FILLED WITH DELIGHT
What
affronts the modern mind is the idea that we need religion. Many feel they can
get by without it. And even some of those who go to church do so out of custom
not conviction. They go but they do not feel it is a vital part of their
experience. For many others this description is way off target: they experience
a thirst for God and for the healing and new life they sense God is offering.
But, as one
year ends and another begins, it is the first group that draws my attention. They
admire the pope and the Dalai Lama and some other religious leaders for their
moral stand and their compassion But they object to the claim that, with regard
to modern problems, religion has answers which are in a special category,
demanding the adherence of its followers.
They bask in
the light of generations of enlightened people who have provided answer after
answer to scientific and technical problems. And, despite periodic failures,
they have seen politicians and economists provide solutions to problems that
stunted the lives of millions. They have an optimistic view of what it is to be
a free person, in charge of their life and making their own decisions about
career, relationships, where they live and so forth. And so they don’t need
religion. They can get on better without it.
If this is
the dominant culture today it is, in a way, good news. How can we not rejoice
that men and women are confident of their humanity and their dignity? Is this
not the goal of history – to find joy in one’s own skin and in building
community with others? This goal is far from being achieved universally but it
is now within our grasp in a way it has never been before.
The
religious person may not gain a hearing but if they did they might say, “We
have failed to announce our goal.” It is not the task of faith to rein in human
optimism; to put limits and strictures on human advances using an authority
alien to basic human drives. If religion is seen as an outside force, out of
harmony with human freedom, then, yes, it has to be rejected.
But what if
it is seen as an “inside force” rising up from within a human being, something
attuned to his or her deepest aspirations and longings? What if we find within
ourselves something that was not there before – something that makes us alive
to the whole universe and all the interrelationships inherent therein? What if
we forget about religion, or our Church, as an exterior institution and see it
as a channel of new life, resonant with our own deepest feelings? And what if we say the very advances we
celebrate were in large part, stimulated by, or in reaction to, the very
religion we feel we can now discard? What if we see the external voice of the
Church as that of the pedagogue, useful for a time, but now no longer needed as
the interior law has taken over?
This Sunday
we celebrate the Epiphany. This is an extraordinarily vivid festival: a story
of wise men coming from the East to search for a new-born child. They find him
and go away rejoicing. Rejoicing at what? It was hardly because they saw a new
baby. There were plenty of those where they came from. No, it was because of this
baby. They recognised that humanity had reached the point where it could be
transformed from within. Someone had come who would live a fully human life and
live it with utter authenticity. The Law
of Moses, acting as an external force, tried to corral some people into a
better way of living. The life of Jesus, God among us, liberates all people
from within. The wise men could relate to that and they wanted to be part of it.
They were “filled with delight.” (Matt
2:10).
3 January 2016 Epiphany
of the Lord
Isaiah 60:1-6 Ephesians 3:2-6 Matthew 2;1-12
