Our Inner Garment

Our Inner Garment
By Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI 2008-06-01

Many things divide us: language, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, politics, ideology, culture, personal history, temperament, private wounds, moral judgments. It is hard, in the face of all this, to see people who are different from us as brothers and sisters, as equally important citizens of this world, and as loved and valued by God in the same way we are.

And so we often live in a certain distrust of each other. Sadly too we often demonize each other, seeing danger where there is only difference. We then either actively oppose someone or simply steer clear of him or her and caution our loved ones to stay clear as well.

Consequently we live in a world in which various groups stay away from each other: liberals and conservatives, Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Arabs, Arabs and Christians, Muslims and Buddhists, black and white races, pro-life and pro-choice groups, feminists and traditionalists, among others.

What we fail to realize is that these differences are really our outer garments, things that in the end are accidental and incidental to our real selves. What’s meant by this?

We wear more than physical clothing to cover our naked selves; we cover our nakedness too with a specific ethnicity, language, religious identity, culture, political affiliation, ideology, set of moral judgments, and a whole gamut of private wounds and indignation. These are in essence our outer garments.

But we also possess a deeper inner garment. Our real substance, identity, and capacity to act with larger hearts, lies underneath. What lies beneath our outer garments?

In the Gospel of John, at the Last Supper when he is describing Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, (in a carefully worded passage) John uses these words: "Jesus knowing that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, got up from the table, took off his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it around his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing." (John 13, 2-5)

When John is describing Jesus "taking off his outer garment" he means more than just the stripping off of some physical clothing, some outer sash that might have gotten in the way of his stooping down and washing someone’s feet. In order to let go of the pride that blocks all human beings from stooping down to wash the feet of someone different than oneself, Jesus had to strip off a lot of outer things (pride, moral judgments, superiority, ideology, and personal dignity) so as to wear only his inner garment.

What was his inner garment? As John poetically describes it, his inner garment was precisely his knowledge that he had come from God, was going back to God, and that therefore all things were possible for him, including his washing the feet of someone whom he already knew had betrayed him.

That is also our true inner garment, the reality that lies deeper beneath our race, gender, religion, language, politics, ideology, and personal history (with all its wounds and false pride). What is most real is that deep down, beneath these other, outer, things we nurse the dark memory, the imprint, the brand of love and truth, the inchoate knowledge that, like Jesus, we too have come from God, are returning to God, and therefore are capable of doing anything, including loving and washing the feet of someone very different from ourselves. Our inner garment is the image and likeness of God inside of us.

It is only if we realize this that our world can really change because it is only then that liberals and conservatives, pro-life and pro-choice, Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Arabs, Arabs and Christians, black people and white people, men and women, and people wounded in different ways can begin to stop demonizing each other, begin to reach across to each other, begin to feel sympathy for each other, and begin, together, to build for a common good beyond our wounds and differences.

Sometimes in our better moments we already do that. Unfortunately, generally to have one of our better moments it usually takes a great sadness, a tragedy, or a death. Mostly it is only in the face of mutual helplessness and sorrow, at funeral, that we are capable of forgetting our differences, putting away our outer garments, and seeing each other as brothers and sisters.

It seems it has never been much different. In the biblical story of Job, we see that it is only when Job is completely down and out, when he is shorn of every outer thing that he can cling to, that he finally sheds his outer garment and utters the timeless line: "Naked I came from mother’s womb, and naked I go back!"

We need to be careful what kind of clothing we put on so that the pain of Job is not required to remove it.

Easter Sunday

Short Reflection for Easter Sunday (B)

Readings: Acts 10: 34. 37-43; Colossians 3: 1-4; John 20: 1-9

Selected Passage: "Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believerd; for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must riae from the dead.” (John 20: 8-9)

Meditation:  Jesus is, truly, Risen. Alleluia! With Jesus' resurrection we now have the guarantee that, in the end, good shall prevail over evil; life over death; and grace over sin.  Yes, if we have died with Jesus, we, too, shall rise with him.

Easter Blessings to one and all!

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DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

The Jewish Passover Celebration

The Jewish Passover Celebration...

The Bible repeatedly emphasized this facet of Passover, “And this day shall be for you a memorial…” (Exodus 12:14); “And Moses said to the people: remember this day in which you come out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage…” (Exodus 13:3); “You shall remember what Adonai your God did to Pharaoh…” (Deuteronomy 7: 18); “that you may remember the day when you come out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life” (Deuteronomy16:3).

These verses are a clear indication that the Passover celebration is to serve as a constant reminder to the Israelites of their struggle against slavery and their wondrous deliverance from Egyptian bondage.

1st Reading: The Jewish Passover as narrated in Exodus 12: 1-8. 11-14

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
"This month shall stand at the head of your calendar;
you shall reckon it the first month of the year.

Tell the whole community of Israel:
On the tenth of this month every one of your families
must procure for itself a lamb, one apiece for each household.
If a family is too small for a whole lamb,
it shall join the nearest household in procuring one
and shall share in the lamb
in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it.

The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish.
You may take it from either the sheep or the goats.
You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month,
and then, with the whole assembly of Israel present,
it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight.

They shall take some of its blood
and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel
of every house in which they partake of the lamb.
That same night they shall eat its roasted flesh
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

"This is how you are to eat it:
with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand,
you shall eat like those who are in flight.

It is the Passover of the LORD.
For on this same night I will go through Egypt,
striking down every firstborn of the land, both man and beast,
and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt—I, the LORD!
But the blood will mark the houses where you are.
Seeing the blood, I will pass over you;
thus, when I strike the land of Egypt,
no destructive blow will come upon you.

"This day shall be a memorial feast for you,
which all your generations shall celebrate
with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution."

Jesus celebrates the Passover with his disciples

Jesus celebrating the Passover with the 12 Apostles

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.

He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over.

So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.

He took a towel and tied it around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin

and began to wash the disciples' feet

and dry them with the towel around his waist.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,

"Master, are you going to wash my feet?"

Jesus answered and said to him,

"What I am doing, you do not understand now,

but you will understand later."

Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet."

Jesus answered him, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me."

Simon Peter said to him,

"Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well."

Jesus said to him, "Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over;

so you are clean, but not all."

For he knew who would betray him;

for this reason, he said, "Not all of you are clean."

So when he had washed their feet

and put his garments back on and reclined at table again,

he said to them, "Do you realize what I have done for you?

You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am.

If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,

you ought to wash one another's feet.

I have given you a model to follow,

so that as I have done for you, you should also do." (John 13: 1-15)

(The Image of Last Supper is in Milan painted by Leonardo da Vinci)

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A Redeeming God and NOT a Rescuing God....

THE RESURRECTION AS REVEALING GOD AS REDEEMER, NOT AS RESCUER

That’s a line from Daniel Berrigan that rightly warns us that faith in Jesus and the resurrection won’t save us from humiliation, pain, and death in this life. Faith isn’t meant to do that.

Jesus is deeply and intimately loved by his Father and yet his Father doesn’t rescue him from humiliation, pain, and death. In his lowest hour, when he is humiliated, suffering, and dying on the cross, Jesus is jeered by the crowd with the challenge: “If God is your father, let him rescue you!” But there’s no rescue.  Instead Jesus dies inside the humiliation and pain. God raises him up only after his death.

This is one of the key revelations inside the resurrection: We have a redeeming, not a rescuing, God.

It took the early Christians some time to grasp that Jesus doesn’t ordinarily give special exemptions to his friends (such as in the story of Lazarus) no more than God gave special exemptions to Jesus. So, like us, they struggled with the fact that someone can have a deep, genuine faith, be deeply loved by God, and still have to suffer humiliation, pain, and death like everyone else. God didn’t spare Jesus from suffering and death, and Jesus doesn’t spare us from them.

That is one of the key revelations inside of the resurrection and is the one we perhaps most misunderstand. We are forever predicating our faith on, and preaching, a rescuing God, a God who promises special exemptions to those of genuine faith: Have a genuine faith in Jesus, and you will be spared from life’s humiliations and pains! Have a genuine faith in Jesus, and prosperity will come your way! Believe in the resurrection, and rainbows will surround your life!

Would it were so! But Jesus never promised us rescue, exemptions, immunity from cancer, or escape from death. He promised rather that, in the end, there will be redemption, vindication, immunity from suffering, and eternal life. But that’s in the end; meantime, in the early and intermediate chapters of our lives, there will be the same kinds of humiliation, pain, and death that everyone else suffers.

The death and resurrection of Jesus reveal a redeeming, not a rescuing, God.

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Good Friday - A Day of Shame!

Good Friday Celebration points to the Cross - an Innocent Man was crucified and died that other may have life.

In some Arabic Literature, is called the "Day of Shame". It reminds of reading again the small book written by Elie Wiesel - Night - Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

This was a testimony of the harrowing experiences in Auschwitz...

Elie Wiesel - The Night

“I remember that night, the most horrendous of my life:

…. Eliezer, my son, come here… I want to you something… Only to you… Come, don’t leave me alone…

I heard his voice, grasped the meaning of his words and the tragic dimension of the moment, yet I did nit move.

It had been his last wish to have me next to him in his agony, at the moment when his soul was tearing itself from his lacerated body – yet I did not let him have his wish.

I was afraid. Afraid of the blows. That was why I remained deaf to his cries.

Instead of sacrificing my miserable life and rush into his side, taking his hand, reassuring him, showing him that he was not abandoned, that I was near him, that I felt his sorrow, instead of all that. I remained flat on my bed, asking God to make my father stop calling my name, to make him stop crying. So afraid was I to incur the wrath of the SS.

In fact, my father was no longer conscious. Yet his plaintive, harrowing voice went on piercing the silence and calling me, nobody but me.

Well? The SS had flown into rage and was striking my farther on the head. ‘Be quiet, old man! Be quiet!’

My father no longer felt the club’s blows: I did. And yet I did not react. I let the SS beat my father. I let him alone in the clutches of death. Worse: I was angry with him for having been noisy, for having cried, for provoking then wrath of the SS.

‘Eliezer! Eliezer! Come, don’t leave me alone…’ His voice had reached me from so far away, from so close. But I had not moved!

I shall never forgive myself.

Nor shall I forgiven the world for having pushed me against the wall, for having turned me into stranger, for having awakened in me the basest, most primitive instincts.

His last word had been my name. A summon. And I had not responded.”

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