22 OT B Finding what was here all along

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

The other day, after showing a video in the Fireplace Room on the first floor of the rectory, I picked up my Roku streaming device and started walking it back up to my apartment to put it away. Before I hit the first step to go upstairs, I thought to myself that I needed to grab the remote control for it. So I retraced my steps back to the TV but it wasn’t there. I had gone into the kitchenette to put away my plate so I must have put it there. But It wasn’t there. I walked to the place where I was sitting for the video to see if it was sitting on the table but it wasn’t there. I started to get frazzled wondering how you misplace something in such a small space, a feeling I have often by the way, and then looked down at my hands and realized I had been carrying the remote control the whole time. 

This past week, we celebrated the Memorial of one of the most influential theologians in church history: St. Augustine. One of his most quoted sayings comes from a book called The Confessions. It says…

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! 

You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you…”

St. Augustine was admitting that, in his search for God, he was a bit like me looking for that remote control that was in my hand. God was nearer to him than he could have ever imagined but he was looking everywhere else for him. Moses, in talking to the Israelites in the first reading, says that the whole point of the law is to remind the people how near God is to them, how close to them that they are to Him. Their neighbors will see how they prosper because they know what God wants. It’s like the people of the Old Testament will be the best baseball or football team because their coach worked directly with them and showed them how best to live a holy life. That’s the role of the law, to show the people how to live such a just life that they begin to live a life like God would live if he were incarnate. Which is what makes it so uncomfortable when he did become incarnate and, instead of worrying about living the way God wants them to live, they have taken a law that was intended for a specific group of people in a specific situation and applied it to everyone in every situation. The priests were meant to wash their hands before they served in the temple and that somehow became a demand for everyone to wash their hands before they eat anything. The point obviously isn’t that you shouldn’t wash your hands before you eat, which is a good hygienic thing to do, but that a rule broadened by their ancestors to apply to everyone is being treated as just as important as God’s laws. But God’s laws show how close God is to His people and how much He cares for them. 

Thankfully, Jesus simplified this relationship so that it’s not based on obedience to the law but on the grace of being called his brother and sister through baptism. That’s why St. James, in the second reading for Mass today, says that “(The Father) willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind firstfruits of his creatures.” We share a unique relationship with the Father through Jesus, the first fruit of all creation, by being reborn in baptism. God is so close to us that he is inside of us. Personally, this is hard for me to understand because why would God want to hang out with a guy who is so often unaware that he is here. I get annoyed if I go visit a friend and they ignore me. I eventually find a reason to leave. Why would God want to keep hanging out with this guy who is so often oblivious or even offensive to him to be around? Yet He does. 

Moses, in the first reading, reminded his people and us of how important it is to listen. I talk too much to God. He’s here with me always. I just need to listen t Him better. Don’t we all? Don’t we all need to stop looking for that remote control in our hand and just listen to Him who is closer to us than we are to ourselves? Isn’t that the whole point of adoration?