Risk Assessment

 Luke 19: 1-10

He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So, he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So, he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’

Do you ever feel that in the spiritual life everyone else is grasping something important but you’re just a small person whose vision is blocked? Everybody talks about this Jesus person but all you can see are crowds of people who are talking about him, defining him, discussing him and parsing his every word and action. Sure, you could just listen to all the words and homilies being spoken about him but everybody seems to have a different take on who he is, what he is doing and why he is doing it, and something inside of you wants more than that. You want to experience him for yourself. Even if you could just behold him from a distance with your own eyes, it would be better than what you’re getting now. Your heart is crying out, “I want to see Jesus!”

What are you willing to do to see him? 

Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector in Jericho and he was a rich man. He was short but I’m willing to bet he wasn’t the only short person in Jericho. The difference between Zacchaeus and others who couldn’t see Jesus because of the crowds was that Zacchaeus was willing to take a risk in order to see him with his own eyes. In his case, it was a huge risk because he was willing to risk his pride. He would have known that the people of Jericho did not hold him in high esteem. Tax collectors were employed by the Roman occupation and tax collectors, as far as the Jewish people were concerned, were traitors to their people and cheats because they often over charged and pocketed the extra shekels. By climbing a tree in order to see Jesus he would have been opening himself to a lot of ridicule and scorn but something in his heart cried, “I want to see Jesus!”

Jesus didn’t stop and call Zacchaeus down to eat with him just because he was a rich tax collector; Jesus called him down because Zacchaeus had literally gone out on a limb in order to see him. I’ve said before that Jesus is a heart reader and what he read in Zacchaeus’ heart was more than just idle curiosity. Zacchaeus had risked a lot in order to see Jesus. There was unfulfilled desire there and perhaps Zacchaeus understood that his riches and possessions were not making him happy in the way he had hoped. Jesus called Zacchaeus down because Zacchaeus had capacity. Did Jesus say, “…Zacchaeus too is a son of Abraham” simply because Zacchaeus was a Jew or because within Zacchaeus there was the same seed of desire that Abraham had possessed, a kind of desire that moved Abraham to risk much in order to walk with God?

We can stand before the Lord and profess that we are poor, that we have nothing to offer him and that we depend on him for all we need to live but sometimes we need to go a little further than that. Going further does not prove anything to God who knows exactly who we are but it moves us beyond our ingrained self-images, beyond who we think we are and what we think we are capable of. Going further stretches our little boxes and that always requires taking a risk.

I want to emphasize that taking a risk is not an exercise in trying to gain God’s approval by what we do. Rather, it is a widening and deepening of our inner capacity to see Jesus. We have to keep in mind that what is a risk for one person may not be a risk at all for another so this is a very personal journey and we must not get caught up in comparing ourselves to other people and finding ourselves lacking – or comparing them to ourselves and making judgments when they find it difficult to do what is relatively simple to us. This is definitely a ‘mind your own business’ part of the spiritual journey. God does not compare us to anyone else so we should be very careful about doing it ourselves.

The kinds of risks that can challenge us are many and varied. They are rarely dangerous except to our false selves. Sometimes the risk is to take on a task we don’t feel is within our skill set or is one we’re not certain we’re able to do well. Sometimes the risk is to allow someone else to be in control or to allow someone to take on a task when we feel we’d do a much better job. There is a risk in allowing others to misjudge us. There is a lot of risk in receiving when we’re used to being the ones who give. For some, the risk is to be silent when everything inside wants to rebut and disprove. Some need to take the risk of being more transparent while others need to know the risk of not being the center of attention. So many kinds of risks to choose from.

What we are all called to risk is our pride and our fear of being vulnerable and imperfect. This is exactly what Zacchaeus risked by climbing the tree. His desire to see Jesus pushed him beyond protecting his self-image and when Jesus spied him in the tree, Jesus knew he had encountered someone who could receive his Word, someone who would welcome him into his home. Still, there was one more thing Zacchaeus needed to do before he committed himself to the risky acts of sharing his possessions with the poor and repaying those he had defrauded. Zacchaeus had to first decide to come down out of the tree. That, too, was a risk. He could have said, “No. I’ll stay here, thanks very much. I’ve caught a glimpse of you, Jesus, and that’s good enough for me. If I come down, I will be fully committed. It will mean that I am willing to go the whole way with you and risk far more than I’ve risked so far. If I come down, my life will be in your hands; nothing will ever be the same again. All my inner perceptions are going to be challenged and every day I will be called to take Kingdom risks.” Zacchaeus would be facing far more changes than in just his outward actions if he really wanted to see Jesus.

Zacchaeus took a risk, came down and participated in the love exchange: beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning and a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. After coming down from the tree of risk, he became grafted to ‘The Tree’ - the Tree of Righteousness. He had been lost but now he was found. Salvation in the person of Jesus had come to his house. I particularly like the fact that Jesus said salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house, not just his home. By saying ‘house’, Jesus was promising salvation not just for Zacchaeus but also for his family and his servants – his household. By taking a risk in order to see Jesus, we will be affecting many more people than just ourselves.

By the way, there is another person in scripture who took a risk, climbed a tree, came down, was utterly transformed and brought salvation to his house:

Jesus, the King of Kingdom risk takers.

The Exchange

 Luke 18: 9-14

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

The question I tend to ask when reading scripture is not “What?” but rather, “Why?” In this particular reading, it would seem to be obvious as to why the tax collector went home justified rather than the Pharisee. Nobody enjoys being around someone who is self satisfied, self-righteous and arrogant about his or her accomplishments so why would God?  We all agree that being self-righteous is not a ‘nice’ way to be and that it is much more pleasant to hang out with someone who doesn’t act like he or she is the epitome of virtuous behavior that everyone else should emulate. Naturally, God would like the humble tax collector better than he would like the self-satisfied Pharisee. Anyone would. End of story. Lesson: don’t think too highly of yourself.

That doesn’t satisfy me. Yes, I agree that we should strive to not be self-satisfied prigs but I believe Jesus told this parable, and others like it, not only to wake people up to the fact that God isn’t impressed by our own manufactured acts of righteousness but also to teach us something about God’s desire to walk with his people in relationship. The lesson here is not that God won’t walk with you when you are self-sufficient; the lesson is that he can’t. There’s no room for him.

The tax collector went home justified or made righteous in the sight of God but the justification had nothing to do with what he did or did not do. It had everything to do with the capacity he had to receive the fullness of God into his heart. His actions were not what made him righteous; God was his righteousness. Scripture confirms this:

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ (1 Corinthians 1:29,30)  

In the last reflection, I wrote that before Jacob wrestled with God, he could not receive God’s blessing because he was too full of himself and I specified that this did not necessarily mean that he was arrogant; it just meant that he relied too much on himself. We all do that to some degree or other and even being anxious about whether we're doing all the right things is placing ourselves just inside the cramped ring of self-sufficiency. When things aren’t going well for us we have inner checklists of all that we are doing right, wondering if we are missing something. We wonder if it’s something we are doing or not doing that is blocking God.  If God is not answering our prayers, it’s got to be our fault, right?

“Maybe if I went to reconciliation more often… Maybe if I prayed for half an hour instead of fifteen minutes… Maybe it’s because I lose my temper a lot or because I didn’t put as much in the collection plate as I normally do… Maybe it’s because I have inner criticisms of some people… Maybe, maybe, maybe…”

It is good to be good. But being good and doing good is not what makes us righteous or justified before God and it’s not what makes God respond to our prayers or makes him want to have relationship with us. The tax collector went home justified because he was empty enough, open enough and humble enough to receive God’s righteousness. The Pharisee, on the other hand, had all the justification he felt he needed – his own.  He knew the Mosaic Law and adhered to it faithfully. According to the law, he was clean, morally and ritually. He was Spiritually Responsible and he was certain this was what procured God’s approval and made him righteous. But remember the parable Jesus told about the servant who did all he was supposed to do? He couldn’t claim a place at the Master’s table simply because he had done his job.

This gives us an idea of the amazing graciousness of God. He doesn’t fill us with his righteousness because we do all the right things but because he loves us so much that he desires to fill us with himself. He is our gift, our righteousness and our justification. Everything he gives us is pure gift given out of love, not out of obligation or as payment in kind.

There is a huge amount of relief in this understanding if one can grasp it. The idea that we do something in order to receive justification is putting the cart before the horse. We need to receive first and then our actions will flow naturally and beautifully from a heart full of gratitude. We need to understand there is nothing we could ever do to merit the gift of God’s righteousness. All he wants is for us to come to his table, poor, empty and hungry for him.

Listen to this passage from Isaiah 61:

( The Spirit of the Lord is upon me)  ... to comfort all who mourn, to provide for them that mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

He is glorified when we are poor enough and empty enough to receive him - and sometimes that means admitting before God that we have absolutely no capacity to do any of what we have been feeling responsible for doing: letting go of the past, forgiving, trusting, serving, understanding or believing. We can only be open and empty. We can only wait on him and be willing to participate in the mystic love exchange which is ashes, grief and despondency for his beauty, joy and praising spirit.

Do you get it? HE is our righteousness - everything he is and has is available to us just because he loves us and all we're required to do is give up, let go, be empty and revel in our poverty.

If ever there was a reason to celebrate, this is it.

And In This Corner...

Luke 18: 1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city, there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

A few years ago, Fr. William Hann, parish priest of St. Joseph the Worker in Victoria spoke about Habakkuk crying out to God and challenging God because God just didn’t seem to be listening to his pleas and his prayers. Fr. William, who had been going through some extremely difficult and painful circumstances, had this to say:

“The beauty of the prophet Habakkuk is that he dares to give voice to his fear and frustration and that he dares to put it on God’s desk. I wonder sometimes whether we dare to be as honest with God as that prophet is. The suggestion is often made that you don’t speak to God that way.

I would like to suggest that in a life of faith there is room for speaking to God in the way Habakkuk does. God can handle our anger and our emotional outbursts when we must come to terms with the shattering of our dreams or betrayal in any of its ugly forms.

These past months I know I have cried out to God and asked him for answers, for an explanation, to ask him for something to hold on to, for fear that I might otherwise go under.” (Quoted with permission.)

When I read that, I blessed God for a priest who’s not only transparent about his own struggles but is also one who knows the immense value of wrestling with God.

This week’s gospel is about praying without ceasing but it is also about spiritual honesty. In the lectionary's translation of this gospel passage, the judge says, “I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” An alternate translation to that is, “…so that she will not slap me in the face.” That widow must have been displaying much anger and frustration if the judge was afraid of being slapped in the face!

We can be too nice in our prayers – a niceness that blocks us from really coming face to face with the Living God and discovering that he loves it when we wrestle with him in complete naked honesty. Indeed, this pounding on God’s door is absolutely necessary for our spiritual growth. God is not fooled by our nice safe prayers – but we are blinded by them.

Remember the story of Jacob where Jacob wrestled with God in the form of an angel in the desert? He wrestled through the night and he wouldn’t let go until God blessed him. God not only blessed Jacob but he gave him a new Name: Israel. Before the wrestling match, Jacob would not have been ready to hear his true Name. Jacob was too full of himself. I’m not saying he was an arrogant or egotistical man. He may have been but when I say ‘full of himself’ I mean that even though he was afraid and in danger, he was still depending on his own thinking, ability, might and power to handle his circumstances. During the wrestling match, God dislocated Jacob’s hip but then he blessed and gave him a new Name, one that expressed everything God was calling him to be.

Scripture is full of examples of holy men and women who have dared to speak their minds to God, to ask him, “Why??”, to demand justice or a change in plan. This has probably confused more than a few Christians down through the ages who have wondered how God could have a plan and then change it just because some ordinary person asked him to. This can bring on some uncomfortable insecurity about the constancy of God’s plans. If we can pray, pray, pray and challenge God’s plan and his ways and he actually listens to us, is that not giving us too much power? Are we not called to just humbly say, “Thy will be done” and then meekly shoulder the burden of whatever cross we’ve been given? If we pray, ask for something that’s bad for us and God gives in, isn’t that making us into spoiled brats? Isn’t it dangerous to question God’s directions and plans?

These questions are all based on the idea that God is just like us only he’s the boss. He’s the Dictator - a benevolent one but a dictator none-the-less - and wrestling with a dictator has never been perceived as a great idea. Lightening bolts may be involved. Better to just give in immediately rather than chance offending God. Don’t get me wrong. Saying, “Thy will be done” is a beautiful prayer but please note that Jesus prayed that prayer of exquisite submission after struggling mightily with his Father, after asking that the cup be taken away and after sweating blood. Something dynamic and intimate happened between him and the Father that we are not privy to but, whatever it was, it took Jesus to the next level of a love revelation that brought him the strength he needed, a renewed vision of what was at stake and the courage to do what needed to be done to bring us all to salvation. Thank God he wrestled and was not the least bit concerned that he would offend his Father.

Listen. If you ever seem to change God’s mind about anything it’s because that was his whole plan in the first place and he wanted you to engage in the only kind of relationship dialog that could ever change the mind of anyone: Questions. Honesty to the point of being naked. Spilling the guts. Laying it all out on the floor until there is nothing left to hide. Refusing to walk away until there’s resolution or revolution. Not being silent just because you’re afraid of being wrong or in case the other will get mad at you. And it’s waiting and listening without fear.

It’s messy all right. The blood and guts all over the floor will be all yours but the difference between doing this with God as opposed to doing it with another person is that God gently and lovingly cleanses the blood and guts and puts them all back in right order – an order in which they may not have been in the first place – and then he heals the wounds and gives you a new Name and a new way of walking.

Don’t just be O.K. with asking God nicely for things or answers. Get right in there and wrestle with him. Challenge him. Question him.  It’s the only way to learn who he really is because if you are like the insistent widow and you keep at it, he will respond not only in simply answering your prayer for something but also by revealing his nature and showing you aspects of himself you never suspected were there. He reveals himself to those who really want to know him so badly that they’re willing to struggle through the night for that ultimate blessing. He wants us to wrestle through with desire because that’s how his face becomes planted deeply in our hearts. I cannot tell you how many people pray without looking God in the face because they are so convinced that what they will see in his face is condemnation, disappointment and sadness. What is actually there is love and desire. No one can desire God as much as he desires us.

There have no doubt been times in your life when God has answered a prayer of yours after a not particularly challenging struggle. Think. Think back on all the prayers he has quickly answered in your life -  so many, many, many prayers prayed, answered and forgotten. But the ones that really moved you forward in your spirit in a way you could never have done yourself were those prayers prayed through the night in great anguish, prayers where you cried out, “WHY?”, prayers that were prayed for so long that you thought he had forgotten you. These are the kind of prayers that change us and bring us to a new understanding of who he is and who we are.  

So, go ahead and wrestle with God, the same God that Jacob and Jesus wrestled with. Then be ready to be dislocated…

  blessed…

                                     and renamed. 

Get Changed Before You Go

Luke 17: 11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

The readings this weekend are all about gratitude and conversion, which is quite fitting for Thanksgiving. Catholics are a Eucharistic people, a Thanksgiving people: every time we participate in the Eucharist, we are engaging in a communal act of huge thanksgiving. Every day is Thanksgiving as far as the Catholic Church is concerned. Yes, gratitude is foundational to who we are and to everything we do.   

But, when was the last time you were converted?

Of the ten lepers, only one returned to give thanks and to show that he recognized Jesus as God. The fact that he was a Samaritan who knew the Jews despised him made his gratitude even more poignant. He obviously sensed that Jesus was in no way concerned about who he was or what his religious background was. He simply returned, praising God while prostrating himself at Jesus’ feet in a true act of conversion, and Jesus assured him his faith had made him well. This meant spiritual healing as well as physical. The other nine lepers did not feel the need to be converted. They were of the Jewish faith which in their understanding was the one true faith and they felt no need to turn around and acknowledge Jesus even though it was he who brought them healing. They were on their way to be obedient to the law by showing themselves to the priests in order to be pronounced officially well and regain their status. What more did they need?

Were they grateful? Who knows? Certainly, they would have been experiencing huge relief and their minds would have been racing, thinking of the lives they could return to as normal and acceptable people. There would have been great joy as they thought of returning to their families, their friends and their jobs. However, relieved and joyful does not always equal truly grateful. The nine lepers, even though their request had been granted, immediately returned to their old way of understanding God and completely missed the opportunity to be introduced to an incredible new life, one they could never have thought of or comprehended. 

We can be in the right place and doing all the right things and still be in deep need of conversion. If we do not seek conversion constantly, we will become  static and possibly stagnant believers.

‘Conversion’ is a Latin term: con (altogether) and vertere (turn) meaning “to completely turn around”, or “to change in form”. Reconciliation is one point of conversion. It’s an act of recognizing the things we’ve done wrong, turning around, confessing them and receiving cleansing forgiveness which leads to gratitude and healing. But what about conversion in the midst of all that we do right? Sometimes we can be so familiar with the spiritual routines, beliefs and rituals that are so foundational to our lives that we lose the urgent consciousness that the spiritual life is not a life of simply maintaining faithfully what we have but one of continually going deeper into new discoveries of who God is and who we are.

John Foley, S.J. wrote a hymn that most of you are familiar with. It’s based on some verses from Isaiah and it’s called “Turn To Me”. The refrain goes:

“Turn to me, O turn and be saved, says the Lord, for I am God,

There is no other, none beside me. I call your name.”

I don’t care who you are or how committed you have been to the Lord, every morning, from the moment you open your eyes to a new day and in every moment throughout that day, God is saying to you, “Turn to me, turn and be saved, for I am God. There is no other, none beside me. I call your name.” Being saved is not just being pulled away from the clutches of the Evil One or from the power of death, being saved is also being pulled away from the clutches of the status quo and the feeling of “I’m doing pretty good.” Being saved is being lifted out of the quagmire of cynicism, criticism and dissatisfaction. Being saved is being freed from the heart of stone and being given a spirit of gratitude and a heart of flesh. Being saved is knowing that you can never get to the bottom of a heart like God’s, that you will never fully comprehend him but you’re willing to die trying. Being saved is coming to know your Name and entering into the joyful revelation that it was never about you and it was always about you.

In the last reflection, I said gratitude gives us wings and makes us want to fly close to the heart of God. This time I’m adding that gratitude helps us to be open to the Godwinds of grace, the grace that causes us to be changed in form - or transformed. Another thing that aids us in conversion is a willingness to say, “Maybe I don’t know it all. Maybe I have only seen part of the picture. Maybe I’ve been trying to create myself and make myself right and holy. Maybe I’ve been holding on too hard to creating myself and not allowing God to create me according to his unique blueprint for me.”

Conversion is a risk. Always has been and always will be. It’s a risk of not being the one who’s got the plan, learned the rules, knows the score and is in control. The kingdom journey is not a game plan, it’s an adventure into the ‘known unknown’, meaning we can listen to what others have to say about their journeys but in the end we need to go ourselves and find out that it’s completely different than what we assumed it would be. Conversion doesn’t necessarily mean that what we have been up to the present was in any way wrong, it just means we accept the fact that we’re never finished with being radically changed. Note that I didn’t say we’re never finished with just being made nicer, more pliant or more irreproachable. I’m talking about being Changed. Capital ‘C’.

Yes, it’s a huge risk. In turning back to give thanks to Jesus, the Samaritan leper risked everything. He was given his heart’s desire and he could have gone off like the others and returned to the old spiritual life he had always known. In turning back to Jesus, he was opening himself to a future where it would be necessary to examine all his religious beliefs and see how a poor carpenter with the power to heal could fit into his life. From then on, even if he never saw the Lord in person again, Jesus would always be there in spirit and in truth, challenging him and changing him.

May Jesus do that to us all.