Filters

A Reflection on the Gospel for June 7th, 2020:
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

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John 3.16-18

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned; but the one who does not believe is condemned already, for not having believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.”
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Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

Like standing on the edge of a precipice at night and looking up, far from the vision-stealing pollution of street lights, it’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Our participation matters. It’s a gift God has given us. It is an imprint of the value He marked us with when He stamped His own image on us. Breathed into us. It is an echo of the extent of His love for us, that He would give Himself for us, with no guarantee of the results. How vulnerable the Almighty makes Himself, taking His heart and laying it in our hands.


It’s funny how a filter changes things. These different coloured glass circles I can thread over the lens of an eyepiece before I insert into the focuser of my telescope — to better see the differing details of a heavenly body. With a red filter in place I can see the ice caps of Mars, but if I were to keep it on as I scan the sky, I would miss the cloud belts of Jupiter. I need a green filter to see them clearly as they slip past the swirling great red spot, a storm larger than the whole earth.


With a lens coloured to highlight a Just God, I see the sacrifice of a Son to satisfy the need of repayment for wrong done, a people bought back so they could be Breathed into again, and a swath of humanity painfully condemned for not receiving Him. With a lens coloured to highlight a Merciful God, I see a Father offering Himself as a Son, joining the Divine with broken humanity, pouring Himself out as Spirit transforming all the brokenness this world (κόσμος) has to offer. I see a Heart reaching out to bring everyone and everything — the cosmos (κόσμος), as Saint John says — Home.


Remove the coloured filters and I can see both Justice and Mercy at the same time, neither diminishing the other. I can see Love — in all its terrifying beauty.


A Love from our first breath to His last.




Yet refining, and any sorting that may or may not need to be done — that is the work of God. It’s not our problem. It really isn’t. Your problem isn’t to decide who is going to heaven and who is going to hell, especially when you realize those are mostly present-tense descriptions before they are ever future destinations.

Your job is simply to exemplify heaven now. God will take it from there.

Here is the remedy when you find it hard to exemplify heaven now: Let love happen.

- Fr. Richard Rohr




Noreen Smith

Photo by Mehmet Kürşat Değer on Unsplash

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