The
Need to Surrender
Fr.
George Smiga
March
12-13, 2005
John
11:1-45
The
most important thing that happens in this long passage from
the gospel of John is what Martha learns about life. Martha
knew Jesus and loved Jesus, yet Martha looks for life in the
wrong place. She imagines that life is going to be available
to her brother, Lazarus, in the future. She says, “I know
my brother will rise again at the resurrection on the last
day.” Jesus challenges her. He says, “I am the resurrection
and the life. Those who believe in me, even if they die shall
live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
Jesus
proclaims, “I am life, and I am now. The deepest part of life
is available to you now. Not just physical life, but the most
important things of life. Your own dignity as a person is
available to you now. Peace is available now. Joy is available
now. It flows from your status as a child of God. It flows
from your relationship with me.”
I
do not believe there is a more difficult or challenging passage
in the Scriptures than this assertion by Jesus: that today,
now, we have access to life, to joy, and to peace in his presence.
We are all so much like Martha: we postpone life to some future
time, to a time when we have met the conditions that we think
are necessary in order to have life. We imagine that life
will happen once we have attained a certain success or once
we have corrected what is wrong in our life. Then, in that
future, we suppose we will have life. Like Martha we say to
ourselves, “Life will happen once I graduate from college,
once I get married, once I stop smoking, once I retire, once
I lose twenty pounds, once I make enough money, once I have
the right kind of friends, once I get over this cold, once
spring comes.” Whatever conditions we imagine, those conditions
move life away from us. Jesus insists that we are mistaken.
Life in its deepest sense does not result from anything we
do or fail to do. Life happens when we surrender, when we
surrender to Christ and God's love for us which is available
to us in this moment.
We
keep thinking that life in its' deepest sense is about us
and our accomplishments. The shocking thing that Jesus tells
us in today's gospel is that your life is not about you—you
are about life! Real life is available to you the moment that
you accept God's love which is freely given to you as a son
or daughter of God, available to you in this moment. To the
extent that we are able to open ourselves to that present
free gift of love we can experience life and peace and joy.
To the extent that we place conditions on that gift, we push
life into to the future, a future which we will never reach.
Of
course the things we do have some importance. We must earn
a living, we must get an education, we probably should lose
twenty pounds. But the minute we think that these conditions,
these goals that we set for ourselves, are what is going to
bring us life and peace and joy, in that moment we begin a
futile and useless chase. Life comes when we surrender, when
we accept God's free love for us in this moment, when we claim
our status as sons and daughters and begin to live out of
the relationship which is God's free gift to us.
In
the 1950's a famous millionaire held an exclusive dinner party
in which he invited two famous people. One of them was the
brilliant British actor, Richard Burton. The other was Bishop
Fulton J. Sheen, who was a religious leader, famous for his
preaching of the gospel in the modern media. As a gift to
his guests that evening he asked both men to prepare and to
read the 23 rd psalm, probably the most famous of all the
psalms: “the Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall
want”. Richard Burton spoke first. He took up the text and
he proclaimed it with conviction, insight and drama, using
all of his professional skills. At the end of that reading
the guests were so moved that they jumped to their feet and
burst into applause. When the applause died down, Bishop Sheen
took up the same text, and he read it with humility, conviction
and faith. When he was finished, there was absolute silence.
Finally the host stood up and thanked both men for there readings.
He then said to his guests, “If I had to summarize what took
place here tonight, it would be this: Mr. Burton knew the
psalm, but Bishop Sheen knew the Shepherd.”
The
secret to life is to know the Shepherd, to know the unconditional
love that God gives to each one of us regardless of our achievements
or our failures. Accept that love. Live out of that relationship.
Do not postpone life to some future time, placing conditions
upon it which you imagine you must meet. God loves you now.
God loves you in this moment. Surrender!
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