Perspective

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger

The celebrant at a Mass I was attending while on vacation introduced his homily on last Sunday’s parables with a parable of his own. He said if you place a bumble bee in a glass tumbler, it will never get out alive without help. It matters not if there is no lid on top. A bumble bee is genetically designed to explore horizontally and has no innate sense of upward inquiry. Its perspective is purely sideways. 

I have no way of verifying his narrative of apine behavior — except he says he learned this from his brother, who is an accomplished beekeeper — but my own experience of fallen human nature bears out its plausibility. How often in our fear and distress, we seek security, solace and comfort in the familiar, the routine and the conventional, forgetting that salvation lies outside ourselves, in the faith that lifts us up from our slavery to the failed, addictive and sinful patterns that drag us down into misery.

You may have come across Exodus 14:5-18. The Hebrew people are at standstill. Pharaoh’s army is pursuing them and they are looking all around — horizontally. With only the Red Sea ahead of them every path is blocked. Like the bumble bee they can see no escape. So they complain to Moses that it would have been better if they never left Egypt. They revert to their slave mentality, which has been the “normal” of their lives for so many years. Suppressed and oppressed into thinking that failure and hopelessness is better than the unknown, they are in no mood for adventure now. Moses exhorts them to turn to the Lord. All they need is to be still. And we know what happens. By looking to God, they find their deliverance against all odds. This is the way of salvation for all those who set their sights on what our faith promises. It is the alternative, the salvation that the world cannot offer us.

Our Catholic faith gives us direction, perspective and purpose in life. Sometimes we seek our joy and fulfillment in the sports, entertainment and creature comforts we are fortunate to have in our country, even with all the economic, health and social challenges we and our loved ones face. It’s great to win the little-league championship, to pump our eyes and ears with the intoxicating sights and sounds our ever advancing audiovisual technology offers, and fill our faces with ice cream, especially in these summer months. But we don’t win championships every day and trophies tend to gather dust. Family and friendships require personal presence and care that screens and earbuds do for us. Food and drink are great in moderation, but without limits will only weigh us down.

Nowhere to go but up!  So prayer, putting our hope and trust in God, is the way of faith. For some, this approach seems too passive, too “religious.” And organized religions certainly have their failings and shortcomings. How often I’ve heard people say, “I am spiritual, not religious.” Often those who have been wounded by traumatizing experiences at the hands of those who represent a religion will find it virtually impossible to return to the fold. Yet it may be just that community from which they might seek amends and accompaniment toward healing. Seeking some kind of spiritual consolation, they may turn perhaps to yoga, reiki or some other form of semi-religious rituals in which they may experience a sense of peace, serenity and well-being. Ouija boards, astral projection, and attempts to communicate with spirits — not to mention outright Satanism — have led many to emotional and spiritual slavery to these dark powers. Such avenues, however, are fraught with risks and dangers. 

There are a lot of spirits around that would love to take possession of our lives and souls if we open the door to them. They do not have our best interests in mind. The prime script for the destruction of human freedom, under the seduction of the ultimate master of deceit, Satan himself, can be found in the early chapters of Genesis. We find there the pattern that begins by sowing the seeds of mistrust in God and the desire for control or power over the unknown. But we also see the price that is paid to follow the designs of the Evil One. Not only the scriptures repeatedly warn of this (cf. Is 8:19, Mk 9:29, Mt 12:25, Lk 8:2, 1 Cor 10:21, Eph 6:11-12, 1 Pet 5:8), but the real-life experience of exorcists and those who have been involved in the deliverance ministries increasingly confirm this.

Some seeking to find their security and satisfaction reject spiritual and religious avenues entirely. Perceiving the limits of purely material gratification, their drug of choice becomes power itself, the hope of amassing control not only of themselves but of others as well. To obtain this power, they may attempt to align themselves with supernatural forces. Recall two of the disciples of Jesus, the so-called “sons of thunder” (James and John) seeking to call down fire and brimstone on those who rejected them. Jesus rebuked them, warning them about the kind of spirit they were invoking (Lk 9:51-56).

The pursuit of power, the desire for control can lead to the utilization of violence, which may or may not always appear that way. It is often a matter of perspective, which the parables in last Sunday’s Gospels offer us. Recall the one about the wheat and the chaff. It is reported to the farmer that weeds are growing among the good grain he has sown. The scriptural reference is to “darnels,” which is a poisonous and particularly insidious kind of weed because in its early stages it actually resembles the wheat. Consulting the wisdom of his experience, the farmer counsels patience, allowing both to grow together so that, once mature, they can be distinguished. He makes no bones about what will happen to each. Jesus likens this to the judgment God will exercise over good and evil with the coming of the kingdom (cf. Mt 13:24-43).

What Jesus counsels is patience, trust in God’s judgment, abstention from violence and the myth of total control. Those in the 12-step programs are familiar with the phrase, “let go and let God.” Great comfort can come to the person of faith who will “give God permission” — as Mother Teresa was fond of saying it — to BE God. In other words, let God be the judge.

A good reason for patience, and awaiting for God to set things right before we rush into our own solutions, is that God may not be finished with us yet. The passage from the Hebrew Scriptures that accompanied the Gospel and the accompanying Psalm verses affirm that God will indeed judge, but that he will also exercise mercy. “By acting thus, you have taught people that the upright must be kindly to his fellows” (Wis 12:19). Withholding judgment (and control) over others (and ourselves!) is a way of respecting the time and the opportunity that God is willing to give us to respond to the graces we are offered each day.

God is perfectly justified in “calling out” those who abuse the freedom we are blessed with but, more often, “calling in” is the way that the Lord works, as Jesus tells us in the parables about the Good Shepherd and the Prodigal Son. So many of the Marxist-flavored ideologies that seek to control our discourse and behavior today demonstrate a disdain for human beings and the freedom that God gives us, depriving human beings of connections and conversations that are voluntary and even holy because they do not conform to some predetermined (prejudicial) mold or design, prohibiting individuals from stepping outside their social class. Yes, God lets even the weeds grow lest the wheat be uprooted with them.

Faith brings us these perspectives that lift us up out of the tunnel vision that locks us into stereotypes, vicious circles and the idols of self-indulgence that imprison us. God is all about freedom and wants us alive and thriving so that we can realize our true selves and our eternal destiny which lies with God. Remember the bumble bee and the faith of Peter when Jesus asks his disciples if they will follow or leave him: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). And he will never leave his friends!

Follow Bishop Ed online @AlbanyDiocese.