Friends
Peace be with you.
In the 1992 movie, Leap of Faith, comedian and actor Steve Martin stars as a traveling evangelist with a troupe of musicians, a circus tent, sound and light technicians and even a behind-the-scenes person listening into conversations of those congregants in attendance so Jonas, Steve Martin’s character, can reveal to them their ills and make them think it’s being revealed to him by God. When he’s revealed by the local sheriff to have had a rather sordid past involving shoplifting, possession of marijuana, grand theft auto, selling fraudulent art works, and passing bad checks, it looks like the jig is up and Jonas has been revealed as the con artist he is. But, after a deliberate pregnant pause, Jonas responds,
“Everything you’ve said it absolutely true. Yes, I ran with a bad crowd that taught me to smoke weed and steal. I hung out in bars and I hot wired cars. I grew up mistreated so I lied and cheated. I learned hard crime and I served hard time. I have walked that crooked road and I have danced with the demon Satan. I’ve been down in the gutter and looked up into the face of God. I say to you, if you wanna give up the bottle, who you gonna talk to? Someone who’s never touched a drop? If you wanna give up womanizing, who you gonna talk to? Some pale-skinned virgin priest?”
I watched this movie at a pivotal moment in my life and remember thinking that it was a fairly accurate critique of priesthood. Similar sentiments have been offered regarding things like marriage prep and men in the pro life movement. How can an unmarried priest do marriage prep? Or how can men tell women that they aren’t allowed to have an abortion if they’ve never been pregnant or given birth. Now, if you follow this line of reasoning, it does become a bit ridiculous. Would you insist that every doctor has to have had your condition in order to be treated for it? Or would you say to a firefighter that they can’t put out your house fire unless they have also had their house on fire?
Still, I get the critique that it’s easier to believe someone can help you if they can sympathize with what you’re undergoing than if they seem somehow above you or completely disconnected from you. In the second reading, the writer to the Hebrews wants to emphasize this about Jesus. After spending the majority of chapter 4 comparing and contrasting Jesus with the greatest Old Testament figure, Moses, he shows how Jesus is an even better high priest than Moses. If the high priests were super holy and Moses is even holier than them, it would be surprising to hear that there’s anyone who could be even holier than Moses. But, as the writer to the Hebrews says, Jesus is just such a high priest. The reason he is better is, despite coming down from the clouds, he is not unable to sympathize with us despite being without sin. He became human so that he could know fully what it is like for us. He even knows the depth of human depravity because he suffered and died.
We want a savior who is like us but also slightly better than us. I think this is true in a lot of things. It would be hard to take piano lessons from a virtuoso. We’d probably rather take them someone who knows what it’s like to struggle to learn how to play. Or if we want to learn to build houses, we should probably learn from someone local who does it rather than someone who builds mega mansions for the rich. There are only a few mega mansions but, as anyone who has tried to buy a house locally knows, we need more people building houses. The challenge always is that, while we want someone who we can sympathize with, someone we can relate to, someone with whom we can have a beer after a long day; we also want someone who can actually teach us something because they know the trade. We may not want to learn from a virtuoso but we probably do want someone to teach us piano who is more advanced the plunking out Three Blind Mice with one finger. We may want to learn how to build houses locally but we don’t want to learn from someone whose hair has a little extra curl in it because of the number of times he’s tried to do wiring when he should have called in an electrician.
That’s why Jesus is sympathetic but is also without sin. We may not want some pale skinned virginal priest helping us with womanizing but you know who is even worse? A womanizer. Someone who hasn’t kicked the habit himself trying to tell you how to kick the habit. We need someone who can relate to our problems while also not being bogged down by them.
I sometimes wonder if this is why we don’t have more people coming to confession. I wonder if some people don’t come because they’re concerned with how I will react if they tell their sins because their sins are more than missing their prayers or saying bad words. And, even though I can assure you that I’ve worked for several years for college students, you know, the years we do especially stupid things, I get it. If you’re worried that the priest is going to run out of the confessional screaming “I need back-up on this one!”, you may not be willing to come. The only thing I can say is that, despite hearing confessions for nearly 20 years, I’ve never been shocked or scandalized by what people have told me there. I’ve only been grateful because you trust me enough to say it. It is always an experience of setting aside Fr. Dennis for a moment and letting Jesus work through the imperfect servant that I am. If I am not a testament to the fact that Jesus can forgive in broken humanity, I don’t know what is.
Which is exactly why I think Christianity is different than other religions, why I think it is a fuller understanding of who God is. Jesus is not above us. He is relatable. He’s fully human. He lived a life very similar to ours but lacking in one thing only: sin. If we’re going to turn to someone who is relatable to help us overcome sin to get to know the Father, we need someone like him. The challenge for us is do we take the time to get to know him. Do we take the time in prayer to relate to him. There have been times in my life when I’ve assumed someone is too important or too knowledgeable or too much of a celebrity to pay any attention to me. But that’s not Jesus. He is relatable. He wants to get know you and wants you to get to know him. Are we open to this type of relationship with him?
