Blog

I remember, when my mother was still alive, she wouldn’t let us get away with anything. She was as they say, “honest as the day is long.” One time, when I was 17 years old, she was a passenger with me as I stopped to gas up the car. That was when you could drive all week on $20 dollars-worth of gas and still have money to spare. I did my best, on that particular fill up, to stop the pump exactly on $20. I was close; it rang in at $20.01. Both the attendant at the gas bar and I were perfectly fine with rounding it off to $20. My mother wasn’t fine, though. She knew it was $20.01 and not $20 even.

Even though I protested that the multi-billion-dollar oil companies were ripping us off all the time and were not going to miss a penny, my mother would have nothing to do with that logic. Her response went something like, “If that’s the case, how will dishonest oil companies ever become honest if you keep lowing yourself to their standards?” She was calling me to a higher standard and reminding me of how Christians ought to conduct themselves. It had little to do with a penny here or there, but it had everything to do with integrity. Without knowing that she was doing it, she was paraphrasing the gospel. “You have heard it said, ‘it’s OK to rip off the oil companies—even by a penny– because they first ripped you off,’ but I say to you, ‘lead an honest life, lead by example.’” Or again, not in so many words, she was quoting Paul in today’s second reading, “You don’t belong to Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; you belong to Christ.” I shut the car off, marched back inside, and gave the attendant the penny. That was 40 years ago. Even though we no longer deal with pennies, I still keep a small change purse in my pocket as a reminder. 

There is something in the spiritual life called “non-reactivity.” A relatively contemporary spiritual master named Gurdjieff said that if you want to understand the human person don’t start with psychology; start with mechanics. Why mechanics? Because most spiritual masters see that we’re on a low level of consciousness. In other words, we are totally reactive. We just react from one situation to another and from one person to another all day long. In the world of reaction, if you strike my cheek, I’ll strike yours. If you take my coat, I’ll take yours. If you force me to walk a mile, I’ll force you to do the same. If you love me, I’ll love you back. If you greet me, I’ll greet you. If you invite me over for dinner, I’ll invite you in return. That’s how the world of reactivity works. Whatever the world gives you—good or bad—you give back in kind. If the oil company rips you off, you rip the oil company off in return. 

The world of reaction is a tit-for-tat world. In that world, nobody lives from a higher calling. Nobody. It’s the world of the scribes and Pharisees. As Jesus told us in last Sunday’s gospel, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of God.” Unfortunately, the tit-for-tat world is the way most of the world functions. No wonder the Kingdom of God is so slow in coming. 

Jesus says it doesn’t have to be that way. There is another way of doing it. He is the only person ever to walk upon this earth who never reacted but always responded. He was in touch with the blessedness, the salt, the light within him to such a degree that he could live above the laws of reaction. Through the Sermon on the Mount, and the Beatitudes in particular, Jesus reminds us that this deep space is also within us. You see, the Divine is the power to respond and not to react. Its inner freedom is so great, it lives above the laws of mechanism. Hit me; I’ll turn the other cheek. That is a response, not a reaction. Take my coat; I’ll give you my cloak as well. Force me to walk a mile; I’ll walk another mile. Because the inner reality inside of me is so strong that it does not have to react to outside stimulus. I can respond. I can respond out of my true nature even when you are trying to force me into lesser levels of reaction. I do not have to be forced. I am sovereignly free to respond, because I am so much in touch with this deeper center of blessedness, salt, and light within me. 

Those are nice words. But words are cheap, even if they come from the mouth of Jesus. The question on the floor is: what will Jesus do when the walls of violence are squeezing in on him? Will he take up the sword and defend himself? Will he react in kind with his own form of violence? In the First Book of Peter, it says that if you really wanted to know what Christ was like, you hit him, and he didn’t threaten you (1 Pet. 2:24). So, not only did he not hit you back, but he also didn’t even threaten to hit you! Why? Because he had a power to bestow love even when that love was being rejected. The inner strength, the inner blessedness was so powerful in him, he could give himself to those who were violently killing him as an offer to change. So, while they are violently taking his life, he does not react with his own form of violence and take their lives. He refuses to fall into the pit of reaction but remains sovereignly free to respond with, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing?” What is it we don’t know? We don’t know we are blessedness. We don’t know we are salt. We don’t know we are light. And finally, we don’t know that we have the power to respond from the depths of who we are. Instead, we react mechanically to outer stimulus, and eventually violence breeds more violence.

The late Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit priest from India, tells the story of a Hindu man who was threatened and robbed by a robber who put a knife to his chest and demanded, “Give me all your valuables!” The holy man immediately handed over his pouch containing a few coins. The robber grabbed the pouch, pulled the knife away, and started to run away. But the man yelled after him, “Wait! There’s more. I have a ruby hidden in one of my sandals. Here it is. Take it, too.” The next day, the man was again stopped by the same robber. “What do you want?” the holy man asked. “I gave you everything yesterday. I don’t have anything else.” “Yes, you do,” the robber said. “I want what you have that made you give me that ruby yesterday.”  

Personally, I want the inner freedom that Jesus had, the power to respond and never to react. Over the last few weeks, with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been telling me that I might just already have it. It may be hidden under a bushel basket or, more likely, hiding in that coin purse I’ve been carrying around with me for the past 40 years.

Fr. Phil Mulligan