The Gospel and the 2nd Reading present us with contrasting pictures. The theme Christ obedient unto death is derived from the 2nd Reading. The great Christological hymn of St Paul’s letter to the Philippians describes the Incarnation, the act of Divine Condescension, as an act of obedience. Christ who willingly surrendered His divinity to assume the condition of a slave is held up as the supreme model of obedience.The Gospel, on the other hand, lays bare a scenario closer to our reality. Our struggle with obedience is exemplified by the second son whose yes remains only in word and unrealised in deed. Whilst the 2nd Reading proposes an ideal, the Gospel reveals a painful truth of man’s struggle to match his actions with his words.
Why is there always a gap between what we say and what we do?
Ricoeur, a French philosopher tries to understand the source of the gap. To explain the gap, he turns to the three “Masters of Suspicion”—Frederic Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. These three thinkers were searching for authentic consciousness in the sense that they were interested to know the reason for the mismatch between word and deed. They suspected that the lapse between word and deed is caused by our passion for power, our infantile craving for sex and also insatiable desire for money. If that be the case, then we must adduce impure motives to people’s intention. No one can be trusted because there are always selfish reasons for one’s actions.
Sadly, this is confirmed in the fields of politics—abuse of authority; in the area of psychology—sexual satisfaction; and economy—selfish interest. Examples are a dime a dozen as they come to through electronic media. Daily we are fed a staple of how evil men have subverted the good for their own purposes. We are being warned every day not to trust someone who is “kind” because kindness is a prelude to some nefarious plan to rob or to rape.
Christ, in obedience to the Father’s will, proposes that the gaping chasm between word and action does not need to be filled by power, sex or money. Instead, our temptations actually reveal a craving for integrity. The more tempted we are by all these, the more we are crying out for integrity. What is integrity?
St Ignatius, when he speaks of love, says that love must be seen in deeds rather than in words. The way he speaks acknowledges that the gap is existential, that it is a given. It will always be there and the only way we can narrow the gap is to match our actions with our words. The word Purgatory may not mean much to Catholics these days. But, the basis for our belief in Purgatory rests on the gap which has to be narrowed. When we cannot, Purgatory does the trick for us in the afterlife. As such, in the context of presenting Christ as the ideal of obedience to the Father’s will, we begin with the most basic requirement of being true to our words. In short, the challenge of obedience in our context is to live lives of integrity.
This is where the blushing comes in. All of us have dirty secrets we keep from others. Tell me you don’t have and I call you Christ. In other words, we all are hypocrites; much like the second son who says yes but does not fulfil his promise. We all live double lives and it is a matter of degree. And here is the rub. The painful truth is this: the more we lament that our politicians are corrupt and that the country is in such dire political straits, the more we ought to look at ourselves. There is a correlation between how bad we perceive the country to be and where we are at the level of personal integrity. We speak of corruption at national level but we find little or no problem bribing a policeman for a traffic misdemeanour.
But, there is hope. The phenomenon of Reality TV is not just revelatory. Jerry Springer, Big Brother and Survivor, even though they follow a predictable pattern that dirty linen has to be publicly paraded, that predictable pattern may actually mask a deeper desire. The self-destructive drive to expose oneself may just be a cry for integrity. Reality TV, even if it were driven by a desire to come clean, cannot fulfil man’s desire for integrity, a desire which can be answered quite simply by Catholic Confession.
Christ as model of obedience challenges us to narrow the gap between our word and action. Where do I stand on the counter of integrity? Some of us mistakenly believe that as long as we do not cheat, steal or lie then we are OK. In short, we believe integrity to be merely a personal and private affair. But, the fact remains that evil abounds because “men of integrity” remain silent.
In summary, the path to obedience begins with faltering steps towards integrity. Obedience is not merely abnegating one’s will or surrendering one’s life. It grows with integrity. My word must become my bond. It is a struggle and it will always be and the path begins not with a grand vision, not found in self-help books, will not come about by thinking about it in the future. The ideal of obedience to God’s will can only be lived out by the reality of our integral lives. It begins with faltering steps and never without hope because regular Confessions and faithful attendance of Mass is our sure help and strength in this path towards integrity and finally, obedience to the Father’s will.
