Homily:
24th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C
While I was in
the seminary, I was blessed to take a couple of courses on pastoral counseling
and, in those courses, we covered a few topics on basic human behavioral
psychology. It was very high-level stuff
that gave us some basics about how we’re “wired” psychologically and how we can
“re-wire” our brains when our behaviors are affecting us negatively. One of the concepts that I encountered in
these classes really stuck with me because it seemed to me to be one of the
fundamental issues with which people are dealing, but one with which they don’t
know that they’re dealing. This concept
is called “differentiation”.
Differentiation,
as many scholars define it, is one’s ability to be his or her self in relation
to others. In other words, it is knowing
who I am as a distinct person in relation to another person. I like this notion because it touches on
something very human: that is, that we come to know ourselves more fully—that
is, in a sense, we become more human—when we recognize our distinctiveness
in relation to another person.
A struggle with
differentiation, then, is when our sense of self becomes dependent on others. In other words, when we find that we need
others to act in a certain way in order to feel good about ourselves and to
function within a group of others, then we are probably struggling to be (or,
rather, to know) who we are in relation to others. Perhaps an example will help
illustrate this.
Most of you know
that I’m not originally from Indiana, but what I quickly found out after moving
here is that in Indiana you are either for Purdue University and against
Indiana University or vice versa (unless of course you’ve reached summit of
spiritual enlightenment and thus root for Our Lady’s school, Notre Dame). Putting that aside, imagine what it would be
like if on any given day a small group of people (let’s say ten or so) decided
to walk through Purdue’s campus completely decked out in crimson and cream IU paraphernalia. For Purdue students, this demonstration would
be tantamount to a hostile invasion.
Perhaps, then, you could imagine the tension that would build as this
group walked through campus. My guess is
that it wouldn’t be but a few minutes before this group began to receive
hostile and threatening comments from Purdue students passing them by. In their anxiety at this apparent threat to
their identity as Boilermakers, these students would react by attempting to
shame the members of this group for their non-conformity.
Right at the beginning
of this long passage from the Gospel that we heard today, we see an example of
this kind of struggle with differentiation.
Almost lost among the images of the parables is the reason why Jesus was
telling them in the first place. It says
“Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the
Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and
eats with them.’” The Pharisees and the
scribes were the recognized authorities of the law and the law dictated that
one must keep clear of contact with sinners for fear of defiling one’s self and
thus making one’s offering to God impure.
“We are good Jews,” they seem to be saying, “and to be a good Jew one
must conform strictly to the Law.”
Jesus’ seeming non-conformity to the Law caused them anxiety and they
reacted by complaining and criticizing, hoping to shame him into conformity:
thus, revealing their own struggle with differentiation.
Jesus, for his
part, offers them a well-differentiated response. Instead of reacting to their criticisms, he
gives them parables that help illustrate the reason that he “welcomes sinners
and eats with them.” The parables of the
lost sheep and the lost coin serve to show that God will go to absurd lengths
to ensure that not one of his chosen ones is lost or left behind. And in the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus
gives the Pharisees and the scribes an even more complete image of the Father
as one who is “prodigal” with his forgiveness.
Notice that the father in this parable does not stand defiantly to say,
“I have to punish you because you made me look bad as a father” (which would
thus reveal a struggle with differentiation).
Rather, he takes no offense at his son’s dissolute past and instead
embraces him for having returned and celebrates that “what was lost, has now
been found.” With these parables, Jesus
shows his critics that he, indeed, (as Saint Paul wrote to Timothy in today’s
second reading) “came into the world to save sinners.”
Jesus then
contrasts this image of the father in the parable by portraying the
poorly-differentiated older son. In
doing so, he gives the Pharisees and scribes a mirror in which to look at
themselves. This older son takes offense
that the father has received his younger brother back so generously and he
struggles to accept this, because his self-image of being a “good son” is tied
to his father’s acceptance of his behavior and rejection of behavior like his
younger brother’s. And so, instead of
rejoicing that his brother has returned safe and sound, he complains: feeling
unrecognized and rejected by his father’s actions.
It’s no stretch
to see that this kind of reactive, undifferentiated response is a significant
source of conflict in our own lives today.
Our culture is given over to polarizations and, thus, in many ways, even
our church communities are divided. How
often do we find ourselves launching into criticisms about what others in the
church are saying or doing? Immediately
our defenses shoot up whenever we see someone who purports to be a “good
Catholic”, but then acts poorly or contradicts Church teachings outside of church. Our responses then move towards an attempt
to force them to change and to conform to our image of what a “good Catholic”
should act like. My brothers and
sisters, no matter what the situation is, when our anxiety levels start to rise
and we begin to become reactive, it’s a sign that we are struggling with
differentiation: that is, we are struggling to be who we are in relation to
others.
Just like Jesus
could give a well-differentiated response to the Pharisees and the Scribes and
thus lead them towards a deeper understanding of who God is and who they were
in relation to him, so he can do the same for us. When we approach God out of our anxiety—whether
it be anger, frustration, fear, or doubt—he is always able to receive us and to
respond to us in a way that is in no way reactive to how we approached
him. Always capable of being who he is
in relation to us, God stands always ready to respond to us in love: a response
which then becomes for us like a mirror, showing us who we really are in
relation to him—his beloved sons and daughters—and thus enabling us to be who
we are in relation to others: which frees us to love them in spite of how their
actions might reflect on us.
My brothers and
sisters, Jesus’ ultimate act of differentiation is what we see on the cross and
in what we will eat from this altar. In
submitting to indescribable torture and death on the cross, and to being made
present body, blood, soul and divinity in the form of bread and wine, Jesus
acknowledges who he is in relation both to God and to us: the Son of God and
the Son of man, the King of All Ages and the child of a peasant girl, the
Beloved of the Father and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world… Therefore, my brothers and
sisters, let us remember today who we are—sons and daughters who have received
God’s mercy and brothers and sisters who are called to share God’s mercy with each
other—and let us not forget God’s infinite love for us: a love that we
experience most perfectly when we approach this altar in unity and peace.
Given
at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – September 15th, 2019
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