Fifth Sunday in Lent

“… unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but, if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Jn. 12:22

 
Bill W. was a ferocious alcoholic.

He was a man who failed to graduate from law school because he was too drunk to pick up his diploma. He was initially a successful stockbroker, but his constant drinking ruined his reputation. He was committed to the care of a hospital for alcohol addiction four separate times, but he remained incapable of staying sober. In fact, his condition became so dire that he was warned he would have to be locked up permanently due to what was then called “wet brain.”

It was only after a profound spiritual experience and an introduction to Dr. Bob Smith that he was able to maintain a sobriety that lasted 37 years. Together these two men founded a group that we now know as Alcoholics Anonymous. Out of it came one of the most powerful spiritual programs ever devised:

The Twelve Steps.

This program revolutionized the treatment of alcoholism, and later on the treatment of all addictions. Some people have gone so far as to suggest that the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is America’s greatest single gift to the world of spirituality.

Its piety is based on the belief that alone we cannot stop a particular behavior pattern; together we can. But, even more than that, its piety is also solidly grounded on the deeper conviction that addiction is not only a brain disease, but a soul disease as well. As such, a different way of thinking, a different way of seeing, and a different way of doing are needed for a person to get well.

Today’s gospel is telling us that each of us needs to do the same. The reason is because, in a way, all of us are addicts of one kind or another. We just call our “addiction” by a different name: “sin.”

If we’re really honest with ourselves, we will each admit that we have our secret attachments, our hidden passions that we refuse to let go. We will admit, too, that we are all good, sincere people until we get to certain issues that involve money, or power, or status. Maybe we’ll even admit that we are all “addicted” not only to our own habitual ways of doing things, but also to our own ways of thinking that we’re convinced are superior to other people’s.  

That’s why the Eucharist and the sacrament of penance and prayer/meditation are so important for us: they are all means of developing a different operating system within us, a new software package to upload, an alternative consciousness to live out of.

In today’s gospel, for example, Jesus tells his followers that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but, if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

What Jesus is talking about here is what Alcoholics Anonymous calls the First of the Twelve Steps that any recovering person must take if they are to get whole again. It is so important, in fact, that, if it is not taken, the other eleven Steps won’t happen.

That First Step is called the admission of powerlessness. “We admit that we are powerless … and that our life has become unmanageable.”

“Powerlessness” is not an idea we American’s are comfortable with. We like to think of ourselves as power-full. We like to believe that anything’s possible if we just put our minds to it.
But, listen to St. Paul, one of the greatest of all the saints:

“I cannot understand my own behavior. I fail to carry out the very things I want to do and find myself doing the very things I hate … for although the will to do what is good is in me, the performance is not.” (Romans 7:15,18)

Every single one of us can find ourselves saying exactly those same words in our real honest moments. It’s an admission of our own powerlessness.  
 
But to again borrow from St. Paul, here’s the surprise that both the gospel of Jesus Christ and the 12 Steps of AA offer to us:
“It is when I am weak that I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:9).

Paul simply means that when we admit to our powerlessness, we then create space within ourselves for God to dwell. We get our egos out of the way so that there is room for God’s abundant grace to become fully operative.

That’s why Bill W. insisted that the “Imperial Ego has to go.” That’s why Jesus, in today’s gospel, used the metaphor of the “grain of wheat” that has to die.    

To put it another way, as Fr. Richard Rohr writes: “Until you bottom out and come to the limits of your own fuel supply, there is no reason for you to switch to a higher octane of fuel …. Until and unless there is a person, a situation, an event, an idea, a conflict, or relationship that you cannot ‘manage,’ you will never find the True Manager.”

The gospel and the 12 Steps are really saying the same thing: Until we are brought to our knees; until we die to the “imperial” demands of our egos; until we admit that on our own we are powerless over certain behaviors and attitudes, nothing will change.

We will remain just as we are. Transformation will never take place.  Grace will have no room to operate.  

To help each of us allow that “grain of wheat” to die within us, we might want to follow the advice of another of Alcoholic Anonymous’ strong recommendations:

            Watch your thoughts; they become words.
            Watch your words; they become actions.
            Watch your actions; they become habits.
            Watch your habits; they become character.
            Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
 
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
 
NOTE: A quote from Pope Francis found in his newest book, Let Us Dream: The Path To A Better Future:

“Once people lose a sense of the common good, history shows that we are left with anarchy or authoritarianism or both together: a violent, unstable society. We are there already: just consider the number of people who die each year from gun violence in the Americas. Since the outbreak of the crisis in the United States, sales of guns have broken all records …. This crisis has called forth the sense that we need each other, that the people still exists. Now is the time … that we can put an end to the globalization of indifference and the hyperinflation of the individual. We need to feel again that we need each other, that we have a responsibility for others, including those not yet born and for those not yet deemed to be citizens.”  

NOTE: A quote from Cardinal Joseph Bernardin:
“We must let the mystery, the tranquility, and the purposefulness of Jesus’ suffering become part of our own life before we can become effective instruments in the hands of the Lord for the sake of others …. Like Jesus, we will love others only if we walk with them in the valley of darkness – the dark valley of sickness, the dark valley of moral dilemmas, the dark valley of oppressive structures and diminished rights.”   

SISTER RACHEL’S QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The words you speak become the house you live in.” – Hafiz