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Some Thoughts on the Liturgy
THE
“CHRIST LEVEL”
+ The AP news service some years ago
reported that in Houston,
TX, a 10 year old girl
brought a robber into custody
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the little girl had been taught not to fear strangers
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she was a natural talker, as many 4th and 5th graders
are
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in suburban Houston,
she was going up the elevator to her apartment where she lived with her Mom
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a rather rough looking man got on the elevator with her
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the little girl didn’t know it, but the man was running away from the house
detectives who had caught him stealing in some of the apartments, and he was
using the elevator to get away
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the police had traced him to the elevator, and thinking that he was the
only one on it, they shut it down
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extremely dangerous situation, could have been tragic for the young girl
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quite naturally the talkative 10-year old began talking to the man, and
asked who he was and what he did and all about his family
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according to the robber who told the authorities what happened afterwards,
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he was at first ready to do something drastic,
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but he answered the girl and they began talking
together
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and in the process of the conversation, very innocently without knowing
what she was doing, of course, she led him to think about himself and his
life
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and by the time the police got them off the elevator
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they saw a somewhat changed man;
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he gave himself up willingly, seemingly with a desire to change some things
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and they met a young girl—and they were mortified that they hadn’t known
she was there—a young girl who did not really understand why the police
wanted such a nice man
+ As I study the story, I think that
there are two different levels of life at work between the robber and the
child
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it was a higher level that the young girl brought about with her
conversation while the man had been working on a lower level
+ You read the dialogue between
Pilate and Jesus in the Gospel today
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and I think you can see two different levels in the conversation they had
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it can be described as Pilate speaking out of a “world level” and Jesus
answering on his level or what might be called, the “Christ level”
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I think that distinction is a good one to think about for our spiritual
lives
+ We can look at Jesus’ ministry as
attempting to set up a “Christ level” in our world
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a level that includes all of his major teachings
which we talk of Sunday after Sunday
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whose major guidelines include love, peace, forgiveness, development of a
moral conscience, personal accountability, treating others well, and so
forth
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what Jesus calls “God-thinking” in Matthew’s Gospel
+ That level will run counter to the
“world level”
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a level that talks of business promotion, wealth, power, pleasure,
intolerance, revenge, serving self, and so forth
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the advertisements on TV: beauty, pleasure, money, health, power
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what Jesus calls “human thinking” in Matthew’s Gospel
+ You and I have both levels in our
lives
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there is the “world level” in which we live and move, along with everything
we have to do in order to live well in this
complicated world
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and there is the “Christ level” in which the virtues that Jesus taught are
dominant, especially the virtue of love
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the level that little children seem to work out of before they have to face the complicated world that will become
their lives some day
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and quite naturally, there will be some type of “run-in” between the levels
as we lead our lives,
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at that time, either the “world level” can be brought up to the “Christ
level”
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or the “Christ-level” will be watered down to the “world level”
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it is the Christian belief that our “world level” must be inspired by our
“Christ level”
+ In the conversation between Pilate
and Jesus, the “world level” of Pilate should have been enhanced by the
“Christ level”
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and as we proclaim Jesus as King of our lives, we should carefully consider
whether that “Christ level” is changing our “world level” at all
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and if it isn’t, then we’ve probably missed the reason of why we are here.
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