A friend commented to me last week, “Maybe it’s more important to be Christ-like than to be Christian. It’s not always the same thing.”
Good food for thought—”cup of cold water,” food for thought, as today’s Gospel says. What is the difference? I’ve been pondering.
While I pondered, I found myself saying to another friend on another day, “Father has convinced me it is important to stay in the middle in the midst of the polarities of the church.” I was surprised at myself that I said it, yet it is true. While my natural inclination is toward “radical Christianity,” which is inevitably polar, I am convinced at present that the middle is the place to be.
Why Be in the Middle?
Why are those words coming out of my mouth and heart? Today’s readings are a chunk of the logic for it. In today’s Gospel Jesus says:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.
Those are very troubling words to me. I am a peaceable person. I have spent much of the past thirty years of my life helping families resolve conflict in ways that can lead to ongoing peace.
Am I thinking and saying I see the middle as the place to be in the midst of polarities in the church because it’s a more peaceful place?
No.
It’s not a peaceful place. It’s where the discussions between the polarities take place. Indeed, it is where the tensions meet. Fr. Denis, rector of St. Meinrad, in every class I had with him, had two people stand facing each other. He had them put hands out flat against each other and lean in—so their bodies naturally formed a triangle. “Push!” he said to the two classmates. “Push hard!” Then he would ask us, “What happened?” We replied, “They stood up because they stood against each other.” Then Fr. Denis would say, “Do it again, but one of you stop pushing.” Of course, when the tension was released, one person lunged forward while the other fell back.
Fr. Denis would conclude, “The Holy Spirit is in the push of the tension where the two sides meet. The pressure of the two sides pushing keeps the Church moving forward with strength.” He would give examples that showed how history records the work of the Holy Spirit in the push of those polarities, from circumcision in the first century to what to do with those who took back their confessions of faith under persecution in the second century….all the way up to our conflicts today about “consistent life ethic” and the relationship between the 10 Commandments and the Beatitudes.
The middle does not mean a “meet in the middle compromise.” My years as a family therapist tell me clearly, that kind of compromise just sows the seeds of later, more intense conflict.
My experience of the middle of the Holy Spirit is that people respectfully dialogue until they understand their own and others’ points of view enough they can find solutions that work for everyone–for the common good.
Chris and Cathy Catholic
This week I have come to realize there is another reason why I am drawn to the middle: it is where the lost and hungry sheep are.
Generally, those at the poles of current church tensions have strong, logical, faith-informed reasons for their perspectives. They aren’t overly open to change.
But the people in the middle are Chris and Cathy Catholic. Even if they’ve had a good Catholic education, go to mass regularly, and work hard on the parish festival, they are unlikely to fully understand the vehemence with which the polarities clash.
They get confused–because people seem more interested in the rightness of their beliefs than in being Christ-like. So, Chris and Cathy Catholic separate church from how they live their lives
When that happens, sheep wander off and get lost. I find them all the time, and they are hungry for God.
Christ-like
Being Christ-like has a different effect. It has a radiance that attracts.
Christ-like can look radically different with different personalities. Today is St. Bonaventure’s feast day. St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas were good friends. They joined together to maintain the mendicant orders role in the church when it was threatened. Yet, if you’ve ever read either one of them, you known their minds and personalities were radically different.
The prayer that ends today’s reflection Mother Teresa made popular. Yet it was written by Blessed John Henry Newman—who lived, wrote, and loved God in academic 19th century England—about as far from the streets of Calcutta as you could get.
The writings of saints show they gave themselves over to be Christ-like. Yet Christ in them expressed some of the tensions and polarities we also see in today’s Gospel:
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it
Being Christ-like is not giving yourself over to cookie-cutter faith life. It means finding and carrying the cross that is yours.
Reading from Exodus and Today’s Tensions
Today’s first reading is from the first chapter of Exodus. It describes the storm and trouble of the Israelites when they were in a foreign land. Implicit in it are descriptions of issues around immigrants and refugees that are some of our polarized tensions today.
I’m pretty sure God didn’t want his chosen people to endure “the whole cruel fate of slaves.” But God used that experience to set a different standard: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)
What does it mean to be Christ-like around this issue? Our church takes a clear stand for the rights of refugees and immigrants. The catechism says, “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is protected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.” (CCC 2241) Yet the same catechism paragraph also acknowledges that a nation has the right, for the common good, to make laws to regulate its borders.
It seems to me, this catechism paragraph, like today’s Gospel, fosters that tension in the middle where the Holy Spirit can use people of different perspectives to determine a right course.
And so, we take up our crosses and follow. Hopefully, Christ-like.
Prayer
Dear Jesus, help us to spread Your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with Your Spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with may feel Your Presence in our souls. Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus. Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from You. None of it will be ours. It will be You, shining on others through us. Let us thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around us. Let us preach You without preaching, not by words but by example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear for You. by Blessed John Henry Newman
