Evil and Reconciliation
First Sunday in Lent, 10th February, 2008
Fr Matthew Healy
Assistant Priest, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
I speak to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When we contemplate the mystery of our collective human existence it does not take very long before we are able to establish that there is something terribly wrong and flawed in the way we live our human nature.
Events and movements arising from national, political and religious ideology provide enough examples from the past century to illustrate the point. A few need only to be named — the massacre of Armenians by the Ottomans in Turkey, the Nazi holocaust of Jewish people in World War 2, the purgation of the ideologically tainted by Stalin, the extermination of the opposition in Cambodia, the atrocities of Idi Amein, and most recently, the supposed War on Terror, or perhaps as I believe it ought to be more correctly termed, The War of Terror.
These ideologies promulgated by Governments, at times condoned by religious groups, and enacted by people upon fellow human beings show our humanity living at its worst, at its most base. While it must always be proclaimed that humanity is capable of much brilliant creativity and of wholesome ideals for the well being of all people and creation, yet it must also be acknowledged that the shadow side of our human nature manifests its own reality far too often for it to be dismissed as inconsequential, irrelevant or as something that could simply be forgotten. Likewise, beyond the broader picture of collective humanity, it should not really take too long before we can recognise our own individual flawed human existence, though thankfully not on the scale of the aforementioned. Nonetheless the recognition of our own potential to personally co-operate or to coerce with evil, and to live with its consequence — sin — is very much in tune with what this season of Lent calls us to reflect upon and re-consider.
Evil, and its tempter, will consistently offer humanity false promises of unlimited power, exaggerated wealth, and the gross satisfaction of our appetites. It is the lure of these false promises which appear to offer a quick fix to the age long human quest that seeks to fill the void and bring fulfilment to our deepest of longings and desires for integrity and harmony. These are the aching questions that confront of our very being inherent within our very nature — they are there to be addressed collectively, as a community, and personally, as individuals.
The Gospel of this day is the experience of Jesus, the God-Man, who is confronted by the very same questions, together with the tempter's very attractive solutions. If it is an aspect of Jesus' obedience to the Father to willingly live within the confines of human nature, then it is in his obedience to the Father which foils the lure of the tempter, and exposes the tempter's proposed solutions as false and empty promises.
So in a similar way we are also bound to face up to our mortal selves, to be confronted by the reality of our fallen nature, and to appreciate the bounds of our finite being. It is about understanding our place within our relationship with God — God is our creator, and we are his creatures. The tempter wanted Jesus to reverse their roles — Jesus, the Son of God, maker of heaven and earth, was to bow down and worship a fallen creature, Satan. Jesus' obedience to the Father was about self integrity and truth — God is God, and his creatures are his creation. When we think about it the Gospel narrative of today is in one sense a parallel with the story of about human existence as told through the mythology of "The Creation and Fall of Adam and Eve," as heard in part today in the first reading from the Book of Genesis. From the perspective of our fragmented selves we yearn for that mythical time of when we "had it all together," when the Creator and his creation where in perfect harmony. Perhaps we could say that the real quest human being seek is the restoration of that unity and harmony with our loving creating Being, God. The famous words of St Augustine of Hippo come to mind, "Lord, you have made us for yourself alone, and our hearts will always be restless until they find their rest in you."
However, if we where to simply leave things at this point and allow ourselves to be persuaded by some form of narrow Calvinistic doctrine that espouses the utter depravity of humanity, we will find ourselves at odds with the broader catholic tradition of understanding these matters. What is helpful to us is the segment from chapter 5 of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans as read today. This is the explicit link between the first reading and the Gospel, and is therefore the interpretive lenses through which we can see the theological theme for the exposé of this important Christian doctrine and way of life. The story of our fallen and broken nature must always lead to the truth about the joy and hope we have in Christ, the new Adam. It is the story of our redemption, our being brought back from the brink of self destruction, from the abyss of nothingness, to be forgiven, cleansed and raised to newness of life, and it is in this new life that we are entrusted in Christ with the ongoing mission and ministry of reconciliation.
Importantly this mission and ministry of Christ is something that only makes imminent sense through our own personal experience of that redemption and grace. Charles Wesley's hymn "And can it be" is about this experience of inner conversion, wherein he describes it as like been set free from a prison dungeon: "my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee." The task of the church in its mission and ministry of reconciliation is to provide the necessary bolt cutting tools towards freedom in Christ.
The greatest instrument of freedom that the church has been entrusted with is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The Sacramental acknowledgement of our creaturely dependence upon the Creator and Sustainer of that is, seen and unseen. To paraphrase Rowan Williams in his description of prayer and apply it to the reality of entering into the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it is about "getting ourselves into the light of his presence, putting aside our defences and disguises.......so that what stands before God is not the performer, the mask, the habits of self-promotion and self protection, but you."
The church through the Season of Lent invites the faithful, and not so faithful, to reflect upon their way of life and to the journey of ongoing conversion of life. The church provides ample opportunities to exercise this freedom we have in Christ through regular Spiritual Direction, participation in relief for the poor and needy, by attending an additional Mass during the week, the daily round of the prayer of the church, or by participating in Lent Discussion groups.
So here we are — human beings, who by our very nature are on the quest searching for the solutions to the questions that stem from our deepest longings and desires. And here we are assembled as a faith community, together with myriads of other people around the world, in the present, and through past centuries and millenniums, knowing that what we really seek is to be in total fulfilment of our being. And we know that this can only truly be met in God, and in particular in his Son, Jesus, the Christ, the one who is the meeting point for human beings in their quest for reconciliation, self-integrity, and unity, because he shared our nature, knows our weaknesses and has empathy with our mortal frame and infinite being. This good news is for us. It is for all people. It is for the church to live and proclaim.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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