
are we, at last? Paul says that we are God’s handiwork. This is who we
are now and at last. Rilke tells us that “truly being here is so
much.” And he is right. Truly being is so much. Too much, perhaps.
Just being here is overwhelming—even as rational animals crafted to live
immortally and knowing it to be so—simply being so, no more than being
so, just this one thing right now, this can be too much. Forget doing.
Forget thinking. Forget past and future. Just being exactly who and
what we are—just being this here—can be too much. Being God’s
handiwork, being made, created in Christ Jesus. . .each one of us
composed, molded, drawn, built; from nothing, generated and blessed with
breath and memory and intellect and will. And why? Why are we made?
To name our inanimate cousins in creation? No. To take them into
ourselves and change them? No. To propagate our DNA like herd animals,
breeding like livestock? No. None of these is too much. None of
these is truly being. Why, then?
Paul writes, “God, who is rich
in mercy, because of the great love he had for us [. . .] brought us to
life with Christ [. . .] that in the ages to come He might show the
immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
We were brought to life in Christ so that our Father might show us His
infinite kindness through Christ. We were created in love for no other
reason than to be loved. And we know that are loved by Love Himself
when He shows us “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness…”
The oft-repeated and much-loved gospel reading says this perfectly:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone
who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The
ultimate demonstration of the Father’s infinite mercy, His immeasurable
kindness. . .is His Son dying on a cross—a death that gave us birth to a
new life in Christ. Prophecy and history meet to fulfill God’s will.
That was no accident, no random clash of free-floating events!
So,
if you don’t think of yourself as an accident, what difference does it
make to you then that you are a creature created in love by Love? At
the very least, you must think of yourself as the recipient of a divine
gift; not only life itself, but every good thing that can given to one
who lives faithfully in Christ. Read Paul again: “. . .we are [God’s]
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus
FOR the good works that God has prepared in advance,
THAT
we should live in them.” We are creatures created for the good works
of Christ so that we should live in these good works. Do you live in
the good works of Christ? If you do, then you do not live an accidental
life, a life of chance, but rather a life of truth, as Jesus teaches
us, “…whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may
be clearly seen as done in God.” Live in the good works of Christ, do
these same good works, and your good works are seen as holy works done
by God’s will.
Notice, however, what happens when someone begins
to think of himself as the product of random processes. Paul says that
we are created in Christ Jesus to live in his good works. But if you
hold that you are a product rather than a creature, then you will not
acknowledge Christ or the good works you were created to use and
imitate. Jesus says, “Whoever believes in [Christ] will not be
condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned…”
Already been condemned. How so? Random products of natural processes
have no purpose, no end. Random products are not good, true, or
beautiful. They just are. They cannot truly be as beings loved by a
Lover. For them, there is no Lover. No love. Random products can feel
passion, think rational thoughts, enjoy art, literature, and music.
But can they do truly Good Things if they will not acknowledge they are
the handiwork of Goodness Himself? To what—beyond their chanced,
mechanical lives—does the true, the good, and the beautiful refer? What
can love be but the pre-determined firing of neurons in the proper
sequence to produce the physiological effect most often labeled “love”?
Is this condemnation? Yes, of a sort. Life in Christ is life lived
knowing you are living out a divinely-gifted purpose. Life without
Christ is life lived knowing you are living until your body parts fail
you—a very limited warranty indeed.
We can end with Rilke. .
.knowing that we are creatures who “live and move and have our being” in
God Himself, our God “who is rich in mercy [and] brought us to life
with Christ,” knowing we are not products but sons and daughters, we can
shout with Rilke: “Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor
future/grows any smaller. . . .Superabundant being/wells up in my
heart.”
