The tension between control and freedom is found in the
texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary. The passage from the first book
of Kings is a continuation of the dedication of the Temple by Solomon. The
tension in building a temple for the Hebrew people was experienced by David as
the inability of human hands to build something to contain God. Solomon builds
the Temple his father could not and in the passage today confesses the truth
that God cannot be contained in one place. Friar Jude Winkler reminds us that
there are privileged places where we are facilitated by the surroundings to be conscious
of the Presence around us. Our churches are tents over the events of our intentional
gathering to be with God. In a certain sense, the fabric or molecules of their
reality ‘soak up’ the compounds of our reality while we are in communion in a
transcendent experience of God. Celtic culture understands that the earth
contains “thin places”, maybe in Churches, on mountain tops or by the sea where
this earthly reality is separated from the Divine Sphere by a thin barrier.
Jesus is in conflict with some Pharisees in the Gospel from Mark today. The use
of legal boundaries to reign in human behaviour which may be harmful to one and
others is control which seems to be proper in society. Friar Jude explains the
excessive use of laws by the Pharisees as an attempt to use law prescribed in
great detail to prevent people from finding themselves in opposition to God.
This legalism can be in tension with action to live the Good News when mercy,
forgiveness, charity and contact with the disenfranchised are discouraged or
prohibited by law. We may find ourselves seeking to control our contact with
the world around us by retreat to cells of Christian comfort in our liturgies,
pious practices and well instructed groups and children. Our attempt to control
God and make our mission into His Plan is stepping into the mode of the
Pharisees which Jesus questions today.
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