The Inside

28th Week in Ordinary Time - Tuesday (16 October 2018)

Galatians 5:1-6

Luke 11:37-41

“Did he not who made the outside make the inside too?”

Jesus had been invited to dinner by a Pharisee. He apparently went straight into the dining area and reclined at the table to eat. The Pharisee was quite shocked because Jesus had not first done the ritual washing of his hands before eating. He makes a point, and draws attention to what he sees as false religion. A person’s virtue is not to be judged by his performance or non-performance of an external rite. Unless we are able to see the inside of a person, we can't love her or him.

What Jesus is really emphasising here is the inner spirit and motivation. Once that is proper, everything else will be taken care of. God is equally concerned about the inside as the outside. But perhaps we need to give priority to the work of interiority. This is the substance of true religion. The absence of the inside work (which happens very often, I think) make our religious practices hollow, superficial, egoistic and even hypocritical. Is this why many authentic people tend to use the word spirituality in place of religion?

Religion is not a search for social order, group cohesion, personal worthiness, or a way of escaping into the next world. True religion or spirituality is all about transformation. It is not a search for external perfection or control; it is not merely preparing ourselves for the next world. Spirituality is about enjoying God here and now; it is a search for divine union now. It is a great discovery of God within ourselves in this present state of our lives. Jacob's Eureka after his discovery is an eye-opener for us too: "Truly Yahweh was always in this place all the time, and I never knew it" (Genesis 28:16).

God is found in the inside, within ourselves. The more we discover ourselves, the more we discover God in us. God is not out there, He is here within us. We need to break the lie that God is not within me, but He is only outside, or that He is far away and unapproachable. Rather, He is deeply involved in all our struggles and pains. He is found within the mess and disorder of our lives. The most amazing fact about Jesus is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.

We therefore need a discipline by which we begin to see God in our heart. This leads us to a careful attentiveness to the One who dwells in the centre of our being such that through the recognition of God's presence we allow God to take possession of all our senses. Through the discipline of prayer we awaken ourselves to the God in us and let God enter into our heartbeat and our breathing, into our thoughts and emotions, our hearing, seeing, touching, and tasting. It is by being awake to this God in us that we can see God in the world around us. The great mystery of a deeper prayer life is not that we see God in the world, but that God within us recognizes God in the world. God speaks to God, Spirit speaks to Spirit, heart speaks to heart. It is the divine Spirit praying in us who makes our world transparent and opens our eyes to the presence of the divine Spirit in all that surrounds us. It is with our heart of hearts that we see the heart of the world. (Henri Nouwen)

Without personal prayer, silence and interiority, our worship sessions and prayer services will become meaningless. Let us give due focus to interiority, authenticity, and transformation while we are involved in the external practices of our religions. Let us allow ourselves to go beyond ritualism.

"The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words" (Romans 8:26).