Saturday of the First Week In Ordinary Time

The word of God is living and effective,

sharper than any two-edged sword,
penetrating even between soul and spirit,
joints and marrow,
and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
No creature is concealed from him,
but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him
to whom we must render an account.

…For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. I Cor 2:10-11

“Let me tell you about myself?” When I hear that I know I’m going to hear a lot of boloney. I am not going to believe any of it, and if I can find a way to get out of the conversation I take it. Only a fool would think he knows himself so well as to say, “I can tell you who I am.”

And yet I, like everyone else, search the mystery of my experience for self-knowledge. Saint Paul drew on ancient Greek wisdom as he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians. The Greeks were well aware of that divine imperative, “Know thyself.” Reflecting on the Holy Spirit, he spoke of that spirit of the individual which knows, as no one else can, the depths of that person. He saw that mysterious self-awareness as similar to the Holy Spirit and its relationship to God the Father. He believed our knowledge of God is reliable because the same Holy Spirit binds us to God.

I think of that imperative to know the unknowable self when I read today’s passage from the Letter to the Hebrews. The word of God, like the Holy Spirit, penetrates between bone and marrow. More to the point, it cuts between who I think I am and who I am.

Again, the Greek tragedy was all about that mystery. Oedipus thought he knew himself until he discovered he had murdered his own father, married his own mother and polluted the land by his crimes. Horrified, unwilling to see any more truth, he tore out his own eyes. Tragedy happens when reality smashes my pretensions.

No creature is concealed from him,
but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him
to whom we must render an account.

As Christians we want to see ourselves as God’s sees us. We are loved sinners. The practice of knowing this is called penance. We invite God to reveal to us what we cannot and dare not see without divine assistance. We’re asking for a miracle -- that revealing -- because the exposure is invariably shocking. The blindness is so deep, the sin so enormous, the eternal consequences of our sin so appalling we could not bear it except for the overwhelming reassurance of God’s favor.

But the revelation is also profoundly reassuring and satisfying. It brings a deep and abiding joy. Listen to the testimony of recovering alcoholics; listen to the banter of their meetings and you’ll see just how joyous this self-knowledge is. There is no greater freedom than knowing God’s love is infinitely greater than even my sin.

That freedom and joy are so beautiful that even a glimpse of them draws us out of sin and into the grace. That is why Levi, in today’s gospel, was so ready to abandon his tax-collecting table with its piles of lucre to follow Jesus.