Life Line

But they all .... began to make excuses.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I suppose there are few today who remember the necessary obligation of "sitting by the phone." But in the days before cellular communications (invented at the redoubtable Bell Labs), the telephone was a black box with wires and a rotary dial, often sitting in a little alcove on the main floor of a house on its "telephone table" with a lace tablecloth upon it, with some telephone books stored on a shelf below. Sometimes a chair was set beside it. This little telecommunications center, we might say, was connected to switches and switchboards by thousands of miles of copper wire, which might tie it to any other telephone on earth. It was one's lifeline to the world.

During the course of life, the time would come to "sit by the phone." Perhaps one had applied for an all-important job, maybe a CEO or Presidential appointee position that now had reached the final round. The assignment was to wait for their call. Or perhaps a grandchild had been struck by a car thousands of miles away. The situation there was nip and tuck. A call would come in "as soon as we know anything." When that phone rang, one's central nervous system went on high alert. If the person calling had inadvertently stumbled into this tense situation, you would always says, "Can't talk right now. Must keep the line clear. Goodbye." For a chronic busy signal at such a moment was not acceptable — like paging through a magazine while the Pope or the Oecumencial Patriarch were speaking to you.

Sitting by the phone — it was something that everybody once understood ... and did at one time or another. It required devotion and utmost focus. It was a time for intense reflection and prayer and, sometimes, introspection. It was, I submit, a humble instance of Pope St. John Paul the Great's Apostolic motto, Totus Tuus, Totally Thine, or more poetically, "My all for Your Highest," for the Divine Name or pronoun is always an incommensurable. "Sitting by the phone" was a diamond-bright clarity of purpose of mind and soul taking place even in the front hall of the family home.

We have seen a steady progression in our smart devices to a point when we are able to see the stream of potential calls coming our way, and most people screen the ones they will accept or not accept. Often, it is this way in our relations with God. You see, He calls to us. He guides us. Using His famous tool of uncanny coincidence — John Paul II said that in God's meaning-bearing world there is no such thing as "coincidence" — He calls to us. He writes His sacred "texts" on the walls of our daily experience.

Alternatively, He might surround you with so many uncanny experiences that a conviction of being pursued takes hold, and one's life is dominated by Heaven breaking in:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, ...

wrote Francis Thompson in the nineteenth century. Ever after, millions who have had this very experience call it a "Hound of Heaven" experience, after the title of Thompson's poem. Having experienced all of these things, it is tempting for us to believe that God will always pursue. But this mistaken impression would be no less foolish than a woman believing that a suitor will press His suit forever while she remains ever aloof. We must never mistake the sacred moment of ardent love for a parlor game of one-sided "cat and mouse." No. When our moment comes for love, for true love, our most holy moment, we must reverence it and give thanks for it and count our blessings.

The Scriptures teach us about this category of spiritual development. It is called Καιρος (Kairos), the propitious moment, the acceptable season, the time of ripeness. In his Second Letter to the Church at Corinth, St. Paul writes,

"At an acceptable time I have listened to you," saith the Lord. Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Here at the Hermitage, we have just filed our Form 990. The books show that during the past eighteen months we have harvested and sold ten-thousand pounds of various fruits and nuts. We are well accustomed to this life. One of the Sisters might return any day now from her morning tour of the orchards and fields and say, "The Lychee are red!" Shall we foolishly believe that they will be red every day of the year? Should we delay the harvest till next week? In only one week, they will turn brown and rot!

This is the way with God's love. It is not that God lacks for patience. He is famously patient. But this is the acceptable time. Now is the kairos! Now is the moment of the Lord's particular blessing! To take Him lightly is to affront God as surely as a foolish man or woman returning cold distance for ardent love. I do not claim to understand the unpardonable sin (Mark 3:28-30), but I do know that the love we experience on earth is our training ground for understanding God's love, for love is a Divine property granted to the earth. Receiving blessings, and especially God's call, we must not tempt God, but stand ever ready to receive the tender gifts of His love — whether it be a harvest or in the care of the Hermitage or in relationships of godly affection that bind us to others. We must read the Scriptures, and heed their advice:

Seek the Lord while He will be found!
Call upon Him while He is near! (Isaiah 55:6-7)

His favor landing on our unworthy heads must be cherished even as it arrives.

In our own time, we hear about a Lord Jesus Who is meek and lowly. Without question, God in His κενοσις (kenosis), His self-emptying (Philippians 2:7), has humbled Himself. He has poured His Divine Omnipotence into the narrow confines of our broken humanity. Yes, by this fact, He is humble. But He is God. And, reading the Gospels, we will search in vain for a Jesus Who presses His suit of love over and over again. He is not a dithering little man, wringing his hands, wanting everyone to love him. Nor is God a senile old grandfather with a long white beard who just wants everyone to be happy (to borrow a page from C.S. Lewis). Our God is a Holy God. And while He loves us, He is a formidable Personage Whom one must not take lightly.

Perhaps these absurd pictures of God have come to us from the widely quoted sentence from St. John: "God is love" (1 John 4:7). But what kind of love do we seek which practices abuse or neglect of the beloved? Try God's patience? Test the depth of God's love? The Son of God warns us, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test" (Luke 4:12). But if we abuse and neglect God anyway because we have read in the Pauline Correspondence that nothing can separate us from the love of God, then I reply, True! Yet, as with any love relationship we can separate ourselves from that love. God is holy and cannot abide unholiness in us. Unredeemed unholiness brings about a divorce from God. Tragically, divorce from God has become epidemic in our time.

What shall we say of those depicted in our Gospel lesson this morning, who see God's call coming in but who screen it? What shall we say of people who reject God? The language from St. Luke's Gospel is stern: "'For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste My banquet.'" Are we to assume that these men have committed the unpardonable sin, which is a grievous affront to the Holy Spirit? The story is reminiscent of another scene in St. Luke's Gospel, this time not a parable, but the direct command of the Son of God: If you offer your hospitality and blessing upon a town and it be not received, He says, then

"it shall be more tolerable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for
[that town]. And you, Caper'na-um, will you be exalted to Heaven? You
shall be brought down to Hades" (Luke 10:14).

Where do we find the meek and lowly Jesus here? He then goes on to say,

"He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me,
and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me."

To reject the Holy Spirit is a grave thing. We must not take Him lightly but receive Him like the Royal Personage that He is. We must not ignore the adornments of God's love raining down upon us like fruitful mists. For the acceptable time has come! The long-awaited season of blessing has arrived! And we must immediately drop everything, and run into our orchards and fields singing Hosannas with tears streaming down our face. "Give thanks to the Lord your God, for He is Good, and His Mercy is everlasting."

When He calls, attend to Him! This no mere Presidential appointment. This is even more than the life-or-death of your children and grandchildren, for their eternal lives and safety are in His hands, not yours. When He calls (and He will call), this is the most important call of your life, even your eternal life. Sit by the phone! And if it should be Him, say, "I am here Lord. Your servant is listening."

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.