We have our own image of who we are in our minds. We may want to name this ‘self’ or ‘ego.’ We carry this constructed and oftentimes fixated image everywhere we go. We put who we think we are before everyone we encounter. Whether this fabricated image of ourselves is correct or not does not really matter because as long as it’s there, we are still occupied with ourselves. This may be where the term egocentric or self-centered comes in. Our goal is to disenchant or deconstruct false images of who we are in light of our baptismal covenant in which we’re one with God in Christ. I imagine we have a barrier or a bar of this constructed and often inaccurate self-image between us and others. When this bar is too high, we cannot allow others to come into our hearts. We become close-minded. Perhaps the goal of our spiritual practice is to lower this bar so that we are always open to others, not letting ourselves get in the way of love for others. This is what compassion would look like.
When Jesus tells us to take up the cross, he talks about what he himself is going to do. He’s carrying the cross that he himself will be hung. It’s his own cross. So, when he invites us to carry the cross, we’re dealing with our own cross for ourselves. We don’t carry it to hang others on it. We don’t carry the cross of Jesus of Nazareth. The cross that I carry is for me. It is my cross on which my “fabricated” self or ego is to be hung. This cross that we take up is a powerful symbol for Christians. We carry our own cross to hang our constructed and fixated image of ourselves that stops us to be more open, inclusive, and compassionate to others. When this false image of who we are is hung and buried, there’s nothing or no self to get in our way of love for others. The empty tomb is the symbol of love that the resurrected Christ manifests. The emptiness of the empty tomb is the divine openness that goes beyond any boundaries to heal, to love, and to serve. It becomes the gate of new life in Christ, not of death. The empty tomb is the divine womb for the resurrected life. As we read the gospel account of the empty tomb this Easter Sunday morning, the resurrected Christ is no longer locked up in the old self. Since nothing is getting in the way of compassion, he is already on the move to his neighbors. He is going ahead of us to Galilee where people suffer. In order to see the empty cross, our action of taking up our own cross must take place first. What are the images that we project onto ourselves? Recall all those memories when we kept thinking of ourselves, our words and deeds before others, especially those in power, asking “Did I do a good job? I should’ve said this more professionally. I should’ve worn a different cloth, etc.” When this self-doubting talk takes place, we create hell in our heads. We become so self-conscious, which is the state that this self prevents us from openly engaging with the reality. There’s no freedom but judgment and punishment for not being perfect. We raise our expectations for ourselves to become a god from a mere human being. This is a form of idolatry, which confuses us with humility. On the other hand, there are some images to which we are so attached that we can’t even think about getting rid of them. There’s nothing that makes me myself. Constantly, even right now as you’re reading this reflection, we’re changing biologically. We’re impermanent and ever-changing. When we try to cling to something that continues to change, we become fixated and rigid. This kind of habit of defining who we are or putting ourselves in a box creates a division between me and the world or others. If the world of which I’m part keeps changing, I too change. The only state that we experience something eternal is in God with whom we’re united. The Alcoholic Anonymous’ famous mantra, “Let go, let God” from our Christian perspective is to let go of our old selves, and let God consume the entire being that we’re set free from ourselves. In other words, it is to take up our own cross for our self-image to be hung and to be resurrected in the empty tomb. There’s no one but one with God. Let’s take up the cross every day to be born anew in the divine womb. Amen. We hear the dramatic nature of Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week in two drastically contrasting voices of the crowd in the city of Jerusalem. The crowd shouts from “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” to “Crucify him!” They have a clear expectation from Jesus, which is to save them as “hosanna” in Hebrew means “save or rescue.” The one who cannot save them in the way they want is not only considered useless but deceiving and disappointing. He deserves severe punishment.
This seemingly radical shift from “Hosanna” to “Crucify” may represent our natural inclination to our own failure. The higher our expectations, the harder we’ll fall. The most unhealthy and violent way to handle this deep failure would be to get rid of the origin of the crowd’s expectation, the one on whom they project the image of their ultimate savior. In Jesus’ time, it was Jesus to whom the crowd’s anger was targeted. In our time, however, it is usually ourselves we aim our anger toward, which then becomes self-hatred. We want to save ourselves but when we fail, we crucify ourselves. The psycho-spiritual difference between the crowd and us is onto who we project the image of a savior. In the case of the crowd, it is Jesus whereas in our case, it is us. The real issue lies in that we would rather be saved in our own way, not in the way of God the Savior. So, in both cases, the result is the same. Crucify our failed project of saving ourselves on our own! As long as we don’t change the way we desire to be saved, we will continue to crucify ourselves, our neighbors, and the world around us. Jesus ends this cycle of our self-serving and self-saving behavior as he walks to the way of the cross. He shows the way we are to be saved. We can only save ourselves by learning how to be saved, which is to follow the way of love with Jesus of Nazareth. I’ve never paid attention to today’s lesson from the Book of Isaiah until this Passion Sunday. As we can see, the lesson gives us insight into how Jesus would’ve thought of his calling to follow the way of love himself and to show it to others. I believe we as Christians share this calling of Jesus together from the moment when we were baptized and Christened. We too have been given “the tongue of a teacher” to sustain the weary with a word. Our Christian mission is never to forcefully proselytize or argue our righteousness or speak hurtful words but to uplift with kind words and compassionate presence those who are suffering. Throughout the lesson, we can imagine how Jesus would’ve been able to bear all the insults he faced from his arrest and trial to the cross. He wasn’t naive about his suffering but certainly knew what was going to happen to him. He would’ve to keep on going without turning backward, to give his back to those who struck him and his cheeks to those who pulled out the beard. He did not hide his face from insult and spitting. Here, we may want to ask how he was able to do that. Let’s be realistic that Jesus didn’t just decide to follow the way of love instantly. The gravity of his suffering is not that kind of thing that he could’ve just done without any hesitation or difficulty. To find out how he was able to go through his passion, II want us to pay attention to what would’ve been Jesus’ spiritual practice, imagining that he also read this lesson from the Book of Isaiah. In his spiritual experience, it is God who awakens and opens his ears morning by morning. He listens to God every morning. This figurative expression of Jesus listening to God or God awakening him shouldn’t be treated lightly. This contemplative practice is where and when God and Jesus become one. It is the very source where Jesus is equipped and empowered to walk the way of love. This union between God and Jesus is real. Can you recall those moments that you are listening to your favorite music that you don’t even recognize yourself but there’s this oneness between you and the music? In this union with God, there’s self-forgetfulness that we are liberated from ourselves and embraced into the divine union. Jesus who is in constant and eternal union with God the Father through the Holy Spirit is selfless. There’s no shame even if he goes through insults and spitting. He sets his face like a flint. How? He would say, “God who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?” Let’s not misunderstand Jesus’ claim to be innocent in a judicial manner as if his (or our) relationship with God is like that of a judge and a defendant. The one who is in union with God has no spot of sin because of God’s radiant light. As we share the same calling of Jesus who walks the way of love as the tongue of a teacher who sustains the weary, let us first sit and listen morning by morning. Let God awaken us and open our ears that we are in God’s presence. That is where we listen to the cries of our neighbors who are suffering. That is the way of love. From there, we can truly hear the voice of Jesus who invites us, “Let us stand up together.” Amen. In the lesson from the Book of Numbers, we hear a quite oddly interesting story. What we may find most intriguing would be the psycho-spiritual dynamics of how the Israelites make sense of their hardship and suffering, particularly on the issue of poisonous serpents biting and killing many of them. Poisonous serpents do not just show up but bite them to death. The Israelites see themselves as the cause. All because they start regretting their decision to leave Egypt for freedom, facing hunger and thirst: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then, God sends poisonous serpents among them and many of the Israelites died.
To stop this tragic murderous incident, they must repent, not just to God but also to Moses who is considered a medium to exercise the power to take away the serpents. As Moses prays for them, God tells him the way to stop this: “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” If we merely take this story as a lesson for us to never complain and to remember how repentance matters, we end up simplifying the complex nature of how God works in our human minds. Let’s look deeper into the Israelites’ psycho-spiritual dynamics. How do they make sense of when bad things happen? How often do we try to connect the dot between bad things that happen to us and our behaviors which may have caused them? “This horrible thing is happening to me because I did this and that.” Even if the Israelites go back to Moses and confess their wrong remarks and complaints, I’m not sure if Moses would be like “I told you so.” As we know, life is not that simple. There’s no magic formula for us to find out why unfortunate (or fortunate) things happen to us. Our Christian faith doesn’t provide us with all the reasons and answers to tragedies. Rather it empowers us to move through despite our suffering. In today’s lesson, the Israelites do not demonstrate that they’re in charge of their decision. They play a passive-aggressive role that refuses to take responsibility for their decision. If bad things happen, first blame Moses and God, thinking they should’ve done everything for us. If nothing gets better, they try to bargain with God to make things better but again never taking charge of their decisions. They ask for forgiveness but it’s empty. They only do so to get what they want. They say they’ve sinned against God and Moses only to take away the serpents. True repentance always involves justice first. If I’m truly repenting, I’ll desire to accept the consequences of my wrongdoing. This desire to be corrected is in and of itself God’s mercy. The real issue here is that the Israelites don’t want any part of it when they themselves are the Exodus of liberation from oppression. They would rather be oppressed because this pioneering the way of God is far from comfortable. It’s like they would like to choose the suffering they’re familiar with for their own sakes. There’s no better future of hope considered for their next generations just like those who deny climate change in our time. It is self-serving in its very nature. No vision for themselves, their next generations, and the world that is without any forceful oppression and slavery. They just want God to “take away the serpents” and just get that suffering out of their lives. God’s solution to this is simple and precise. While the Israelites don’t want to face their reality of suffering, God doesn’t take away the serpents. The Israelites still get bitten by the serpents. Instead, God says, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” The Israelites are to look at the bronze serpent if they want to live after being bitten by the serpents. They’re to face their suffering. It’s always through, never around. St. John in the gospel lesson assigned for today connects the bronze serpent with Jesus of Nazareth who is to be lifted up (John 3:14) As we look at the suffering of the Son of Man on the cross, we look at our own suffering in which we find Jesus who suffers with us. We then move beyond our suffering but can see those in suffering. Having discovered Jesus in our suffering, we can never turn away from people who are bitten by the serpents of injustice, discrimination, and oppression but join them. Are we willing to see the bronze serpent on the pole in the world? If so, where to find it!? |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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