“Your ancient scriptures
lack the gospel values
which I love, Lord:
your beatitudes,
your kingdom parables,
your cross and resurrection,
the power of your Spirit!”
“Look again.
It's all there.
Like stem,
branches,
leaves and flowers
folded in a seed!”
“Give me eyes that see
as you do.
Give me insight
and the perceptiveness
of your love.”
For many people religion is an unreal world. When we say that Jesus is God, for example, it means little, for they have neither known Jesus as a human person nor ever seen God. Religious truths seem vague, mystic, abstract, far removed from the realities of life. Working to earn some money, keeping the house clean, preparing food, maintaining good relationships with the neighbors, these are true realities, tangible and immediate. The things we can see and the people we meet are the world we live in. The spiritual dimension of existence requires a special effort to believe - which is the reason why some give up, particularly when worries and challenges of concrete living demand their attention.
Once, during the Christmas season, I heard a sermon on the child Jesus which could be condensed in the following lines:
The infant Jesus, even when only a small boy, radiated piety and virtue. He was always ready to help Mary and Joseph. He performed his duties happily. Though he was almighty God all the time, he did not mind being treated as a child. The power of the incarnation is seen clearly in the tiny limbs of this young child, yes, in the Babe of Bethlehem. Devotion to the child Jesus pleases God so much. The infant Jesus will not refuse us any favors we confidently ask when kneeling at his manger!
Talking like this, however well-intentioned, relegates faith to a world of fantasy. Who of us has actually seen the child Jesus at Nazareth? Can we really kneel before his manger in Bethlehem? For that matter, with what right can we speak of Jesus as a babe?
We may join preachers in condemning people for being shortsighted and lacking in faith. We may put the blame on secularism, on the lure of material goods, on the godless society in which we live. But is this a truthful response? Could it be that religion, or at least our way of presenting it, is unreal? Do the spiritual and the theological slogans we use carry a meaningful content - or are they only part of some elaborate theoretical scheme? Could it be that we are just mouthing words, repeating what others have said before us, without saying anything definite that people can put their finger on? What is the “cash value” of our message?
Religion in the Old Testament times was crude and primitive in many respects. But at the same time there was a healthy realism about it. Consider, for instance, the question of the covenant. The Jewish people knew that they lived in a special relationship with God.
“You will be my chosen people, a people dedicated to me alone, and you will serve me as priests” (Ex 19:5-6).
“You belong to the LORD your God. From all the peoples on earth he chose you to be his own special people”(Dt 7:6).
This special relationship, however, was not purely an imaginary thing, something believed but not seen. They experienced its reality every day - because the spiritual awareness of being a chosen people was linked to the tangible reality of living in the Promised Land.
The land was the external sign of the covenant. When the Israelite farmer walked through his vineyard or his field of barley, he smelled and touched the presence of the covenant. His feet stood firmly on its fertile soil. His hands felt its living pulse in grapes and budding wheat. The blessings of the land were the visible expression of God’s covenantal love.
“The land that you are about to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, where you lived before. There, when you planted grain, you had to work hard to irrigate the fields; but the land that you are about to enter is a land of mountains and valleys, a land watered by rain. The LORD your God takes care of this land and watches over it throughout the year.”
“So then, obey the commands that I have given you today; love the LORD your God and serve him with all your heart. If you do, he will send rain on your land when it is needed, in the autumn and in the spring, so that there will be grain, wine and olive oil for you, and grass for your livestock. You will have all the food vou want” (Dt 11: 10-15).
When the covenant was broken, when God was angry because his people had been unfaithful to him, the effects could immediately be seen in the barrenness of the land. Without the covenant, the land refused to produce. Rainfall ceased and the ground became as hard as iron. Plentiful seed brought no more than a pitiful harvest. Locusts ate the corn and worms the vines. Diseases in the crops, dust storms, plagues of insects befell the land. Then the Israelites knew the covenant had been disturbed for God’s “curse” was on the land (Dt 28:24,38-42). And if they failed to restore friendly relations with God, God would not stop at partial punishments. Infidelity to the covenant would eventually lead to God taking away the land altogether.
“I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that, if you disobey me, you will soon disappear from the land. ”
“The LORD will scatter you among other nations” (Dt 4:26,27).
Covenant and land were two sides of the same coin!
Linking sin to disaster and virtues to prosperity was bound to raise questions. Why do sinners prosper? Why do just people suffer? It was a problem for the Old Testament, but whatever answer was given, the principle of blessing and curse as tangible realities was not given up. Psalm 37 is highly instructive in this regard. Wicked people often prosper for some time, the psalmist concedes. Their evil plans succeed. They oppress the poor and needy. They borrow and do not pay back. But their triumph is short-lived. They cannot last because the land is hostile to them. The righteous man, on the other hand, who patiently endures injustices and sticks to his principles, will be rewarded because the land will be good to him. In the following quotations from Psalm 37, notice how possession of the land, living in the land, is the continual refrain of blessing.
Trust in the LORD and do good;
live in the land and be safe (v.3).Those who trust in the LORD will possess the land,
but the wicked will be driven out (v.9).The humble will possess the land
and enjoy prosperity and peace (v.11).The LORD takes care of those who obey him,
and the land will be theirs forever (v.18).Those who are blessed by the LORD will possess the land,
but those who are cursed by him will be driven out (v.22).The righteous will possess the land
and live in it forever (v.29).Put your hope in the LORD and obey his commands;
he will honor you by giving you the land (v.34).
The possession of the land in all these cases is not to be understood as a future gift. The humble possess it now. They survive trouble and persecution because the land is good to them.
They will not suffer when times are bad;
they will have enough in time of famine (v.19).
I am an old man now; I have lived a long time,
but I have never seen a good man abandoned by
the LORD or his children begging for food (v.25).
I interpret it in this way: At all times and in all circumstances the just experience that the land is good to them. And this goodness is the tangible proof of God’s love and of his blessing. The just know God loves them because they feel the supportive protection of the land.
Like his contemporaries, Jesus was steeped in Old Testament thinking. He, too, must have felt the visible blessings of his Father when he walked on his native soil. That Jesus loved the land can be seen from the many parables he derived from it, parables about sowing and reaping and winnowing, about pruning vines and manuring olive trees. He admired the birds in the air and the wild flowers, a beautiful dress God gave to cover his land! But Jesus understood at the same time that the Father was offering a new land, a spiritual kingdom, instead of the initial Promised Land. This kingdom was the reality of messianic blessing, the kingdom which the humble were to possess. Jesus began to read Psalm 37 in a new light. It was from Psalm 37:11 that he derived the model for the first beatitude:
“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor;
the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!” (Mt 5:3).
With our lack of Old Testament awareness, we have greatly undervalued, if not misunderstood, the meaning of Jesus’ word.
The spiritually poor, we tend to think, are worthy of the kingdom. They will be rewarded with the kingdom - invisibly now (through God’s grace working in them), visibly later in heaven. But then we forget the analogy with the land. The land was the visible and tangible sign of the covenant. So the kingdom of heaven, too, should be tangible and visible. What Jesus is promising to the “spiritually poor” is that they will know, see and touch the kingdom of God. They are happy, they are blessed, because they will actually experience that new land: the kingdom of his Father!
The kingdom was not an abstract notion for Jesus; it was something that could be seen. The Father’s kingdom exists where there is true love between people; where people are ready to forgive each other; where people are merciful; where they live together in peace and friendship. The sign by which disciples of the kingdom are recognized is the love they have for one another. Other characteristics are the joy of generous giving, selfless service, being good to one’s enemies, never taking revenge or reacting with violence. All this is not vague or abstract. It is something we can observe and recognize. It is the tangible presence of the new kingdom.
When we apply this to our own situation, the implications are startling. Suppose I meet a Christian community - a parish, inmates of an institution, members of a convent. How do I know that the kingdom of God is there? Not because it carries a Christian name. Nor because its leaders have a function in a Christian organization. Nor on account of the buildings or the customs Christians use. The reality of the kingdom lies not in such externals, but in the spirit pervading the community. Do I feel the love, mutual tolerance, open-mindedness, joyful service and fraternal peace required by Jesus? If so, I know the kingdom of God exists in this community. If not, for all its Christian pretence, the essence may be lacking.
The same holds true on a personal level. If I find religion an eerie and abstract dimension in my life, it may be that I have not discovered the reality of the kingdom. It is by the love I experience, the joy, the peace, the new relationships created by renouncing myself that I can know that God is truly present. I can feel his hand in the new world he has put me into. There is nothing abstract about this, nothing imaginary. It is only a matter of opening my eyes to its reality; of becoming sensitive to it; of noticing how much it can be part of my day-to-day existence and of all my relationships.
In the Old Testament the Israelites knew God’s covenant was real because they felt the land under their feet. They tasted God’s love and care when they ate their food. Christians, too, enjoy a similar directness in their religious experience. They see the kingdom of God in the quality of love that pervades the community to which they belong, the peace and joy that flow from the love they live.