Have you ever met someone warm, kind, and understanding in one’s heart that you are so drawn to? It’s a blessing to encounter such a person. In the gospel story this morning, tax collectors and sinners are coming near to listen to Jesus. If we think of Jesus as some kind of authority figures like a priest or a bishop, our conception of him is far from the truth. The fact that tax collectors and sinners can approach Jesus quite shamelessly challenges us to imagine Jesus differently. There’s something special about him that there’s no fear or insecurity around him. One feels so good and welcome that there’s no need to be someone else. No masks are required!
One way to re-imagine Jesus is to consider a person around you who you feel very comfortable with. That person in your mind wouldn’t necessarily be wealthy or highly educated or morally superior. That person may just be a simple, ordinary human being. But not that simple in the sense that that person is warm, kind, non-judgmental, empathetic, compassionate, and always willing to be where you are. You enjoy that person’s company. Jesus has that presence. This is the presence of God’s love and grace that tax collectors and sinners are experiencing. We don’t know why St. Luke labels these people as “sinners” in the lesson yet we can reasonably speculate that these are the folks who are “lost” in the eyes of the Pharisees. The Pharisees might be correct in their judgment that these people don’t follow the Law and there’s no virtue in their lifestyle. There’s a clear boundary between them and the lost. Though it's easy to criticize the Pharisees for being self-righteous, it’s hard to deny that their lifestyles are more orderly in line with the Jewish teachings at that time. For example, tax collectors in Jesus’ time are Jews who work for the Roman Empire. To the ones who fight for the independence of ancient Israel, these were traitors who not only secure their place under Roman governance but also make profits out of their own people. (The Pharisees have their reason to dislike Jesus hanging out with them!) So, what is it that Jesus sees but the Pharisees don’t? What is that these tax collectors and sinners see in Jesus but not in the Pharisees? I would call it “the nth chance” that they can become better. Note that Jesus doesn’t condone their lifestyles. What we want to look at is how he does it. It’s not by chastisement or criticism. It’s his presence of compassion that they can somehow experience in themselves. This sparks the light in us that we begin to change ourselves with the help of the Spirit. Jesus’ presence itself becomes the good news that the inner presence of God’s kingdom is always within us despite our unskillful behaviors. In this cultivation of the inner presence of God’s kingdom, there’s always a joy. Joy in heaven and joy in our lives. There’s no joy in being lost but in realizing and accepting one’s lost state because that’s when we are found. If we feel like we’re lost, that’s when we can be found. How we can be found is simple. Don’t look further. Look within. I would like to conclude my reflection with the words of Meister Eckhart: “…He [God] wants the soul to be capacious, so as to hold the largesse He is ready to bestow. No one should think it is hard to come to this, even though it sounds hard and a great matter. It is true that it is a little difficult in the beginning in becoming detached. But when one has got into it, no life is easier, more delightful, or lovelier: and God is at great pains to be always with a man and to lead him inward if only he is ready to follow. No man ever wanted anything so much as God wants to bring a man to the knowledge of Himself. God is always ready, but we are unready. God is near to us, but we are far from Him. God is in, we are out. God is at home (in us), we are abroad.” (from Sermon 69) Our Christian life, this nth chance is always about returning to the loving presence of the prodigal Father in our hearts. Jesus does it again what he did three weeks ago. Recall his radically divisive words, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather a division!” (Luke 12:51) This morning, he sounds more provocative, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26) “Hate” is a strong word and is a requirement to be Jesus’ disciple. How can having an adversarial emotion toward our immediate family as well as life itself help us become his disciple? Isn’t Jesus’ message all about love? What’s the reason behind all this nonsense Jesus is talking about?
The keyword to decipher this provocatively divisive teaching of Jesus is a foundation. Without any foundation, there’s no result. We can’t build anything. It’ll eventually collapse. We often talk about how fundamentals are crucial to mastery. This fact is very much reflected in our language. For example, think of the term 101. When we observe something that lacks basics, we then say, “It’s Oreology 101 that one MUST split the wafers, that one MUST dunk it in milk but no other beverages!” Jesus’ discipleship 101 is to get our foundation straight, and then relearn how to love our family and life. This still is a tough message to swallow because we often find our foundation in the family. Family is where we develop a sense of who we are. We are named by our family. We start as children and siblings. This foundation is so embedded in human life. I don’t believe Jesus teaches us to deny this reality we’re living in. His way of getting our foundation straight is to start the process of transformation. Identities we’ve been forming, reforming, and creating and denying, are to be dropped here. Identities are like possessions as we put different masks on. We drop them. “...none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." This experience of giving up or dropping possessions of identities we create and destroy to invent who we are in our own image and that of others can be quite daunting because we feel like we’re losing ourselves. And yes, we are indeed losing ourselves. This can cause fear and anxiety if we’re holding on to those identities that make us feel like "who I am." Moses trembled when he encountered the burning bush. Paul lost his sight as he heard the voice of Jesus on the way to Damascus. Then the question is how we can drop our possession of masks to get to the foundation of our being. Simple. We go back to how we came into being. To be more specific, we return to exactly what we started our life with. That’s our frame of reference. We look for the anchor that holds and sustains our lives right here, right now. What activity have you been doing that you’ve never stopped since you were born? Breath. Breath is the frame of reference for us to counter any fear or anxiety when our invented identities become stripped away before God. When we close our eyes in silence, we focus on our breath. As we pay close attention to our breath, we realize that this breath energy has been in every part of the body all along. There’s no need to pull and push breath here and there. It’s more of connecting the breath energy from one point to the other, from the head to the heart and then to the toes. There is a sense of losing ourselves yet our breath, which is now experienced and perceived as the Breath of God the Holy Spirit, holds us. This is the foundation of our being. As we continue to concentrate on our breathing in and out, tensions in our body lessen. We relax, which doesn’t mean we’re about to get drowsy. We are alert and awake, heedful of thoughts and feelings arising and passing. When tensions dissipate, we are founded, grounded in being itself. Enjoy that sense of being rooted in the Life of the Spirit. From this foundation, we return to our “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself.” This way, we skillfully become children, siblings, and friends as the followers of the way Jesus of Nazareth has taken, being rooted in the Breath of God. Returning to this Breath is, after all, Christian Life 101. Jesus observes the guests who are gathered for a sabbath meal and look for the seats of honor that they think they deserve. We can imagine those seats are usually close to the seat of the host. These guests delusively believe they are someone important and honorable so they illusively presume there must be a place of honor designated for them. Note that both this delusion and illusion are happening only in the minds of the guests. Jesus comments, “...and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.” (Luke 14:9) It’s like I think I deserve this place based on my self-evaluation of what kind of person I imagine to be but the host or others don’t think I am that person.
The guests who are invited to the house of a leader of the Pharisees might be both illusional and delusional. It’s an illusion that there exists such a physical space called a “place of honor” while it’s a delusion that there exists such a person who deserves that place of honor. An illusion deals with a physical phenomenon. For example, think of a pool of water in a desert that doesn't physically exist. It’s a mirage, an optical illusion. A delusion is more of a mental phenomenon in which one is fixated on false beliefs. These two are not exclusive but influence each other. On a surface level, humility might be the heart of Jesus’ teaching on where to sit at a gathering. If one humbly presents oneself, one will be exalted. But what if this teaching is used just to be exalted? What if its motivating factor is one’s hidden desire for social recognition, not the virtue of humility? This may be false humility or humblebrag. Jesus isn’t interested in teaching us how to sociopolitically position ourselves. His focus, as he consistently and faithfully insists, is on the kingdom of God. It’s about how to spiritually position ourselves in the kingdom of God. In this respect, it’s crucial to consider a physical presence of the place of honor as illusory and a belief in which there exists an honorable person deserving that illusive place of honor as delusional. Simply, they don’t exist. They don’t exist in the eyes of God. They don’t exist as long as we don’t identify ourselves with someone we’re not in this game of locating ourselves in the place of honor. But they do exist only when this illusion and delusion are treated and believed as real, which appears to be our true reality. We can keep living in this unreality yet we do have a choice not to as Jesus directs us. There’ll always be someone and some seat higher, greater, and better than we are now. This cyclic one-upmanship race has no winner unless the one standing at the top becomes a god. In this cycle, we’re restless, wandering around, and never satisfied. So we suffer. Our spiritual practice of dis-identifying with anyone or anything is the pathway to freedom in God’s kingdom. This is not a defeatist approach to the social structure we’re born into. It is a strategy or a tool to externalize the inner kingdom of God. While our world is busy, labeling one from the other, identifying one with someone or something different from everything else, our gaze on the inner kingdom of God through the breath of God can help us go beyond all these labels and identities. We’re no longer boxed in but are open to all things and attach to nothing. (No need to fear losing our authenticity as who we are. It’s already expressed in the body we’re given at birth. I can never be you as much as you can’t be me since I don’t have your bodily features!) In light of this disidentifying spiritual practice, there exists neither the highest place nor person nor the lowest for us. Wherever we sit, we debunk the unreality of illusions and delusions. Our contemplatively breathed presence sheds light on how we can live here on earth harmoniously. Jesus’ teaching on who to invite to a banquet pushes us further: “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.” Try to disidentify ourselves even from our families and friends, and more so from rich ones. Completely free from conventional and biological labels, he takes us to the edge: “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” This is how one stands stripped before God and what the resurrection may look like. When we’re set free from fabricated identities, those who are negatively identified based on their disadvantaged status and upbringing become set free. In the eyes of Jesus, they become the ones who bless us for the resurrection. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20) Today’s lesson may be considered one of the toughest teaching accounts of Jesus. Can you imagine Jesus saying, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”? This image of Jesus as a divider or a disruptor doesn’t resonate with his more well-accepted nickname, “Prince of Peace." Yet, these two contrasting images don’t conflict with each other if we keep in mind the words of Johan Galtung who once said, “By peace we mean the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence, and creatively—a never-ending process.” Rather, peace in the light of God’s kingdom exposes hidden conflicts.
On the other hand, let’s face the fact that conflicts have always been there even before Jesus said anything about them. No need to look further. Just consider our family conflicts. (Now, I’m having a headache!) While reasons vary for each conflict, the reason for a Jesus-causing conflict is clear. It’s the kingdom of God. His proclamation of the gospel that God is present in the heart of every human being is the driving force of Jesus-causing conflicts. The breath we take in and out is no longer our own but the Breath of God. As our breath is patterned according to the Breath of the Spirit, our lives are patterned according to the will of God. This breath talk might sound a bit ambiguous or even poetic but please take this expression of breath literally. The way we breathe affects the way we live. We heedfully acknowledge that God is breathing the Breath into our breath. This physiological aspect of breath has a physical effect on us, which is emotional in that it affects how we feel (e.g. taking a deep breath slowing down our temper) and spiritual in that the Spirit resides in us (e.g. the depth of our breath connecting us the inner kingdom of God centered in our belly). This bodily, thus incarnational, presence of God changes the way we perceive the world and others. This change of the perspective on life, or more specifically the goal of life, clashes with other competing perspectives on life. Therefore, a conflict arises. The crucifixion is an example of the conflict Jesus himself was involved in. The irony of this conflict is that he was killed politically by religious authorities. We see his conflict intersecting politics and religion in his time. The kingdom of God cuts through all levels of our human life. Now, what we want to pay attention to is Jesus’ inner conflict in the garden of Gethsemane on Mount Olive before his experience of subsequent betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. We see his struggle in his prayer, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42) External conflicts are easy to detect while internal conflicts within ourselves are not. Before jumping into external conflicts caused by the change of our perspective on life based on our cultivation of the inner kingdom of God in us, honest discernment that looks into our inner conflicts must proceed. Jesus’ Gethsemane prayer is not only the prayer we want to say but also a methodological tool that helps us see inner conflicts. I would break this method into three steps: 1. “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” Say to God unashamedly what we truly desire which may be entirely self-serving. The key is honesty. Self-judgment is premature and inaccurate since we don’t have enough evidence to give a final verdict. Also, this may be arrogant of us since we’re never the final judge but God is. What matters is there’s nothing to hide. No self-deception, no self-attack, no self-pity. Just an honest look at ourselves. 2. “Yet” This is the moment that we allow the Breath of God to breathe in us. Set aside all our desires as we meditate. Clear our minds. Be alert to any thoughts or feelings arising and direct them to the breath ardently. 3. “Not my will but yours be done.” Examine our self-serving desires and convince ourselves that God’s will serve our best interest. There’s a sense of freedom from the crafted and fabricated selves we initially desired to satisfy. That God’s will be done fulfills our will is the leap of faith that we take. The moment of “yet” is to stay focused on the present moment when conflicting desires are uncluttered. Only in this moment of “yet,” we can answer Jesus' question with “yes” in the lesson this morning, “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Oh Jesus, yes, we know how! If there’s one thing that I would like everyone to get out of all of Jesus’ teachings, it’s the kingdom of God within us. This simple teaching penetrates the core of the entire Christian message. God’s indwelling kingdom is the expression of God’s love for all that breathes, for we know God never leaves or abandons us. This divine reality that resides in the depth of our being is the promise of God’s faithfulness towards us. It is also the mystery of the incarnation that God is to be found in our very own bodies.
So if someone asks me what would be the one thing I would like everyone to know and experience, it is this kingdom of God in them, not out there, not in someone else but their own hearts. If anyone can truly experience this, I would feel that my duty as a priest has not been in vain. I so desperately want people to discover God’s presence in them so that whichever suffering, which may come from physical and emotional pain and hurt such as loneliness, cannot take away God’s presence in them. Love is always in us wherever and however we are. How we access this inner kingdom, this inner presence of the Spirit is through breath. The word spirit derives from the Latin ‘spir’ which means to breathe. The Spirit is where breath IS. This is something we can and should take literally, not the entire Bible like biblicists or fundamental Christians. How we encounter the Spirit means how we encounter the Breath. The only way to encounter the Breath is through breath. Yes, it’s that simple. Yes, it’s that easy. Perhaps this is why most people miss it just like the characters in Jesus’ parables of God’s kingdom. It’s hidden, not because it doesn’t want to be found but because it’s taken for granted, unappreciated, too unsophisticated, and too plain. Right as you’re reading this reflection, take a breath in and out that energizes you, down in your belly. Your breath doesn’t have to be deep. Just breathe in a way your body wants right now. Feel that inner ground and center yourself. Try to keep that space as you connect it with your breath. “That” is where we can feel, experience, and connect with the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of God’s presence. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus uses two analogies: one about being alert to greet one’s master returning from a wedding banquet and the other about being on guard against a thief who might break in at an unexpected time. Both are about the heedfulness of the mind. Once we can locate the inner kingdom, we want to expand it to fill us and feed us. We want to monitor and watch heedfully what we feed ourselves and what we pay attention to. This requires a contemplative practice where we see where we feed. In other words, look mindfully at what we crave. Things we crave are what we identify ourselves with. Material gains can be what we feed on, for example. They fill our minds that we cannot think of who we are apart from material wealth. They define who we are, not the other way around. Craving for wealth owns us as they are the fuel for our identity. Jesus instructs his friends to do the opposite. But his message of giving alms doesn’t come from a philanthropic mindset. His instruction starts with the inner kingdom which is where we feed on. It’s the source of who we are. So, when we sell our possessions and give alms, we don’t do it like a poor person as if we have nothing without them. Rather, we do it like a rich person who always has enough to give away. Possessions don’t possess us. My friends in Christ, we have the treasure that we all can have, share as much as we want to without losing it, and keep it to ourselves without having to take it away from others or protect it from others. It is available to all that can breathe as the Spirit, the Breath of God is to all. The more we cultivate our practice of God’s presence via breath, the more we can enjoy its benefits and share them with others so gracefully and compassionately. This is the abundance of God’s grace and the divine economy. |
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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