Divine in Human: strong, dignified and fraternal gestures, not repertoire

(Mt 13:54-58)

"Christians are a priestly people for the world. Christians should make the living God visible to the world, bear witness to Him and lead it to Him. When we speak of this common commission of ours, as we are baptised, this is not a reason to boast about it. It is a question that both gives us joy and troubles us: are we truly God's sanctuary in the world and for the world? Do we open up access to God to men, or rather hide it? Have we not - God's people - largely become a people of unbelief and distance from God? Is it not true that the West, the core countries of Christianity, are tired of their faith and, bored with their own history and culture, no longer want to know faith in Jesus Christ? We have reason to cry out to God in this hour: "Do not let us become a non-people! Let us recognise you again! For you anointed us with your love, you placed your Holy Spirit upon us. Let the power of your Spirit become effective in us again, so that we may joyfully bear witness to your message!"

[Pope Benedict, homily 21 April 2011].

The Divine in the Human makes itself Present in the intense, welcoming relationships that open up inexplicable recoveries; then it leaks out in the strong, dignified and fraternal gestures - not in repertoire.

In today's Gospel passage there is a significant difference with the previous CEI translation ('74) (vv.54.58).

The Lord helps us to grow with true 'prodigies', not with 'miracles' [punctual events] but by working in our innermost being, changing our shrunken hearts and improving us with his Love.

The "prophetic" has nothing to do with the sensational.

Only in this way will we not grow weary of the good that is not brilliant; nor will we despise the existence of ordinary people because they lack prestige and titles.

The powerful works of Jesus unfold over time - educating, not impressing and subduing.

His 'signs', those inexplicable recoveries he performs, are the calibre and fruit of a growing Encounter-for-The-Way.

A work of art (far better than accidental shortcuts) is that the profiteer becomes righteous, the doubter more secure, the unhappy person regains hope.

It takes time, though astonishment can be immediate.

The Mystery of the power of the new God announced by Christ is hidden in 'Someone within something'.

It is the plot where the Signs of a great Reality nestle, to which despite the difficulties we have access and are sharers.

The Person of Jesus tells of a Father who does not fear that his holiness is endangered by contact with the world.

The sovereign Mystery is already in the common man.

So the conflict is not with outsiders, but with the usual stubborn 'neighbours' full of prejudice - habitual and habituated, who already know how it ends... But they inaugurate nothing.

Instead, the Son is no longer a local child: a quiet programme of the 'village', the product of normal archaic ideas or already transmitted intentions, which no encounter will be able to arouse and stir up.

At home, the Master does not astound as elsewhere: he encounters a diffidence that wears down with days all counted that protrusion of belief that would fill indigence.

Faith, on the other hand, understands what cuts through the impossible Dream of Novelty: our boast is not from social status, nor from established gender.

It grasps its own specific weight not in the folklore, but precisely in regenerating - by the incessant reactivation of intrinsic interest.

In this way, Faith is not rhetoric: it realises that the state of doubt is more fruitful than conviction.

How does one become a non-people?

Certainties leave no breathing space for the inventiveness of the unusual, nor for the feeling or growth of strong Life, not disfigured by the repertoire of expected fulfilments.

To internalise and live the message:

How does your ordinary existence redeem the affairs of shaky people?

How do you live the more of Faith over habits and commonplaces?

Expectations, misunderstandings - and the spirit of the valley

(Mk 6:1-6)

Domestic side, not domestication

Where Faith is lacking only small changes occur, not the astounding wonders of the alternative presence of the Kingdom of God:

"And he could do no mighty work there, except that having laid hands on a few sick ones, he healed" (v.5).

We do not realise that the Lord could come from humble, dishonourable beginnings, as ours might be - devoid of great dynastic ties, or violent class jumps.

Says the Tao Tê Ching (vi):

"The spirit of the valley does not die [...] it is used, but it does not tire". Master Wang Pi comments:

'The spirit of the valley is the non-valley at the centre of the valley. It has no form or shadow, nothing contrasts and nothing rejects, it remains at the bottom without moving, it keeps quiet without fading. The valley is completed by it, yet its form cannot be seen: this is the most perfect model'.

Like the Wisdom codes of nature, Faith in Christ bids farewell to the idea prevalent in institutional, representative and top-down cultures and religions.

All unwilling, in their great knowledge, to deal with the normality of life that flows.

Jesus avoids rigid or grandiose models. He gives himself with simplicity to his people and aims at the formation of authentic believers.

Their trust must be placed solely in the Kingdom of God - a dimension that truly breaks the balance, because it enters into day-to-day existence and ferments it from invisible roots.

As an envoy of the Father, he would like all the people to be builders and standard bearers of other dreams - but in his home village he feels as if blocked by those who are incapable of deciphering the dimension of the divine in the human.

He has to face the obtuse incomprehension of the centres of power, but also the very failures and hopes - quiet or divisive - of the popular reality that frequents the places of worship.

The villagers expected the usual blessings (by now addicted) or perhaps a charismatic leader to fight against the Romans - and here they would gladly use the flames of religious identity to inflame their spirits.

They would have accepted a warlike captain, reflecting archaic beliefs - instead they find themselves disappointed with the inapparent reality before their eyes.

They do not know how to discover God's plot in the history of the least.

Conversely, there are many divine signs inscribed in what is summarily manifested: warnings that can help us discover the not purely earthly dimension of things, relationships, presences, and so on.

Many misunderstand the spirit of strength that Faith transmits to us.

It breaks balances because it does not offer guarantees that have already been imagined - but it is at bottom domestic and all natural [each Seed has its own particular destiny and development].

How then is the boy they have known from birth so different?

Because there is no equation between what one thinks conformistically, and the Lord. Not even by emphasising intentions.

Both great expectations and proximity can be an obstacle to a daily knowledge of what is extraordinary behind the ordinary dimension of events and people.

Even many brothers or collaborators of Saints have failed to grasp the exceptionality of a common life lived in fidelity and dedication to their Calling by Name. All the more real as it is less conspicuous.

The incomprehension and village jealousy of those who live next door and chase after a god of their own - disfigured - is a source of bitterness; but it does not stop us.

The experience of rejection prompts a change of direction (v.6b).

The soul lives under the sign of Oneness that renounces preconception, the quiet life, simple approval, easy success.

And closed doors can be an added value! They open us to the soul's journey in the Spirit, to the eccentric Announcement, to the amazing Mission.

Unfortunately, we register another kind of spirit in the 'valley' - of a totally negative sign, which in the work of evangelisation and community animation is identified with the pastoral of consent [I will give you what you want].

The astute coordinator manages relations with the faithful, the masses and the institutions with extreme shrewdness, as well as expectations - concrete, immediate - of approval and individual or circle advantage.

At times, some leaders (even church leaders) seem to be nothing more than skilful storytellers: they do not fight the dehumanising structures, nor the powerful on the ground. On the contrary, they try to make allies of them, to win easily.

Even in the time of global crisis, the conviction persists that educational, cultural and 'religious' structures can only go on with the external support of power hierarchies, and the established order. Or with the search for more 'signs' and as many wonders.

Unfortunately, such a downward, outward-looking attitude - out of weariness, which is widespread - does not amount to the enhancement of the most varied and intimate Gifts of God in people, nor to the promotion of the Kingdom.

It is obvious then that those who frequent the palace do not like incendiaries: those who hold titles and a glorious role remain impervious to the work of the Spirit who makes all things new.

[Every opportunist unfortunately remains tied to the chains of command, to the old tactical balances that have guaranteed him career, position, lustre, visibility, easy security on the side].

Perhaps the worst aspect of this downward and normal common denominator game is the cheap identification between order guaranteed by the Gospel and current equilibrium.

An illusion of external harmony between the Beatitudes proclaimed by the Lord and opportunities for a quiet life, or gain, and social recognition.Thus the principles experienced first-hand by the Master are subverted by some followers, in an opaque strategy that ends up distorting the Glad Tidings in favour of every lost one.

And each shaky though unsatisfied person spontaneously tends to adapt to the small certainties they find, offered by the rhetoric of even great narratives.

Even today, on the other hand, the Word of God sparks off the easy appeal of such dynamics and structures of authentic 'sin': it threatens them in no uncertain terms.

Indeed, they seize souls, make them conformist, indifferent to injustice, fearful of freedom - and tend to take even the God of the Exodus hostage.

The Father, however, continues to raise up eccentric prophets: they make us all more capable of perceiving the genius of the age. As well as the personal talents deployed - even amidst the irritated threats of 'countrymen' caught up in levelling marketing.

Advertisers who risk being left without protection or lineage, of course.

But who refuse to affix ready-made seals to the spirit of mediocrity that annoys no one.

To internalise and live the Word, let us ask ourselves:

What has changed in your journey since you began to live more intensely in adherence to Christ? How has your environment reacted?