Suffering and Dying Bring Transformation

“What do you wish for me to do for you?”

All the major world religions have been rather obsessed

with suffering, blood, dying and death

because they know that inside of all of that messiness,

transformation takes place;

a metamorphosis of the soul takes place in there.

They have glommed onto it.

The challenge is that over all those years

they have been obsessed about the wrong thing dying.

In fact, there is evidence, if you go back far enough

that there was human sacrifice on all five continents.

The challenge has been that we understand

that suffering and dying brings about metamorphosis,

brings about change, but often times

we always believe that it should be somebody else

who should be suffering and dying.

That is where the problem lies

in that it needs to be somebody else who dies.

Even inside our own historical roots,

we read it from the bible that our Jewish brothers and sisters

had that sacrifice, right in the middle

Abraham tried to offer up his own son, Isaac.

And the only reason that was believable as a story

was because in that time, it was done.

He takes the ram; the ram becomes the sacrifice instead.

But in Jesus we have a change in human history.

Jesus brings a complete shift for all humanity

because he comes along and does away with all of that.

He says, “No more dying.”

That is what this Eucharist is all about;

he does away with all that;

no more human sacrifice;

no more animal sacrifice

no more sacrifice period.

He says, “I am the Lamb of God.

I am the One who will take away the sins of the world.

I am the One who will transform everything.

Come and follow me.”

He doesn’t say come and worship me.

He says, come and follow me.

Nowhere in the New Testament does it say

“Come and worship me.”

It says, come and follow me and that is that we are called to do.

We follow Jesus.

What does Jesus do?

He dies upon the cross.

He is the suffering one that the prophet Isaiah is talking about;

he is the one who enters into the suffering;

enters into that messiness;

and enters into that dying and transforms it;

totally transforms it.

And gives us a path for this transformation, a path to follow.

Yet we have always gone about it the wrong way.

I do not know what it is about us humans

that we need other people to suffer instead of us.

In Baptism we have to die to sin to be risen.

We want the Baptism of new life.

We want to be reborn.

But we do not want to give up our old self

but that is what the Lord is saying.

The mystics had it right.

Throughout all of history, the mystics have always been right

and the prophets throughout the ages have got it right;

that we have to die to ourselves.

When we really die to ourselves then we are reborn in Christ.

Unfortunately even then, even then, we’ve got it wrong.

In our Christian history, we focused on our sexual selves

and we try to kill that as if it is something bad;

and it is a beautiful part of ourselves.

And that is not meant to be killed at all.

Some of the more modern mystics have really got it right.

They say what we have to die to.

Thomas Merton, our modern mystic of America,

said is that we have to die to our false self.

That which we think is who we are but not who we really are

and that is what must die.

When we die to that false self, that false ego

that wants us to be on top;

us to be the most important;

ourselves to be the center of attention

then we go through a transformation.

That is truly life giving;

that transforms us into followers of Christ.

The hard part is that even when I say that

we then tend to start to architect our own suffering;

we start to architect our own way;

and we start to go after our own crosses.

We immediately fall into the false ego again

because then we stay in control.

When we are in control, we are not losing the false self.

We are still in control.

We do not have to look for suffering.

It comes our way.

And everyone of us will be touched by suffering

in some way, shape or form.

Suffering and dying will come upon every single one of us.

And when we are called to allow it to transform us;

to let the false self, the false ego die away

and to allow Christ to bring new life and to rebirth us.

That is a hard process.

None of us want it to happen to us because suffering is hard.

It is painful and it does not feel good.

It never does.

But it is the transformation that comes through it;

it is the resurrection that happens.

Why does this need to happen over and over again?

Because it prepares us for the final transformation,

which is our real earthly death

into the real transformation of the resurrection.

But if we have not done it multiple times in life

then that last one is really, really hard.

Instead what if we do it multiple times through our own suffering;

through our own pain then what happens is we are ready;

and our faith makes us ready for not just the cross

but beyond the cross, the resurrection.

So, what are we to do?

Some of you are suffering right now;

some of you are in pain right now and that is very real.

You don’t need to look for a cross

but somehow you have to allow the transformation to take place.

And that is hard because we do not want it.

For many of us, who are not suffering we say,

“Well, I’ve got a pretty good life.”

Then, we are not looking hard enough.

We are not allowing those who are suffering around us

to touch our hearts because somebody in our life is suffering;

somebody in our life is going through

some form of the dying process.

Our role is to be present to them

so that they can believe in the resurrection.

We witness to them with our faith;

and we say we will walk with you through this.

We cannot take it away.

We cannot do the transformation

but we will be with you as you go through this pain and this suffering.

And you know what?

That is just as hard.

When you walk with somebody who is in pain, suffering and dying,

it is just as painful but that is what we must do

because that is what it means to be in the Body of Christ.

You see, my friends, we do not need to look for suffering.

We do not need to look for the pain.

We do not need to look for somebody else to sacrifice,

we have plenty right among us.

Our role is to believe in Jesus Christ and to follow his lead;

it is to allow the suffering that comes in our life to transform us.

And to transform us into what?

Transform us into the Christ who always did the Will of the Father

and so we have to die to our false self and rise to Christ’s new self;

the One who always does the Will of the Father.

Ironically the disciples, who walked with Jesus, could not get this.

And they themselves fell into the trap.

They ask Jesus, “We want you to do something for us.”

They got it upside down.

They need to ask another question:

Jesus, what do you want us to do for you?

That is the question they should have asked

but the poor disciples were still immersed in their false self.

They wanted positions of authority.

My friends, we do not need to look for suffering.

We do not need to look for pain.

We do not need to look for dying.

It is right among us and our role is to witness to our faith

and believe in the transformation and

the resurrection beyond the pain;

beyond the suffering.

We must die to our false self and

rise with Christ to newness of life.

“What do you wish for me to do for you?”

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

It seems to be a constant thing that we believe

we can merit our salvation.

Time and time again throughout all the Old Testament scriptures

and indeed when Jesus comes even more so

that we do not merit God’s love.

We do not merit our salvation.

It is a free gift from God.

His love is unconditional.

Here is the really hard part;

there is nothing that we can do that will make God love us any more

and there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less!

God loves us completely and unconditionally already.

I do not know why this is so hard for us to understand.

We want to be able to pay our dues so that we can get God’s love.

We want to feel like we earned it.

We want to feel we deserve it.

If we do this then God loves us more;

we believe in completely human terms.

Jesus tells us that it is just not the way God works.

If the glass is already full,

it’s full no matter how much more you put into the glass,

it is still completely full.

When we have God’s full love,

there is nothing more we can do to make the glass fuller.

It is already full.

And we find it so hard, so very hard.

This is what this man we meet today in the gospel

believes that he is going to earn eternal life.

What must he do?

He is going to earn it.

Our prayers are like coins into a vending machine.

We put in our prayers.

We put in our good acts, and we get salvation,

which comes out in the slot.

But this is just not the way it works, according to Jesus.

The great Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart says it well,

“The spiritual life is more about subtraction than it is addition.”

It is more about letting go of things

than it is to accumulate and gathering things,

even good things of the spiritual things of our life;

it is about letting go of everything

to follow and to accept God’s love.

The hard part for us is that swe live in a culture that does not support us.

The dominant culture we live in is more about

consumption and accumulation.

We are valued more for how much and what we consume

and what we have or hold onto.

The more we consume and the more we have

then somehow the better we are;

whether that be a new iPhone;

or a new computer;

or a new pair of shoes;

or a new watch;

or new hairdo

or whatever it is that gives us our sense of value.

The counterpoint to this dominant culture is Christianity.

Christianity lived well, Catholicism lived well, is about letting go.

It is about emptying ourselves of all the stuff;

letting go of all the possessions that hold us back;

whatever is between us and our God.

Is it about a certain amount of wealth? Yes.

But it is way more than possessions.

Possessions are more than about money.

There is so much that possesses us today.

It could be even just as simple as now we are online,

all the likes we get online,

whether it be Instagram or Facebook or Twitter

or all those multitudes of social media.

We already know how addictive Instagram is;

it is about accumulating stuff, right?

And how disastrous that can be to our human spirit.

We go into the scripture today and this man says he wants the right thing;

he wants eternal life,

he wants what is good but he thinks he is going to earn it!

Jesus gives us this counterpoint.

He says “Surrender, let it go, the spirituality of letting go.”

Or as Eckhart would say the spirituality of subtraction;

we give stuff away;

we give away what matters to us

and we accept what matters to God.

This process of surrender or subtraction

is something we do at every single Mass.

We begin the Mass with a very short penitential rite.

We say, “Lord, we come here with all this baggage, all these wounds,

and we say Lord have mercy.

Here are all the things that I have not done so well.

Christ have mercy.

Here are all the things I would have done or could have done.

Lord have mercy.”

And the Lord then fills us with his love and forgiveness

and assures us that his love is always there.

What is it that we must let go of?

Thomas Merton, the great Trappist monk, said it best:

“The biggest struggle we have in modern America

is we have to let go of the false ego.”

What he calls the false ego is that need to be in control.

When we talk about being in control,

we want the latest toys whether that be you know for the kids;

or whether it is for us adults: computers, laptops, cars or houses;

whatever it is.

We want to be in control.

We think we can even control God.

We tell God what to do and

some even tell him who should come to Mass

and who shouldn’t come to Mass;

who should receive and who should not receive.

We think we can control everything.

And that is all of ushaving to fill the need of our ego

that we are in control.

The true ego, Merton will say is accepting

that we are all children of God.

And that every one of us is equal.

It doesn’t make any difference

what creed or race or place we come from.

We are all equal in God’s eyes.

And God loves us completely and unconditionally.

Out of receiving that love, we become generous.

Out of receiving that love, we find ourselves giving away what we have.

We find ourselves just giving away our very selves

because we realize that everything is gift.

As we come to this Eucharist,

we ask the Lord to help us enter this spirituality of subtraction

or spirituality of surrender, we surrender our will to God’s Will;

we surrender our need for control;

our need to make things work according to our will,

we give that over to God’s Will

and let his Will be done.

Then we say ever so humbly,

Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy.

And then we receive not only God’s love,

God’s mercy but God’s abundant love.

God’s ever complete and unconditional love

that will completely fill us up.

We surrender to God’s love by letting go and not earning his love.

And that makes all the difference in the world.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”