Sunday October 15, 2017
The Little That Is Much
There is a story told about Sir Yehudi Menhuin, the world-famous violinist, who also meditates in the tradition taught by Fr. John Main. He was giving a series of concerts in a capital city. One evening as he returned to his hotel after his performance he noticed a little girl, about eight years old and three feet tall, playing a violin at a street corner trying to collect some coins. He was touched by the sight of the little girl and sat down to listen to her. He asked her name - Nora - and encouraged her to play every tune she knew.
In the end he said to her, "Nora, how would you like to come with me tomorrow night and play at my concert before all the people"
"Oh no sir," she replied, "you know that I do not play very well."
"Never mind about that," Yehudi said. "You just stand there on the stage and play. I will be behind the curtain and play loudly. The people will see you but they will hear me!"
So the next night little pint-sized Nora took the stage. The people were thrilled at seeing the little girl and hearing the wonderful music. They clapped and clapped and gave her encore after encore.
In some ways we are like little Nora. We cannot do much of ourselves yet our little effort is needed so that God - the musician behind the curtain - can work through us. In the Christian way of understanding there have always been two poles or extremes in the relationship between our effort and God's achievement. It has been reflected in the extreme of Pelagianism on the hand and Quietism on the other. Pelagianism goes back to a British monk born in 354 A.D. who claimed that people could live good lives purely by their own efforts and did not need any help from God. St. Augustine wrote five treatises against Pelagianism. Quietism, a sixteenth century heresy associated with the Spanish priest Miguel de Molina, claimed that passive presence to God without doing anything else was all that was necessary. The same conflict was found in the dispute as to which was the more important, faith or good works. I think the three rules given by Fr. Tony de Mello give a healthy summing up of the situation. Rule One: God does everything. Rule Two: You can do nothing. Rule Three: In your day-to-day living forget rule one and rule two.
Christ is making the same kind of point in the Gospel story today. A king gives a feast for his son's wedding. When the invited guests do not come the king is furious and orders his servants to go to the crossroads of the town and invite everyone to the wedding. So they brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the wedding feast was full. At a wedding feast in those days a visitor was given a free wedding garment to wear. When the king came in he saw one man who was not wearing a wedding garment.
Again, the king was furious and had the man thrown out.
The story reflects the problems of the young church at the time Matthew was writing. They were having problems with some non-Jews who had joined the early Christian Church but who were not even complying with the most minimal requirements. So, in the story the original guests invited were the Jews. Those brought in later to take their places were the Gentiles or non-Jews. But even from these a minimum was required.
In our case also all that we have is gift. We are called not because we are worthy or because we are of any particular race but because God wants us. Yet, in spite of the power of his call, he wants a minimal and simple response from us.
Perhaps the simplest way of prayer, of responding by being in God's presence, is through meditation. It is as simple as putting on an offered wedding garment. All one is asked to do is to say a prayer word or mantra for 20 to 30 minutes every morning and every evening. But to say that it is simple does not mean to say that it is easy. It is an activity in which we never seem to achieve success. Recently, some people who were meditating for a number of years seemed to feel that if anything, their meditations were getting worse - in the sense of being bombarded with distractions. On the other hand they also shared that they were aware of big changes deep down in their lives. There was a greater sense of inner peace and harmony. There was a lack of anger in dealing with others and in facing difficulties. Deep down conversion of values were taking place. Saying the mantra was like little Nora playing her fiddle; it gave God the opportunity to play great music in the background.