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Relationship Not a Bargain
Fr.
George Smiga
July
30-31, 2005
Matthew
14: 13-21
A
missionary bishop was called to confirm a group of children
with severe mental and physical handicaps. Not one of all
the children could do even the most rudimentary academic work.
The chaplain at the home where the children resided warned
the bishop, “You can speak no longer than two minutes. Anything
longer is outside of the children's capacities. You should
have one point and speak in simple, concrete language.” The
bishop was nervous about addressing the children, but this
was the homily he gave them: “My dear children, your mothers
and your fathers, your brothers and your sisters love you
deeply. This is why they keep gently stroking your head and
your hair and your cheeks. This is also what happens in confirmation.
God strokes you, because God loves you so much. In the next
few minutes I will come and anoint you on the head with oil
in the sign of the cross. That is God stroking you and loving
you.”
A
few minutes later the bishop approached a young boy with severe
cerebral palsy. As he made the sign of the cross on the boy's
head, the young man grimaced and then, with great difficulty,
said the work “Stroke.” He had understood the homily. Moreover,
he appreciated the central truth of the gospel, that our God
is a God who strokes us out of love—just as God stroked Israel
and made Israel God's very own, just as the father stroked
the prodigal son, just as Jesus stroked the little children,
the lepers, the poor, the hungry, the sorrowing, the persecuted.
At the center of the gospel stands a God who strokes us out
of love. And for all that we cannot understand about God,
and for all that we cannot explain about life, our faith rests
on this central truth of God's love for us.
The
apostle Paul in today's second reading gives a powerful expression
of this foundational tenet of Christianity. Paul says, “Nothing
can separate us from the love of God, not hardship or distress
or persecution, not famine or poverty or violence, not the
present or the future, not life or death. In all of these
things we are more than conquerors, because of God who has
loved us.” In this forceful expression of the gospel Paul
makes clear what faith is and what it is not. Believing in
Jesus is not a bargain. It is a relationship.
Many
people who want to market Christianity will try to make it
into a bargain. “If you do this, God will do that. If you
believe and pray, you will be wealthy or healthy. If you believe
in Jesus you will not have to experience sickness or worry
or pain.” But in Paul's expression there is no sign of such
bargaining. In fact, Paul admits painfully that we as believers
in Christ undergo the same trials and tribulations as everyone
else in the world. Believing in Christ does not insure us
that we can avoid cancer, or that our marriage will last,
or that we will be able to protect the people we love. Believing
in Christ is not a guarantee to a charmed and easy life. What
faith is, is the acceptance of a relationship. What faith
is, is believing in a God who caresses us with blessings and
who gently strokes us in our pain. Believing in Christ is
admitting that there is a God who will never stop loving us.
Now
if we could make our faith a bargain, we could convert the
world. We could fill up all the churches. Because who would
not want to avoid the trials and tribulations of living? But
believing in Christ does not remove us or protect us from
the pains and struggles of life. What faith does is give us
a relationship in which we can cope with all of our pains
and struggles.
The
gospel guarantees us of one thing and one thing alone: God
will not stop loving us. Nothing can separate from the love
of God in Christ. Not sickness, not aging, not family upheaval,
not even death. To have a relationship with an ever-loving
God, as the center of our faith is not a bargain that will
impress everyone. But for those of us who believe in Christ's
death and resurrection, for those of us who recognize the
loving strokes of our God, this relationship is the gospel;
this relationship is life; this relationship is everything.
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