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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 that people are dealing with,
but one that they don’t know that they’re dealing with. 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 the campus of IU
completely decked out in black and gold Purdue paraphernalia. For students at IU 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 IU students passing them by. In their anxiety at this apparent threat to
their identity as Hoosiers, 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
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 All Saints Parish: Logansport , IN
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