Sunday 2nd April 2006Lent V   

Fr David Cherry 

Jeremiah  31  :  31 – 34 ; Hebrews  5  :  5 – 10 ; John  12  :  20 – 33

I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts words of the prophet Jeremiah.

 + In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

How are you this time in Lent when we are well past the half way mark?

It’s easy to feel a failure about our Lenten observance… but that would be counter-productive: wallowing in guilt trying not to mind too much, trying to discount what we do, trying not to think about our laxity in this indulgent culture.

The point, of course is: How do you and I find ourselves being drawn towards Christ? 

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

We are drawn by the Love of the Crucified One who gives himself away for love of you and me.  In this he is being most truly himself: this is what it means, he shows us, what it is to be Almighty God. 

The point of Lent is to be finding oneself drawn towards the Person of Christ.  There are a few distractions which block this sense of being drawn.  A residual and habitual guilt for example is such a distraction, but I don’t think it is more than a reminder. Dissatisfaction is a sign of something happening…  the sign of something being loosened in us – loosened from the attractions or compulsions that captivate us, a little free-er to be drawn towards the Other, our God, welling up within us.

 Resistance to being drawn – becoming more defensive or stuck is also a sign that the drawing of Christ is having some effect.  Afterall, it shows that we sense that there is something or someOne to resist.  Notice it.  I don’t want to go there.  I do not want to be drawn towards a crucified figure on a cross.  Notice that there is someone to be drawn towards I’d rather not be drawn towards.

 Jeremiah is noticing that observance of a Law is not working.  We may read the Law as a developmental stage away from reciprocal violence, a mollifying stage, divinely given, to draw us away from killing one another; but Jeremiah notices it is not enough…

 I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

 The realisation of the Law inhabiting the ‘inward parts’ as a true desire is something that happens to us.

 There is the story of Walter, a father, who had to stop his son stealing comic books.  Nothing seemed to work and so he decided to spank him.  He did it deliberately, almost ritualistically, and was so upset, he left the room and wept.  He then went and hugged his son, Matthew.  Years later Matthew was reminiscing with his Mother about the time when he stopped stealing.  “and you know why I finally stopped?” he asked.  “Because Dad finally spanked you.”  “No,” replied Matthew, “because Dad cried.”

 Walter concludes:  Love accomplished what the law could not, and tears more powerful than Sinai.  Even the Prince of Accusers shall bring no charge against my son that the Final Judgment shall not dismiss. Satan, you are defeated! My God has loved my Matthew.   [Girardian Reflections : The Manger is Empty Walter Wangerin.]

 This new Law inhabiting the inwards parts is like a breaking of hearts, a breaking open to love; a realisation, a coming home to us of the true God of love and what his love among us does.  

 To live like this will be living the way of Beatitude – blessedness.  It is to this that you and areWe are drawn by the Love of the crucified one who gives himself away for love of you and me.  In this he is being most truly himself: this is what it means, he shows us, what it is to be Almighty God.  being drawn.  This kind of God: the God who gives himself away to be put to death at our hands so that we can see more clearly how we are afflicted by sin and so that we can ‘from the inside’ desire what is true and just.

 Our Lord knows the cost of living in the blessedness. …. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy Name.

 Living in obedience – as the epistle to the Hebrews tells us – living as one listening (for that is what obedience really means – to listen) living as one listening to how and to whom I am being drawn will be costly in some way.  It will mean the giving up of oneself or ‘who one thought one was’ for the greater prize of ‘who one truly is becoming’.We are drawn by the Love of the crucified one who gives himself away for love of you and me.  In this he is being most truly himself: this is what it means, he shows us, what it is to be Almighty God. 

It is this crucified Lord that continues to draw you and me as he has drawn people through the centuries, drawing us into the sweeping revolution of Love in history, inaugurated on the cross.  We are drawn, because we DO know that there is more than living by a reductionist compliance to Law – in itself a good thing, but not enough.

 The simple truth of the Gospel is utterly natural: 

He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal ­– this is no threat or warning.  It simply is true.  We find it so. Think of parents; a mother’s love; think of the many who find a purpose in life coming to the relief of those in need; finding the more they are involved the less they are the givers; more ‘receivers’; the less being teachers, more: those being taught deeper truths in foreign cultures.  All this is the work of the spirit of Christ, drawing us to himself.

We are drawn by the Love of the crucified one who gives himself away for love of you and me.  In this he is being most truly himself: this is what it means, he shows us, what it is to be Almighty God.  

Before this awe-ful truth we will bend the knee on Good Friday.  Those in the altar party enter and prostrate themselves flat on the floor.  We will kiss the wood of the cross in token of worship and love for this tremendous truth.  Drawn to him, who is our Saviour.  

 And to live in this freedom will look like sheer madness to your families and friends:  you will be more freely giving because more thankful.  We will find ourselves in the seemingly ridiculous position of those who find it more wonderful to give than receive – with time, with energy, with money, with your very self… 

But we are frightened human beings.  We do not want to lose what we have and what we have achieved.  We may fear falling into the hands of God, being taken over.  We fear being strange to others. We fear the glory that God will work in us.  We fear the radical truths of our freedom, letting go of common-sense-received-wisdom…such as in these words of St John Chrysostum who said: ‘Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them for the goods we possess are not ours but theirs.’

God has given us utter freedom of will in our lives.  GK Chesterton wrote: “Hell is God’s greatest compliment to humanity.” God has given us the gift of free will without limits to choose even against the Giver; we are free to say ‘no’ to God.

In Holy Week I will go to confession.  I will be going to confess my resistance and fear of his love; the many ways I have said “no, my will not yours be done.” My stubborn, foolish pride.  And admit how I have suffered injury and hurt against myself because of it; and how I have hurt others too.

You have the opportunity of coming to talk through such things too on the evenings of Holy Week.

Allow God to draw you.  Listen to yourself, to God within you. 

He draws us to himself in the Sacrament of Holy Communion this morning as in every mass; to bring us to life in Him so that we may find his Law of love inhabiting our inward parts, written on our hearts, naturally extending to others.

 To such a God may our hearts at last perfectly belong, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom be all glory in the church both now and through all eternity.  Amen