Touching the Reign of God

Bringing Theological Reflection to Daily Life

Moore

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781498274845
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

You are not far from the reign of God, Jesus tells the scribe. Not far? In this collection of engaging essays, author and vocation consultant Mary Sharon Moore encourages fellow Christians to boldly travel through their own life experience from the disengaged edges to the living core of the reign of God. Drawing from Scripture's most challenging teachings as well as unexpected moments of testing and grace, Touching the Reign of God breaks open the transformative power of the reign of God, which is not far at all but intimately near--pervading every aspect of daily life. Thought-provoking questions at the end of each essay guide individual and study group formation in the practice of theological reflection, the work of discerning God's movement in life's circumstance. As Moore reveals through story and insight, touching the reign of God is not optional work for those who profess Christian faith; rather, it is a vital participation in the redeeming work of the risen Christ. This brilliant collection of essays models the journey into the reign of God, which every one of us must take.

1

Throw Open the Door of Your Heart

A Spiritual Challenge of John Paul II

At the late Pope John Paul’s inaugural Mass in October 1978, the new pontiff spoke a challenge to Christians everywhere: Throw open the door of your heart to Christ. One person familiar with the Italian language, the language in which the Holy Father spoke, noted that the phrase he used translates literally as: Break the door of your heart off the hinges.

Not “remove the door from its hinges,” a gentler phrase suggesting that the door might eventually be rehinged. No, he says: “Break the door off its hinges,” suggesting that replacing the door might be a great bother. “Break off the door of your heart and hurl it away,” the Holy Father might have said.

Doors

I like doors. They serve a useful function in my life. I use doors to shut out the world when it’s time to go inward. In my office, at noon, I step away from my work, go into a quiet room, close the door, and pray. I do not really leave the world behind because the subject of my prayer is the world, especially those who are in harm’s way and who need God’s protection and care. So the world is very much with me in my prayer. But it helps to close the door.

At the end of the day I go home, close the door of my apartment, set down my bags, prepare for Evening Prayer, and again I pray. Doors, for me, separate the inner chamber from the outer world.

But John Paul speaks of “the door of your heart,” the door behind which I might hide when Christ inconveniently knocks, asking me to open the door not when I deem it is time to encounter him but when he deems it is time for me to encounter him. John Paul is not saying “Answer the door of your heart when Christ knocks.” He is saying, “Get rid of the door.” In other words: Make it unnecessary for Christ even to knock and to wait for your reply.

Christ on the outside, Christ within

Christ dwelling within me has been a lifelong consolation, a strength to me especially in times of aloneness and spiritual loneliness. I have never doubted Christ’s dwelling in me, not even in the darkest of times when I had lost my way. Christ dwelling in me is the easy part.

It’s Christ on the outside that challenges me. My heartfelt prayer, “Dwell in me,” can easily trail a subtext: “as I imagine you,” or “as I understand you to be.” Christ on the outside, however, the Christ who knocks at my door at the most inconvenient times, in the most unappealing guises, that’s the one who catches me off guard. Christ cleverly disguised as a grumpy store clerk; Christ cleverly disguised as a toothless, unshaven beggar; Christ cleverly disguised as an angry and hurtful youth. Christ everywhere, knocking at the door of my heart.

The door as filter

It’s at times like these, when Christ the unappealing one, Christ the unlovely one, comes knocking at the door of my heart, when I mistakenly feel grateful for the door. “I am just not available at the moment,” I pretend. Or perhaps, “I can’t see you, what with the door closed and all. Perhaps later, when I’m ready to be mindful of your needs.”

So the door to my heart becomes a handy filtering device. I can filter out the many unexpected presences of Christ, claiming that they can’t really be Christ. In fact, I quickly filter out these people because obviously they need Christ. When they finally get Christ, then they can come back and I’ll find a place for them in my heart.

I discover, much to my surprise, that my heart looks like a country club, a place of privilege for members only, safe from the noise and smell and disorder of the riffraff. But surely a private club is not what Christ has in mind for his dwelling place.

Hurl it away

John Paul’s challenge to break the door of the heart off its hinges can be terrifying. This unhinging of the door of my heart, hurling the door away, suggests that Christ would have the freedom to pass in and out of my heart as he wishes. And why am I startled, in a clutching, self-protective way, at the thought that Christ should enjoy such freedom with regard to my heart? To enter at will, whether it’s convenient or inconvenient to me?

It is not just anyone who wants unrestricted access to my heart, but Christ, the One who lived and died, lovingly for my sake and equally for the sake of the world; the One who spared nothing, who would do anything, anything, to fulfill his Father’s heart’s desire that all humankind, all creation, enjoy the one eternal divine embrace. It is this One, the obedient One, the ever-faithful One, who wants unrestricted access to my heart.

St. Paul’s insistence

I should not be startled at the prospect of Christ just walking, unannounced, into my heart. St. Paul has written tirelessly about such a prospect and the utter rightness of it. His words are not mere poetry, but an insistent expression of the mystery into which I have been baptized. “But God proves his love for us,” he writes, “in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

Christ, thank God, did not wait until I got my life acceptably together before entering into it in an utterly redeeming, transforming way. From all eternity the Father has designed that my life “be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). Do I have a right to subject Christ to the inhospitable formality of knocking at the door of my heart, the Lord of life seeking permission from me to enter what he first has lovingly fashioned and mercifully redeemed?

“We do not live to ourselves,” St. Paul writes, “and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14:7–8).

And if I understand the words of the Psalmist, then the Lord’s dwelling place, which I take to be my heart by virtue of my baptism into him, is lovely (see Ps 84:1). Wherever he chooses to dwell is lovely because his lovely presence changes everything, restores everything, renews everything.

So why would I need—or even want—a door at the entryway to my heart?

Imagine a heart without a door

It may seem odd, or confusing, to say that Christ dwells within the heart but Christ also approaches the heart. Is he here? or is he not yet here? In fact, he is both here, abiding in the heart, and approaching, seeking welcome, shelter, refreshment, understanding, support.

So if I take away the door to my heart, I experience Christ encountering Christ, Christ both giving and receiving. And I am present to provide the space, the setting for this encounter, to look on, yes, and also to participate in the encounter. Christ meeting Christ in my heart is a profound and holy experience of being fully humanly alive, fully engaged in my baptismal life.

Having a heart without a door does not mean that my life must be lived publicly at all times. Having a heart without a door means that in those times when I am called upon to be present to another in the circumstances of life, I am available to what God might have in mind within this encounter. It means that my mind and my imagination are available to the movement of the Holy Spirit in this moment, whether convenient or inconvenient. And my heart anticipates both the desire of the Beloved One and the need of the Wounded One.

Christ meets Christ. Did not Jesus anticipate and long for just such encounter in his heartfelt prayer to his Father on the night before he died, “that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).

Touching the reign of God in my life . . .

• In the recent past, when someone has inconveniently knocked at the door of my heart, what have I done in response? How would I describe that encounter? What happened for that person? What happened for me? How was the reign of God more fully revealed—or not revealed—in that situation? What might I do differently the next time?

• Considering these encounters, how—or to what action—mi...