From the crib to the Crucifix: God speaks in unexpected ways...

Throughout the pages of scripture, God is depicted as speaking to human beings in many ways, oftentimes, in very surprising, if not strange and unexpected ways.

Perhaps the most unexpected way is when someone expresses truth with love, which is compassionate, but we respond by expressing truth without love, a brutal response to the truth given with live.

Today’s scripture, for example, teaches that God speaks through people who, like God, love and care for us. Yet, those words of truth cause us almost instinctively to stiffen our face, harden our heart, grow increasingly resistant, and finally, to lash out at those people by pointing out their imperfections, insulting them, persecuting them, making their lives more difficult, or limiting their access to be anywhere near us.

This brutal reaction is nothing new, of course. In the scriptures, all these reactions can be traced at least as far back as the Israelites, who the Lord described to the prophet Ezekiel as

…rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day. Hard of face and obstinate of heart….they are a rebellious house.

Scripture teaches us that’s how we know God has spoken to us, the Lord told Ezekiel, “that a prophet has been among us.”

Yet we want it to be the other way around, don’t we?

We want God to speak to us through people who speak in soft and gentle tones and use words that make us “feel good all over”…sort of like after a mother nurses her infant when she wraps the infant in a swaddling blanket, hugs and kisses her infant baby, and then places her baby into the crib for a nap...calling to mind images of Mary and baby Jesus.

You guessed it: That’s a “Christmas crib” faith. While that may be acceptable for infants, it’s entirely unacceptable for children and adults.

Why? That’s to desire God to overlook if not deny the truth concerning the bad choices (and sometimes, very bad choices) we’ve made.

We know from our personal experience that’s the stuff of pure fantasy. Life isn’t a matter of denying the truth. And we know it:

• What teenager in his or her right mind, having deliberately trespassed against a parent’s moral values, expects that parent to say, “That’s okay, sweetheart. No problem at all. It doesn’t matter. Want a piece of apple pie?”
• What spouse in his or her right mind, having committed an act of infidelity and after it’s discovered, expects one’s spouse to say, “That’s okay, honey. It’s entirely understandable. How about we just forget about it because it really doesn’t matter?”

No teenager or spouse in his or her right mind would expect any of that!

In fact, it’s precisely because people aren’t in their right mind when they decide to sin that when the truth does come out. So, what do they do? Doesn’t matter what the sin is—lying, stealing, gossiping, fornicating, character assassination, among others—every sinner stiffens one’s face, hardens one’s heart, resists, and lashes out by pointing out the other’s imperfections, hurling insults at them, persecuting them, making their lives more difficult, or limiting access to be anywhere near them (that’s the “slamming the door in the face” reaction).

Today’s readings tell us that’s how God “speaks” to us because those folks we react to so negatively actually love God and neighbor enough they can’t countenance you or me falling short of our call to holiness of life. They keep their eyes, as the Psalmist reminded us, “fixed on the Lord…pleading for his mercy.”

Yes, they love God and neighbor so much that even the sins we perpetrate against them don’t stop those folks from praying for us…pleading for God’s mercy upon us. All the insults, hardships, persecutions, and slamming the doors in the face doesn’t weaken their resolve because they know, as St. Paul said, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Not only is that how we know when God speaks to us, but it’s also how we know, conversely, that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. When we turn from sin and embrace holiness of life—loving God and neighbor as we love ourselves—God sends us to “bring glad tidings to the poor”…and, in this instance, those who are spiritually and morally poor, if not bankrupt. They’re not in their right mind.

Many of us are resistant to accept that call because we know what’s sure to happen. After all, we’ve “been there and done that.” When others have pointed out our sins, we not only took offense but also dishonored them in our brutal reactions which only confirm what Jesus taught in the synagogue on that Sabbath Day, “A prophet is without honor.” But, even worse than what Jesus said, as far as we’re concerned they’re also without honor even among family members!

Leaving a warm, fuzzy, and comfortable “crib faith” behind and embracing a passionate, rough-and-tumble, uncomfortable “crucifix faith” requires three things.

• First: To love God and neighbor as we love ourselves by accepting the truth of what others say in love without reacting by becoming rebellious.
• Second: To have the courage to turn from sin and demonstrate it loving others enough to tell them in love what God says they need to hear.
• Third: When they reject us—just as the crowd rejected Jesus—to pray for them, as Jesus did, for “they know not what they are doing.”

In short: to allow pity for sinners to move our hearts so that we root out of them any bitterness, anger, and hostility.

That represents this week’s challenge from Scripture: To listen to God speak to us through those who speak the truth in love and to turn from the sin of rebelling like miscreant teenagers and infidel spouses who have been “found out.”

To that end:

• Identify one person you’ve loved as much as yourself and to whom you spoke the truth in love yet doing so infuriated that person who then took it out on you and, to this day, has written you out of that person’s life.
• Each day this week, “keep your eye fixed on the Lord” by recalling how much that hurt you because you didn’t deserve to be treated that way. In addition, consider how speaking God’s word—the truth in love—cost you what was an important relationship in your life at the time.
• When you begin to feel sorry for yourself and think, yet once again, that you should have kept your big mouth shut, call to mind and repeat with the deepest of sincerity the words of the One who exemplified what it means to have an adult, “crucifix faith”: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”
• Then, as St. Paul reminded us, “be content with those weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when we are weak, then we are strong.” Prove it by saying a sincere prayer for that person’s spiritual health, well-being, and conversion to the truth.

Completing that spiritual exercise each day this week—embracing a “crucifix faith”—will open our hearts to a deeper and more adult faith as we more consciously seek to live each day doing what authentic love of God and neighbor is and requires. Then, in this way, we will imitate God who loves each of us because even though we’ve all sinned and rebelled, we didn’t know what we were doing.

As the prophet Ezekiel’s experience taught us today:

As the LORD spoke to me, the spirit entered into me

   and set me on my feet,

   and I heard the one who was speaking say to me:

I am sending you to the Israelites,

   rebels who have rebelled against me;

   they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day.

Hard of face and obstinate of heart

   are they to whom I am sending you.

But you shall say to them: “Thus says the LORD GOD!”

And whether they heed or resist—for they are a rebellious house—they shall know that a prophet has been among them.