|
Today, we celebrate what’s called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Psalm 23 and Jesus’ words in St. John’s gospel both capture the image of Shepherding God. Jesus says to those who are not sure about who he is and what he teaches, “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27). I would like us to reflect on this saying this morning.
Do we hear his voice? If so, how do we do it and what does it sound like? For the sake of argument, does he speak to us in English or Aramaic (which is known to be his spoken language) or Koine Greek (which is the written language of the gospels)? When we talk about listening to God’s voice, it is almost always used metaphorically and thus quite abstractly. If we were to break down what we mean by hearing Jesus’ voice, its closest interpretation is that we listen by heart, not through our ears. But does this hearing of the voice of Jesus have to be metaphorical and abstract? Hearing Jesus’ voice presupposes that Jesus hears God’s voice. That he is one with the Father is to say that they voice the same. Our goal is to hear what Jesus hears because he voices what he hears from God. What then is this voice of God speaking? God speaks the language of silence. This silence is not mute. Its sound is always present. We generally don’t notice it. Close your eyes and try to listen to all the sounds around you. For me right now, I can listen to cars passing by, sometimes music these drivers listen to, winds blowing, birds chirping, leaves falling, buzzing sounds from light bulbs, my computer running, clock ticking, my stomach gurgling on and off, and my own breathing in and out. Even if we might have hearing problems, it can work better for the purpose of listening to the silence, for there are fewer disturbances to get to the sound of inner silence. Where we want to arrive is this inner sound that bases all the other sounds. It’s that very foundation that embraces all. It’s what’s underneath all surrounding sounds and noises. As Jesus’ breath is the same as ours, what Jesus hears, which is the voice of God through the language of silence, is what we want to and can hear. Again, our goal as Christians is to listen to what Jesus listens to. Not only do his sheep hear his voice but also hear what he hears. This sound of silence is universal to all human beings. Every human being as well as every creature, I hope, can listen to and speak this language of silence. Yet, the ability to listen to this sound of the voice and to speak the language of silence doesn’t happen automatically. It requires exercise and practice. It’s just like learning a new language. I’m reminded of the time when I first came to the States at the age of sixteen and was anxious to master English. I often heard it would take about a year for my hearing to pick up on the language, meaning that I would be able to understand spoken sentences, and about two years to speak more fluently. The hearing comes first and then speaking takes place. The best tip I received, however, was to mimic. With the language of silence, we can too mimic. We close our eyes, sit in silence, and pay attention to our breath. As we focus on our breathing in and out, we locate the inner sound of silence within ourselves. We discover stillness within us. Our breath in and out becomes a tempo of silence gently singing. We can feel its coolness coming into us and its inner warmth going out of us. We can have a sense of light above our eyes around our foreheads. We can stay in this state of focusing our breath in and out, noticing the inner space where the inner sound of silence resonates. We can enjoy that moment. At times, it might take longer to center ourselves and might not be as pleasant as we expect. Yet, we can still listen to the inner sound of silence. Every experience we have is a learning process to be more fluent in the language of God. This process of listening to God’s voice is contemplation. Just as Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom of God dwelling within us is not merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic, contemplation isn’t either. It’s experiential, practical, and even physiological. The more we are aware of the sound of silence, the more we are used to the language of silence. The more we practice listening to and speaking, the more we are convicted of the kingdom of God, God’s presence, dwelling in us. With this awareness, this ability to listen to and speak the language of silence, we can follow our Good Shepherd wherever we go. I imagine and envision all of us being so attentive to and conscious of the inner dwelling of the Holy Spirit so that our presence itself becomes the presence of peace, joy, and hope wherever there’s fear, anxiety, or despair. The source of our hope is the Spirit dwelling within us so we don’t need to look further but look within. My friends, remember everything we need is already within us and given by God. All we need to do is to listen to the sound of silence and simply act in the name of compassion. As Jesus enters into the suffering of all in his cry to God on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, he once again identifies himself with the persecuted in Saul’s hearing of his voice, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Jesus’ suffering is not just his own but his companionship with those who suffer. Among those suffering, he is present. No one is abandoned alone. Jesus is there with them and is risen with them. This is the hope that we hold onto and is the very reason we suffer with them. Not only when two or three are gathered in his name, is Jesus present, but also wherever there is suffering.
In today’s lesson, Jesus’ ministry of joining those who suffer, this revelation of the resurrection continues. The voice of the risen Christ is the voice of the persecuted. The risen Christ’s identification with the ones belonging to the Way of love that Saul imprisons and threatens to murder or may have murdered shatters the belief system that Saul zealously fights for. The love of the resurrection never walks away from the most vulnerable but endures, suffers, and rises together. This way of love is not an ideology that serves and protects those within an existing system. It is beyond any form of ideology, be it a theology constructed by most respectable scholars, in the name of love for the sake of love of others. What’s greater than love that can sacrifice itself for the life of the other? So, that love can even embrace Saul the persecutor. Now, let’s think of ourselves as persecutors of ourselves. One part of ourselves is the persecutor while the other part becomes the persecuted. There’s an inner split whenever we become judgmental of ourselves. We might have inner parts of ourselves that we don’t like. It can be our past action that is still causing stress, regret, and suffering. It can be internal such as personality traits we wish to fix. It can also be external like physical features we wish to have or rid of. How we handle these varies. We would ignore and bury it or despise and hate it. Either way, it doesn’t seem to give us the best outcome. Unresolved issues or unhealed scars either leak or hurt others. The risen Christ joins in the persecuted side of ourselves. It is hard to acknowledge when we simply say to ourselves not to hurt ourselves, but when we hear that through the voice of others, we would stop with compassion and empathy. Imagine someone telling us not to hurt them. We’ll immediately stop even if we wouldn’t necessarily hurt them whatsoever. What if the risen Christ speaks on behalf of us, to us, “Why are you persecuting me?” As Christ identifies with our own wound and is one with us through our hurt and pain, we would stop hurting ourselves. After all, self-compassion wouldn’t be so difficult as long as we stop hating ourselves. We might not necessarily feel like we’re harming ourselves. While this may be true for many of us, I hope, our world isn’t so. We see more violence destroying the lives of our neighbors. The more one hates oneself, the stronger the impulse to hurt others. Unhealed wounds bear the fruit of harming and damaging others. This is one of the reasons why Jesus says the kingdom of God that is the source of true happiness is within, not without. When our inner life is content within, we desire to expand this inner life of peace, joy, and hope to the outer. But if our inner world is consumed with dissatisfaction, hurt, and rage, our outer world would be filled with them as well. So, we listen to the voice of the risen Christ who voices the persecuted in ourselves. Losing our sight is to stop judging and look deeply beneath unhealed wounds that have been buried and unacknowledged. To face our hidden wounds is like Saul’s experience of losing sight, no drinking and eating for three days. This spiritual wilderness ends as we are joined by a community. Our hurt is mostly inflicted by others and we inflict it more by blaming ourselves. Paradoxically, this hurt caused by people is healed by different people who are also wounded. Thus, we all become wounded healers. In this communion of wounded healers, the Holy Spirit fills us and we rise with Christ again and again, which is expressed in the sacrament of baptism. Let’s courageously get on the road to Damascus. The resurrection of Christ has never stopped but is here with us to mend the wound of the world through mending of our own. St. John’s post-resurrection account we reflect on this morning wouldn’t qualify as a happily ever after story. None of Jesus’ friends seem to be excited about Mary Magdalene’s good news in which she proclaims, “I have seen the Lord.” (John 20:18) Instead, fear dominates and paralyzes them. They lock themselves up and hide from the local authorities. They’re afraid of being accused of body-snatching as if they intend to make Jesus’ resurrection real by removing the evidence of death from his tomb. This negative depiction of St. John’s post-resurrection scene doesn’t just end here. There’s more. It adds one more human psychological aspect that is as negative as fear: doubt. Thomas symbolizes doubt that every rational person would have in regard to the verifiability of the resurrection. With no physical evidence, there’s no justifiable reason to believe its existence.
So, in today’s lesson, we have a combination of fear and doubt as psychological and spiritual results of the resurrection. It’s neither hope nor courage nor faith. These realistic reactions of Jesus’ friends, however, can make the resurrection trustworthy. There’s no sugar coating. As much as we (?!) or people, in general, have certainty with the resurrection, though how we understand it matters and varies, St. John this morning exposes Jesus’ friends’ struggle to make sense of it. This allows us to freely fear and doubt just like them. It is perfectly okay and even scriptural in a literal sense to have fear and doubt about the resurrection. But keep in mind that this interpretation is not to indulge ourselves. We can have fear and doubt which can also be intensified to the point where we end up becoming disappointed unbelievers and nihilistic naturalists. What we want to do here Instead is to make them useful. We use them. Fear and doubt can become our emotional raw materials to transform them into peace and freedom with the help of the Holy Spirit breathing into us. Rather than fear and doubt incapacitating us from living freely, lovingly, and courageously, we perceive and reframe them as motivating factors to seek peace and freedom. The very first word of the risen Christ is peace. His first greeting to his friends is to let peace be present with them, which may show the particular context in which he encounters them. We might just consider Jesus’ saying of peace as a greeting but suppose his friends simply take the words of Mary Magdalene at face value and rejoice, he would’ve said, not peace, but “Calm down, folks.” We can ponder on Jesus’ saying of peace seriously whenever fear either seeps or rushes into our hearts. How we can cultivate peace in our lives is simple. We sit in silence anywhere, anytime. We can contemplate with our own breaths as we reflect on the gospel lesson. The disciples’ fear motivates Jesus to share his peace with them. This is when we become aware of our own fear. This fear has no power over us. It is a realistic aspect of life that is open and thus unpredictable. Radically welcome fear as a motivating guest for peace. (Whenever fear visits our mind, we serve our guests with a cup of lovely peace tea!) In contemplation, receive the peace of the risen Christ as you breathe in. That breath of yours that enters through your nostrils to your lungs and then deep down to your navel is the peace of the resurrection settling in, physically sensing and locating the “peace being within you” as you gently visit all the parts of the whole body. Imagine and feel how that breath is energizing you. This is how we learn to receive the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God. As you breathe out, share your joy of inner peace with the world. This is the same joy when Jesus comes and stands among the disciples. This is the joy of the resurrection. Peace comes in and joy comes out. With our own breath, we embody the peace and joy of the risen Christ. When we’re filled with peace and joy, fear is gently treated with love rather than self-rebuke for not having enough courage. This spiritual practice bears the fruit of forgiveness, which is a radical act of setting ourselves free from being a victim of all the wrongs done to us. A toxic chain of resentment stops with us. We can prevent our anger from turning into a narrative of outrage in which I’m a victim and others and the world (perhaps God) are always responsible for it. We can instead use that anger as a source of healthy energy that prompts an act of change that keeps everyone accountable. Doubt, nonetheless, will come. This doubt, like fear, can be useful as a motivating factor for us to return to our contemplative practice. Whenever doubt visits our minds, we serve our guests a full course meal of peace, joy, and freedom. We repeat our contemplative practice, which is another name for consistency. Do you still have fear and doubt, not only about the resurrection but also about life itself? “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) Take it in. See joy happens. Experience yourself set free. This is the life of the resurrection to which we’re invited. Amen. In today’s homily, I would like us to memorize two sentences from the gospel lesson this morning. They’re printed on the cover page of the bulletin: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is risen.” We’ll add the conjunction, “because” between those sentences so it will be: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Because he is risen.” If there’s one thing I would like you to take away from my message, it’s these sentences that you can use as a reminder of hope, especially when you feel discouraged.
Though the angels in the lesson ask the question of why the women look for the living among the dead in order to tell them Jesus is not there but is risen, we at times do need to look for the living among the dead to say Christ is risen. This is to look for hope in despair. This is to create something good in people who are unlikeable. This is to see the light in the darkness. So when someone asks us why we look for the living among the dead, our answer is, “It’s because Christ is risen.” The hope of the resurrection derives from the resilience of Christ who endures all things. We Christians are paradoxically called to look for the living among the dead after all. In this act of searching, we may become the living among the dead. We may become the hope itself in despair. I came across a powerful quote that captures the attitude of the resurrection: “Be the person who breaks the cycle. If you were judged, choose understanding. If you were rejected, choose acceptance. If you were shamed, choose compassion. Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you. Vow to be better than what broke you—to heal instead of becoming bitter so you can act from your heart, not your pain.” This requires us not to give up on someone and anyone we love even when everything falls apart. We might not be what that person ideally hopes for but we become a sign of hope. How do we do this? First, we never look away from the reality of suffering. We might want to avoid seeing others’ suffering for many reasons. It pains us to see others’ suffering and we encounter a sense of helplessness. Yet, we resist this with compassion and empathy for others. We must face the reality of suffering just as the women at the tomb followed Jesus all along until his death and to the point where they even searched for his dead body. Once we are there, we then see things with a simple practice of appreciation. We learn to appreciate what’s there rather than what’s not there. For example, we might complain about heavy traffic but appreciate that you have a car to be stuck in that traffic or that you’re able to drive a car. We might complain about the food we eat but look, you have at least food as well as that plate to hold that food. You have a sensitive tongue to taste and teeth to chew. Even if we catch ourselves complaining, we can appreciate our critical eyes to see what needs to improve. We learn to appreciate the living before getting caught up in the dead. This simple practice of appreciation might sound somewhat silly but is a spiritual discipline that we can work on every day and everywhere. Look at what there is rather than what there isn’t. Focus on what can fill that lack or void. This is like the prayer attributed to St. Francis: “Lord, make us instruments of your peace; where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.” The way of looking for the living among the dead also applies to us internally. It is to discover and acknowledge something good in ourselves when self-doubt or self-hatred at worst haunts us. Appreciate yourself. Give yourself credit. Pride is egoistic, competitive, and boastful while self-compassion is grateful, humble, and self-giving. Why do we look for what’s good in us? Because Christ is risen in us. Ellen Bass’s poem, “The thing is” captures this aspect of resilience that never ceases to search for the living among the dead. “The Thing Is” – Ellen Bass to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you down like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think, How can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again. My friends in Christ, be the agent of hope for the world, for your communities, for your family and friends, for others, for those who you don’t like and who you don’t even know. Also, be the agent of hope for yourself and for God. Be like the angels who ask, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” and confess, “Because Christ is risen!” Amen. |
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
|