Being open to Change - November 23

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 106:1-18; PM Psalm 106:19-48; Zech. 10:1-12; Gal. 6:1-10; Luke 18:15-30

These last few years, I have adopted a new preaching style.  I don’t know if it is better or worse than before, but it is different.  In my first several years as a priest, I always treated the text as something to figure out.  How could I unlock what made no sense for people or turn challenging words into hopeful words?  I would sit at my desk at the Church of the Annunciation, read commentaries, and articles until I found the missing puzzle piece.  This following Jesus thing is tough, and my approach was to try to be clever enough to solve a problem in order to make a sermon work and solve the theological mysteries of the universe.

Lately, I have abandoned that for a more ‘from the heart’ approach.  I will admit, my scholarship isn’t as strong as it once was, although I spend more time writing, reflecting, and preaching than ever before. But I was reminded of my craftiness when I read today’s Gospel passage when Jesus reminds the wealthy person that it “is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than a rich person to enter heaven.”  I remember how important it was for me to learn that the eye of the needle could have been translated to be a gate in Jerusalem that still would have been difficult for a camel to pass through but much more possible than the eye of a sewing needle.  The point is, I had to find a way to solve the text so that it wasn’t nearly as difficult to stomach as before.  

I wonder if this is common, to focus so much on what to believe and what not to believe to the point that it is destructive to our own spiritual wellbeing. It is like we are trying to prove to God that our beliefs are alright without actually haven’t to change anything about how we live or be. Last week, in our young adult Bible study, we stopped for quite a while to reflect on this passage from a book we are reading by Richard Rohr.  Here Rohr is showing the limitations of belief: 

“For example, insisting on a literal belief in the virgin birth of Jesus is very good theological symbolism, but unless it translates into a spirituality of interior poverty, readiness to conceive, and human vulnerability, it is largely a “mere lesson memorized” as Isaiah puts it (29:13). It “saves” no one. Likewise, an intellectual belief that Jesus rose from the dead is a good start, but until you are struck by the realization that the crucified and risen Jesus is a parable about the journey of all humans, and even the universe, it is a rather harmless—if not harmful—belief that will leave you and the world largely unchanged.”[1]

In Jesus’ dialogue, he is offering the wealthy young man eternal life.  The man has done everything according to the laws and the rules.  He has essentially, ‘believed’ what he needed to believe, but he wasn’t changed?  His belief did not lead to eternal life.  Underneath this reading, we are invited to ponder the same question, how is our life fundamentally different?  How does what we believe change who we are, how we live, and how we care for and love others? 

To change, we have to be open to the possibility.  We have to believe that our lives will be fundamentally different.  But this is why it is Good News.  Just as it was Good News for Peter, it is Good news for us too.  Let us be open to how God is working to transform not only the world but our own lives as well. 

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  What beliefs of yours have changed over the years?  How has that changed who you are and how you exist in this world?  Have you altered your beliefs to keep you from having to change who you are?

Daily Challenge:  Pray the Serenity Prayer today.  Here is a link to the prayer which is often used with recovery groups.  

[1] Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent: 2019), 114.