Author: philipmcparland@hotmail.com

Jesus once told a story about two men who went to the temple to pray (see Luke 18: 9-14).  One was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee prayed, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here.  I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.”  The tax collector’s prayer was very different. He simply said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

The Pharisee approached God with full hands.  His hands were ‘heavy’ with his own good works. He was proud of his achievements, achievements he was using to justify himself before God and to make himself better than others.  The tax collector’s attitude was very different. He came to God with empty hands. He realised that he had little or nothing to show for his life.  He knew he depended entirely on the mercy of God.

Jesus leaves us in no doubt about which of the two men’s prayers he prefers.  Jesus loves the attitude of the tax collector because the tax collector comes before God with empty hands.  We need to be reminded that the spiritual life is God’s work in us.  The spiritual life is less about what we do – our efforts, our good works, our achievements.  It is, instead, more about what God does in us and through us.  Concretely, it is about us our willingness to let God work in us and through us.

Therese of Lisieux wanted to appear before God in death empty-handed.  Here is how she expressed this desire: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works.” Against the background of a theology of merit and a religious practice of requirements and rewards this was a brave and prophetic thing to say. Therese had come to know in a personal way that all is grace, all is gift, all is given.  Like her, we too need to accept that God’s love and mercy are unconditional. We do not need to ‘earn’ love and mercy by our good deeds. They are free. It is God who saves us. We do not save ourselves.

To accept God’s love as gift, not achievement, we must learn to surrender.  Unfortunately surrender does not come easy to us.  We have all kinds of resistance to it.  The spiritual life could be described as a process of breaking down our resistance to surrender.  This process happens in all sorts of ways, not least our experiences of failing and falling.  Whether or not we choose surrender, in the end God will see to it that we come before him with empty hands.

Jesus once told a parable about a landowner who hired labourers to work in his vineyard (See Matt 20:1-16).  Some started work in the early morning, some at midday and some in the early evening.  In his generosity the landowner paid exactly the same wage to all who worked for him during the course of the day.  The actions of the landowner do appear to be unfair, even unjust.  Those who worked all day in the blazing hot sun received the same wage as those who worked one hour in the cool of the evening.

Today’s employers would certainly not get away with this approach to remuneration.  Ours is a culture of trade unions and worker’s rights and hourly rates of pay.  It is a culture of entitlement.  But Jesus’ parable is not about human rights and entitlements.  It is not about human justice.  It is about God.  It is about God’s abundant goodness and generosity. God isn’t generous towards us on the basis of what is right and fair and just.  God is generous towards us because we are his children, his sons and daughters whom he loves equally.

What Jesus is teaching us in this parable is this: we cannot buy or earn God’s love.  God’s love is free.  It is a gift, a pure gift offered to all without exception.  This is what we mean when we say that God loves us unconditionally.  There are no conditions attached to the way God loves.  The little word ‘if’ is not in God’s dictionary!  In practice this means that the Christian life is not about winning God’s approval and God’s favour.  It is not about making ourselves acceptable to God by our good deeds and our efforts to please him.  When we love we do so in response to God’s love for us; not in order to make God love us.

The renowned Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich, has described the experience of being saved as our acceptance of the fact that we are accepted unconditionally by God.  God’s salvation is free and we must accept it freely.  The Father’s love is gift, not achievement.  In the parable, those who came at the twelfth hour got the same wage as those who came at the first hour because God does not love those who came at the twelfth hour any less than those who came at the first hour.  This is what we mean by radical grace.

Of all religious symbols I think it is fair to say that the most familiar and perhaps most popular is the cross.  Christians are baptised with the sign of the cross.  They begin their prayer with the sign of the cross.  The cross is hung in church buildings and religious institutions.  It is placed on top of monuments and displayed in many of our homes.  It is even worn as a piece of jewellery around the neck and in the form of a broch.

So why does the cross have such significance for us?  “This thing called love,” to quote the words of a well-known song by the late Johnny Cash. For Christians the cross is above all a symbol of love.  It is the symbol of the love we all hunger for, desire and need.

We cannot separate the cross from love.  The cross makes no sense apart from love.  Jesus changed the cross from a symbol of failure and death to a symbol of victory and hope by his radical love.   Jesus lived by the ‘rule’ of love and he died in fidelity to this love.     

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).  These are perhaps the most quoted words of scripture, displayed in all sorts of places and for all sorts of gatherings.  The greatest and most powerful revelation of God’s love was the death of his own beloved Son on the cross.  The cross is the symbol of the unconditional love that God has for each and every human person.  As we gaze at the cross how could we doubt that we are infinitely loved, how could we refuse to accept that we are cherished, precious, valued?  Through the symbol of the cross God says to each one of us, “I love you.”   

Unconditional love is the greatest power in the world.  It has the power to motivate, to liberate, to heal, to transform.  It even has the power to change death into life.  The power of the cross is the power of unconditional love. This is why Jesus said, “When I am lifted up on the cross I will draw all people to myself” (John 12: 32).  It is why the followers of Jesus continue to find hope and comfort in the cross.  And it is why the cross will always be the most used and most popular religious symbol of all.

Lord Jesus, each time I bless myself with the sign of the cross may I remember that you love me personally, affectionately and unconditionally. Amen.

A number of times each year the Christian community remembers Mary, the Mother of Jesus. One of these occasions occurs on 15^th August. This celebrates what happened at the end of Mary’s earthy life.  It is known as the Feast of the Assumption.

From earliest times there was a conviction among the people of God that when Mary’s life on earth came to an end her body did not experience corruption and the decay of death.  In other words, when her earthly life was over, Mary was taken as she was into the glory of heaven.  It is significant that Mary does not have a tomb.  There is no burial place at which to venerate her.

The Feast of the Assumption proclaims Mary as our beacon of hope.  Where she is now, we one day hope to be.  Her destiny is our destiny; her destination is our destination.  The Assumption of Mary offers us an opportunity to remember that we are a pilgrim people.  We have here no lasting city; our true homeland is in heaven.  Our big thing is in the future; the best is yet to come.  The truth is we will not be happy until we get to where Mary is, until we experience what Mary is experiencing, until we share fully in the life and love of God.  We have been made for the enjoyment of God and our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

The Feast of the Assumption of Mary affirms that she was taken up body and soul into heaven.  Her body was sacred and as she left this world it was immediately transformed into a glorified body.  In the Apostles’ Creed we profess our belief in the resurrection of the body.  Like Mary, our bodies will also be included in our experience of resurrection, not immediately, but eventually.  For this reason it is important that we respect our bodies and take good care of them. Taking care of our bodies means a healthy diet, proper sleep and regular exercise.  It means not taking risks that may harm our own bodies and the bodies of others.  Taking care of our bodies also means listening to them for they often reveal what is going on inside of us, especially what is happening in our emotional life.   

Reminding the young church at Corinth about the sacredness of the body this is what St Paul said: “Do you not realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you and whom you received from God? You are not your own property, then; you have been bought at a price.  So use your body for the glory of God” (1Cor 6:19-20).  The feast of the Assumption reminds us that Mary used her body for the glory of God.  It is an invitation to us to do the same.

“Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.”

These are the words of the renowned psychiatrist, Carl Jung. His experience of those in crisis was significant. When the crisis comes, and it will, we either find a spiritual path or we get stuck in depression and/or addictive behaviour. Finding a spiritual path requires us to surrender; self-sufficiency keeps us in a cycle of attachments and addictions.

There are many different spiritual paths available to us.  Some are highly structured and require a lot of discipline; others involve a commitment to the practice of a few core values.  A spiritual path gives us a sense of meaning and purpose.  It provides us with a way of dealing with painful experiences like hurt, abuse, rejection, and negative feelings like anger, resentment, jealousy.  It also helps us feel connected to the Divine Presence in our lives.  For many this connection with the Divine Presence is an experience of unconditional love, mercy and forgiveness.

A spiritual path needs to have three elements.  These are prayer, companionship and service.  Prayer nurtures our relationship with God. Companionship is the experience of acceptance, support and soulful conversation. Service is the essential movement beyond ourselves in response to the needs of others.  If our spiritual path does not have these three elements it is likely to lack balance and perhaps authenticity.

It is important to remember that every spiritual path is not an end in itself but a means to an end.  There is always the danger that we will make an idol of our spiritual path.  If we become too attached to our spiritual path we are putting the path itself in the place of God.  The ultimate purpose of every spiritual path is to help us surrender to God who loves us unconditionally and who wants us to come home with empty hands.  “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” (St Augustine).

Even a brief look at the gospels reveals that a constant theme in the teaching of Jesus was the Kingdom of God.  Jesus made it clear that he had come to establish the Kingdom of God in the world.  His mission was to practice and preach the Kingdom.  The ministry of Jesus was to bring about the reign of God in our lives. 

For Jesus, the Kingdom of God is not a place or a territory.  It has nothing to do with geography or nationalism or indeed political power.  It is clear from the example and teaching of Jesus that the Kingdom of God is a way of life; it is about the values we chose to live by.  In particular, it is about the way we relate to each other.  In a word, it is about love.

Who then belongs to the Kingdom of God?  It would seem those who are sincerely trying to live what is known as the beatitudes in their daily lives.  These are the peacemakers, the gentle, the humble, the merciful, those who work for justice, those who are persecuted in the cause of right, those who have mellow and grateful hearts.   Jesus preaches a religion of the heart and his religion is about developing attitudes that create a right relationship with ourselves, other people, the environment and of course God.

It is important for us to realise that those who belong to the Kingdom of God may be members of the Church, but they may not. We cannot limit the Kingdom of God to the Church. To do so would be exclusive and misleading. Obviously the Church is a community where we are meant to experience the Kingdom of God, but there are many people who belong to the Kingdom of God who do not belong to the Church.  Indeed, there might be people who belong to the Kingdom of God and who do not have a conscious awareness of God in their lives.  We call these ‘anonymous Christians.’  Kingdom people are sincere people who show kindness and seek to do good. They try to make the world a better place, often working quietly in the background.  Kingdom people are a leaven in society.  They may not have a public profile but their positive influence is significant, reaching well beyond themselves and beyond even what they dare to imagine.  

Towards the end of St Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 25) Jesus makes it clear that we will be judged by the way we treat our neighbours, especially those who are struggling and suffering.  Surely this is the same yardstick for deciding who belongs to the Kingdom of God.

Christians believe that God is a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  In other words, Christians believe that there is a community life in the reality we call God.  To find out what this means we can read the Scriptures.  We can also explore our human experience.  If God has created us and our world, and if God is Trinity, then the Trinitarian life of God must be reflected in our human lives in all sorts of ways.

An obvious way is our social nature.  We are social beings.  We create relationships and we sustain relationships.  In fact, without relationships we wither and die emotionally, even physically.  John Donne once said that no man is an island unto himself.  We cannot survive in isolation.  It is in living with others, it is in loving others, that we find meaning and that we become our true selves.

Another way is the power of cooperation.  When it comes to a project, a task, an undertaking, the best results are usually achieved when there is cooperation, when people work together as a team.  Ask any sports person, any project manager, any government and they will tell you that the team effort is the best effort, it is the most fruitful and successful effort.  It is also the effort that gives most satisfaction and fulfilment to all those involved.

Then there is the unity of creation.  One of the things we are becoming more aware of today is the way creation functions.  The created world is interdependent.  One part of it affects another.  For example, the cutting down of the rain forests in South America has an impact on climate patterns in Europe and Africa.  The laws of nature are finely balanced and when they are allowed to work together in unity and harmony they fulfil their purpose.

And finally, there is this attempt by a woman to describe what trinity means in her life: “I am a daughter and a wife and mother – three things, yet I am one totality.  To my parents, I would always be their child.  To my husband, a companion and a mate.  To my children, the one who gave them birth and nurtured them till they reached adulthood.  I seem to each of them a different person.  They each know a different kind of ‘me.’  But I am one, within myself a trinity and each of them finds unity in me.”

Of the three Persons in the community life of God the one that tends to get least attention is the Holy Spirit.  Perhaps this is because we find it easier to relate to Jesus who became human.  We also have some experience of what it means to have a father.  The idea of Spirit is more nebulous.  And yet if it wasn’t for the Holy Spirit we would not be able to live the Christian life.  In the Holy Spirit we have received a wonderful gift.  The Holy Spirit does many necessary things for us. Here are four:

(1) The Holy Spirit is our helper.  We cannot live the Christian life on our own power and strength.  Jesus knew that what he was asking us to do was humanly impossible.  He knew we would need divine help.  This is why he and his Father gave us the gift of their Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is our energiser, the tiger in our tanks!  The Holy Spirit is the one who empowers us to live like Jesus in our daily lives.  The Holy Spirit is also the one who helps us to pray.

(2) The Holy Spirit enlightens us.  Many of the traditional prayers we say to the Holy Spirit focus on inspiration, understanding and enlightenment.  This is because we associate the Holy Spirit with the gift of wisdom and discernment.  The Holy Spirit is the one we naturally turn to when we need to be inspired and when we have important decisions to make.  When it comes to guidance and to the ability to see the hand of God at work in our lives we are dependent on the Holy Spirit.

(3) The Holy Spirit transforms us.  We are invited to become like Jesus.  Our destiny is to share in the very life of God.  The problem is that we all have hurts, bias and selfish tendencies within us that need to be healed and purified.  This healing and purification is the work of the Holy Spirit.  One of the symbols we use to describe the action of the Holy Spirit is fire.  Fire refines and burns.  The flame of the Holy Spirit within us is a refining fire.  It burns away the evil in our hearts so that we can become like Jesus.

(4) The Holy Spirit unites us.  The Holy Spirit is often referred to as the bond of love.  This is a beautiful description of the Holy Spirit.  In the same way that a child is the bond of love between a husband and wife so the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son in the life of God.  The Holy Spirit is also the bond of love between Jesus and us and indeed between the members of the Christian community.  The Holy Spirit is the one who links us up, who makes us into a family.  The Holy Spirit is the source of unity between us.  This is why we say that the Church was born as a community on the first Pentecost.  There is a divine energy flowing between us, holding us together, allowing us to affect one another, even when we are physically separated.  This divine energy is the Holy Spirit. 

To have a divine person in our lives to help us, to enlighten us, to transform us and to unite us is surely a gift to take hold of, depend on and cherish.

“Jesus wept.”  This is what Jesus did when he heard about the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:3-45). It surely testifies to his humanity.  Jesus is the Son of Man, our brother.  He knows our struggles, our sufferings, our joys, our hopes, our pain, our grief.  He is our compassionate companion, the one who walks alongside us.  “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).  It is his humanity that makes Jesus so approachable. We should never doubt that he is accessible and easy to reach.

Of course, at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus showed himself to be more than our brother.  He brought Lazarus back to life, freed him from the chains of death.  Jesus is the Son of God as well as the Son of Man.  He is the Lord of creation, the one who has power over life and death.  To Martha, the sister of Lazarus, he said, “I am the resurrection.  If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).  On Easter Sunday Jesus himself broke the chains of death and rose to a new way of living and loving beyond our wildest imagining.  Because of his resurrection he is the source of eternal life.

In life and in death we human beings are vulnerable and powerless.  We need someone who can support us in our struggles and who can save us from annihilation.  At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus reveals himself as a compassionate Saviour.  In life he is at our side as a faithful friend.  In death he is our hope of risen glory. Among the great world religions Jesus is indeed unique.  He is both the Son of Man and the Son of God, our brother and our Lord.

Jesus, I believe that you are my brother and my Lord. Love me in my imperfection. Strengthen me in my weakness. Guide me in my uncertainty. Forgive me in my failure. Celebrate with me when times are good. Carry me when they are difficult. And when I die give me a share in your risen life. Amen.

We all need companionship in our lives.  Without some experience of companionship our lives can become lonely and sad.  When John Donne said that no man is an island unto himself he was giving expression to the need human beings have to be in relationship.  Of course companionship is much more than being social.  It is the experience of mutual presence.  It is a space where our capacity for life is nourished by others.  It creates the possibility of becoming intimate with someone. This is why the type of relationship we call companionship is one of the most beautiful gifts we can give to each other. 

There are different descriptions of what companionship actually is.  One model is what two people experienced as they travelled from Jerusalem to Emmaus after the death of Jesus.  On their journey they were joined by an apparent stranger who walked with them.  Their relationship with the stranger began with the experience of mutual acceptance and ended with a shared meal.  On the road there was attentive listening and soulful conversation.

This is a good example of what we might call Christian companionship.  Christian companionship has four aspects.  It begins with an attitude of acceptance that is inclusive and that transcends race, colour, religion, class and sexual orientation.  It offers people a listening hear and an opportunity to tell their story.  It allows soulful conversation to develop, the kind of conversation that gives expression to the things that truly matter.  And it includes the experience of a shared meal, which is sometimes referred to as table fellowship.  In fact, the word companion comes from two Latin words ‘cum’ and ‘panis’ which literally mean ‘with bread.’

When we experience companionship in this way we find that the longing within us is satisfied.  The experience of Christian companionship can be the key to unlock our hearts.  It can also open up the teaching of Jesus allowing us to find meaning and life in the Gospel.  It is no wonder that the two people who were accompanied by the Risen Jesus on their journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus found themselves saying, “did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us” (Luke 24:32).