I’ve never been able to sleep well the night before the first day of a new school term—whether I was teaching fourth grade or college seniors. I lie awake wondering: what will it take to get this new group of students engaged and committed to learning? Through the years I have learned that every class is different. Each has its challenges and delights as I mix with growing minds to help them learn the subject at hand. I have also learned that in each class new learning begins with determining where each student is. Then my job is to match them as closely as possible, so new material is just a step ahead. Today’s readings lead me to think of that matching as a core characteristic of the Catholic understanding of conversion.
Today’s Gospel may sound familiar because it was also part of the Gospel two Sundays ago. The disciples heard Jesus’ parable of the Sower and the Seed (also part of yesterday’s Gospel) and did not understand why Jesus was doing that. They asked, “Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”
You might remember they had similar questions this past Sunday with Jesus’ parable of the Weeds in the Wheat. Perhaps because at present my spiritual focus is on “What does Jesus expect of me as his disciple and witness?” those questions of the disciples have echoed in my mind and heart. As I have pondered and prayed, I have gone back to the Catholic understanding of conversion.
Catholic Understanding of Conversion
The Catholic understanding of conversion is that conversion is a repetitive process. Accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior is an essential step in the conversion process, but it is not all of it. Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, First Penance and Eucharist, Confirmation) are part of conversion, but not all of it. Conversion, for the saints and in Catholic teaching, is the process of becoming like Jesus. It is entering step by step into the very internal and eternal life of the Trinity. That is an essential meaning of the Sermon on the Mount, as Jesus mixed the Law of Moses with “but I say…” to become a way of being that helps people move into being like God—the Beatitudes.
Conversion Begins with Meeting Jesus Where We Are
As we all journey on our own path of conversion, Jesus starts his teaching us to be like him by meeting us where we are. He does this again and again as we come closer—or as we drift farther away. As we read the Gospels, we see that Jesus met “publicans and sinners” over dinner. He sat and ate with them; that was where they were. They weren’t likely to be attracted by his divinity; they could be attracted by his divinity shining through his humanity.
Those who were sick or attacked by demons he met through healing.
The crowds he taught through parable stories they could remember, so his word could take root in them wherever they were. He recognized that a person who might be a hardened path today might be shallow soil tomorrow and good earth next year. He told stories people could remember and apply as they gradually opened up to the Kingdom of God.
He talked to the scribes and Pharisees in the way they talked: by arguing theology.
He taught his disciples and friends by being with them day after day. He taught them by sharing his heart and his life.
No matter where people were in their spiritual development, Jesus met them there. He never compromised himself as God or man. He never compromised the Law. He fleshed it out in his person, in who and how he was as both God and man. No matter where he met someone, they saw the face of God when they saw the face of Jesus. They saw a face they could imitate, a person they could follow.
So each could be converted where he or she was.
Disciples Become the Face of Jesus
The disciples had a very important role to play in that process, for after the Resurrection and the Coming of the Holy Spirit, they were to become the face of Jesus that people see.
Those of us who see ourselves as disciples today are to become the face of Jesus that people see today.
In this endeavor we need to meet people where they are on the road of conversion.
As Bob Garvey and the story of James, the apostle and martyr, reminded us all on Tuesday, we are earthen vessels. We are sinners, even as we are disciples and the face of Jesus. We make mistakes. We fail. Jesus doesn’t always radiate from what we say and do.
Jesus meets us where we are, too.
Israelites at the Foot of the Mountain, Moses at the Top
God met the Israelites where they were on their faith journey. In the three months since they had left Egypt, God had done many signs and wonders: plagues and the deaths of the firstborn Egyptians , crossing the Red Sea on dry land, the deaths of the Egyptian charioteers, the pillar of fire and cloud that led them, manna to eat.
Now it was time to teach them something new: the Law. The Law was a way for them to live to become more like God. The reading ends today with Moses being summoned to the top of the mountain to receive the Law, the 10 Commandments. The people are to wait and worship God at the bottom.
Like Jesus explaining the parables to the disciples and telling the crowds stories.
We will see by Monday that the Israelites did not live up to their call to readiness. God had to respond to their non-readiness. They had remedial work to do.
God responded by lengthening their journey–meeting them where they were. The Law remained the new standard, but, as a good teacher, God was willing to meet them where they were and take as long as necessary to prepare them to enter the Promised Land.
Our Role in Conversion
As I ponder and pray over the Gospel of the Sower and the Seed and Jesus’ explanation today, it strikes me that Jesus had one message for the crowds: the Kingdom of God grows when you are open to it. He had another message for his disciples: what grows is God’s work and people’s choice; your job is to sow the seed of the Gospel generously.
Similarly, God had expectations of Moses at the top of the Mountain and expectations of the people at the bottom. His directions were about readiness. “Go to the people and have them sanctify themselves…make them wash their garments and be ready for the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mt Sinai>”
Likewise, witnesses of the Kingdom today need to match where people are. This seems to me to be a central message of Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium, Laudato Si, Amoris Laetitia and literally every homily or address he gives as Pope. As Vatican Council II prophetically addressed in Gaudium et spes (The Church in the Modern World), we the Church must plant and replant seeds of the Kingdom of God in our contemporary world which is no longer a Christian world.
To do that, we follow Jesus: we sow seeds generously, matching people where they are. People who are hardened paths must be softened by our joy and our goodness; we need to reach out to love them. People who are shallow soil need to experience our goodness and witness our fidelity to Church, Truth, and personal relationship with God. People who are choked by the weeds of the world need us, through patient, loving, truth-filled dialogue, to help them identify and pull out the weeds. Those who are good ground need beautiful liturgy, close community, and clear teaching of Truth to feed their souls as they grow.
We disciples-witnesses-ministers need to sow the seed of our Christian lives and joy with Compassion, Truth, and Fidelity ourselves—along with the Fruits of the Spirit which help those seeds sprout. If we’ve been to the top of the mountain enough to recognize God calls ALL OF US to grow to become like Himself, this is our job.
If we have not yet been to the mountaintop of close relationship with God, then God calls us to be good soil…so, when we are ready, we can go to the mountaintop, too. All of us are called to continuous conversion.
Prayer:
Lord, today, take me where I am and move me just a step to be more like You. If You are talking to me today, Lord, You are talking about my conversion or building the Kingdom. Speak. Meet me where I am and bring me just a bit further along. Let me by the way I live my faith today bring someone else a bit further along. Jesus, lead me and guide me. Amen.
