God Shepherding And Providing For Human Beings

Two clear themes are presented in our week-end Mass readings for the next two Sundays: God as the true and good shepherd, tending and guiding human beings; and God in Christ as the provider for the needs of his people. As is often the case, the teaching is presented by contrasting the failure of some human shepherds, who have not truly tended the flock entrusted to them, and the good guidance and care provided by God. From the New Testament sources, it appears that few of Jesus’ contemporaries saw God in him shepherding and providing for all human beings. After all, was not Jesus just the son of a manual worker? What kind of authority could he possibly have? Who did he think he was? Real authority comes from God; and although it may include the use of some power on occasion, for the most part authority works by persuasion, by reasoning, and by leading by example. The root meaning of the word “authority” is from the Latin verb to make grow, to “augment.”Those in authority, such as parents, teachers, ministers, elected officials, policemen, and so on, must ever seek the spiritual, mental, and physical well-being and growth of those under their care, all in ways fitting for their God-given roles. Furthermore, we see in the ways that God shepherds and guides us that much is accomplished with and through our free co-operation. From experience we know that God rarely forces us, rarely overpowers us in any way; but he is ever drawing, leading, persuading, challenging us to “grow up” and live faithfully in union with Christ. Many possibilities and choices are presented in our lives, and our task is to discern which ones are divinely offered and lead to happiness, and which ones are detours, leading human beings on the downward path.    Christ effectively shepherds and nourishes human beings in more ways than we discern or understand. The ever-present means of Christ guiding us come through the Holy Spirit “poured into our hearts,”and through the divine gift of right reason. The Spirit and reason remain now, as for many centuries, the two primary means for God to guide, correct, nourish, and grow goodness in human beings. These great spiritual gifts work in us and through us, but not without us; we need to attend to the divine presence, and put God’s wisdom and goodness into effect by our words and actions. The task of the Church is to strengthen us in our receptivity to the divine working through Spirit and reason. As we obey Christ, as we faithfully follow his path, we become more able to live by the Spirit, and to reason properly. As we turn away and disobey, we become insensitive to the movements of the Spirit, and reason can be abused as a tool of our passing desires and whims. The greater the gifts, the greater the chance to neglect or abuse them. Through loving and seeking God, we allow the LORD to guide us by the Spirit and by right reason. No human being can ever dispense with divine shepherding through reason and the Spirit, and still be following the path of life and happiness.

The Logic Of Spiritual Experience

Today we hear St. Paul say, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” Is this logical? If one limits logic to a method of reasoning about things and mathematics, based on the insight that a statement and its opposite cannot both be true at the same time, in the same way, then the Apostle Paul’s analysis of his experience in Christ does not seem logical, or reasonable. In fact, however, Paul’s interpretation of his experience is truly logical, but it employs a logic grounded not on things in the external world, but on existence in the in-between reality of divine-human mutual participation.

“What are you saying?” you may wonder. (Or you may not wonder at all.) Our bodies exist in the world of space-time, in the physical world; our souls or minds, or what we can call our “spiritual life,” unfolds in movements taking place between our own mental processes and the unknown God. By “grace” God is present and at work in a soul, but God does not mix with, or become, the human being; man must surrender to God, to divine presence, and yet remains a unique being. The logic of spiritual experience must account for both the reality of human being, and the reality of God. Neither man nor God is an object in the external world. Our thinking, loving, feeling, remembering, perceiving all take place between the world of bodies in motion and the eternal, non-temporal pole which we call “God.”

God’s presence and work in us, and our responses to God, are not “logical” in the sense used by a mathematician or university intellectual. Simply put, we are speaking here of the logic of love: that two can truly love each other, and be one, and yet remain two. To one who has not known love, such a statement makes no sense; to the lover, the paradox of union and uniqueness, of becoming one-and-yet-being-two is his or her continual experience. “But it is not logical,” says one lacking in experience. “But it is reasonable and true,” responds the lover.

The Apostle Paul discovered that when he relied on himself, his own ego, he was spiritually weak; but when out of weaknesses he drew on the presence of the living God at work in him, then he had an inner strength and flowing energy. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” The most radical expression of Paul’s logic of spiritual experience remains a classic statement of spiritual experience and truth: “Now I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” In oneself, apart from divine presence, one experiences death; in communion with He Who Is, with Life itself, one experiences true and enduring life; hence, one in Christ struggles between life and death. That is the logic and reality of spiritual experience, whether Christian, Jewish, or Hindu. In self, one perishes; in God, one lives. In self, one is overcome by weakness; in surrendering to divine Presence, one is empowered to love, to do good, to live in truth.