From The City of God: Reflections for Lent 2009 by Joshua Casteel
God intends for us to live eternal life now, to live in truth and love. This week we see over and over that this cannot be an individualistic life. The readings challenge us to examine whom we call enemies, how we fail God’s intentions, how we are seduced by the will to power, where we fail relationships.
Questions for the Week:
What might it mean if I live as if I have no enemies: not people from different countries, ideologies, politics, beliefs?
In what ways do I seek to be assimilated to the world’s power, culture, and seduction, rather than first being a citizen of God’s community?
What appeal to my heart is Christ making this week?
How am I called to communal and personal transformation?
What relationships in my life need healing?
Have I lost my sense of self, my knowledge that I belong first to God?
SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT, MARCH 8, 2009
Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-19 | Psalm 115 | Romans 8:31b-34 | Mark 9:2-10
With God on our side who can be against us? ~ Romans 8:31
Abraham’s radical faith earned his descendants “possession of the gates of their enemies” (Genesis 22:17). Yet St. Paul questions the very notion of enemies. “With God on our side who can be against us?” Abraham’s son was spared—God’s covenant of love and friendship with those who follow God’s ways. Christ, on the other hand, willingly endured death for all those who cried out “Crucify him!” Christ responded to this enmity with “Abba, forgive them, they know not what they do.” For all those at enmity with God, for us, Christ pleaded, “forgive them.” Christ became the One who follows God’s ways, the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham. So Abraham’s blessing continues: “All the nations of the earth shall your descendants bless, as a reward for your obedience” (Genesis 22:18). There could be no greater blessing to the nations than for the descendants of Abraham to call no man or woman “enemy,” but to instead extend mercy to them.
So what does it mean to possess “the gates of their enemies”? The painter William Holman Hunt is famous for his allegorical rendering of Revelation 3:20—Christ at the door of one’s heart—in his painting “The Light of the World.” Christ stands in kingly apparel and a crown of thorns, holding a lantern outside a door long unopened, covered in overgrowth. The door has no outward doorknob—it can only be opened from within. It is dark. Christ stands with his lantern waiting for the one inside to respond to his knock, so that Christ might sup (a sign of kinship) with the one inside. Might we understand “possession of the gates of their enemies” as the very same appeal Christ makes to each human heart? Gates that are not closed are no gates at all. Perhaps “the gates of their enemies” is the entrance to enmity itself—opening those hearts that enmity has closed. If our Kingdom is in but not of this world, whom shall we fear? And if we have no reason to fear, what reason could we have to call any human “enemy”?
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