Why do you call me, "Lord, Lord," and yet don't do what I tell you? Anyone who comes to me and listens to my words and obeys them-- I will show what he is like. He is like a man who, in building his house, dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. the river flooded over and hit that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But anyone who hears my words and does not obey them is like a man who built his house without laying a foundation; when the flood hit that house it fell at once--and what a terrible crash that was!"(Luke 6: 43-9)
I. The Lord Jesus' reference in the Gospel of St. Luke concerning the image of the tree, reminds us at once of all the many other times that the Lord uses this same image throughout the wholeness of salvation history. It is one of God's favourite images. We think, for example, first of the Garden, and the trees that are in the Garden, which are good for food and delightful to the eyes, and especially of the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden. Yet, even after the human race lost access through sin to the Tree of Life, human beings were still expected to be like life-giving trees, living to the greatest extent possible in communion with God. In the first psalm, for example, we read: "Blessed is the man, who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked... He shall be like a tree planted by flowing waters, which will give its fruit in due season. Its leaf shall not wither, and in everything he does, he prospers." Similarly, in Psalm 92, we read that "the just man shall flourish like the palm tree, and he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God." In the forgoing verse, communion with the Lord is highlighted by the reference to the "courts of our God." If we were to read the passage from St. Luke without this background in the rest of the Scriptures, we would perhaps think that, according to the Lord's saying, the good and the bad are unchanging quantities, and that the bad are irreformable. It certainly sounds that way. But understanding the passage as a fulfillment of what is said in the Psalms and in the rest of the Tradition, guides us to see that being good or bad rests in a decision, and then, in a habit of decisions. Communion with God begins with the decision to turn to God, but that communion is deepened by habitual decisions to draw closer to God through grace. The passage speaks about "the treasure of the heart," and that this treasure can be either good or bad. A treasure is not heaped up in a day. Of course, God can give us a treasure all at once, and instantly, for God can do anything. Yet, is such a thing really consistent with God's designs. How is our growth really humanly possible without repeated synergistic decisions to draw ever closer to God. OK, so what does "synergistic decisions" mean? Well, it means that our cooperation with grace is a synergy. It is like electricity. If the electrical current did not flow out from the wall to the lamp, the lamp would not be lit. At the same time, however, if the electrical current did not flow from the lamp back to the wall, the lamp would not be lit. When the circuit is complete, where does the current begin, and where does it end? Where is the important part of the current? Is it that that comes from the wall, or is it that that goes back from the lamp to the wall? Christianity, in the past, has allowed itself to become embroiled in chicken and egg controversies regarding this very question, but these controversies have obscured the truth more than they have revealed it. We receive God's energy (grace), but we have to cooperate with that energy by means of a corresponding synergy. Is our synergy, in fact, the energy of God simply returned to Him? Of course. What could be more obvious? We heap up a treasure of good in our heart through repeated decisions to deepen our communion with God. It is a great motive for us to love God, and love Him deeply, in that He has equipped us to participate in this kind of ever-deepening relationship with Him. We should make concrete resolutions concerning our own circumstances, how we are able to deepen our relationship through prayer, sacrifice and work.
II. This leads us to the second consideration. The Lord tells us that if we really hear His words and put them into practice, we will have to dig deep. This is, of course, another way of saying what He was saying above. It is not enough to simply hear His words when the Gospel readings are read in Church, even if we were to go to the church for every service, everyday. No, we cannot simply hear in this fashion. We have to dig deep. Digging deep means following the example of the Mother of God, which is given to us twice in the same Gospel. We have to ponder the Lord's ways in our hearts. We have to meditate on them. The very concept of meditation was inspired by watching ruminating animals. Ruminating animals have more than one stomach. They will, in the course of digestion, vomit the contents of their first stomach back up into their mouth, so that they can chew it again. Gross! Yes, but it is a useful image of what we are supposed to do with the Lord's words and His ways in our lives. We are supposed to meditate on them, that is to chew them over and over again. In them is life, just as life is in our food, but it takes some effort on our part to extract that life, just as a ruminating animal cannot simply swallow its food once and be done with it. If we have approached the spiritual life in that way in the past, we need to correct that. We can no longer read the Gospel and say, "OK, now I understand that. I'll move on to something else." Deepening communion with God results from continued meditation. We have to dig deep, and there, in communion with God, lay our foundation. We should certainly praise and thank God for the very invitation to "dig deep." After all, we realize that God did not have to reveal Himself at all. There is no necessity in any particular manifestation of His goodness. We can resolve in a concrete way to make "digging deep" a greater part of daily life.
III. So what can we expect if we don't dig deep. The Lord answers this by giving us the image of the person, who does not build on rock. What is the rock? His words? No, the rock is communion with God, that is, sharing the identity of God, becoming God by grace, since that which shares the same life is entitled to share the same name. If we hear His words and assume, "OK, I understand that. I can move on to something else," then we have not really heard Him. We may think that we are faithful, even daily communicants, but our whole life in religion is vitiated by the lack of mental prayer. Mental prayer, that is meditation, is that "digging deep" that we need in order to draw ever closer to God. If we are not drawing ever closer to God, we are getting further away from Him. There is no standing still in the spiritual life. We should stand in absolute awe of the goodness of a God, Who invites us so freely to communion with Him, Who wants us to share His life so fully. A resolution to expand the place that mental prayer holds in our life would be appropriate.
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