Sunday 17 (B-2006): Empowering power

Ephesians 4: 1-6

You don’t have to be a genius to see the divisions among human beings.

Division results from the opposing of legitimate differences instead of seeing them as complementary to one another. For example, opposing Latinos to Anglo-Saxons.

Legitimate differences are good; division is bad.

Legitimate differences are constituted by the variety of gifts, both natural and supernatural, with which God has endowed the human race.

But there are also illegitimate differences, rooted in evil, which do not come from God, but from the disorder of evil itself. Such differences are in fact not just differences, but divisions. For example, those who espouse terrorism are illegitimately different, i.e., are divided, from those who do not.

Legitimate differences, when accepted, enrich; divisions only impoverish.

What causes people to turn legitimate differences into divisions?

Surely it is greed for power. And what is power? Is it a bad thing?

Absolutely not. Power is the capacity to exercise one’s freedom without constraints.

But human power is not absolute, because human freedom is not absolute. Human freedom is necessarily constrained because human beings are limited!

Freedom is also “constrained” by something else: truth.

For freedom truly to be free, it must choose what is true, i.e., what is rational or reasonable, since truth is the object of reason.

Why must freedom choose what is true? Because freedom without truth is no freedom at all, but blind instinct: it is, by definition, irrational.

So truth “constrains” freedom only so that freedom can truly be free, truly be itself.

Only reason can discern the truth or receive it as revealed by God; but reason, too, is limited. Of itself, reason cannot draw the truth into one’s being; reason cannot personalize truth, in the sense of absorbing it into a person’s very being. Only the exercise of freedom of choice can do that.

Reason alone can see the truth, can judge it to be present or absent, but it cannot reach out and “pull” the truth into the life of the person. Only freedom has the power to do that. The truth alone does not change man unless man actively chooses it, that is, acts upon it. Then the “truth will set man free”; then, man will himself become true.

Freedom exists, then, to choose the truth discovered by reason or revealed by God and so to draw it into a person’s being.

Without truth, then, there is no freedom. A truth-less freedom is an oxymoron. Without freedom, truth is a mere abstraction, an ideology, an illusion. Truth without freedom only tortures man and alienates him; it would cause a spiritual schizophrenia. It would be like a fountain of water in front of a man dying of thirst, unable to drink from it.

On the other hand, if freedom chooses what is false, by definition it acts unreasonably, irrationally; instead of being liberated further by the truth, it is enslaved by falsity. Thus enslaved, freedom loses its power.

Greed for power usually means the seeking of it for the purpose of doing evil, for selfish ends. In other words, greed for power usually leads to the enslavement of freedom, thus, ironically, to the loss of power!

But the person who wants to use power to do good is not likely to be envious of power, but to work honestly for, or receive, positions of responsibility in which he or she intends to use that power to serve the true good of everyone.

The upright use of power seeks to reconcile divisions, to recognize legitimate differences with a positive and truth-filled spirit and to bring them to work together for the greater good of all.

Power is truly itself when it serves, that is, when it loves.

Each of us has that power to choose what is truly good in ourselves and in others.

We each have the power to build up ourselves and one another. This is the adventure of freedom: to coordinate differences truthfully recognized, to balance true rights with true duties, true receiving with true giving, truly being forgiven with truly forgiving, truly living with truly dying.

The opposite is also true.

We can choose to focus on the evil in ourselves and in others and use the power of our freedom to emphasize and aggrandize that evil in a crescendo of alienation and destruction.

We can allow legitimate differences to become divisions; we can see the gifts of others as a threat; what they have as a statement of what we do not have.

The very presence of the other becomes intolerable and that, of course, opens the door to hatred and murder.

St. Paul, in our second reading, calls the baptized to the responsible exercise of the power of freedom.

“I urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received.”

Paul sums up that call and manner of living as unity. Not the forced unity of an army unit, not the unity of a sterile sameness, but unity in the rich difference and diversity of the gifts and vocations the Lord has given us.

And why should we live in such unity?

Because, he says, there is “one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Unity for us Christians is not the result of a social contract; it is not the result of our will or power or agreements or negotiations.

It is the gift of God, a gift first rooted in our one human nature, restored and strengthened by grace in baptism and in the Eucharist.

It is the gift whose living power among us we have yet to experience fully and which our greed for power, i.e. our sins, is keeping at bay.

Oneness with God is already a given in the baptized person; what St. Paul urges upon us is to live worthily as a consequence of that unity. That is, to use the power of our freedom to make choices which allow that gift of oneness with God to form and shape our lives, so that we do and say everything aware of that oneness and for the sake of it.

This is the meaning of holiness.

            It is a wholeness, an integrity, an inner and outer coherence which springs forth from that union with God we have already been given in baptism and which is nourished every time we receive the Eucharist and all the other graces of His love.

This is what the saints came to understand, to choose and ultimately to experience in all its fullness.

We misunderstand the saints if all we do is focus on some idiosyncratic behavior they had (e.g. throwing themselves into thorns when experiencing carnal temptations, or spending all night with their arms raised up, etc.).

Their holiness is something much deeper, much greater!

They used the power of their freedom in so many different and beautiful ways to let the eternal oneness of the life of the Trinity embrace the entirety of their existence, bringing a deep sense of unity and peace within them.

They believed in the reality of God’s Three-in-One-ness living within their very self-awareness.

They were open to this gift already present within them; they prayed insistently that it take hold of every dimension of their lives; and they showed their willingness for that to be so by the moral and spiritual choices, big and small, they made daily.

This did not deprive them of their freedom! How can we seriously think that? How is the Creator of their freedom going to deprive them of their freedom?! No: holiness brought their freedom to its fullest possible realization, because, wonder of wonders, they allowed God’s freedom to become their own!

Holiness is not the enemy of humanness but its fullest blossoming!

Moreover, their personal union with the Three-in-One led them into the communion of the Three-in-One, that is, into communion with all others who had made the journey of holiness as well.

This is now that vast network, that differentiated and detailed mosaic, of human beings which we call the communion of saints: indeed, we profess our faith in it in the Creed!

The communion of saints is the final goal of God’s work of creation and redemption.

He has done that work so that we might all live in full communion with the Trinity and with one another forever.

Now that is power!

That is the eternal symphony of the magnificent uniqueness and diversity of the human beings he has created and redeemed!

And it is as yet unfinished.

The Lord who is wonderful among his saints awaits us and draws us to himself through the graces of baptism, Eucharist and all the other sacraments and graces he gives us to empower our power with divine force. Grace does not substitute for freedom: it presupposes it and perfects it!

Our brothers and sisters who are already with him, including, we hope, our own relatives, are also working with God now to bring us to that blessed abode in the bosom of God.

How can we not, then, strive to live in a manner worthy of our calling? Failures will happen, but in view of our goal, even they become opportunities for us to keep getting up and reaching forward.

Holiness in us now, in seed form, will blossom then into the stupendous reality of our knowing and loving God and all the saints with God’s own knowledge and love.

And we ourselves will be known and loved by the civilization of heaven.

Then there will be no more divisions, no more oppression by the power of evil, no more death, no more pain or tears or separation.

Then humanity will be seen and experienced in its fullest dignity and beauty.

Then we shall see God face to face, and the Christ we receive now under the form of bread and wine will manifest his glory on the faces and in the hearts, minds and bodies of his saints.

“Then.” That is our destiny, but only if we do not shrink from it now!