Believe. It’s a powerful word, commonly used. It’s on bumper stickers, coffee mugs and signs over doorways. I like seeing the sign over a doorway because belief is a doorway. In this week’s gospel, Jesus says it is the doorway to heaven.* He points to the complexity by beginning with the prerequisite of seeing, then believing, and then changing.
In my experience, the believing part is the simplest part, but openness to seeing the truth of an alternate reality is the prerequisite and it is not easy. It requires an open, undefended will. There are many obstacles and resistances to such openness, and they are formed throughout life. Layers form through years of education, culture, wounds. Yet once truth is seen, openness to seeing can create new roots that break through all those layers.
When the Pharisees question Jesus about where his authority comes from, he doesn’t give a quick answer. He tells a parable about two sons and their choices for seeing, believing, and changing. I’m sure he was hoping everyone would be open to seeing the truth, and joining the great adventure of new life.
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk known for many spiritual writings, said “Eternity is a seed of fire whose sudden roots break barriers that make my heart an abyss,” — but willingness to receive that seed of fire is not a given. That change must be chosen, again and again. Belief deepens and reshapes everything over time as those choices become a posture of the mind-in-heart. In the spiritual life, this is named as ongoing transformation, evolving metanoia, expanding conversion.
I do believe Jesus was the Christ. I depend on his Spirit and his teachings for guidance, wisdom, and strength. Yet, even after decades of being his follower on the way, I must keep looking, open to receiving. Rooted in belief, I am given empowerment to choose his authority over other authorities that live in and around me. Still, there is freedom to choose his authority or not.
Change, transformation… whatever word is used… is a lifelong process.
Having said all that, it’s not too hard. It’s an adventure of change filled with joy, because Jesus has the authority and his authority flows with everlasting peace and infinite love. It starts with belief.
-Ann Dean, Dayspring Church
- What challenges Jesus’ authority in your life?
- Who challenges your authority?
For Further Reflection
For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in our minds and wills. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because we are not prepared to receive them; for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom and desire… (so) If I were looking for God, every event and every moment would sow, in my will, seeds of divine life, that would spring up one day in a tremendous harvest. If they would take root in my liberty and God’s will would grow from my freedom, I would become the love that God is, and my harvest would be God’s glory and my own joy. And I would grow together with thousands and millions of other freedoms into the gold of one huge field praising God, loaded with increase.
From Seeds of Contemplation, pp. 11-12, by Thomas Merton
