Difficult conversations how to discuss what matters most epub

Doing the Truth in Love

Conversations about God,Relationships, and Service

Michael J. Himes

in collaboration with

Don McNeill, C.S.C., Andrea Smith Shappell, Jan Pilarski,

Stacy Hennessy, Katie Bergin, and Sarah Keyes

White_Dove

Paulist Press

New York/Mahwah, N.J.

Excerpt from “As I Walked Out One Evening” from W.H. Auden: Collected Poems by W.H. Auden, copyright © 1949 and renewed 1968 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

All the Scripture quotes in this volume are the author’s own translations except where noted with the symbol NJB.

Those Scripture quotes noted with the symbol NJB are from The New Jerusalem Bible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985).

Copyright © 1995 by Michael J. Himes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Himes, Michael J.

Doing the truth in love : conversations about God, relationships, and service / Michael Himes : in collaboration with Don McNeill … [et.al.]

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. )

ISBN 978-1-61643-269-0

1. Service (Theology) 2. Love—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Church work—Catholic Church. 4. Vocation. 5. Catholic Church—Membership. I. McNeill, Donald P. II. Title.

BX2347.H55 1995

230’.2—dc20 95-8644

Published by Paulist Press

997 Macarthur Boulevard

Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

www.paulistpress.com

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. Exploring the Mystery of God in Relationships

Chapter 2. Experiencing the Mystery of Not Being God

the blessedness of limits: response by jan pilarski

Questions

Chapter 3. The Journey of Restlessness: The Search for God

shaking the ground beneath our feet: response by lou nanni

Questions

Chapter 4. Responding to God’s Love: Compassionate Service

response by mike barkasy, sarah keyes,bob elmer, Katie bergin

Questions

Chapter 5. Vulnerability: Suffering the Mystery

broken and blessed: response by reg weissert

Questions

Chapter 6. Conversing About the Mystery

the search for understanding:methods of reflecting on experience response by don mcneill, c.s.c., and andrea smith shappell

Questions

Chapter 7. Sacramental Vision 100

word, sacrament and community: response by ronald white

Questions

Chapter 8. Eucharist: Covenant, Thanksgiving and Destiny

eucharist as being fed by the poor: response by maria teresa gaston-witchger

Questions

Chapter 9. Doing the Truth in Love

Contributors’ Biographies

Resources for Continuing Conversations

Thanks—¡Gracias!

The most enjoyable part of working on this book was the process of conversing with many persons. We are particularly grateful to the students, in and out of the classroom, who raised questions which kept the discussions going as they reflected on the persons they encountered in Urban Plunges, Appalachian Programs, Summer Service Projects, etc. Supporting these service opportunities for students, we extend our gratitude to the staff of the Center for Social Concerns, the Institute for Church Life, the Alumni Association, and the ICL Advisory Council.

We thank Agnes McNeill Donohue, Margie Fink, Bob Hamma, Ingrid Schmidt, and Dominic Vachon for their thoughtful reading and suggestions for the evolving text.

We are grateful to the Notre Dame Department of Theology in which Michael taught for six years and to the residence hall communities in Keenan and Pasquerilla East, and to Rachel Tomás-Morgan and others who encouraged the writing of this book.

Typing and organizing transcriptions would have been impossible without the assistance of Anne McGuire, Ardis King, Sandy Barton, Carol Porter, Carol Grey, Margie Davis, Marty Tracy, Kristin Carlson, and Emy Lou Papandria. We appreciate the research of Margy Pfeil and Martin Connell. Sheryl Dyer, Linda Dunn, and Barbara Parker-Stephenson were the photographers who helped bring the words to life.

We thank Michael Barkasy, Bob Elmer, Katie Glynn, Lou Nanni, Regina Weissert, Ron White, and Maria Teresa Gaston-Witchger for their insightful responses which integrate theology with their life experience. Gracias to Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh C.S.C., Dolores Lecke, Jim and Evelyn Whitehead, and Henri J. M. Nouwen for their book review and comments on the back cover. Those of us with spouses and families appreciate the words of encouragement and the space given so we could be creatively involved in this project. We are grateful to Paulist Press and especially Richard Sparks for his encouragement and assistance throughout the process of developing the manuscript and the book. All involved with the Center for Social Concerns are deeply grateful to Michael Himes for the royalties from this book which will allow more students, alums, and others to “do the truth in love.”

Introduction

Companions in Conversation: Himes’ Perspective

Few needs are as pressing and as often go unmet in our world as the need for a place to converse. We all require somewhere, some circle of companions, where and with whom we can enter into the demanding task of trying to say what we experience and to understand what others say in response. There may be many places and opportunities for “passing the time of day,” “shooting the breeze,” “pleasant chat,” although I suspect that for many such places and occasions are also becoming rare, but circles of conversation are precious, indeed. Such places may be libraries, for frequently the most valuable, far-ranging and transformative conversations are with people who are not present and do not happen to be living any longer. Thank God for books! If we did not have them, we would be forced to talk only to nearby contemporaries. Conversation, whether with those around us or those separated from us in space and time or, ideally, both, is necessary for thinking. How would we ever know what we do and feel and experience if we did not talk about our actions and feelings and experiences with others? This is true for everyone and it is certainly true for theologians.

While teaching at the University of Notre Dame, I was privileged to be part of several circles of conversation, one of the most fruitful of which was at the Center for Social Concerns, a particularly bright jewel in Notre Dame’s crown. Thanks to the welcome and support of the Center’s always gracious staff, I had many opportunities to talk with students, alumni and alumnae, and others engaged in discerning how the Christian call to service with one’s neighbor can be lived out in a world where marriages are formed, children raised, mortgages paid and careers pursued. Through many conversations we talked about who God is, about relationships and what Christianity is about, and how we might reimagine our lives and our world in light of what we believe about God in the Christian tradition.

Don McNeill, C.S.C., Andrea Shappell and other members of the Center’s staff urged that some of these conversations be made available to those not present there and then (again, thank God for books!). I was initially reluctant, both because I doubted whether what I said in the relaxed atmosphere of these conversations would be of interest to those who had not been present and because of the difficulty in recalling comments made on numerous occasions over the course of several years. Ah, but the ever-resourceful folks at the Center had an answer for those worries. They had been taping—and taping and taping and taping, and it appeared that scarcely had an unrecorded word fallen from my lips. Don McNeill suggested that a group of people go through these hours and hours of audio and video-tape and select points to be transcribed which they thought others might find helpful in thinking through their experience of living Christianity. With extraordinary patience and industry this was done. They also transcribed some audio tapes from a few presentations given outside the Center for Social Concerns and from some classroom sessions with students at Notre Dame. Of course, prose-to-be-heard differs greatly from prose-to-be-read, and so I extensively edited and rearranged the material.

At the urging of the group of colleagues who had selected the material from the tapes, I have preserved the informal, conversational tone of the originals. What we were not able to preserve, however, was the context of the conversation, the back-and-forth exchange, the questions or objections which led to clarifications and restatements. In order to allow other voices than mine to be heard, seven chapters have a comment, response or expansion from the experience of someone else or a few persons. These are followed by questions by Stacy Hennessy to prompt further personal or group conversation. It is my hope that the book which has resulted carries some of the flavor of those conversation circles which I so much appreciated at the Center for Social Concerns.

I suppose every writer has some imaginary reader in mind for a book. I have had the great advantage of not having to imagine a reader—or, more accurately, a hearer. For I recall with gratitude those who engaged in these conversations with me from 1987 to 1993, and I think of the readers of this book as being people like them. This is a book, therefore, for people who do not want their religious life to be partitioned off from the rest of their experience, men and women who will not allow water-tight bulkheads to be erected between the deepest levels of their experience and questions like how to choose a job, make a living, pay taxes, vote, and live with neighbors. The reader may be young (like most of those who were part of the original con?versations) or not so young (like, alas, the writer). The reader may be engaged full-time in service-work or exploring how the call to love and service can be combined with supporting a family and pursuing a career. What the reader will be is someone who insists that what he or she believes makes a difference in fact, that theology not be an imposition on experience but an explication of it, that truth is not only what one believes but what one does. I have been gifted with such companions in conversation and am happy that other such readers join us.

Companions in Conversation: Center for Social Concerns Perspective

The six of us, Don, Andrea, Jan, Stacy, Katie, and Sarah, engaged in the educational mission of the Center for Social Concerns at Notre Dame, have benefited from our ongoing conversation with Michael Himes since he joined the Department of Theology in the fall of 1987. As Michael mentions above, we began taping his responses to student questions emerging from their social concerns involvement. We also transcribed his presentations which led to conversations from a variety of contexts: continuing formation in ministry; religious education groups; human rights groups; homilies; responses to questions from parishes; preparation and “follow up” sessions for students in service learning experiences.

The Center encourages conversation which is interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and intergenerational. We soon discovered that Himes’ thoughts enabled and evoked conversations which were lively, animated, and transcended the usual communication barriers. We compiled his thoughts in such a way that we hope you and other readers will be drawn closer in thought and experience to God, others, and yourselves. We believe that his ideas lead to fresh discoveries of the mystery of God, Christ, and our participation in a restless search for truth.

The six of us who spent the weekend with Michael to finalize the book in April of 1994 tried to have all of you in mind. It was for this reason that we invited Regina Weissert, Michael Barkasy, Bob Elmer, Ron White, Lou Nanni, and Maria Teresa Gaston-Witchger to share responses from their personal experience to some of the chapters, in addition to our own. We hope their conversation with the insights of Michael will engage you to reflect your own personal story and faith journey.

We believe that your life experiences with joy and sorrow will bring you to each chapter with enthusiasm and passionate inquiry. We have come to this book from a variety of work and life situations, and thus we present a number of different starting points from which the importance of writing this book emerged.

• Continuing education for life—Don McNeill, C.S.C., and Andrea Smith Shappell

As educators whose primary role is one of facilitating small group discussion, we have seen many students who are raising deep questions about their faith find new insights and perspectives in discussion with Michael Himes. Our work at the Center for Social Concerns, our awareness of students’ and alumni’s restless desire to discover God in experiences of service and compassion, is very apparent in all facets of the Center’s programs. Our hope is that this book allows students of all ages to reflect on the integration of faith and experience, whether they be persons raising children, grandparents, university students, or simply anyone who is open to exploring dimensions of faith.

• Pastoral, campus, and social ministries—Jan Pilarski and Stacy Hennessy

In our experiences in one or more of the ministries of campus minister, community organizer, theologian, and diocesan social ministry coordinator, we found Michael Himes’ insights into God’s self-revelation refreshing for the variety of persons with whom we work. The insights on issues such as service, experience, and sacrament help us all to reflect more deeply on life’s journey, and to appreciate how much there is to gain by sharing with each other our questions, experiences, and challenges. Through these discussions we are led to deeper relationships with one another and, in doing so, come closer and closer to God.

• Students and young adults in service—Katie Bergin and Sarah Keyes

Participating in this book has really been a blessing. To be engaged with others in a conversation about love, God, truth, and service—topics many of us probably do not openly talk about enough —is a gift. We just graduated from Notre Dame and are entering service experiences in the Holy Cross Associates, Sarah domestically, and Katie in Chile. The ideas and content of this book as well as the wonderful people connected with it continue to shape our thinking as we enter our time of service and our open future. We are excited by the hope that this book will expose those who are burning with questions, those whose experiences have left them confused and searching, to deeper insights that lead to further action for a more just and humane world.

From this variety of starting points we now invite Michael Himes to present an overview of the book and its challenge for our conversations about doing the truth in love.

The Invitation To Risk Continuing the Conversation

Any conversation requires taking risks. The greatest risk is that of being changed by what one hears the conversation partner say and, perhaps even more, by what one hears oneself say. Another risk is that the conversation may go nowhere. You have every right to demand that you have some notice in advance that these conversations go somewhere. And, ever careful as I am of the reader’s rights, I will tell you what we shall be talking about.

No word is more central to theology than “God,” and yet I doubt that there is any word more often misunderstood by Christians. We begin by trying to clarify what we mean by that all-important, much misused word, and I suggest in chapter 1 that it is least wrongly understood as the name of a very particular relationship. Having spoken about God, we turn to us, that is, to God’s creatures, and in chapter 2 I maintain that the most fundamental of all religious statements is that I am not God and that this is a good thing. Chapter 3 then takes up what I firmly believe to be the truest statement ever made about human beings, that we are all dissatisfied, and asks how we can live with our restlessness.

Chapter 4 follows from what we say about God and about human beings as “the image of God” and so asks the question which the first hearers of the gospel asked: “What then must we do” (Acts 2:37) And the answer, I suggest, is that we must do what God is. But we cannot pretend that any of this is immediately obvious in a world marked by suffering, pain, and death. No one has the right to talk about the deepest issues of human experience and brush lightly by the mystery of evil, and so we must face that mystery in chapter 5.

The next chapter asks a question which will certainly have occurred to you, intelligent and perceptive reader that you are, by that point if not long before: Why are you bothering to read this book at all? That question may take heightened form if you have agreed with me through the earlier chapters that Christianity is first of all about doing the truth. Why then are we thinking and talking about it instead? Chapter 6 addresses the point of theology and its enrichment by ordinary experience.

Chapter 7 brings us a key contribution of the Catholic theological tradition, sacramentality. But we shall not be talking about the seven great ritual celebrations which we designate by the term “sacraments.” I shall suggest that sacramentality is a way—a very specifically Catholic way—of seeing the whole world and everyone and everything in it. Chapter 8 turns attention to the eucharist as the revelation of who we are and what we are meant for. In a sense, it restates everything we will have said to that point and validates it through the eucharist. And finally chapter 9 asks us to reflect on what (I hope) the whole conversation has been doing: expanding our imagination.

Now, I have every hope that this description of where we will go and what we will be talking about is sufficiently cryptic that you are wondering, “Whatever is Himes going on about?” And that is an excellent starting point for any conversation.

1

Exploring the Mystery of God in Relationships

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Wherever there is charity and love, there is God.

I. Understanding God as Mystery

The mystery of God is an enormous topic. First of all, let us center on the word “mystery.” This word is often used when we speak of God, but we have not perhaps taken it seriously enough. When we speak of God as the “ultimate” or “deepest” or “richest” or “most profound mystery,” what do we mean? What does it mean to say that God is a mystery?

There are two meanings to the word “mystery.” One is the way in which we use the term when we talk about an Agatha Christie mystery, a murder mystery, where the problem is that there are missing clues. If we could only get our hands on the missing pieces and organize them in the right way, we would see the solution. We would know that the butler did it, and the mystery would be solved.

But that is not what we mean when we talk about God as a mystery. Then we are using “mystery” in a quite different sense—in what I refer to as the Caterpillar sense of mystery. Think of one of the truly profound books of the nineteenth century, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Do you remember the passage in which Alice, who is very small at that point in the story, encounters the Caterpillar seated on a mushroom smoking a waterpipe? The conversation begins with the Caterpillar asking Alice the question, “Who are you?” Alice replies that, because of all the strange transformations which she has passed through so far that day, she is no longer sure who she is. “Explain yourself!” the Caterpillar demands. “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I am not myself, you see.” The Caterpillar replies that he does not see, and Alice tries to explain that the extraordinary things that have happened to her, especially her shifts in size, have left her confused. She says that she is sure that the Caterpillar would feel the same had such things happened to him. The Caterpillar insists that he would not fail to know who he is, and when Alice responds that it all feels very strange “to me,” he returns to his original question: “You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are you?”

The Caterpillar’s question is, in fact, the rigorously logical question to ask, because every one of Alice’s questions or replies returns to the pronoun “I.” And the Caterpillar, who like everyone in Wonderland is a rigorous logician, insists that Alice define her terms. Before he can answer her questions, she has to explain who this “I” is to whom she keeps referring. Alice’s frustration in the conversation comes from the fact that there is no answer to the Caterpillar’s question. I grant you, if you stop at a gas station to ask for directions, you don’t expect metaphysical argument, and so one can understand Alice’s frustration. But the Caterpillar’s question is not an idle one. It is a very important question, indeed: “Who are you?” The difficulty is that none of us has a good answer. Notice: we are not asked for a description. Don’t answer with a name, because we English speakers know on excellent authority that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Don’t answer by telling where you live, or what your work is, or where you went to school, or who your parents are. Don’t answer with your age or your social security number. All of that is description. And the Caterpillar’s question does not ask for a description but for a definition.

“Who are you?” The problem is that we don’t know. It is a question without an answer. It is mystery in a very rich sense, the sense in which all of us are mysteries to ourselves. One of the greatest theological minds the Christian tradition has yet seen, St. Augustine, wrote his Confessions in part as an exploration of the mystery, “Who is Augustine?” He knew that he could not answer the question because the moment he did, he became more than he had said in his answer and so made the answer false. If I could tell you in one wonderful, flashing, brilliantly insightful statement that this is who I am, the very act of making the statement makes me more than who I was, and so the answer is no longer right. The very attempt to answer the question pushes me past any answer I can give to the question.

That is what we mean when we talk about God as mystery. We are talking about something so closely interwoven into who we are that it becomes impossible to answer. God is mystery not because God is so distant but because God is so terribly close; understanding who God is is so tied up with understanding who I am and why I am that the question “Who is God?” becomes as impossible to answer as the question “Who am I?”

It is of great importance that we recognize this, for it requires us constantly to attempt to purify our consciousness of God, to remind ourselves that in talking about God we are talking about absolute mystery. Blasphemy is always the danger in preaching, in theology, in catechesis, because we can so easily begin to identify our best images of God with God.

The story is told of a distinguished theologian that, when addressing new students for the first time, he would enter the lecture hall, proceed to the podium, and begin by saying, “God.” Then he would pause dramatically during the hush while the students waited to find out what he had to say about God. He would then tell the students, “Whatever came into your head when I said the word ‘God,’ is not God.” And that is exactly correct. The first and most important thing to know in theology is that whatever you think of when you hear the word “God” is not God. However deep, however rich, however noble, however powerful, however loving, however scripturally-based or traditionally-sanctioned, whatever the image is, it is not God because God remains mystery. We must take that very seriously.

And so we need to recognize that the word “God” is not a proper name. It is not the name of some great big person somewhere “out there.” The word “God” functions like x in algebra. It is the stand-in for the mystery, just as, when someone works out an algebraic equation, all the attention focuses on x which designates that which is unknown. So, too, the word “God” functions as a handy bit of shorthand for the absolute mystery which grounds and supports all that exists. Now, I grant you that it becomes awkward to talk about “the absolute mystery that grounds and supports all that exists,” so we just say “God.” One could just as well call it “Charlie” or “Mary Ann,” but traditionally we have used “God.” The word is a stand-in for absolute mystery.

But, acknowledging that there is no final and fully correct way of imaging or speaking about God, is there any way less hopelessly inadequate than every other way? The great western religious traditions have at their cores claims about how one might least wrongly think and speak about God. And so, of course, has Christianity.

II. Understanding God As Agape

What the Christian tradition maintains is the least inadequate expression for God finds its clearest, sharpest, simplest statement in one of the last-written documents of the collection of early Christian documents which we call the New Testament, the first letter of John. There we read that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8 and 16). But the love which is offered as the least wrong way to think and speak about God is of a very peculiar sort: agape. Agape is a Greek word meaning love which is purely other-directed, love which seeks no return, love which does not want anything back. Perhaps, so as not to confuse it with the many other meanings which we attach to the word “love” in English, we might translate agape as “pure self-gift.”

One of the most astonishing statements in the New Testament is found in the section of Matthew’s gospel which we call the sermon on the mount (Mt 5–7). In some ways we could say that it functions as a kind of constitution for the kingdom of God. The very fact that Jesus’ sermon takes place on a mountain recalls Moses coming down the mountain to proclaim the laws of God. And as Moses began his address to Israel with a kind of summary statement of what followed—we call the summary the ten commandments—so Jesus begins with a summary, the beatitudes.

The middle of the sermon consists of a number of comparisons between the Mosaic law and the new law of the kingdom, in which Jesus keeps “upping the ante” on the statements with which his hearers would have been so familiar: “You have heard it said to you that…but I say to you…” (Mt 5:21–47). You have heard it said that you shall not kill, but I tell you that you must not act or speak in anger. You have heard it said that you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that you must not think lustfully. You have heard it said that you must not divorce except under certain circumstances, but I tell you that divorce is never permissible. You have heard it said that you must not swear falsely, but I tell you that you must not swear at all. These comparisons climax with “You have heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you that you must love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:43–44).

This has been made even more startlingly concrete in the preceding verses: “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer him the other cheek as well. If someone wants to take you to law to get your coat, give him your shirt as well. If someone demands that you go one mile, go two miles with him.” But, one might well ask, on what possible grounds should we act in such an unheard-of fashion? After all, what if the person has slapped us unjustly? What if he or she has no right to my coat, let alone my shirt? What if he or she has no basis for expecting me to go a single mile, no less two? It is here that Matthew’s gospel offers its astounding claim. Perhaps, as with so many other statements of the New Testament, we have heard it so often that it no longer shocks us. But it should, for in answer to the obvious question, “Why should we act in such a strange and unaccountable way?” Jesus responds that we must do so in order to “be children of your Father in heaven who makes the sun shine on the wicked as well as the good and sends rain to fall on the just as well as the unjust” (Mt 5:45).

This is an absolutely shocking claim. We wouldn’t get away with saying this sort of thing in most pulpits today, let me tell you. Why should we act in the peculiar fashion which Jesus has described? Because we are God’s children and ought to act like our parent. And that parent makes the sun shine on the good and the wicked, makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust. Please notice that what Jesus maintains is that our Father in heaven finds ethics very dull. Our Father in heaven finds moral theology a bit of a yawn. Our Father in heaven doesn’t especially care whether you are good or wicked or whether you are just or unjust. Your Father in heaven simply loves you. There are no bounds to God’s love, so do not put any bounds to yours. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). You may not love your Father in heaven, but your Father in heaven still loves you. So you be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect: love those who hate you; do good to those who persecute you.

Let’s explore this amazing claim a bit. It lies at the root of the whole Christian way of understanding what we mean by “God” and therefore also of understanding what it is to be a human being. It is said again and again in the parables of Jesus. Many of the parables are problematic to us, which is why we often tend to water them down when we preach or talk about them. Take, for example, the prodigal son (Lk 15:11–32), a parable which we have frequently distorted. Often we turn it into a story about repentance, when in fact the parable is at pains to exclude any element of repentance. Approach the story fresh, as though you have never heard it before. And keep in mind two points, both of which are necessary in order to understand the relationship of the three main figures in the story, the father and his two sons. First, remember how patriarchal the organization of ancient near eastern society was. One’s social, economic, even religious standing depended on one’s relation to the head of the household. Second, recall that in Jesus’ time, inheritance was governed by primogeniture, i.e. all property went to the eldest son; daughters and younger sons inherited nothing.

And so the story begins: once there was a man who had two sons. The younger one came to him and said, “Dad, why should I hang around until you finally die? Give me my share of the inheritance now.” The opening of the story should shock the hearer right off the bat. How could any son say such a thing to his father? We find it reprehensible, and we are by no means as respectful of parents as was the society in which Jesus taught and in which the author of Luke’s gospel wrote. Note, too, that whether the father is alive or dead, this impertinent son inherits nothing. The whole estate should go to his older brother. The younger boy has no share. His demand is not only cruel in its form but nonsensical in its import. So what should the response of a respectable, upright, just, and God-fearing father have been? Probably a good slap. Presumably Jesus’ hearers would have agreed that the proper response for the father in the story would be to tell the disrespectful twerp to mind his manners. But instead what we hear is that the father divided up the estate, turned half of it into cash and gave it to the younger son. So, at the outset of the parable, we know two things: the younger son is thoughtless and self-centered, and the father is a hopelessly irresponsible parent. This is not a story about good parenting techniques.

The younger son went off to a far country and wasted his money on wine, women and song. Then a great famine descended on the land where he was living and he was reduced to tending pigs. He was so hungry that he envied the slop thrown to the pigs. That detail is a wonderful touch. It is, after all, a Jewish story. The son has ended up envying non-kosher animals, a graphic ancient Jewish equivalent to having hit the bottom of the barrel. Eventually the younger son came to his senses and said to himself, “At home, even the servants eat better than I am. I know what I will do. I will go home to my father and say, ‘Father, I have sinned before heaven and against you. I am not worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired hands’” (Lk 15:17–19). And he set off for home.

Please notice: only one motive is given in the story for the son’s return home—he can eat better there. There is not a syllable of regret for how badly he has treated his father or for the fact that he is alienated from his family. The sole motive is that he is hungry and can get a good meal at home. Indeed, to underscore the point, the story has the younger son concoct a prepared statement. He puts together his little speech to tug at the father’s heartstrings and heads home.

The father saw him coming from a great distance and ran out to meet him. And as we might anticipate from this irresponsible parent, the father does not ask the obvious questions: “Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why are you dressed so badly? What happened to all the money I gave you?” Nor does he wait to discover if the son has learned his lesson. When the son launches into his prepared text, “Father, I have sinned before heaven and against you,” etc., and before he even reaches the last line, “Treat me as one of your hired hands,” the father turns to the servants and commands that they get a ring for the son’s finger, sandals for his feet, and a robe to put on him, and that they slay the fatted calf for the welcoming feast. And so the father scoops the son up, takes him into the house, and the party begins.

Where are we at this point in the story? This is the last time we see the younger son in the story, and so far as we know, he has not changed in the least from what he was at the outset. He was a selfish egoist at the beginning and he’s a selfish egoist to the end. There has been no conversion, no repentance. We also know that the father is a hopelessly irresponsible parent. Indeed, we might well wonder if the reason the son is impossible is that the father is so inept.

And now enters the much injured older brother. After working all day in the fields (I must admit that the story lays it on a bit thick here), this faithful and hard-working son comes home to discover a party in prog?ress. He asks one of the servants what is going on and, when he learns that it is a welcome-home party for his wastrel younger brother, refuses to go in to dinner. At this point, the older son should have had our sympathies, since he has been clearly the wronged party. But to refuse to break bread with his father, no matter who else is at the table! In our far less family-oriented world, we would find it a bit much for a child to refuse to eat with his or her parents because of a fight with a brother or sister who is at the table. In the ancient near east, such behavior would have been unpardonable. And once again, the father responds in precisely the way we have come to expect: he comes out to plead with him. And now we hear the wonderful final conversation which is what the whole story has been leading up to.

Remember, in Luke’s gospel Jesus tells this story to the scribes and Pharisees who have been complaining that he welcomes sinners and is even willing to sit down at table with them (Lk 15:1–3). Hear the conversation between the father and his older son which concludes the parable in terms of that unsympathetic audience to whom the story was first told. The older son complains to the father, “I have worked and slaved for you constantly and you have given me nothing, not so much as a kid goat to have a party with my friends. But when this wastrel comes home, you throw this big party for him. It’s wrong! It’s unjust!” And the father’s response is, “Son, everything that I have is yours”—which may be true, save that there is fifty percent less, thanks to the younger son; we should not lose sight of the fact that the older son really has been wronged. “Everything I have is yours,” the father continues, “but the one who was lost is found. The one who was dead is alive. We had to rejoice.” End of story.

Clearly, this is not a story about repentance. What is it about? I suggest to you that it is about the incomprehensibility of the love and mystery of God. The climax of the story is that final conversation. The older son’s argument is that the father’s behavior is absurd and, what is more, unjust. And note that the father does not dispute the justice of the older son’s complaints; he simply regards them as irrelevant. For the father isn’t concerned with justice. The father is concerned with agape, absolute unconditional self-gift. The older son can argue, “Look, he demanded money he had no right to and he lost it. He has never shown the least regard for you or for this family. He doesn’t deserve the party which you are giving him. This is unjust.” And, given the older son’s perspective, he is quite right. The father can reply, “But the young man was lost; now he’s found. He was dead; now he’s alive.” What is the obvious response? Have a party. And the father is right, given the father’s perspective.

The parable’s point is to underscore that there are two different perspectives, each understandable in itself and each incomprehensible to the other. God does not see as human beings see, as the gospel reminds us again and again. If you find yourself saying, “I simply don’t understand how God can act that way,” then you may very well have gotten the point of the parable. Presumably the scribes and the Pharisees who first heard the story could not figure it out either. If you start with the conviction that our primary relationship to God is one of justice, then, Jesus seems to insist, you will certainly misunderstand God.

Perhaps the reason the Pharisees are given so much attention in the synoptic gospels is not only their historical importance but because the writers recognized that Pharisaism is a possibility for Christians. The problem with the Pharisees as they are depicted in the New Testament is that they think they know who and what God is and how God acts. God is the law-giver, and God’s concern is that the law be observed, and, therefore, not to keep the law is ipso facto to put oneself outside the love of God. Imagine how they had to respond to an itinerant rabbi from Galilee who told them shocking parables in which he claimed their relationship with God was not one of justice or of keeping laws. For, as the parable we have been considering maintains, the younger son doesn’t deserve anything, but God loves him in any event. After all, what is it to you if God is generous? Tax collectors and prostitutes are wicked and unjust, but God makes the sun shine on the good and the wicked and the rain fall on the just and the unjust. Your concern should simply be to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. No wonder such a message drove the Pharisees crazy. We had to be cautioned about Pharisaism precisely because it would always remain an option for us as Christian believers. When they actually hear it, the gospel drives a lot of Christians crazy, too.

Of course, the question of punishment, i.e. of hell and damnation, will arise in many people’s minds, and quite rightly. But damnation does not mean that God ceases to love the one damned. If that were true, then the sinner would be more powerful than God, since the sinner would have the power to make God, who is love, agape, something less than God. No, God’s love is constant, unchanging and perfect. Damnation means that the sinner refuses finally and absolutely to accept being loved and to love in response. The damned may not love God, but God continues to love the damned. After all, the love of God is what holds us in existence. If God does not love you, you’re not damned. You simply aren’t. What supports our existence and holds us in being is God’s love. We exist by the fact that God gives God’s self to us at every moment. Therefore, of course, God loves the damned. God loves everything that exists just because it exists. Indeed, that is what makes it exist: God loves it into being.

Let me give you an image which comes from Gregory of Nyssa at the end of the fourth century. The difference between heaven and hell is described in this story he tells: Picture yourself walking out on a bright sunny day with healthy eyes. You will experience the sunlight as something wonderful and pleasant and beneficent. Now, picture yourself walking out on exactly the same bright sunny day, but with a diseased eye. You will now experience the sunlight as something terrible and painful and awful, something to shy away from. Well, the sun didn’t change. You did.

That is the point about heaven and hell. Heaven and hell are exactly the same thing: the love of God. If you have always wanted the love of God, congratulations, you got heaven. If you don’t want the love of God, too bad, you are stuck for all eternity. God remains God. God makes the sun shine on the just and the unjust, the rain fall on the good and the wicked. If you don’t want rain or sun, too bad, you are still going to get them. The question is not that God changes in response to us. It is that we are judged by our response to the absoluteness of God’s self gift.

If, then, you are willing to accept that the Christian tradition holds that the least wrong way to think and speak about the absolute mystery which is God is as pure and perfect self-gift, agape, you can begin to perceive the richest and deepest insight of the Christian tradition into the doctrine of God. It is a doctrine which we have managed in the course of nineteen centuries to dilute almost to the point of irrelevance. Please notice that the Christian tradition holds that God is agape, i.e. love in the sense of self-gift, not that God is a lover. The tradition, e.g. 1 John 4:8 and 16, says that God is love, not that God is one who loves. “Love” is not the name of a person. “Love” is the name of a relationship between persons. That, I suggest to you, is the single richest insight into the mystery of God that the Christian tradition has to offer.

III. Understanding God as Relationship

This seems to imply that we should first think of God not as a person but as a relationship between persons. “Now,” you may say to yourself, “what a weird, silly statement! Who in heaven’s name has ever thought of God like that?” Well, you have—at least, you have if you meant what you said when you professed the Nicene Creed or, even more commonly, when you began your prayer “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” When we say those words, are we not claiming that God is a person but is the relationship between three? That is the whole point of the doctrine of the Trinity, is it not? The word “God” is the name of a kind of communal relationship. God is not the one, God is the relatedness of the three. This idea is precisely what lies at the heart of the great Christian claim about the meaning of the word “God,” that the least hopelessly wrong way of understanding God is to think of God as a relationship even before thinking of God as a person.