Punishment

32nd Week in Ordinary Time - Friday (16 November 2018)

2 John 1:4-9. Psalm 119:1-2,10-11,17-18. Luke 17:26-37.

“When the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed, anyone who tries to preserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe.”

God never punishes. Then why does today's gospel and a few other passages in the Bible speak of God as getting angry, or punishing people, or taking revenge? The anthropomorphic portrayal of God is not uncommon in all religious traditions, including the Bible.

We need to understand the fact that the development of human consciousness is clearly seen in the Scriptures. This development also includes a better understanding of God. We cannot understand everything about God, who is beyond the human mind and human history. God evades all definitions, even our best theology. So the best way to describe God is to use images, pictures, stories, similes, analogies, illustrations and metaphors. In a word, it is a metaphor. The Greek root of the word metaphor means "to carry across" a meaning from one place to another. The paradox is, all metaphors by necessity walk with a limp.

All our efforts in understanding God is a circling around; there can be no direct way to explain or define the Mystery of God. We will always be imperfect in our theological language—which is only an approximation. Therefore, we can say that all religions are metaphors, our holy books are metaphors, the Bible is a metaphor. All these our endeavours are fingers pointing to the moon! The moon is the focus, not our fingers. So why should we fight about the best way of pointing to the moon?

Only over time humanity came to understand that God's love is unconditional (=steadfast in love). The earlier understandings that God is a punishing God, or that His love is conditional and limited are inadequate. God cannot not love, He can never punish us.

Even Jesus is looking for metaphors, for possible language to try to describe his own inner dynamic. We can find, hiding in plain sight, his natural and lovely way of knowing reality—passed on to his earliest apprentices and, by extension, to us. Today's gospel is filled with imagery and metaphors. These texts are not intended to fill us with fear of a revengeful God. They are suggestions to remain alert to meet the Lord. It is good advice for every day and every moment of every day. If I am not attentive I can easily miss His presence.

By living continuously and consciously in the presence of God, in that “divine milieu” of the Kingdom discussed yesterday, in the ever-present NOW, we don't have to be afraid of our last days or the last days of the world. Far from being afraid, we will look forward to the day with anticipation, leaving totally in God’s hands the hour of His call. In practice, too, that final call will not coincide with the end of our planet but with the moment when our individual life on this earth will come to its end. Of the inevitability of that end there is no doubt.

We are all destined for transcendence and endless horizons. It is not a matter of “if” but “when.” The God that Israel—and Jesus—discovered is consistently seen to be “merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and steadfast in love” (Exodus 34:6-7). Let us only believe in this God; only in this credo of five adjectives.