16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 20, 2014
10 AM & 12 Noon Liturgies
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
Over the years I have preached any number of times about
the weeds and the wheat in today’s gospel. I have completely
exhausted my wisdom on horticulture. Besides, whoever has ears
ought to hear, as the gospel says. The parable is not that difficult to
comprehend.
What did strike me this year, however, are the other readings
and today’s psalm. I am sure that this is true, partially at least,
because of a play I saw while on summer holiday the past few
weeks. Mark St. Germain calls the play “Freud’s Last Session”. It is
a fictional record of a conversation between Sigmund Freud and
C.S. Lewis.
Freud invited the young Lewis to his London home for a chat.
He wanted to know how such an obviously bright and lettered
young man as Lewis had abandoned his strident atheism to
become one of the most remarkable Christian apologists of the 20th
century. That switch was quite perturbing to Freud. As the playbill
states, they clashed about love, sex (of course), the existence of
God, and the meaning of life.
Lewis is trying to illustrate to the dying father of
psychoanalysis that he has only grasped half the truth about Christ
and Christianity. He sees only the preposterous claims, the
violence religion seems to create, the lunacy of institutional
leaders. They seem to come to an impasse when Freud says, “You
believe in revelation. I believe in science, the dictatorship of
reason. There is no common ground.” Lewis retorts with “The
stupidity of church leaders is too easy a target.”
For Lewis, Freud has grasped only a half-truth. I wondered
seeing the play whether Lewis might have appreciated a saying
attributed to an old Yiddish proverb: “Beware of the half truth.
You may have gotten hold of the wrong half.” Or perhaps he even
remembered Ben Franklin’s pithy quip: “Half a truth is often a
great lie.”
The whole truth about God and about Jesus Christ is captured
in today’s other readings. Wisdom reminds us that God’s justice
and power is only revealed in God’s kindness and forgiveness. All
God’s deeds are forgiving. And the Book of Wisdom continues
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addressing God: “And you taught your people by these, your deeds,
that those who are just must be kind; and you gave your people
good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their
sins.” (Justice only in kindness! Would that that message would
get conveyed to Washington in our own times. But I digress.)
Psalm 86 says it all even more succinctly: “Lord, you are good
and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.” St.
Paul got the message. We are usually so weak that we do not even
know how to pray, he says today. But there is no need to fear or
doubt. Because “the Spirit intercedes for us with inexpressible
groanings.” That’s what the Spirit of God is for!
Sigmund Freud is not the only one who misses that other half
of the Truth about God and religion. Some of us siting here today
were most likely only taught half of God’s truth ourselves as we
were growing up. God’s justice and watchfulness, and retribution
for sin were paramount in my religious education. It was in the air
we grew up in and in the church we inherited.
But we all may have gotten only half the truth, and the wrong
half to boot! Enter a new Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, and listen
to the other half of the truth. God’s mercy is God’s most significant
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attribute. Period! And God’s gospel is primarily a Gospel of Joy
(Evangelii Gaudium). Mercy is mentioned over 30 times in this first
encyclical. And Pope Francis admitted that one of the most
influential books in his own thinking was a recent book by Cardinal
Walter Kaspar entitled simply, Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel
and the Key to Christian Life. Whoever has ears ought to hear!
Examine your own heart today. Do you hear too often only
half of the truth? Remember another old Yiddish proverb:
“sometimes a half truth is a whole lie.” Psalm 86 again: You, O
Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in
kindness and fidelity….Give your strength to your servant.” Let
that be our prayer today. Peace!
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