The Power of Conversion Part II

Isaiah 55: 8, 9

God says through Isaiah that his thoughts are different than ours and his ways are higher than ours.

Matthew 20: 14-16

Parable of the landowner, who hires laborers throughout the day and then at the end of the day, pays everyone the same wage.

The first reading and the Gospel this week are passages of scripture that are difficult to put into context. We accept the Gospel because it is the word of God but it is a contradiction to our natural way of perceiving justice. This week’s parable is one that's on par with the Prodigal Son. Who wouldn't commiserate with the laborers' shock that the last would be paid the same wages or empathize with the resentment of the faithful, obedient older brother who had to stand by and watch his completely irresponsible sibling get a party? How can we view these scriptures in a way that makes us leap with joy rather than grumble in frustration?

Conversion. We need conversion to come close to the heart of this week's scriptures as well as to other scriptures that seem to place God way out in left field playing his own mysterious game while we all huddle around home plate struggling to learn the moves and play within the rules of what sometimes seems like a completely different game.

Conversion. Normally we think of conversion as the one time act of turning from one thing to another. I was a convert to the Catholic Church. Unless I decide to leave the church and convert to Buddhism, I won't seek conversion in that way again. As it is, I'm here and I'm Catholic. Done. However, within the spiritual life, conversion is a journey that's never done and unless there is awareness that conversion is a constant need, the journey will stagnate. We will stop growing. It's like brushing our teeth – it's a good healthy discipline but it won't produce new teeth. We're just maintaining what we've already got.

Conversion: causing something to change in form, character or function. Con means 'altogether' and vertere means 'turn'. As soon as anyone says, “I don't need conversion. I was converted a long time ago,” that person has shut down and has gone into basic maintenance mode. The openness to conversion means openness to being altogether turned around. If you look again at the scripture passages above, you will gather that to move closer to the mind of God we not only need God to turn us around altogether, we also need him to lift us up to the point where we know that all our thoughts and all our ways are limited and inadequate when it comes to knowing him. Without conversion, we can understand this but it becomes a heavy burden as we try to shoulder the responsibility for all our inadequacies and limitations. After conversion, knowing how limited we are is a precept of utter joy for it means that we can let God be God and we can let our false selves – those selves that have such a poor handle on everything – die and fade away.

We know that dying is part of the spiritual life but what is harder to grasp is that just because we need to die to something, that thing is not necessarily bad or sinful. Listen: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies...there will be no conversion. The grain of wheat cannot develop in its present form but its present form is not a mistake or a failure - it's just not enough. The simple fact is, death must occur before a grain can develop into a new and different form of life. We all need to die to the false self because it retains images and pictures of God that may not be bad but are as incomplete as grains of wheat are incomplete before they die and begin to grow into stalks and leaves. The false self resists changes to its treasured images of God. If the images can change, it means that lots of other things may change too and that is a very insecure feeling. The false self hangs on desperately to what it thinks it knows. The incomplete images are part of false self's sense of identity. Loss of those cherished images could mean a loss of self.

As soon as we capture some images of God and try to make life work according to images we possess, we slowly lose sight of God. That doesn't mean he leaves us or loves us any less. It just means we've stopped looking at him and have made our image of who he is and what he expects of us into a substitute for his real presence. Every image we have of him is two-dimensional, inaccurate and lacking in depth and power. I can take a photo of a sunset and hang it in my living room but that doesn't mean the sun is actually rising and setting beside the fireplace. The photo is simply a reminder of something that happened in the past and has no dynamic life of its own.

We have no power to change our images into present creative life. A conversion moment is a moment when we are given the grace and power to behold a portion of God's reality and realize that all the perceptions we had of him until that moment are like faded and torn photographs. We no longer desire to hang onto those old images because they cannot even begin to compare to the beauty of God's present moment reality. Conversion is a series of turnings: turning away, turning to, turning from and turning into and there comes a turning point where it becomes quite clear that we cannot capture and own God. Conversion introduces us to a life that dances on the pinhead of the present moment. We can't 'make it work'; we can only be there in gratitude.

Conversion is a gift from God. That means that you cannot convert yourself. You cannot do anything that will make you more or less worthy of conversion. You cannot demand it; you can only desire it and be open to it. And, yes, you have to turn up at the vineyard. You might be first or you might be last, you might be faithful or profligate, you may be a cloistered contemplative or one who is trying to keep up with the frantic pace of secular life but God's gift of conversion is for all who turn up. Extensive religious knowledge is most unnecessary. Previous experience will not prepare you. You will never be able to imagine where conversion will take you until God converts you and takes you there. The mind and heart of God cannot be comprehended in the way we like to comprehend things. The authentic spiritual life is not a possession we can 'own'.

Conversion often occurs during or after times of great crisis or stress. Sometimes God has to take us through crisis to strip us of all the captured images of him that we've got buried within us. He needs to disable the sources of inspiration that were right for a time but now are not. He wants to replace the garments that we have outgrown. If we always have to have a handle on everything, always have to be in control, always insist that everything fits fine and never allow ourselves to experience doubt we can miss that conversion opportunity. The period leading up to a conversion experience can feel painfully stormy and uncertain but it is the living breath of God blowing our boat to shores we never knew existed.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:7-11, “No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
    and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
    for those who love him.”

But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.” (New Living Translation)

We can never plumb the depths of what God has prepared for us. No matter where we are in our spiritual journeys, we can never assume that what we know about God or how we have experienced him so far is pretty much all there is. There will always be hidden treasure waiting for us. There will always be something more prepared for us if we are willing to let him take us there. There is no saint or mystic who deserved or deserves conversion more than any one of us. Saints and mystics are the kinds of people we think God chooses to receive the blessings of conversion; however, God has a vastly different take on these things. The first shall be the same as the last and the last shall be the same as the first – and all are welcome to the feast.

The only thing we can do is turn, yearn, seek, be open to the risk - and wait.

...but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)