The Goal of our Pilgrimage
Iselection was about the call and promise to Abraham. The Gospel was the conclusion of several episodes of conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.
The revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures was a gradual process over the centuries. It began with this call and promise to our father in faith, Abraham. The Chosen People were in continual reflection and discernment of their experience of God. This process over the centuries led to the Hebrew Scriptures. One of their major understandings was that God rewarded faithfulness with prosperity and security. The Exodus, which included the liberation from slavery and final possession of the Promised Land, was the fundamental encounter of this experience of God. This defining event became the basic context to interpret their history with all its struggles and conflicts. Their rebellion and sinfulness were continuous. However, God’s faithfulness prevailed. The gradual revelation of God continued to become slowly but consistently clearer.
This growth led to a breakthrough several centuries after the initial engagement with Abraham. The Jewish people began to embrace the existence of God as the only god. Up to this time, they thought the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the best of all gods. Now, they understood that there was only one God. They believed God was the Creator and Savior of all humanity. All other gods were deceptions of a dishonest human heart.
A second development also shattered a deeply protected worldview. Many people began to believe in life after death.
On the journey to both these essential insights of the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets had a critical role. They led the people into a deeper and more authentic experience of God.
II
The selections of John’s Gospel in the fifth week of Lent are about Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leaders. As is always the case in John’s Gospel, the author is dealing with several levels of meaning in his teaching. The leaders of the people were locked into the prosperity and security message. They were also protecting their position of privilege, prestige and control.Jesus is using the conflict to enter a deeper level. He is teaching us that this life and the next are not a question of either/or but one of both/and.
A major problem for the leaders and us today is this. Jesus calls us to participate in the process of salvation. While everything starts with the grace of God, we are invited to take an active role. “Repent and believe the Good News” Is our Lenten task. Jesus’ teachings are a plea for conversion and responsibility.
III
The Old Testament mentality of seeing God as the guardian of our prosperity and security is a commonly held vision for most Christians today. The great majority of our prayers are for God to fix our problems.In this mindset, God’s task is to watch over us and protect us from the ever-present threats to our life’s plan for prosperity and happiness. When we experience our “miracles” of special blessing in face of our crisis or sickness, all have to do with our plan for happiness in this life.
As much as we try to hide it and deceive ourselves, God’s “miracles” for us come up short. Even Lazarus ended up in the grave. Life has a way of bringing death closer and closer to our most intimate reality. The death of parents, loved ones and even children strips away the façade that blocks our view of death as part of life. The great disconnect between our normal mentality and the reality of our mortality continues to be exposed.
IV
Jesus’ Gospel message has a different approach. His teachings reveal a God of unconditional and unlimited love that always measures our happiness in terms of eternal life. Everything in this life reaches true validity when it is measured against eternity. God does not diminish this life’s importance but calls us into the real and away from the illusion and deception of a fragmented heart that sees God only as a provider and support of our plans for happiness before death. No matter how we want to settle down with a mortgage that gives us a sense of permanency, we are on a pilgrimage to God. This life is a transition. Our task is to see our experience and our life as God does. Everything is measured in terms of our final goal, life with God for all eternity.We say in the Mass of the Resurrection, the funeral Mass, “Life is changed not ended.” There is a great freedom when we lift the illusion of the finality of death. Our reality opens to something beyond our present experience. When we recognize that death is a passage not the final stop reality is transformed for us.
V
Jesus teaches us this approach to seeing things as God does in the Sermon on the Mount. In Mt. 6:25-34 Jesus lays out a plan of how to see things in light of eternity. It is a plea that reveals a God who knows our needs and has concern for our security. “Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown in the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you of little faith. So do not worry … Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on the kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Mt 6:30-33)When we arrive at the point of trying to make God the center of our lives, things change. We begin slowly to see relationships, values and possessions as important to the degree they bring us closer to God. This is the pilgrimage to the kingdom. The kingdom is God’s presence to all reality calling it to fulfillment in the divine destiny of love and redemption. We are asked to participate in this plan by our faithful acceptance and response to Jesus. God has little interest in our use of things in our limited plan for happiness that does not factor in the Gospel.
This does not mean God opposes our enjoyment of the good things of life. God wants us to put everything in perspective. The perspective is God’s kingdom, God’s plan for us. It is a better plan. God desires our happiness in this world more than we do. He sent his Son to draw us out of the darkness, deception and floundering of this broken world to give us the light and the way to true happiness that reaches total fulfillment on our pilgrimage to eternity.
