March 22 - 5th Sunday of Lent

Bellarmine University

“THE EYES HAVE IT:” Part 5, “Coming to Sight”

Rev. Ronald Knott

March 22, 2015

                            

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the

ground  and  dies, it  remains just a

grain  of  wheat;  but  if  it  dies,  it

produces much fruit.

John 12

As some of you know, I grew up in the country. (Maybe you can tell?) I have helped plant wheat, corn, barley, soy beans and gardens of all sizes and varieties. In fact, I used to have a retreat house down in Meade County that some of our students stayed at during their “alternate spring break” that sat in the midst of some fields that will soon be planted with soy beans, wheat, barley or corn. Last year it was corn. Next year it will probably be wheat. (Farmers do that so as not to wear out their soil.) It’s always amazing to me that the farmers come in with one truck full of seeds in the spring and come back in the fall and harvest several truckloads of grain.  It is a sight to behold!

In a way, these farmers come in with their precious little grains, dig little “graves” for these small seeds, cover them over and come back months later and “boom” each little grain has turned into 30 to 60 new grains. One grain gave its life so that 30 to 60 new grains could come into being.

Jesus must have watched this process many times. In fact, the gospel has several references to the planting of seeds and the walking though standing grain. We know that Jesus’ disciples got into trouble in one place in the gospels for walking through a grain field and pulling off heads of wheat and eating the grains. The Pharisees saw what they did and labeled the simple acts of pulling, rubbing and eating as “working on the Sabbath.” It amounted. in their eyes, to harvesting winnowing and preparing a meal - all of which was forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus dismissed their concerns as silly and accused them of “straining out gnats while swallowing camels.”

Like he did many times, Jesus used his everyday experiences as tools for teaching.  Just as one grain of wheat must die so that the wheat species can continue to have life, Jesus said that he must die so that all of us can have life. In the image he used today, Jesus refers to himself as the grain of wheat which must die so that all of us may have eternal life.

When Jesus used the image of the grain “dying” in reference to us, he was not just speaking of our dying at the end of our lives. Sure, in the church, we believe that when this body is placed in the ground like a small grain of wheat, we will someday rise to a new and better life like a stalk of wheat adored with many grains of wheat. What Jesus wants us to know is that this happens, not only at the end, but all throughout our lives here on earth.  It is not just a future event, it can happen each and every day while we live here on earth. Let me offer a couple of examples.

A sperm and an egg, planted in our mother’s womb had to also “die,” in a way, so that we could come into being. Even when we were born, that baby had to “die” in a way so that we could grow into an adolescent. That adolescent had to “die” in a way so that we could grow into young adults - on and on until we die into eternal life.

In a similar way, each Fall we watch the trees and flowers “die” only to come to life again in the spring, bringing with them even more life. All this happens in the world of nature, automatically, but as human beings we can actually choose “to die” in a parallel way, so that we can increase life within ourselves as we go from one day to the next.

If we seek to always avoid these little “deaths,” we actually choose stagnation and a stunted life. For example, parents who protect their children too closely, holding them back and holding onto them too long, can actually retard the growth of their children into full human beings. If they really love their children, they will put them on the school bus when the time comes, in spite of their tears and protests, so that they can learn to relate to other children and learn necessary life skills. That process is like a small “death” for parents and children, but without it there is no new life for those children. Trying to cling to what was, is perhaps the surest way to sabotage any advanced growth as they grow older.

Those same parents come to a day when their children fall in love, marry, leave home and start their own families. No matter how much parents would like to hang onto to their children and keep them at home, they know this “death” is necessary, no matter how much crying goes on when they walk down the aisle and they kiss them “goodbye” at the altar. It is like Jesus said: “Whoever loses his life will keep it and whoever hangs onto his life too much will end up losing it.” Like Lennie, in Steinbach’s novel Of Mice and Men, who squeezes his precious bunny so tight that he kills it, holding onto life as it is for too long can actually lead to the destruction of the very life we love so much.

This “wisdom” makes very little sense to the world, but it is so true. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and control.  Choose too much ease and you will slowly die – whether it is exercise or food – but choose the difficult and you will slowly have more life. Give into your appetites and laziness and you will slowly turn into a big slob of an unhealthy disease-ridden couch potato. Eat selectively and push your body to its limits with regular exercise and you will enjoy a lean, trim, vigorous, disease-free body that can serve you well for years to come. Indeed, “no pain, no gain.” Anyone, as well, who has ever been successful in a recovery program knows this life-giving principle of death and resurrection: the old addicted person must die a slow and painful death before a new and healthy person can be brought to life.

Students! All of us are given a choice each day: the easy way that leads to death and the hard way that leads to life. A well-adjusted adult understands this life principle and freely embraces necessary pain. A childish adult resists such pain, choosing ease at every turn. He will certainly come to know that with each lazy choice, his life gradually withers away.  As the old song from the 60s puts it, “If we are not busy being born, we are busy dying.”

Dying and rising are actually part of a healthy life. These little everyday “deaths” simply prepare us for our big death at the end. We believe that if we choose to die with Christ here, we are also choosing to live with him for all eternity.

Here is the great mystery! Pain before gain! Cross before crown! Death before resurrection! Then, as St. Paul puts it, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, not has it even dawned on human beings the great things that God has in store for those who love him.”

    

March 15 - 4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)

Bellarmine University

“THE EYES HAVE IT:” Part 4, “Choosing Sight”

Rev. Ronald Knott

March 15, 2015

Serpents were biting people and many died.

So Moses made a bronze image of a serpent,

put it on a pole and made them look at it.

Numbers 21

If you have ever been in the hospital or flipped through the phone book looking for a physician, you’ve seen the image – two winged serpents wrapped around a staff. It is known as the caduceus. It has been the symbol of the American medical profession for nearly a hundred years – a decidedly odd symbol for doctors until you begin to investigate where it came from and its underlying meaning.

This ancient symbol of healing is referred to today’s first reading and the gospel. In their trek across the desert from the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land, the People of God underwent all sorts of trials and troubles. The one mentioned today is their plague of biting winged serpents. After praying for delivery from this awful plague, God instructs Moses to make a bronze image of the same serpents, put it on a pole and invite the people to take a good hard look at it. When they looked at it hard and long, they recovered.

Now this may sound like some kind of voodoo magic, but it isn’t! It’s primitive psychology! All you future nurses, doctors, psychologists and mental health professionals, listen up! What Moses did here is still good practice! What he is saying here is that the road to healing is always through looking at the problem squarely. Failing to look at problems squarely is the best way to keep them going! 

The worst thing you can do, if you have a mysterious lump on your body, is to pretend it isn’t there! You need to pay close attention to it and have a professional examine it carefully and as soon as possible. The worst thing to do is to look the other way and pretend that it isn’t there! Healing begins with noticing!

The worst thing you can do, if you are having financial problems, is to keep on spending and pretending that the problem doesn’t really exist! If you are having such problems, you need to face some hard facts and get some help as soon as possible. The worst thing to do is to look away and pretend the problem does not exist! Recovery begins with facing that which is painful to face, squarely!

The worst thing you can do, if you or one of your friends has a drinking or drug problem, is to look away and pretend that it isn’t there! Reality must be faced squarely and help must be sought as soon as possible. The worst thing to do is to look away and pretend the problem does not exist! Recovery begins with facing facts squarely! That’s why people in AA must first of all say to themselves and others, “I am an alcoholic!” before their healing can begin!

We live in a world that has avoidance down to a fine art! If we don’t like something, we look away! Nowhere is it more obvious than the mushrooming credit card debt, when people spend and spend when they can barely pay the interest, even using one credit card to pay the interest on another!  

Nowhere is it more obvious than in our national obesity problem.  Instead of facing this problem individually, every time we sit down to eat, we keep stuffing our faces with massive amounts of bad food, while we wait for that magic pill that will melt fat away as we sleep. According to Dr. Phil’s new massive diet program, for the first time in our history the next generation will die younger than their parents because of obesity related problems.

Moses didn’t put it this way, but this is what he meant – all of us need to “wake up and smell the coffee” in several areas of our lives! As a culture, we are addicted to our denial. Whatever it is, we need to open our eyes and take a good hard look at reality and quit going to sleep just because it is comfortable and feels good for the moment! 

And, yes, on a spiritual level, looking at Jesus dying on the cross – looking intently at it and understanding what it means – not looking away and not avoiding our responsibility in considering its implications  - is the path to our eternal life as well!    

March 8 - 3rd Sunday of Lent

Bellarmine University
“THE EYES HAVE IT:” PART 3, “Losing Sight”
Rev. Ronald Knott
March 8, 2015

Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace.
John 2

In a moment of great humility, something rare for our church at that time, the bishops of Vatican II admitted in writing that the church is “semper reformanda,” “always in need of reform.” The human side of the church, like all human organizations, has a tendency to fall into sin and decay and must be called back to fidelity, over and over again as it moves through history. As it was in the beginning, is now and shall ever be, as long as it is on the earth. Yes, even in Jesus’ day, the church needed a good cleansing.

In a dramatic and public gesture of outrage, Jesus anger boils over. It is very important to remember that the anger of Jesus was not directed at people who sinned or failed in all its everyday ways. His anger was directed at those who controlled religion and used it to abuse simple people. He had pity and compassion on the outcasts, the sick and sinner, but he was outraged at what had happened, at the hands of its leaders, to the religion he loved. In some of the most blunt words from the mouth of Jesus ever recorded, he called them “snakes, fakes, phoneys and frauds. He called them “whitewashed tombs,” “all clean and pretty outside, but filled with stench and rot inside!” It is important to note that Jesus was not against organized religion, but what these people had done to organized religion. As this gospel story tell us, he did not come to tear down the temple, he simply came to clean house! Instead of serving the religious needs of their people, they used people to serve their own needs. The temple had become a market place and they were getting a cut from every corner of it!

Even so, Jesus is not interested in a shake-up of temple administration. He knew all that “religious business” came from hearts that had turned away from God. He wanted conversion and transformation of minds and hearts, not just some cosmetic changes in the structure. He was more interested in people changing than making changes in the material world, because he knew that if people turned to God, the organization would get better.

It is sad that many people never get below the packaging when it comes to religion. They see only the earthenware jar and never the treasure it holds. The purpose of religion is to serve, not be served. The purpose of organized religion is the transformation of people, not using people to serve organized religion.

It is also sad that many people naïvely assume that organized religion is always evil simply because it has gotten off track here and there in history. Jesus was clear that he did not come to destroy organized religion, but to lead it back to its original purpose, to do the right thing and to do it for the right reasons, to protect the “truth of the gospel.” Without organized religion the truth of the gospel would not have been passed from one generation to another. Without organized religion, we would never have heard the “good news.” Without organized religion, we would not have the sacred scriptures. Without organized religion, we would be split into millions of personal opinions and small little cults. Without organized religion, we could not be the unified “Body of Christ” in the world today. Without organized religion, the followers of Christ would not be able to take the “good news” of Christ to the ends of the earth. Without organized religion, we would not have a way to offer support to other believers around the world. Yes, the church may always be in need of reform, but that does not negate the need of the church to be organized. Yes, the church may need a good “house cleaning” ever now and then, but the organization of the church is always needed.

Students! The church of the recent past has been too closely identified with its leaders. These days we have re-discovered and re-emphasized the fact that we, each and ever one of us, is the church. For the last thirty or forty years, people have operated out of a romantic notion that all the ills of the church reside with the institution – so that if only we could reform it, we ourselves would be better Christians. The truth quite often is the other way around. The institution will get better when each one of us are reformed and transformed. These days, we are called to renew the church, not by focusing on the weaknesses of the institution, but through personal conversion, one heart at a time. No church can be strong when every member of it is weak. We are the church. We are called to “clean house” one person at a time! The problems of the church begins right here in our own hearts and in our own lives. When I get better, the church will get better. It’s like the old song about “peace.” “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me!” Let there be a renewed church and let it begin with me!