Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time · July 21, 2024 · 10:30 AM
Sadrac Camacho
Jer 23:1-6; Ps 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6;
Eph 2:13-18; Mk 6:30-34
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Sometimes while engaging in religious life the very act of dissecting, of splitting, right from wrong, foolishness from wisdom, in our heads, can also be a bit of a Trojan Horse for bad tendencies–for judgmental tendencies. We think we have God’s scheme figured out up here. By virtue of our mindmaps, we sometimes engage in reflexes that categorize people as immoral or foolish when they don’t meet the rigid rules we’ve come up with not only by way of our Catholic heritage but by virtue of our historical circumstance, of the mores of our age. We convolute and retroject an army of moral principles, past and present, “Biblical” and “non-Biblical”, in constructing God’s Will insofar as “right” and “wrong” and “wise” from “foolish.” And we deploy that army in passing our judgment. Laid out in this fashion, it’s clear that what we do as reflex is quite confused; we are not privy to God’s infinite moral judgment. Who are we to cast down our condemnation with the force of God’s gavel? We are all equally sinners. These words from the Gospel of St. Luke echo through the ages: “ Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”
Today, we see the Bible, through King Solomon and St. Paul, tease apart the concepts of wisdom over foolishness. In reading these texts, we might think it fit, whether consciously or subconsciously, to take what we have learned from the Bible and begin passing our judgment, saying, “that person is ‘wise’; that person is a ‘fool.” And of course, Christians the world round often do do this, with clothing, modesty, family decisions, media consumption, etc. Those who don’t pass a certain litmus test are “fools” in some denominations and “wise” in others. And of course, oftentimes the issues that precipitate such judgment face, if anything, Biblical silence or uncertainty, but are depicted as having a definite resolution in the Bible or Tradition. This moralistic project subscribed to by many Christians is at its roots precisely the kind of behavior Jesus warned against. It fractures the body of Christ; it isolates us from one another. Those seeking wisdom reject those they see as “fools”; but those seeking wisdom could likewise be seen as fools by those who consider themselves more wise. What’s cultivated is a holier-than-thou attitude, which rejects people on the path to sanctification. It forecloses fraternity with those working to better themselves. Which again includes everyone. Nobody on this planet is a finished product; nobody on this planet is perfect. Nobody even knows precisely how to live in this Modern world in light of Jesus’ ancient teachings. We so easily cast this judgment; we so easily box ourselves and others according to how well we follow “the rules”, not knowing that each one of us carries a log in our eye each time we call out the splinter trapped in that of our neighbors. Those quick to take their lessons about wisdom and foolishness and adapt them into a method for finger-pointing are not doing the work of Christ.
Rather, we are called to do something much different. Psalm 14:1 defines a fool as one who says in his heart “There is no God.” It says such people “are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.” This verse initially seems like the starting place for precisely the kind of judgment I forewarned against. And it very frequently is used as such against the atheist or agnostic. But again, Christ does not command us to go around pointing at splinters in people’s eyes. On the contrary, we see the Bible attributing foolishness not to the corrupt and abominable deeds done by the fool but to his belief–or lack thereof. To his lack of faith. His actions proceed from his lack of spiritual nourishment. He was, in the first instance, made a fool by his disbelief. And this, of course, makes perfect sense. God is Wisdom itself. Jesus is the logos that became flesh. Just as God is infinitely Good, and sin represents in fact nothing in itself except for the lack of God, foolishness is no different. Foolishness is not so much any specific sin, any specific instance of us falling short of the stature of Christ, it’s not even so much that internal battle with our demons, that internal battle of whether to opt for God or sin today. Foolishness is the absence of God. It represents that mental and spiritual desert, where God cannot be found. We are not ultimately made fools by things we do, so much as what we believe, by the role that faith plays in our lives. So we are not so much called to pass judgment on the fool or wise, so much as we’re called to edify people on faith. We are called into communion with one another so that we can persist in our love for God and ourselves. And only because of this love can we aspire to be Wise.
Now think about what I mentioned earlier about passing judgment. Let’s say you love somebody, perhaps a parent or a child, in the same way God loves the nonbeliever, unconditionally, with all your heart mind and soul. Let’s say this person is not receptive to your love; this person rejects your love despite how you feel. They would rather treat you as if you’d never existed. Do you proceed to berate them for their lack of receptiveness, or do you seek to figure out a way to have them reconcile with you? That’s what we’re called to do, not berate but be agents of reconciliation in a fractured world. Reconciliation of all people, including people who lack faith. Indeed, St. Paul more than castigate against any particular evil, urges us to “but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” as we do here today.
In light of the readings, we see a profound connection between wisdom and the sustenance provided by Christ. Personified Wisdom, as depicted in Proverbs, extends an invitation to a divine banquet, a symbol of the kind of nourishment that leads us away from foolishness and guides us toward deeper wisdom. This banquet is not merely a feast for the body but a profound communion that enriches us, spiritually. Jesus, in the Gospel of John, fulfills this ancient invitation by offering Himself as the living bread from heaven. To partake in His body and blood is to embrace the ultimate wisdom of God. Through Holy Communion, we become part of him and he part of us. This shows us that what really lies behind knowing wisdom from foolishness is not the ability to make superficial judgments about imperfect people. Instead, we are called to invite all to this banquet of eternal life. To persuade people to want to make God a part of their lives so that “foolishness”, this absence of God, is unable to take hold of them. Everyone has at one time or another chosen to starve themselves of spiritual nourishment, to fast themselves of God’s love, to reject it even altogether perhaps, but to those people the invitation is the same. It is true that we are never really fools until we decide to forego God’s spiritual nourishment altogether. But the lesson is the same, there will always be an open seat at the Lord’s table for the fool and the wise, because more than fool or wise every one of us is a child of God who God loves immensely. And at this open table, shortly, we will partake of his Body and Blood and be at Wisdom’s table and forego the allure of foolishness. This does not make us better; it empowers us with a goal. To make everyone welcome at this table–to provide sacraments to all. This is our ministry. This is our life purpose. Amen.