Many of us are like Elijah in that we’d like to “see God.”
As Jesus told the quarrelsome Jews in today’s gospel, that’s no foolish desire. We should desire to “see God,” Jesus said, because “no one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.”
For those of us who haven’t seen God, that’s a problem because our faith teaches that each of us is from God—God has created us, breathed His Spirit into us, and has sent us into this world for a divine purpose.
“No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God,” Jesus said, “he has seen the Father.”
So, why do so many of us say we haven’t seen God?
Protestants explain it’s because we haven’t immersed ourselves in the fully in blood of the Lamb and been reborn by water and the Holy Spirit. Yes, we may have gone through the motions of being baptized and confirmed. But, we’ve not been “reborn”...and that’s evidenced every time we sin.
That’s a pretty good answer “in theory.”
It reminds us of the fundamental importance of what I’ve been calling a “Good Friday crucifix faith.” This faith requires each of us to be “reborn” continuously through the blood of the Lamb so that we “rise” continuously to new life in the Holy Spirit and fulfill the divine purpose for which God has created us...which is nothing other than to see God so others will glorify God. Therefore, since we don’t see God, we live in a state of sin.
As good as this answer may be, it falls short.
How so?
Notice its focus: “Myself,” “me,” and “my” being reborn.
Contrast that with an authentic “crucifix faith.” Its focus is living in the conscious awareness that I am “from God.” God’s life in present within each of us and our purpose is to bring to completion the mission God has entrusted to us, each in his or her particular way and given each of our distinctive talents, gifts, and interests...so others will glorify God. No matter what the mission is, it requires pouring out our blood for others and their needs and, seeing God’s presence in their lives, glorify God.
Many people who self-identify today as Catholic resonate with the Protestant focus upon “me,” “myself,” and “my.” It evidences itself especially when they say, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” These folks live what I’ve been calling a “Christmas crib faith,” namely, a warm and comfortable, swaddling blanket, yuletide kind of faith that’s like a “Hallmark greeting”: It feels really nice but never challenges those self-identifying Catholics to pour out their blood on behalf of others except perhaps through nice, “feel-good” sentiments and maybe even giving a couple of dollars to a favorite charity. And, while they may genuinely feel badly about the plight others experience, in the end, given the divine purpose God has breathed into and the mission God has entrusted to them, all these folks do is “talk the talk.”
Being spiritual, they may practice mindfulness, yoga, and pilates. They may also be vegan, eat organic, or abstain from GMO to keep their bodies and minds in tune. There’s nothing wrong any of that per se. What’s problematic when it comes to the Catholic faith and its practice, however, is the focus of those practices: “Me,” “mine,” and “my”—the self and being comfortable. It’s “all about me”—not pouring out the blood of the Lamb so others will glorify God.
They don’t “walk the talk.”
Last week, I read an article about some wealthy White folks living in the posh Dallas, Texas, suburbs of Highland Park (91% White) and University Park (88% White) where the median household income is $200k+ and the average house price between 2015 and 2019 was $1.3M in Highland Park and $1.5M in University Park. A group of “social justice” activists who call themselves “Dallas Justice Now” (DJN) called out those folks who have been posting BLM posters on their front lawns. DJN sent those folks a letter demanding they make a real commitment, namely, to “make sacrifices to correct centuries of injustice.” How? All those wealthy White folks had to do was sign DJN’s “college pledge” not to send their children to Ivy League or US News & World Report Top 50 schools. When I last checked yesteday, no one signed the pledge.
“Crib faith” Catholics are like those people in the Dallas suburbs of Highland Park and University Park when they say “I’m spiritual, not religious.” When challenged about that statement, “crib faith” Catholics generally respond something along the lines “I don’t care much for religion, it makes me feel like I’m imprisoned.” When pressed a bit about exactly what that means, “crib faith” Catholics oftentimes add, “It’s all about rules and doing what they tell you.” So they pick and choose whatever Scripture and Church teaching suits them and reject (if not agitate against) that doesn’t suit them. Pressed even further, they’ll add, “It’s my life to live as I please. Besides, I feel close to God without religion and there’s a whole lot of hypocrites I know who are very religious.”
That’s where “crib faith” Catholics want the discussion to end. They’ve determined their source of truth is what they feel, not God’s Truth as that’s been divinely revealed in Scripture and Church teaching. For Catholics who live a “crib faith,” that’s the metaphorical moralistic prison they believe has been constructed by a bunch of patriarchal White males to incarcerate humanity beneath their hegemony. “Even Jesus wouldn’t recognize the Catholic Church,” they’ll retort. And, should anyone challenge that judgment, all sorts of bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling ensues, precisely what St. Paul told the Christians of Ephesians they needed to root out of their lives in order to live the faith.
For “crib faith” Catholics, that constitutes their “bread of life” and they consume it day in and day out, despite the fact it has absolutely zero nutritional value, religiously speaking. All it fuels is increased bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling which only serves to estrange ever more people from one another no one giving glory to God. All the while “crib faith” Catholics continue to assert “I’m spiritual, not religious,” convinced they’re free when “crib faith” Catholics are prisoners imprisoned by the fact they don’t “see God.” Moreover, by refusing to be nourished by the “Bread of Life” God has revealed in Scripture and Church teaching, “crib faith” Catholics don’t have the strength to make the long journey to Horeb—“the mountain of God”—where, like Elijah, they would see God.
“Spiritual, not religious.” Really?
In contrast, Catholics who live what I call a “Good Friday crucifix” faith are authentically free precisely because they dedicate themselves to journeying to Mount Horeb to “see God.”
How do they make this journey?
They base each day of their lives upon a simple equation—Faith + Reason + RELIGION = Freedom—and live it out each day:
- They have “faith”—they believe in God, the Source of their lives.
- They use the “reason”—the power of mind God has endowed them with—to think through what their belief really is, means, and requires of them.
- They practice “RELIGION”—what faith and reason reveal is the only true way to conduct themselves because their purpose in life is a daily trek to Mount Horeb to “see God.”
“Crucifix faith” Catholics don’t espouse pious platitudes about people who are in need but devote themselves to see God in the people around them—a spouse, child, friend, coworker, and all the regular, run-of-the-mill, ordinary folks they run into wherever their day’s journey toward Mount Horeb takes them. Irrespective of who is around them, they see God in a very practical way: In the need those people have to see God. And when Catholics who live a “crucifix faith” see that need, they identify it and provide for it by pouring out their blood on behalf of those folks. Their blood could take the form of offering: an uplifting, kind word; assistance in bearing a burden; being personally present in their loneliness—any of the corporal or spiritual works of mercy.
Seeing God in these very practical ways—focusing upon others and their needs rather than upon themselves and everything they want in life—others experience God’s love and care being expressed for them. This experience opens the door to them, with God’s grace, to see God.
Like Elijah, Catholics who live a “crucifix faith” nourish themselves on the “Bread of Life” given to them freely. Then, like Jesus, the bread they will give is their flesh for the life of the world. Yes, those folks are always free to “take it” or “leave it”...and, yes, many will “leave it.” But, if they “take it,” they will be nourished to begin their journey to Mount Horeb where they will see God…present in their daily lives. Then, they’ll begin to understand the equation:
Faith + Reason + RELIGION = Freedom
Why do these folks think this way?
They know it’s not their life to live as they please, but God’s life entrusted them to live as God has willed and their freedom is experienced as they practice their faith by pouring out their blood for others. This constitutes their daily “bread of life” for which they give thanks to God each week at Sunday Mass when God nourishes them anew through the true the “Bread of Life”—Word and Sacrament—to continue their daily journey to Mount Horeb where they will see God.
That represents our challenge from Scripture for this week: To journey to Mount Horeb to see God.
How might we do that?
Each morning before doing anything—even getting out of bed—recall the equation that builds a stronger “crucifix faith”:
Then commit yourself, as St. Paul has said, to live as a free person under the law of grace by journeying each day to Mount Horeb—in your home, workplace, in school, at Giants, Acme, Walmart, or Home Depot, wherever the journey will take you that day—to see God. And when you do—in the frustrated, the confused, the lost, the suffering, the needy, the depressed, the lonely, and especially in all of those folks today who are “spiritual, not religious,” give each an experience of God’s love for them.
Faith + Reason + RELIGION = Freedom
This is how each of us will fulfill St. Paul’s words to the Ephesians:
…be kind to one another, compassionate….imitators of God, as beloved children…living in love.
This week, let’s no longer “grieve the Holy Spirit of God,” as St. Paul said. Instead, let’s do precisely as God said to Elijah and to each of us today:
Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you! Strengthened by that food, he walked to the mountain of God, Horeb.
All of us can see God because each of us is from God. To see God this week, let’s no longer forget it’s not our life to live as we please, but the life God has entrusted to each of us to live as God intends for each and every one of us.
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