21 May 2017
6th Sunday of Easter, Year A
When I was in grade school, a friend and I would sometimes
walk to his house. And on the way there
was a big, old Victorian house; nobody lived there, and the windows were boarded
up. Now I’m still not sure where I heard
this, but the house was supposedly haunted.
And I never had the urge to go find out if it was true.
And I bring up that little image because it highlights the
tension between being on “the outside” and being on “the inside.” From the outside, I only knew what others
told me. And so, I just assumed the
house was haunted. But if I ever wanted
to know for certain, I would’ve had to have gone into the house, and
experienced the truth of it from the inside.
And this idea of standing on the outside or standing on the
inside is important to our lives of faith.
Jesus says, “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will
love him and reveal myself to him.” And
that sounds great. Except that, before Jesus
reveals himself to us, we have to love him.
In order to really know the depth of God’s care for us, first we have to
keep his commandments. In other words,
we can’t know God’s love from the outside; we can only know it from the inside.
And the keys to getting on “the inside” are trust,
commitment, and faith. And those can be
hard keys to use, because they all get at the idea of: believing in what lies
ahead, even before it happens; putting trust in someone else, and being
committed to that leap of faith. That’s
how we get on “the inside” with God, and the Church.
I’m sure we’ve all heard people criticize the Church, or
teach about how there isn’t a God, and how believers in that kind of thing are
unintelligent or foolish or easily deceived.
But where are those people standing?
They’re standing on “the outside.”
It’s easy to tear down something from the outside; it’s easy to pick
apart something when they haven’t committed themselves to that thing.
On the flip side, it’s also easy to romanticize and glorify
something from “the outside,” without really knowing what it’s all about. When “Philip went down to the city of Samaria
and proclaimed the Christ to them,” the people saw all that he was doing, and “there
was great joy in that city.” But,
really, those Samarians were still on “the outside.” Philip had introduced them to the faith, but
they had to make the faith their own.
They had to “own it,” not from the outside, but from the
inside. In order to own the faith, they
had to live the faith—with both its joys and heartaches. And the Holy Spirit was given to them so they
could do just that. The Spirit helped
them use those keys of trust, commitment, and faith to get on “the inside” of
their faith, and to see for themselves that what Christ said was true.
When Peter says, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,”
he’s giving us the “keyhole” into which we put our trust and faith and
commitment. We hear it all throughout
Scripture and the teachings of the Church: Trust in the Lord; let Christ be the
Lord of our life.
When I was studying for priesthood, and I had to make the
decision whether or not to actually be a priest, I remember thinking very
clearly: “This is where the rubber hits the road. If I believe that the Lord is the Lord, and
if I believe that he will take care of me in this vocation, then I need to just
trust him. I need to throw caution to
the wind, and just go with it.” And so I
did.
I didn’t know what would lie ahead of me in priesthood. I didn’t know I would be coming here to St.
Clare. I don’t know where I’ll go from
here. And that’s okay, because I’m
living the Christian life from “the inside.”
This is similar, I imagine, to what it’s like to be married. You don’t really know about married life
until you’re actually living the life.
There’s an old proverb that says, “The proof of the pudding
is in the eating.” You won’t know how
good (or bad) the pudding is until you put it in your mouth and swallow. I used to work at a bakery, and we were
always encouraged to try the foods we baked.
And that makes sense; after all, how’s a baker supposed to really sell
anything if he or she hasn’t even tasted it.
A significant reason why Jesus made such an impact on people
was the fact that he practiced what he preached; he walked the talk. He wasn’t preaching forgiveness and mercy
from “the outside;” he was living it every day of his life; he was committed to
it. And so when others criticized him
for it, it didn’t bother him. He knew what
was right and just and true. He knew
it. And he knew it from being on “the
inside,” from being one with the Father, from living the life.
If we want to know if what Christ says is true, then we also
have to live the life—not from the outside, but from the inside. The proof of the pudding is in the
eating. And the proof of Christ’s
promises is in the living of a life of trust, commitment, and real faith.
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