Defructification
In the garden of the new Eden, the trees yield sweet fruit. Evil wants to shrink the garden. God wants to expand it. The war being fought is over the yield.
Life is a ‘game’ of king of the hill (Wikipedia).
The top of the hill in the kingdom of God - the penthouse - is the level of our loving God. At the bottom of the kingdom of God is the basement where the most miserable and hideous of loveless beasts scavenge for scraps in the ruins of Eden in cutthroat competition with the other loveless beasts.
Evil offers us a demotion. Evil offers us a drastic reduction in our dignity. Evil tries to hurl us off the steep cliff from the level of our loving God to the level of the loveless beast. Defructification is evil’s strategy. Sterilization is evil’s game plan. Evil wants to sterilize the trees so they produce no fruit. It does so by infecting them with evil. Evil begets evil. Such an infection stops the trees from yielding sweet fruit.
In opposition to evil that tries to cast us down - that tries to sink us into catastrophe (Wikipedia), our loving God wants us to resist - to stay at the same level as him. Our loving God invites us to take his hand and hang on - to squeeze his hand - to hang on tight.
Hence, the dynamic tension in the ‘game’ of king of the hill (Wikipedia).
Because Adam and Eve fell off the cliff from the penthouse to the basement of the kingdom of God, God dispatched his Son to deliver advanced, alien technology from heaven to earth to help the children of Adam and Eve should they too fall. The Son of God transported the technology and demonstrated that it works by using it himself. He donned the jet pack and flew to show us that we, too, can fly. What a crazy daredevil this Jesus was! The technology that Jesus brought was not pie-in-the-sky, head-in-the-clouds technology. Jesus transported and demonstrated down-to-earth, practical technology. We can use it today, not just tomorrow, profitably. It is relevant to this world not just to the next. However, the exorbitant cost of a demonstration - of falling off the cliff - of catastrophe - made Jesus reluctant to demonstrate the technology himself (Luke 22:42). Jesus had second thoughts (Luke 22:42). Perhaps, he would just tell the children of Adam and Eve about the technology instead of demonstrating it as a priest lobs a homily at us from the safety of an ambo? Yet, despite the exorbitant cost, Jesus overcame his reluctance. He led by example - by deeds not by words. Jesus did not just tell us about how to handle evil. He showed us. He himself demonstrated the "best practice" for dealing with evil. He doffed the invulnerable armor of divinity, donned our frail uniform of flesh and blood and, dressed like us, entered the "game". He stood with us in the scrum at the line of scrimmage cheek to jowl with us, toe to hoof against evil. THE SON OF GOD BECAME ONE OF US - AN EQUAL TO US IN OUR HUMANITY - A PARTNER WITH US IN OUR SUFFERING. Because " … my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9), Jesus let evil push him off the cliff. He did so to show us how to fall and how to land. ACCORDING TO JESUS, LOVE IS THE PARACHUTE THAT CONTROLS THE FALL AND CUSHIONS THE LANDING. Love is the advanced, alien technology that Jesus demonstrated for us. Jesus wanted to make sure that we knew how to handle the push of evil. JESUS HUNG FROM HIS CROSS TO TEACH US HOW TO HANG FROM OUR CROSSES. When you hang as Jesus hung, cling as Jesus clung, love as Jesus loved. Hold tight and refuse to let go of love.
Jesus refused evil’s offer of a demotion. He refused a reduction in his dignity. Jesus refused to allow evil to reproduce itself within him (Matthew 5:38-40). Evil did not find a foothold in Jesus. Jesus gave evil no purchase. There was no room for evil to enter the inn of his most Sacred Heart (Luke 2:7). Love had reserved all of the space for itself.
We live in a world where many say words and few do deeds. Jesus spoke to us not by the words that he said but by the deeds that he did. It is ironic but the Word of God (John 1:1) wasn't an author. He was a carpenter (Mark 6:3). The Word of God (John 1:1) didn't tell us about God with words. He showed us God. The carpenter built a monument to God with the building blocks of his flesh, blood, bread and wine. Jesus spent the coin of his flesh and blood to purchase for us the bread and wine of forgiveness - a gift gratuitous, unconditional and total. He spent all of his limited human resources for the purchase of the gift. He kept not a penny in the bank in reserve for himself. He has never spent more on anything else. Isn’t the tree known by its fruit?
Over the evil that we did to Jesus, Jesus superimposed forgiveness. Jesus stamped our evil with God's official certificate of forgiveness. In this way, Jesus neutralized it. He defanged it. He drained evil of its power to deceive. Evil is the noxious deception that the serpent raises to hide the prodigious love of God from us. It is virulent anti-God propaganda. Jesus, however, shattered the deception as the blow of a hammer shatters glass. How? Jesus commandeered a cross - the instrument of our woe - and re-purposed it to reveal the prodigious love of God to us. He neutralized the propaganda. He answered the evil that the monster of the Crucifixion did to him. Jesus slew the monster of the Crucifixion with the sharp sword of sweet forgiveness (Jeremiah 31:31-34) (Luke 23:34 ) (Acts 10:43) (Matthew 6:12) (Matthew 18:21-35) (Luke 7:47) (Mark 11:25). Forgiveness killed the monster dead.
Moreover, Jesus magnified the impact of his prodigious love for us with the accelerant of audacity - radical, extreme audacity! We were unworthy of forgiveness, but Jesus forgave us anyway. Our God did not wait for our conversion to forgive us but forgave us to bring about our conversion (Matthew 22:10) (John 15:13) (John 12:24). JESUS TOOK THE FIRST STEP. While we were still unrepentant sinners (Romans 5:8) (Matthew 7:6), Jesus loved us first (1 John 4:19). Love begets love. Forgiveness, despite the evil that we did to him, is the catalyst of our conversion. It gobsmacks us. It knocks us off our horse (Acts 9:4).
The scraps for which loveless beasts scavenge the ruins of Eden are red herrings (Wikipedia). They seduce us. They distract us from the treasure (Luke 12:15 -21). Love is the only treasure. Love embellishes life. Life without love is salt without flavor (Matthew 5:13). Love is life in abundance (John 10:10).
Therefore, follow his example. Take Jesus’ hand at the top of the hill. Squeeze it. Put your roots down deep at the level of our loving God. Be steadfast. Be a tree in the garden of the new Eden that produces sweet fruit "some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred" (Mark 4:20) (Luke 6:43-45) (John 15:16).
Let not evil defructify you.
Love begets love. Evil begets evil. Jesus understood the science of cause and effect. His understanding induced him to love us first (1 John 4:19) while we were still unrepentant sinners (Romans 5:8) (Matthew 7:6).
"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness" (Isaiah 55:2). Life is the substrate that God gives us for the purpose of holding love. Love is the only treasure. Love embellishes life. Life without love is salt without flavor (Matthew 5:13). Love is life in abundance (John 10:10). In the basement of the kingdom of God, miserable and hideous loveless beasts scavenge for scraps in the ruins of Eden in cutthroat competition with the other loveless beasts. Scavenge not for the scraps; seek the treasure. Fill your life not with the scraps but with the treasure. In seeking the treasure instead of the scraps, we rise to the penthouse of the kingdom of God. "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God" (Psalm 14:2) (Psalm 53:2).
Love deifies us (Matthew 22:36-40). We are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26). He endowed us with the capacity to love (Luke 17:20-21). Our hearts are vessels that can be filled to the brim with love. The greater the love that we hold in our hearts, the greater is our resemblance to God. A saint is a child of Adam and Eve who bears an uncanny resemblance to God. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.“ (John 13:35)(Matthew 22:36-40)(1 John 4: 7-12). Deification is the process of increasing our resemblance to God. Only love deifies us.
The economy of paradise is based on the currency of love. With ordinary currency, the more we spend, the poorer we get. It is a paradox, but, by spending the currency of love, we grow rich. The more we spend, the richer we get. The most Holy Trinity dispatched the Son of God from heaven to earth to introduce us to the currency of love and to establish the economy of paradise here and now upon the earth.
The greatest problem facing the children of Adam and Eve today is that the engine room is empty. Nobody is tending the engine. The engineers are AWOL. The engine of Christianity is left to operate itself! The office of bishop calls its occupants to become specialists in the engine of Christianity - to develop an expertise in it - to become full-time professionals in it - to become licensed to operate it. Yet, they are ignorant of the fact that Christianity even has an engine let alone how it works! The neglect of the engine is the reason that the engine sputters and stalls. It is the reason that the progress that Christianity has made over the last two thousand years is being reversed. Fewer and fewer of the children of Adam and Eve are going to Mass. Nobody goes to Confession. Vocations are drying up. Marriages are crumbling. Churches are withering and dying. The trend is downward and accelerating. The thermometer that gauges the temperature of the body of Christ is the practice of Christianity. By this measure, the patient is moribund - a few breaths away from death. The New York City Police Department runs a program of self-criticism called CompStat by which it uses crime statistics to evaluate the job performance of its bosses. Given the deplorable Catholic statistics, if such a program were applied to the bosses of the Catholic Church, how many heads would roll? Shall we wait until the number for Mass attendance falls into the single digits before the bosses of the Catholic Church are fired for incompetency?
P.S. What is the engine of Christianity? The joy of discovering the prodigious love of God whose impact was magnified by the accelerant of audacity in gifting it to unworthy sinners is the engine of Christianity. The job of the Church is to propagate it from its point and place of origin, across space and time, to the children of Adam and Eve here and now.
We live in a world where many say words and few do deeds. Jesus was about doing not talking. Jesus led by example. The men of words deliver homilies at us from the safety of an ambo. They think we will eat their words. Boy, are they mistaken! Unlike them, Jesus put his money where his mouth was. Jesus defortified himself. He doffed the invulnerable armor of divinity, donned our frail uniform of flesh and blood and, dressed like us, entered the "game". He stood with us in the scrum at the line of scrimmage cheek to jowl with us, toe to hoof against evil. THE SON OF GOD BECAME ONE OF US - AN EQUAL TO US IN OUR HUMANITY - A PARTNER WITH US IN OUR SUFFERING. Jesus spent the coin of his flesh and blood to purchase for us the bread and wine of forgiveness - a gift gratuitous, unconditional and total that he gave to unworthy sinners. He spent all of his limited human resources to purchase the gift for us. He kept not a penny in the bank in reserve for himself. He has never spent more on anything else. Is a tree known by its words or by its fruit? Instead of delivering words to us, feed us the sweet fruit of love! Forgiveness was the sweet fruit that Jesus fed us. Do you offer us more than mere words? If so, what?