I’m sure
you all know that something big happened on campus this weekend. Something that attracting big media
attention, filled the social networks. I’m
talking of course, about the announcement that the optimistic lifestyle brand “Life
is Good” has teamed up with Notre Dame to offer the brand’s first collegiate
licensed apparel. That’s right, as of
next week, you can may 11 varieties of men’s and women’s shirts featuring the
words “Life is Good” and your choice of interlocking ND monogram, or cute leprechaun.
Which
gets me thinking… is it true? Is life
good? Stopping and thinking and being
grateful for what truly is good about life is a practice that really can build
us up in virtue. So, what do you think…
what is really good about life? [take
some answers]
OK… now
we’ve got some of those, what else is going on?
As well as giving thanks for what is good, there’s a lot that’s not good
about our world, and it’s just as Christian to stop and name that and lament it. What isn’t good about life? [take some answers]
So, the
reality is, that when we stop and look at our world, at our lives, we see so
much that is good, and so much that falls short. We see signs of God’s goodness, and we see
sin and wickedness and natural evil that cries out to God. And if we ever, in this life, fail to see one of other of those, we’re not looking
hard enough.
As
Christians, we’re not called to be univocally optimists or pessimists. We’re called to something deeper; we’re
called to hope. You’ve all probably
heard that familiar adage that a pessimist says a glass is half-empty and an
optimist that it’s half-full. Well, a
person of hope doesn’t deal in these half measures: hope proclaims that the
glass can be filled. Christian hope is
assured that God can fill us up, that through the blood of Christ out poured,
we can be filled to overflowing with holiness and love. God will fill us. That’s what Jesus means when he says that “All
things are possible with God.”
The rich
man that runs up to Jesus isn’t a man of hope.
He seems to start as a man of optimism.
He knows the answer to his question, he knows the commandments. And he’s basically a good guy, he hasn’t
broken any of the 10 commandments (and he hasn’t committed fraud either, which
is kind of a curve ball Jesus throws him).
He’s doing well morally, and he knows it. And that’s what makes it impossible for him
to have hope. All things are possible
for God, but this man right now is too much of an optimist to have hope. He doesn’t need to have his glass filled up,
because he’s convinced it’s already full!
He can see nothing in himself to lament.
But,
then Jesus opens up a hole. That word of
God, piercing, as Hebrews put it, exposing what’s between the joints and the marrow,
like a spiritual x-ray. He shows him
that he’s owned by his possessions. He’s
got a lot of stuff, and it has more of a claim on him than Jesus does right
now. Maybe he’s even got a natty t-shirt
from Galilee-U proclaiming “hachay tov!”
But he doesn’t own it, it owns him, and it’s making him less free. He’s not stopping to lament the plight of the
poor, which means he’s not doing anything about it, and he can’t see what he
needs to lament in himself.
And
then, he does. Jesus shows him, and
everything seems to coming crashing down.
He goes away sad. Because now he’s
focused on the lament, he’s realized that he can’t do everything, that he can’t
write his own ticket into eternal life.
Maybe that happened to you here, the first time you realized you couldn’t
do all the things, because that’s way too many things, and some of them are
really hard. And there is cause to
lament, because we can’t do everything, we can’t even avoid the things we don’t
to do when left to our own devices.
But, God
doesn’t leave us. God in Christ makes
himself present to us, throughout our lives, in the Eucharist, in the poor
served, and God can do all things. There’s
goodness to give him thanks for, there’s emptiness to lament, and we have hope:
God can fill us up.
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