GOSPEL READING: Luke 12: 49-53
Truth divides. But it divides not because truth depends on how people see it, or that there are different versions of it. It divides because truth strikes deep, goes right into the heart of you, and splits you up like an axe chopping into a solid log.
"How shall we distinguish the true mystic from the false?" asked the disciples who had an inordinate interest in the occult.
"How do you distinguish the true sleeper from the one who is feigning or pretending to be asleep?" asked the Master.
"There's no way. Only the sleeper knows when he is feigning," said the disciples.
The Master smiled.
Later he said, "The feigning sleeper can delude others — he cannot delude himself. The false mystic, unfortunately, can delude both others and himself."
Truth divides because it is difficult. It is easier to delude ourselves. It's easier to think of reasons to justify ourselves. When somebody approaches us and tells us: Can I be honest with you? We instinctively recoil from that confrontation. It makes us upset. Honesty is often brutal. It is unpleasant. It is something we do not want to hear. It is as if somebody collars you and pushes your back against the wall. And you cannot run away, and even if you could break from its clutches, it continues to hound you. It leaves its mark on you. It sears and brands you for life.
Truth hurts. It hurts because it strips you naked. It scrapes away the layers of defenses that you have built around yourself. It peels you like it peels off an onion. There will be tears and it will expose your core as hollow. It confronts you and shows you how, in spite of all your attempts at an image makeover, you are still, who you have always been — fragile, insecure, empty, shallow, vulnerable.
Jesus did not mince words. He did not sugarcoat. He told it as it is. And by telling it as it is, loyalties were divided, men and women walked away sad and grieving, some of his followers had to leave and abandon him.
How could he have done that? Because he saw things as they are. He saw himself as he is. He saw other people as they are. In a sense, he is the most realistic of us all.
There is a latin saying: Veritas liberabit vos. The truth will set you free.
For the most part of our lives, we have always tried to live according to a why. We are hooked on finding out our reason for being — our why.
Like that Nescafe ad, "Para kanino ka bumabangon?" It does sound cute. It sounds reasonable.
But let me quote a short verse from Angelus Silesius, a German mystic and poet, to push the boundaries of your thought:
The rose is without why, it blooms because it blooms,
It pays no attention to itself, nor asks whether one sees it.
Listen to how it would sound if we transpose "love" for "rose":
Love is without why, it loves because it loves,
It pays no attention to itself, nor asks whether one loves it.
Perhaps you are all crazy in coming to this retreat. When you could have gone elsewhere. When you have been doing something else. When you could have been learning things that other people already know. Not some crazy idea. Not something as radical as what you have been used to thinking about.
There was this old ad from Apple that goes something like this:
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Strange, they said the same things about Jesus. That he was crazy, that he was a misfit, that he was a rebel, that he was a troublemaker.
Veritas liberabit vos. The truth will set you free.
And when truth sets you free from all your illusions and attachments and addictions, you will come to realize an even simpler but equally profound truth.
Nihil sine Deo. Nothing without God. I am nothing without God.
That in the stark nakedness and intense fragility of your own being — the paradox of it all: that there is no emptiness. There is no nothingness. There is only an abiding presence. There is only love. There is only God.
And once you begin to recognize that. You will begin see with the eyes of God. You will see "the butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish human being."
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