Homily for July 6, 2008

I want to explore the Gospel today using the experience of people in recovery. It’s often said that you can be too smart to get the program, you can be too educated, you can be too clever, but you can't be too dumb, you can't be too uneducated, you can't be too unsophisticated. That seems to echoe the words of Jesus praising God, who has hidden faith from the learned and the clever and the wise and revealed it to the little ones.
If you want faith and you're looking for faith, the last thing in the world I would do is give you a theology book. If you want to find faith, the last thing in the world I'd tell you to do would be to read a Scripture scholar or go to a university class on theology.
If you have faith and want to test it and want to explore it, then you can take the class on theology, and I guarantee you it would be tested and you would have to explore it.
If you want to find faith, go to places where people are hurting. Go where there's suffering, go to the ghetto, go where people are finding hope and strength in the midst of suffering. And I think it's universally held in circles of spirituality that you don't find the relationship with God and with spirituality through intellectual means. They can be very important, and I'm not discouraging doing that, but you don't find faith in that way.
Virtually everybody talks about the importance of having the mind of a child, or in Buddhist circles they talk about the importance of having a beginner's mind, a mind that is not defensive, a mind that isn't cluttered with opinions that it's trying to protect or hold onto, a mind that is open to learning new things. So Jesus says that what God has hidden from the wise and the learned, he has revealed to the little ones.
In virtually every circle of spirituality, the mind of a little one is also a relational mind. The truth is always found through a relationship with a parent, with a teacher, with a mentor, with a sponsor, or with an accountability group. So we see in the Gospel that what Jesus is talking about is that the theologians didn't get his message, the scholars of the law didn't get his message, those who had an agenda for the Messiah to fulfill, didn't get his message. It was the little ones who related to him with trust who “got it.” If we want to find faith, we enter into that path.
The other thing  and I'm going to use a word that is not popular today  the path is also marked by obedience to something or to someone. It's always marked by a surrender of our own will, a surrender of our own ability to figure things out and to think things through, and becoming obedient.
I was reading a commentary on this Gospel, and one of the commentators, in commenting on the phrase "Come to me and I will refresh you and your souls will find rest," he mentions somebody who came to him who looked just absolutely exhausted and wiped out and stressed out, and he sent this person to a counselor. And the counselor, with the person's permission, reported back to him.
After listening to the diagnosis, he said, "Well, What about the obvious thing, that they're not sleeping?"
He said, "Well, you know the answer to that."
"Well, What is it?
"God never sleeps. This person is so busy playing God that they can't sleep, because they can't let go of things."
Anyway, I think if you hear the Gospel in those terms today, it says some things that are challenging. It invites us to enter the place of the little ones; it invites us to enter a place of surrender and obedience; and it invites us to enter a place where we find rest.
And of course, that is the experience of countless people that, when they finally stop trying to figure out everything on their own, when they finally stop trying to fit everything into their preconceived notions, when they finally are able to have a beginner's mind and to learn, then they find rest and serenity.
Let's pray today that we might be among those.