Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

It is a fascinating thing, really, how the language, words that we use, the meaning the they carry are colored by the phases through which our culture passes. There was a time, not so terribly long ago, when the word "radical" carried with it a great deal of emotional weight. It could not be used lightly. It was a word that would call up images of revolution, of rioting in the streets, of overturning a set of values held very dear by a very great many people in our country.

Thankfully, that word has been drained over the past 15 or 20 years of most of its political weight, and has become safe to use meaningfully again.

Good thing, really, because it is a word that certainly must be used when reflecting on the preaching of Christ.To "radicalize" anything really means to simplify, to purify, to get back to the roots, the original insight that sparked a belief, a way of life. To radicalize means to sweep away needless clutter or complication of any kind, be it political, philosophical, or theological. And Christ certainly did that. Two weeks ago we heard in the Gospel reading how Christ radicalized His followers' sense of sin. He told them that simply keeping the commandments was not nearly enough. And then last weekend, he said the same thing about His followers' practice of virtue. To simply do one's duty, give to one another only what is due, is not nearly enough.

And Christ did all that radicalizing by proposing to His followers a totally new set of standards to use in measuring, defining their sense of sin and of virtue. Sin is simply enough to love less than one is capable of loving. Virtue is simply enough to love as fully as one is capable of doing. What I must do is everything I can do. So a yardstick, a standard proposed for Christians that goes far beyond that of their own immediate experience, far beyond the conventional wisdom of society, and, often enough, far beyond what seems to be good sense, what seems reasonable.

So it is a radical image indeed that begins to emerge from all of this. The stance that a Christian is called to take towards the world, towards other people is not at all a prudent or reasonable one. A Christian who is too sensible, too reasonable is probably not much of a Christian at all. And all of that is so because a Christian is one who moves and acts in a world defined not by one's own experience, nor by the accumulated experience of a culture, nor even by that of all of humanity. Rather a Christian lives and moves and acts in a world defined by the mind of God.

Last week the Gospel called us to reflect on the notion that the vocation of a Christian is to nothing less than holiness, as God Himself is holy. And I can't for the life of me think of a better definition of just such that. To be holy means to recognize and accept the fact that the world is God's, and that to live in it successfully means to do so on His terms.

And I think it is just such an insight that is developed further in this Gospel reading this weekend. The process of radicalizing, of paring away the clutter and purifying one's grasp of the truth continues. But this time Christ applies that process to something as broad as the lifestyle of His followers, and as specific as the way in which they experience that life. And again, the method is the same. Christ proposes to them a new standard against real values are to be measured, the value of their efforts, just how real their accomplishments may or may not be. And again, it is most certainly not a standard drawn from their personal experience, nor from the cumulative experience of human beings. Quite the contrary, it challenges that experience. In this passage Christ tells His followers, tells us, that so much of what seems to be so important, so necessary in their lives, simply isn't. He tells them that so many of the concerns that take up so much of their time and energy really don't matter very much. He tells them that at the heart of it, life simply is not what it feels like, what it seems to be.

The Scriptural images used in this passage to make that point are pretty straightforward ones. Food, clothing, wealth, success as the world defines it, all of those things that feel so important, and in pursuit of which people spend such a desperate amount of time and energy, none of them really matter very much. None of them can possibly be more than a temporary passing satisfaction, really not worth very much trouble at all.

But I think we miss the point if we stop with that. After all, not many of us here are actually rolling in wealth. It would be pretty easy for us to respond to the radical thrust of this passage almost smugly, to see it as applying to those others out there, those who have wealth and power, and are so clearly mis-using it. But that would be too narrow. Perhaps there are other ways in which we refuse to accept the radical standards set for us by Christ, and insist on those of our own making. Perhaps there are ways in which we cling to the right to assign value and importance to dimensions of our lives, our experience, rather than accept the value which Christ has assigned to them.

We may claim the right to decide for ourselves, for example, what justice means. I may cling anxiously to my own definition of what I have got coming, what is due me in return for my efforts, my virtues. I may do so in terms of material return, I should be getting more money, my work is more valuable than this, and so on. But I am more work likely, really, to do so in terms of non-material return. I am just not appreciated enough around here, in this relationship, this job, this family, this parish. I don't get the support, encouragement, recognition I have got coming. I may even claim the right to decide what is due me from God. I should not have to endure this or that misfortune, or illness, or setback.

And once I do that about myself, I will more than likely do the same about others. I may claim the right to interpret the value of the efforts of others, their accomplishments. What so and so does is worth more, deserves more support than what so and so does. That is a dangerous trap for us. Because more than likely the standard on which we will fall back in judging such concerns is one easily drawn from experience, but one which the Gospel, here and elsewhere, explicitly rejects as meaningless. Productivity. What are the measurable results. Such and such a program, or effort, or attitude is valuable, because it makes money, or at least doesn't cost any. It is valuable because it produces, in a measurable, tangible way.

More personally, other possessions to which we may cling anxiously could be the right to decide for ourselves, based on our own experience, who has the right to be treated kindly, politely if nothing else, about whom should I be actively concerned, who is worthy of my forgiveness, who deserves one more effort at friendship?

And on and on that list could run. All the ways in which we live out our lives according to the standards of the marketplace, or the boardroom, or even the battlefield. And all ways in which we fall short of living out our lives according to the standards set for His people by Christ. All ways in which we fall short of the goal repeated for us by Christ in this reading. The holiness of God. His way of holiness.

So. To live in God's world, on God's terms. A radical challenge indeed. Radical because so much of the time, His terms just don't feel right. They just don't seem to make sense. What Christ tells us in this passage sounds foolish. It sounds self-destructive. But in just a few moments we will do something else He told us to do, simply because He told us to do it. We will pick up a piece of bread and tell ourselves and one another, and Him, that we believe that bread is not what it seems to be. That in fact it is Christ's own Body, physically present among us. There is an intimate, again a radical connection between the sacraments and the morality of the Gospels. Perhaps that is a connection we could explore more deeply another time. But for now as we re-affirm our faith in the non-sense of the Eucharist, let us draw from that the grace to truly radicalize our morality. If this bread is indeed not what seems it to be, then more than likely, neither is much else.

Readings: Isaiah 49:14-15; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34