are you on fire?

Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent Year C
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
7 March 2010
Year for Priests


For daily readings click here


Have you ever looked closely at the seal of the University of Kansas? Do you know what image is on the seal? You might think of many things that would go there - a Jayhawk, a wheat field. Something symbolizing Kansas. But what is there when you look closely is something you may not expect. It is not something you would expect to see marketed by Lew Perkins or the athletic department. It is something utterly unrelated to Kansas at all. On the seal is a picture of Moses kneeling before the burning bush. It is an image chosen by KU's first chancellor Rev. R.W. Oliver in 1866. Yes, that's right, the image that one day will be on your diploma is a religious image - from a public university. It is an image that has not been removed by the ACLU, at least not yet. It is the same image that appears in front of Smith Hall, the building for religious studies. In front of Smith hall, across from the Union, is the iron Moses sculpture kneeling before a stained glass window of the burning bush. And on your diploma will one day be the Latin phrase - "I will see this great vision in which the bush does not burn."


Does this seal of the University have any relation to the reasons why students come to KU today? The religious studies department, far from being at the heart of the University, and far from being considered the highest science at KU, is a rather small department. It does not attract the greatest number of National Merit scholars. It is easy to get a degree from KU without taking any courses in religious studies. Can anything seem more out of place than a seal that describes the students of today's postmodern, skeptical, basketball-crazed, career-minded, and morally indifferent KU as one day aspiring to see the vision of a bush that does not burn? Is there anyone today who chooses to come to KU because they believe the University will prepare them to see a vision like Moses saw? How can this potentially mythological story be relevant to today's secular and scientific university?


KU's official description of the seal only guesses at its meaning. KU.edu says that Moses is thought to represent the humble attitude of the scholar who recognizes the unquenchable nature of the pursuit of truth and knowledge. So the KU interpretation is this. It is important to be humble about what we do not know and do not understand. And the more that we know, the more that we know that we don't know. So the desire for knowledge is unquenchable.


Well, actually, that is a pretty good interpretation. We have a desire for knowledge of the truth that goes beyond our capacity to satisfy. We can satisfy our thirst for beer, for example, until we do not want to drink any more, but we cannot satisfy our thirst for knowledge. We are limited but the truth is eternal. We never know it all, even as we want to know it all. Well, the seal, interpreted in this way, does bring up very important questions. What is truth? Why is it eternal? Is it spiritual or material, this truth, and if we are attracted to it, does this mean that we are spiritual or material? Or both? And if the truth is bigger than man, so that man can never know it all, then is man the servant of eternal truth or is truth somehow the servant of eternal man? These are the questions of philosophy and mathematics and metaphysics, which you may or may not think are the highest sciences taught at KU. The seal, and its interpretation by the University, should cause us to ask such questions, if we aren't already. Especially if the seal is going to be on our diploma. Maybe you don't care what's on your diploma, as long as you get one, and get a job, and KU wins the national championship while you are here. Maybe the reasons behind the seal don't matter to you anymore. But just in case it does, I'll go on a bit more.


On ku.edu the description of the seal talks about Moses and the fire. But it doesn't talk about the bush. It is a very unusual bush, one that is not competing with the fire for matter and energy. The bush, while on fire, is not consumed. Since ku.edu does not intepret the bush, I would only have to guess that the bush is the material world that gives rise to the fire of knowledge or truth. But there is a problem with this interpretation, because the only truth that the natural world recognizes is a truth that a bush and a fire are competing for matter and energy. In reality and in truth, naturally speaking there is never a bush that is on fire but not consumed. When we look deeper into the meaning of the burning bush, the only meaning that survives is a supernatural meaning. This is not the ordinary fire of knowledge, but is the presence of God, who because He is not a part of the world, nor subject to its knowledge, can coexist with the bush without consuming it.


The God who reveals himself in today's first story is a God who is not in competition with his creation, because He cannot be a part of the world like the other gods whom Moses knew about. This God reveals himself as I am who I am, which is not a tautology but distinguishes the God of Israel from gods who are merely a part of creation. Moses kneels before the image of a God whose presence sets the world on fire, while not consuming the world. As many of us have experienced, there can be a false ideology on campus that to believe in God is to stop believing in yourself, and that those who believe in God have surrendered themselves, letting themselves be overwhelmed by God who has shown Himself to be an unmerciful bully. The false dichotomy is this. It is either me or God. It can't be both. We can't both be necessary. We are competing for the same matter and energy. The seal of the University, however, shows the absurdity of thinking that we are fighting for the same matter and energy that God desires; precisely because God is being itself, He can be present in the same time and space in which we are present without obliterating us. The bush burns but is not consumed. God can light us on fire without consuming us.


Sometimes we ask each other as Christians whether we are on fire for God? This image comes from the burning bush, and from Pentecost, when the fire of the Holy Spirit came to rest on the apostles. This fire of God is not something we must fear like we do normal fire, for it is a fire that does not consume us but enlivens us. We can surrender to this fire, which makes us not slaves to a truth we can never fully know, but sharers in the mind of God, the source of all truth. We can surrender to this fire not only because it does not consume us, but because it serves us and alone satisfies the supernatural desire to know all things. We may not be able to contain all truth in our minds, but we know that the truth is not a puzzle impossible to figure out that confounds us, but something that is meant to serve us and to reveal who we truly are.


Lest we continue to doubt whether we can coexist with the fire that is God's presence, God sent His Word, through whom all things were made, to be with us, and to serve us not only spiritually, but physically. In tonight's Eucharist, we touch the body of the one who came not to be served, but to serve. We touch the body of one who though He was God, used our humanity to go farther away from God through his passion and death that you or I would ever dare to go. In doing so, God nourishes not only our spirit with the fire of His love, He surrenders His own body to nourish our own bodies, so that we can also share the same space and time and energy with him in a most human and physical way. Our Lord comes to us in this way, surrendering Himself to us completely, in the hope that we might believe that our Lord is not trying to compete with us, but desires a relationship of love with us, and wants to set our lives on fire so that we can be the very best we can be. +m