LOOKING FOR ANSWERS

Fr Jim Cogley

In our journey through life, we are all searching for something. That ‘something’ can be quite elusive as we search in the wrong places, drink from wells that are dry, ask the wrong questions, invest our energy in the wrong things and head in wrong directions. This week we will look at a few biblical characters who did just that, and whom Jesus met where they were. The first was the woman of Samaria, who was looking for her answer in the wrong relationships. When Christ met her, she had been through five failed marriages and was living with man number six. She arrived at the well carrying a bucket, and through her encounter with Christ she went home not just with a bucket of water, but with a well inside her, welling up with what she most needed: eternal life. Up to this point, like so many of us, she thought that someone out there might be the answer to her needs. What she had to realize was that what she needed so badly was already inside her.

Next, we have Zacchaeus, who we are told was a greedy little man from Jericho. He was also the chief tax collector in his area, a position that made him despised by his own people. He probably thought that the end justified the means, and as long as he got where he wanted to be, he didn’t mind who he trampled on along the way. He was career-oriented but was motivated not by service but by an insatiable desire for more. He was looking for answers in material things, thinking that they would bring him happiness. Obviously, they didn’t, because if they had, he would not have been looking to see Jesus. It was that encounter, and an invitation to fellowship with no preconditions that awakened the love in his heart that had lain dormant while he was heading in the wrong direction.

Saul of Tarsus, who was to become the great St Paul and one of the greatest missionaries of all time, was probably one of the most religious people of his time. As a leading Pharisee, he ticked all the boxes. He was circumcised as a child, born of the tribe of Benjamin, a zealous upholder of the law and, in the eyes of his people, considered blameless. So zealous was he, in fact, that he was prepared to persecute the early followers of Christ and be party to the murder of St Stephen. For him, the answers he

sought lay in religion, and the more faithfully he practised his religious beliefs, the closer he believed he would come to finding what he needed. It obviously didn’t happen, any more than it can happen for any of us who think that sincerity, prayer, going to church and leading an impeccable life are, in themselves, the way to finding what we need. Like Paul, we need the scales cleared from our eyes.

It is clear from the Gospels that Christ’s disciples had a lot to learn before they could become apostles. Disciple means one who learns, and apostle means one who is sent. James and John were known as ‘Boanerges’, or Sons of Thunder. They were obviously hotheads who thought that the answer to everything lay in aggression and revenge. So when Christ came to a Samaritan town and the people refused to accept him because of age-old divisions, the two disciples wanted him to call down fire from heaven in order to destroy the town. Christ refused to do so, and it is interesting that we later meet these two in the Acts of the Apostles when they are sent as apostles of love to the Samaritan community. What they had to learn was that revenge is not as sweet as many think it is, and that only love can truly make a difference.

One of the well-known characters in the Gospels who thought that the answer to what he needed lay in unlimited freedom was the Prodigal Son. He was prepared to place freedom before family loyalty, duty and respect for his father. For him, freedom amounted to doing whatever he wanted, as often as he wanted and with whomever he wanted. Everything, including family resources, he was prepared to sacrifice on the altar of freedom. Yet his freedom became his downfall and brought him into bondage, where he even envied the pigs he was tending for the way they were being treated. It was this realization that brought him to his senses and enabled him to make the long journey home. There he discovered that true freedom lay in relationship and in doing what was required of him as a son. It was in his father’s embrace, and in doing his will, that he found who he really was and discovered his true life.

The story of the Good Samaritan is just as much about the victim who was rescued as it is about the one who did the rescuing. He is someone who, for whatever reason, found himself on the wrong road, away from Jerusalem, the city of light, the place of worship, the City of God. His back was to the light, perhaps through bad choices or simply adverse circumstances. His road could have been that of so many: addiction, self-rejection, abuse or violence, perhaps arising from a dysfunctional background. Having turned from the light, he found himself spiralling out of control. The powers of darkness work like a judo player who uses the momentum of an opponent coming towards him to knock him down. This man was robbed, stripped, beaten and left barely alive by the roadside. This is the all-too-familiar experience of so many who, consciously or unconsciously, have taken a wrong direction in life and turned their backs on the light that is their only true source of life.