Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning. Today we celebrate the seventh Sunday in Ordinary time.

The Opening Prayer Grant we pray, Almighty God, that always pondering spiritual things, we may carry out in both word and deed that which is pleasing to you through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the first book of Samuel, 26th chapter, second verse 7 through the 9th, verse 12 13th verse and 22nd, 23rd verse in those days Saul went to the desert of Ziph with 3000 picked men of Israel to search for David in the desert of Ziph. So David and Abishai went along among Saul’s soldiers by night and found Saul lying asleep within the barricades and and his spear thrust into the ground at his head, and Aber and his men sleeping around him. Abishai whispered to David, God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day. Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear.

I will not need a second thrust. But David said to Abishai, do not harm him, for who can lay hands on the Lord’s anointed and remain unpunished? So David took the spear and the water jug from their place at Saul’s head, and they got away without anyone seeing or knowing or awakening. All remained asleep because the Lord had put them into a deep slumber. Going across to the opposite slope, David stood on a remote hilltop at a great distance from Abner son of NER and the troops. He said, here’s the king’s spear.

Let an attendant come over to get it. Lord, reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Today though the Lord delivered you into my grasp, but I would not harm the Lord’s Anointed the Word of the Lord. Responsorial Psalm the Lord is Kind and merciful A reading from the New Testament First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians 154549 Brothers and sisters, it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam a life giving spirit. But the spiritual was not first rather than natural and then the spiritual.

The first man was from the earth earthly, the second man from heaven, as was the earthly one, so also are the earthly. And as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly. Just as we have been born the image of the earthly one, we shall bear the image of the heavenly one. The Word of the Lord. Now the I give you a new commandment, says the Lord. Love one another as I have loved you.

The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. Luke 6:27,38. Jesus said to his disciples, to you who hear, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other one as well.

And from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from the one who takes what is yours, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you. Even sinners love those who love them.

If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners and get back the same amount, but rather love your enemies and do good to them. Lend expecting nothing back, then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. For He Himself is kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked.

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging, you will not be judged. Stop condemning, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you. Good measure, packed together, shaken down, overflowing, will be poured into your lap.

For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you. The Gospel of the Lord. Sam SA there’s something really profound about these readings at least. They’ve touched me very deeply, and I pray I can open your heart to what they’re really trying to say. Because it seems in many ways what these readings are saying to me goes against what I learned as a child growing up in the Catholic community, in the religious life that my parents. I inherited from my parents.

And I love the Church. I’ve given my life to serve it. But she’s not always correct. She’s not always perfect. And we certainly know that today more than other times in history. And that doesn’t weaken my belief or my love for the church in the least, because the one I fall in love with, the one that I am called to invite you to fall in love with and have a deep personal relationship, is not the church, but God.

The church is a means to find that. And the biggest responsibility the church has is to speak the truth. Now, one of the problems about truth when it comes to religion is it’s not really about facts, about information or knowledge. It’s about mystery. So how does an institution dedicated to putting people in touch with what is true stay focused on that which is mysterious? Because it tends, as do all human beings when it comes to dealing with mystery, to explain it.

And if our mind can understand it and we say, okay, now I guess I understand, but we really need to develop, and this is why we live on this earth, is we need to develop and grow in our ability to deal with mystery. And the part of us that needs to grow in order for that mystery to be held and believed in and submitted to is not our brains, but our hearts. We don’t always realize that there’s two centers in our very body that we turn to for direction. One is the brain, logic, reasoning, absolutely essential. The other is the heart, which has to do with emotion, love, and mystery. As the mind hungers for more and more facts, so does the heart long for more and more depth into these things we call mystery.

Now, one of the first reading or the first reading we have here is about a man who has an enemy, and he’s going to destroy him. Because that’s what you do. Back then in the old times, you were in a conflict, and the only way to solve it was to overcome, outpower or destroy the enemy. And so we see this enemy being presented to the one who is trying to conquer them. And it’s almost too sweet. I mean, walk into the very camp where the.

The enemy’s there and everybody’s asleep and they don’t notice these people. And sitting right next to the enemy is a sword. And so Saul’s helper said, I can take one big, swift thrust of this sword, and the enemy’s gone. And Saul says, no, don’t. Don’t kill him. Don’t take his sword and his cup.

And we’ll leave and we’ll know. They’ll know that we were here. And he was so vulnerable and so easy to kill. But we didn’t. And See what that does to them. And so they take everything and they wait for those, particularly who would be in charge of taking care of that king.

They would be absolutely shamed. Radical change in the way to deal with an enemy. And then we have in the Gospel this incredible story of Jesus talking about a way of life that must have been absolutely ludicrous to people. I mean, he was talking about a way of life that was so against who they were and their nature. I mean, somebody steals something and you should call them up and say, you missed a few things, come back and get them. Somebody that owes you money, you look at them and say, oh, listen, I don’t need that money back, you just keep it.

Yet there’s some part of our nature, even though that would seem so outlandishly crazy if it happened to us, we’d say, oh, wow, that was great. Interesting. We have a great sense of justice and demand it of others, but at the same time, if we were left off the hook, we’d love it. So what’s Jesus saying? He’s trying to open their eyes to something that has been going on since the creation of the world. And that’s the evolution of the creation that God has made.

And when God created the world, there was a force, a grace that was given to the world so that we continue to move in a direction toward perfection, toward wholeness. Amazing. That’s why the story in Genesis of Creation is so important to interpret correctly. And most of us don’t realize there are two stories. In fact, the story we use mostly in Liturgy of the Word and when we teach is part of it is taken from one story of creation, the other from the second story of creation. And the first story of creation is pretty simple.

It means that God created the world in six 24 hour periods. On the sixth day, he created humans, and then he rested and he created the world by just his word. He just said it, you know, let there be humans, let there be a man and a woman. Poof, there they were. Amazing. That’s the story, the second story, God creates the world in one day.

He creates the world, and it doesn’t have plants or animals or insects or anything like that. But the next thing he does is he creates a man, just a man, not a woman, just a man. And he doesn’t do it by just word, but he molds it out of the earth and clay and makes water and then turns it into a human being when he breathes his spirit into it. So he’s like a sculptor. And then he breathes life into it. And then he creates the world that this man is going to be taking care of.

So he gives trees and water and plants and insects and animals. And when he created the animals, he brought them to Adam and said, I create all this for you. This is your world. It’s going to be so comforting. You’re going to have all this and you’ll be in charge of it. And then somehow you realize that.

Wait a minute. I think he needs a partner. So he creates a partner. He doesn’t create it out of a word, but he makes it out of a part of the man, out of the rib. And then said, here, what do you mean of this? And he said, ah, at last.

And this is, I think, such an interesting kind of selfish thing. Makes so much sense about our human nature. Yeah, it’s perfect because it’s just like me. It’s bone of my bone of flesh of my flesh. At last I have me to be with. It’s great.

Okay, that’s the story. Now, the thing that strikes me so powerfully is the second reading. Paul is talking about creation, and he’s talking about there’s two atoms. There’s Adam, the first man, and there’s Adam the man who saves the world. Christ. One is of the earth and one is of spirit.

One is human and one is divine. And we know the whole salvation history story is about these two Adams. One’s at the beginning, one’s at the end. But the thing about the story in the beginning that is so dangerous is that when I was told it as a child, I had the feeling that God, since he created human beings out of just a word, poof. They were not creatures like anybody, any other creatures. They weren’t connected to animals.

But yet science tells us, and the church certainly approves this teaching, that God did create the world. Yes, something created it. And we believe scripture says God created it. But God created it, did not necessarily create it in seven days or one day. And what seems more even appealing to me is that when we believe that God created the world from the very beginning to evolve on its own toward where it is. By on its own, I mean God is the.

God is moving it constantly to evolve, to become more like the Creator that made it. So everything is moving toward perfection. But I got the idea that Adam and Eve were perfect when they were born. They didn’t have any animal instincts in them. They were these little happy, naked creatures. Perfect, beautiful, you know.

And so the idea that they sinned seems so horrendous because they didn’t have any bad instincts. They were created perfect. God gave them a beautiful garden and then from somewhere they get this idea. Since God gave them a law, which by the way is the only way sin can exist. You have to have a law first. So sin then is revealed as a part of human beings.

And the reaction that I get from the way I was told, the story went, was God was so upset, so furious at these perfect creatures he made and they reverted to something unnatural for them and they just rejected God. And he was furious. He kicked him out. So go down there. I don’t want anything to do with you. Leave now.

Well, that’s not the story. They made a mistake. They chose something that was very core to their human nature. They were not created innocent, perfect. They were created from animals that had an instinct inside of them. It was terribly self centered.

That’s where we came from. And God pours life into us and we begin a process of moving out of that animal like creature into a spiritual creature. That’s what we’re here on this earth to do. It’s a wonderful process. But what I always thought is whenever I sinned, I always lost the favor of God. Instead of God being there to help me through this process of evolving into the person that he ultimately wanted me to be.

And whenever I sinned, I felt it was my fault. And now I’m beginning to realize, look, it’s not our fault that we sinned. That’s how we were made. We have a sinful core to us. When by sin I mean it’s just basically self centered. The most basic instinct of an animal is self preservation.

And then it needs to mate, so it needs a partner. And so there’s relationships that it needs. And then it needs a group to work with, a community. But in our need for safety and our need for relationships and our need to live in a culture that is safe, those are all things that can be done out of the most selfish motives. And it’s that that God is calling us out of. And it’s there by nature.

So when I sin, I’m sort of fallen back into who I really am. Without grace, without evolution of the plan that God has for me. I look back at my life and I can say over and over again, my God, how did I ever. Why? What was I thinking when I did that? When?

Well, I was thinking about the way I thought as a human. I wasn’t doing this on purpose to offend God. And God didn’t take it as offensive. He never takes our sins as A personal offense, but I thought he did. And the most interesting thing about that story from Scripture is God didn’t kick these people out. He said, yes, you can go.

And what did he do before they left? He sewed clothes together for them. And that’s one sentence the church doesn’t use in his Liturgy of the Word, which was the only way we ever heard scripture back then. Imagine. No, he wasn’t angry, he was excited. He wanted us to go and grow and become who we are and work with this lower nature.

So one of the things we need to do, and someone gave me this advice when I was very young, learn about human nature and learn about God’s nature. If you know them both and you know that they’re made for each other, ultimately you, you will be successful on this planet. Human beings are naturally selfish. We’re infused with a grace called love. And once we have that love and we move out of self to others, then we grow in our ability for us to have compassion, empathy. Then we care for not only what people are going through, but we want to do something to take their pain away.

We’ll give ourselves to a work and we’ll develop the work and then we’ll give the gift away. That’s the evolution that, that we’re going for and we can reach that high level. And still all of a sudden, one minute we flip back and we’re down into the lowest level of self destruction. That’s not our fault. It’s our nature. When we fall back, we just remember how much we long for God’s grace and his forgiveness because it leads us back to the place we were ultimately made to be.

Closing prayer. Your goodness is beyond our understanding unless we really understand who we are and who you are. It is your nature to forgive, to give generously to those who harm you and disappoint you. That’s who you are. And we are in such need of a God like that. And we need to believe in you because it’s the best hope we have for our transformation from the lower forms of our humanity, evolving into higher consciousness of seeing that we really are like you.

Ultimately, as you love us, forgive us. We will do the same for others. Not because we’re told to, not because we have to, not because of a reward we’ll get. Because that’s who we are. And we ask this prayer in Jesus name. Amen.

The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show, Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher. A listener supported program is archived and available on our website, pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast, Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible.

Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.