5th Sunday of Lent, B March 17, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
When I was a kid, my boy scout troop would take rock climbing trips. Now, we all knew that falling from a great height can kill you, which is why we were careful to use ropes, harnesses, and anchors to keep us safe. We were taught how to use it and we knew that the gear was perfectly safe. But when you’re 70 feet off the ground, barely clinging to a tiny handhold and your feet start to sleep… you suddenly know the power of gravity in a whole new way. And then… ssstt, your foot gives way and you’re falling… falling… then you’re gently dangling from on a rope, swinging side to side, the adrenaline slowly fading… then you really know the safety gear works.
That kind of knowing can’t really be taught through mere words. And it is that deeper kind of knowledge we’re asking for when we pray, “Create a clean heart in me, O God.”
Remember that, when scripture speaks of the heart, it’s talking about the center-most part of the human person. The heart is the connection point for all that we are. It is not mere emotion or desire. The heart is not simply arbitrary choice or preference. The scriptural heart includes our reasoning, our conscious thoughts and beliefs. Rather than overriding our minds, our hearts ought to be the expression of our minds at the deepest level.
So, when we ask God to create a clean heart, we are asking him to create a clean self, to purify us in the fullest way possible. This is why we use the language of “create” in addition to words like “wash” and “wipe out.” It isn’t as simple as not doing evil anymore. Rather it’s a prayer to become good. It is still our heart, so we do not become another person, but the fullest self we were meant to be. Knowing God and his goodness in a way that cannot be taught.
This is also what’s going on with the prophecy from Jeremiah in our first reading: “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts… No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the LORD.” This is a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. Yet, like many prophecies, it’s only partly fulfilled by his 1st coming. It will be completely fulfilled only at Christ’s 2nd coming.
That’s why even though scripture says we won’t need to be taught, we still have teachers. Paradoxically, one of St. John the Evangelist’s letters teaches us that we don’t need anyone to teach us because we have the anointing of Jesus. And the Church has always trained teachers.
On one level, you need teachers to pass on information, to fill someone’s mind with details like who Jesus was, his teachings, and what he did. On a deeper level – the level of the heart – there is a kind of learning that cannot be captured in words and formulas, the kind learned only by experiencing the power of gravity and the strength of the rope.
True Christian knowledge – having a clean heart – can’t actually be taught. There are a thousand thousand insights into the faith that simply don’t register when someone just says them to you. It is the inner work of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of meditative prayer and moments of grace that “write” the law of God “on [our] hearts.”
This is why the people in the gospel can’t agree about the voice that speaks from heaven in response to Jesus. It isn’t a scientific or historical question of soundwaves or decibels. It is that some in the crowd know how to learn in a way that can’t be taught, their hearts more open to a mystery beyond human teaching.
One of the more shocking mysteries – certainly something that baffles and angers many Jews, Muslims, and philosophers – is that God himself undergoes a transformation of “knowing.” God is omniscient. He knows all things in the most perfect way possible. And yet… and yet when the eternal Son becomes man, is born of Mary and named Jesus, he creates a new way in which he can “know:” as a human being with a human mind and a human heart. Jesus is God and cannot sin, yet he “creates a clean heart” in himself first. It is gradual, like the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. First there’s the incarnation, then the passion.
That is the meaning of our second reading: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect…” God “learned” as if he didn’t already know? Jesus “was made perfect” as if he wasn’t already perfect? Yes, but not because he was ignorant or imperfect before. Indeed, until Jesus did it, no one could “know” or “be perfect” in that way. Jesus creates the very possibility of this kind of knowledge and perfection as it happens to him. It’s as if he creates the mountain as he climbs it while also weaving the rope that allows us to follow him. This new, expanded sense of human perfection is not about having a great memory or solving equations instantly. It’s not about being in perfect shape, never dropping a ball, or singing with perfect pitch. It is the knowledge and perfection of glory though humility, freedom through obedience, and immortality through death.
This can get very abstract and philosophical – it should and often does – but the essential question for us is this: how do we attain this perfection, the perfection of a clean heart? Obedience. Obedience because we cannot make our hearts clean. But God can and will, if we obey him. The “law of God” written on our hearts is not memorizing the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. It is living them… living them to the point of death. The stories of martyrs can be taught, but martyrdom itself cannot be taught. The words for confession can be taught, but contrition for sins cannot be taught. The doctrine of Transubstantiation can be taught, but belief in and reverence for His presence in the Eucharist cannot be taught. There’s only one way to move from “knowing” these things to really knowing them: obedience. Until we put that “knowledge” to work, actually climbing towards God through obedience, we can’t really know how he overcomes our imperfection like a climber’s rope overcome gravity.
We call the approaching feast “Easter,” but it would be better if we used its actual name: the Paschal Mystery. This Pascha, this Passover isn’t just a historical fact or legal technicality to get us out of our sins. It is the process of God becoming human and using that human nature to create a path to a new kind of human nature. Jesus pays for our sins on the cross, yes, but it isn’t the suffering that pays. It is his obedience.
Jesus doesn’t need the Father’s voice from heaven to reassure him in the gospel, which is why he says it’s for our sake. The Father speaks to prove something to us: that Jesus is the most perfect, most powerful human in existence. That way, when this most perfect human says he must obey to the point of dying a miserable and shameful death in order to drive out “the ruler of this world” – the devil – we’ll “know” it’s the truth. When he comes back from that death just as he promised, we are commanded to know it for ourselves, receiving through obedience a clean heart, capable of joy even as it seeks strength to endure suffering.
“Create a clean heart in me, O God.” Not a keen mind, a fun personality, or a healthy body. A clean heart. Clean because it knows you, obeys you, loves you so much that it costs me my life in this world. Then and only then will my heart be made truly clean, recreated in the image of the risen Christ, and preserved for eternal life.