25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, B September 19, 2021
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Love God and love your neighbor. It’s our mission statement and it is the greatest commandment. Love of neighbor in particular is the driving theme of St. James’ letter that we’ve been working through for a few weeks. Today, James addresses one of the great obstacles to actually doing this: why is it so hard to love our neighbor? To embrace poverty and sacrifice in order to be closer to God? In a word, your passions.
What is a passion? Your passions are your desires… some translations will call them “concupiscence” or it might be better to call them urges. In our fallenness, every human being experiences conflicting desires and emotions. There is usually some kernel of goodness or truth beneath these desires, but the reality is that these desires are disordered, excessive, or confused. These desires beg for satisfaction and if we do not address them, we are left without peace.
In the worldly way of thinking – what St. James calls earthly wisdom – the way to solve this problem is to get really good at satisfying these desires. More money, more power, more control. Those who succeed in this will find peace in the ability to satisfy their every desire, so the thinking goes.
This scramble for satisfaction leads to jealousy and selfish ambition. The more we blindly satisfy these desires, the more that desire grows. That desire, that coveting often enough leads to war – not just armies against armies, but conflict between neighbors, families, companies, and classes in society. Even worse, it creates envy. Envy is not just wanting what someone else has – that’s jealousy, which is another word for covetousness… that’s almost reasonable. Envy is hating the fact that anyone else has it at all. It is getting sad and angry that someone succeeds, even if their success doesn’t hurt you at all. Envy leads people to think and say “I’d rather no one have it than that they have it.” Envy will make someone go so far they will even hurt themselves if it means cutting down someone else’s success or wealth. Jealousy can lead to murder in order to take what they have. Envy leads to murder out of sheer spite.
Still, it’s a trap. Because chasing those desires… obeying those passions only leads to even more desire. Even winning wars and taking everything you want leaves you empty. “You kill and envy but cannot obtain” because what you want – the perfect satisfaction of every urge – is completely impossible.
But these traps are not always obvious. Even the Apostles fall prey to them. Jesus just told them he would be crucified, but they’re arguing about who is the more important leader in their little group! So, Jesus sets them straight with the same answer as James. The way to authentic satisfaction is not to be above others, to be wealthy and powerful and successful. It is rather to set oneself as a servant.
In ancient culture, children had no rights and weren’t really considered full persons yet, unlike today when we tend to make the whole world revolve around children. The point of Jesus embracing a child is that they were unimportant, not worth paying attention to. By telling them to “receive” a child in his name, Jesus is emphasizing the power of caring for the least among us. By “power,” I mean the power of genuine peace and satisfaction, which cannot come from constantly chasing our passions. It is the power of “wisdom from above.”
This wisdom is “first of all pure.” By purity, we don’t just mean saying “no” to carnal desires. Purity is best defined as having a single unifying purpose, one that is not selfish. The “pure of heart” are those who put God above all else and direct everything else in their lives to that goal. The reality is that every desire, every longing of the human heart is ultimately satisfied by God and God alone. Concupiscence, passions, and urges are the distortions of authentic desire. But if we cut through that, if we look past these intense but ultimately temporary feelings at what they were meant to be, we can find satisfaction that is not possible otherwise. Following your passions is like trying to drive forward while looking through the rearview mirror. They reflect a backwards vision of the truth, but won’t help you get anywhere safe.
Purity means looking at God above all and judging every action and decision in relation to Him and His will for us. This in turn makes us “peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits.” By looking at God instead of unreliable passions, we can avoid inconstancy and insincerity.
Okay, fine. How do we obtain this purity? The first step is doing the mental work of recognizing what kind of wisdom we live for – earthly wisdom or the “wisdom from above?” As I mentioned last week, an important way to test this is to consider how we see charity. Is charity what I do after I’ve satisfied myself, what I do with my extra time and money? That’s worldly. Or is charity the primary motivation for every action, even my rest and recreation? That’s wisdom from above.
Another way to tell is how we respond to unanswered prayer. James says “You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” The point is not that we should not ask for things like rest and recreation. The point is that, when a prayer is unanswered, do we see it as it is – an invitation to a deeper perspective?… A challenge to strive to push our motivations a little more towards love of God and neighbor and little less towards ourselves?
If we’re honest, we all have more or less of that selfishness. How do we shift more towards charity? Prayer and practice. Ask daily for the grace to live for charity instead of yourself. Every night, reflect on what you’ve done for others – that includes your family – and then resolve to live tomorrow for others too. And when you’re about to do something that isn’t directly serving another person, take a moment to pray. Invite God into that activity. Ask him to help you benefit from this rest or recreation so that you can better serve him and others. Then, think of someone and pray for them briefly. Pray especially for those who lack whatever you’re about to enjoy. The goal is to receive others – important or not – into your heart in everything you do… for by receiving them, you receive Jesus Christ who alone can satisfy the human heart.