5th Sunday of Lent
Cycle B
March 22,
2015 9:30 and 11am
Saint Margaret Parish, Bel
Air
Struggle: “Hate”
I have
some struggles with today’s gospel.
Jesus
says, “Whoever hates their life in this world will preserve it for eternal
life.” My first struggle is that I
like my life.
I
really enjoy good food, like pasta and crab cakes. I enjoy reading mystery novels and theology books
and I like to watch movies.
I enjoy
spending time with my family and friends.
And they are just some of the things that I really like about my life.
Resolution:
Priority
So, what
does Jesus mean when he talks about “hating our life in this world”?
Scripture
scholars tell us that Jesus is talking about our priorities and choices. Jesus wants us to make him and his way a priority.
This
means that we choose to follow the way of the gospel. For example, a child would take up for a
classmate who is being bullied on the playground.
A
teenager or young adult would say no to drugs.
We adults would not stereotype a racial or any minority group but try to
understand their background and perspective and life story.
So “hating
our life in this world” really means that we make Jesus and his values our
priority. It means that we choose the
way of the gospel even when this is difficult and even when this goes against
what others are doing.
Struggle: “World”
Now I
also struggle with the word “world” in this gospel.
Jesus
seems to speak pejoratively, negatively, about the “world.” He speaks about “the judgment of the world”
and “the ruler of the world” being driven out.”
I
struggle with this because God made the world.
The Book of Genesis says that God looked at what he had made and saw
that it was very good.
And
yet, this gospel seems to hold the world as in opposition to God or in
opposition to the spiritual. So again,
what is Jesus really saying?
Resolution: The
Way
A
careful reading of the gospels tells us that Jesus is talking about those who
do not follow his way.
The
idea is that we can choose not to follow the way of Jesus. And this is what Jesus means by “the world.”
With this
understanding, I think it is better not to see ourselves as on one side – as
practicing Christians or Catholic Christians and therefore as “good.” It is better not to see ourselves as on one
side and others, those not following the way of Jesus, “the world,” as on
the other side, the bad side.
I believe
that it is better not to separate God or Godly people and the world in this way
– better not to take this kind of separatist or dualistic and judgmental
approach. My reason for this is that, in
truth, we are all “the world” because there are ways
that all of us fail to follow Jesus.
I also
think that this applies to how we sometimes speak of the sacred and the secular. It can be tempting to see the sacred and the
secular as completely separate.
It can
be tempting to blame all that is wrong on the secular, on what is not
faith-based or explicitly religious. The
truth is that at least some of what we might pejoratively label as the secular
does a lot of good.
And it
is also true that the area that we call the sacred should sometimes do much
better in following the way of Jesus. So
I think even here we need to be careful in taking such a separatist or
dualistic and judgmental approach.
The
truth is that “the world,” as Jesus uses the expression, or the secular to
the extent that it is counter to the way of Jesus – this is present in all of
us. So instead of pointing at others, it
is better just to do all we can as individuals and as a Church to embrace the
way of Jesus.
