THE LONGEST JOURNEY
IS THE JOURNEY WITHIN

INTRODUCTION

The longest journey is the journey within. We prefer to slip away and step elsewhere. We tend to keep the door to our soul locked. We hang a sign on the door, “Closed!” We don’t take the steps down to our inner room – to the bottom of our basement - to the bottom of our soul. (1) Instead of meeting ourselves down there, and eating with the Lord in there, (2) we spend our time looking at and judging others – judging their motives and thinking we know their souls. (3)

REALIZING WHO JESUS IS TAKES TIME

Jesus walked around for three years – but it took his disciples another 10, 20, 30 40, 50 years to grasp who he is. We know this because this is how it happens to us as well.

Okay, some people get Jesus faster than others.

We start our lives on the pages of Genesis. We are Adam and Eve – and we are some of the characters that follow. We have a history. We celebrate and kill prophets. We cry the complaints of the Psalms. Hopefully, we discover Wisdom and Wisdom figures in our lives.

Then in the fullness of time – we can become New Testament people. This happens when we realize Bethlehem is not just there – back then. It’s here – right here inside us – and i't right now. The down deep stable of our soul is just as stinky and ox and assy as Bethlehem’s was. Of course, we don’t get this or accept this. “Really? The one who can save us is born in me? Never.”

If and when we connect the gospel story of Jesus with our story, we've hearing the Good News. Bethlehem is a story on the pages of Luke and Mathew. It's Good News when it becomes a story in the pages of our life. That small, cold and crying Baby wants to be born in our inner Bethlehem.

Discipleship is turning the pages of the Gospels and entering into its scenes and interacting with Jesus who walks up and down our inner streets. It's asking the questions the followers and crowd ask. It's Jesus healing our demons and helping us to see and hear and speak. The stories are told so we can realize we are the lost sheep or coin or son or daughter – and the call is to come home to the Father – to forgive us our trespasses – and not be like the older brother when we can’t accept ourselves and eat the fatted calf with our mistake-making-self.

We are growing when we stop to help our brother and sister on the road. We are growing when we put in our two cents. We are growing when we give our few loaves of bread and are surprised with what happens next: love and goodness multiply.

We are growing when we know the Law is there to help us. We are growing even more when we shrink ego or die to self so we can squeeze through the eye of the needle and enter the Kingdom. We grow as we are challenged by do's more than don'ts. Jesus is there to liberate us for a life beyond worrying about sin - ours and our neighbors. It's a life in the kingdom – enjoying the birds of the air and the lilies of the field – enjoying spending time with Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus or whatever our neighbor or friends’ names are. “Joy to the World” is our song.

We are growing when we have Jesus' eye - when we see folks at our doorsteps - on our streets - at work - at home - at school - at church - folks whom we never noticed before.

We are growing when we know down deep within us – our demons can return – and with a fury.

TODAY’S GOSPEL – 27 FRIDAY OT

This is what today’s gospel is about – this story of demons – a way the people of Jesus’ time understood the mystery of the human person. (4)

We have demons. We don't like to accept this inner reality - so we demonize others.

Paul and Augustine will come along and articulate the same message with their take on the psychology of human reality – with their take on evil – to be aware that sin can keep knocking at the door our inner down deep self . We can incarnate evil and then self destruct. Aren’t there days when we say, “I’m beside myself.” or “I’m not myself today.” or “This is not my better self.”?(5) Don't we want to be our best self?

Shakespeare showed us this same inner stuff on the stage – with his plays that hold the mirror up to human nature. (6)

Hawthorne and Melville told us this in their writings. (7)

CONCLUSION: KNOW YOURSELF
We see it every time we’re wanting everyone else to change but ourselves. We see this every time we blame, blame, blame – and make another whom we really don’t know the enemy.

In the meanwhile, go down those stairs and spend time in one's soul - in our inner room.

Be aware! Jesus keeps knocking on our door and it's a good move when we invite him inside. (8)

And beware! The last line in today's gospel has this mysterious warning: the demon down deep inside us wants company....

NOTES:

(1) Matthew 6: 5-6; 7: 1-5

(2) Matthew 9: 9-13; Luke 15: 2

(3) Luke 18: 9-14

(4) Luke 11: 15-26

(5) Confer Romans Chapters 6 to 9; Confessions of Augustine Book 8.

(6) Hamlet, III, ii, 25 “To hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” Yet as James says in 1:23-24, we take a quick look in the mirror at most.

(7) The Scarlet Letter, Ethan Brand, and “The Haunted Mind” in Twice-Told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

(8) Revelation 3:20