This last, of course, is the backdrop for all — the preeminent backdrop for the human lifeworld since its Creation. Thus, though the Kingdom of God has drawn near as it had in Eden, a "breaking through" from God's Kingdom into our world keeps us ever mindful of two realities .... or, more accurately, "reality" and "illusion."

Even in our world a layer has been interposed between the world and our inner person. All four Evangelists remember Jesus insisting on this (Mk 4:9, Mk 4:23, Mk 7:16, Mt 11:15, Mt 13:9, Mt 13:43, Lu 8:8, Lu 14:35, Lu 16:29, Rev 2:11, 2:17, 2:29, 3:6, 3:13, 3:22, 13:9):

In the end, it is perceiving aright which makes the difference between approaching God in this nearness or drifting away from Him ..... to the point that we doubt He exists (or at least doubt it conveniently for an evening). Consider the final verse in the Book of Revelation's narrative:

Clearly, perceiving aright will make all the difference between our salvation and perdition, which will be a life-long thirst for life's waters.

This extra layer isolating the inner person is axiomatic in Western philosophy. The Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (d. 1796) articulated the obvious when he stated that it is not possible for the sphere of the eye to map a right angle upon the brain point-for-point. Some internal transform must be operating here. Around the same time, the poet William Wordsworth wrote of the

That is, there is manifestly a mediating process inside us. What does it look like? How does it operate?

With the advent of neural imaging, we can now see the brain's processes in motion. And a surprise lay waiting. For it turns out that the the limbic system, the seat of our emotions, is the control panel of sensory perception. For centuries emotions were dismissed as a distraction, an unmanly distraction. "Get hold of yourself, man!" people would say.

Yet, the limbic system located in the amygdala, receives sensory data first and then decides whether it will initiate a dialogue with the seat of reasoning and intellection .... or not. Because the limbic system is also the seat of our primary urges (rage, sexual lust, drive for power, terror), we understand that, commonly, the inner person denies access to reasoning and just hunkers down in the world of impulse and urge. Do we not know people who go from stimulation to stimulation. They will not hear reason, but camp out in this area of the brain compulsively?

I share as an aside that I am suspicious of the culture of therapeutic wellness. But it turns out that "talking therapy" (and this can be verified through imaging) encourages the person to will for the voice of reason so that a dialogue begins between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of reasoning. This is all very real.

We Christians are keenly aware of another crucial point concerning the extra layer. The sensory organs decline and fail. If they were in any measure reliable when we were young, they become ever more unreliable as we age. Thus, we appreciate more fully that the world is an illusion, and grows progressively more faint and distorted leaving the inner person in a deeper isolation. As Blaise Pascal would say, to bet on the world is the wrong bet.

If we should spend our lives delighting in the world and ignoring Heaven, we have set a catastrophe in motion, a juggernaut that we might not be able to stop. Jesus reminds us of this core principle in the Gospel lesson:

And what is the gospel? It is the good news that the inner person need not live and then die in isolation. For the Lord is with us .... especially in the domain of our inner lives.

And what of the world? We turn our back on the illusory world of momentary sensual pleasure and lies. Indeed, we will crucify that outer person that the inner person may magnified. This remarkable news is part and parcel with what Jesus has just said, indeed, in the previous verse:

We follow Him by taking up this cross, this self-sacrifice over a lifetime. His life — confined within the horrible straits of our narrow humanity — was not the cross of three hours but rather the cross of a lifetime. It was this passion which has saved us: to live as one of us, to heal us, to teach us, to reveal the Kingdom, and then to show us the Way to the Father.

The Greek word he chooses for cross is σταυρός / staurós precisely the instrument of His three-hour torture and execution, or should I say the most hated symbol in the Jewish imagination?

But let us pause for a moment. Let us consider what we mean when we say the Passion of the Christ: Thirty-three years of suffocating confinement or three hours of torture and death? Which one is the greater burden of suffering? Which would you choose?

As He emptied Himself of Heaven's glory sacrificing for us, so we are to empty ourselves of the world's vainglory, sacrificing for Him and for each other. As was His cross, ours, is day-by-day, year-by-year, decade-by-decade. And we recall that the yoke that we must take upon us (Mt 11:30) — plowing row-after-row, field-after-field, year-after-year — He has equated to the cross, as we contemplated recently.

Because we tend to be this-worldly, we seek happiness here. Like the sons of Zebedee we seek glory now. But we must "lose this life" (as Jesus says) to be saved.

There is no remedy. There is no short-cut or quick-fix. There is only this inner transformation — deprecating the body, magnifying the soul — which will save us. For our salvation is not the work of an afternoon, neither ours nor His. And Christianity is not the religion of pixie dust.

☦

To perceive all this clearly, we must get the setting and context right. The Incarnation of God coincided with the Hebrew lifeworld standing before a great crossroads. On one side, we see the religion of transformation associated with the historical Kingdom of Israel, whose ancient capital was Samaria. On the other side, we find the religion of the short-cut and the quick-fix — a swap offering the blood of animals in exchange for salvation, which we associate with the Zion Temple in the historical Kingdom of Judah.

How all this came about, our readers and listeners know very well. Following the Exile to Babylon, a new religion had been installed in the Southern Kingdom, whose central ritual was animal sacrifice. This was the way in Mesopotamia, where the new king Nebuchadnezzar offered prodigious blood offerings to their god. "Marduk," he boasted, "has never eaten so well!"

But only a third of Judah was carried off to Babylon. Two-thirds remained behind. And no one from historical Israel was exiled. In the North, Hebrew life went on the way it always had. People worshiped in the Temple on Mt. Gerizim. They drank, symbolically, from the well dug by Jacob, himself. That two different religions lived side by side is attested in the Gospels. In Samaria itself,

In the North we see the lifeworld of the Patriarchs attested by scattered altars, wells, and imposing ruins; in the South, a Mesopotamian altar and civil religion designed to centralize authority to Jerusalem.

But Jesus draws a much sharper contrast between these two religions — also centering on Samaria. It is the story of two Judeans making their way south through from the Northern Kingdom to their home in Jerusalem. One is a priest, the other a Levite — functionaries in the Zion Temple. Each, in turn, passes a man who lies bleeding on the road, for he has been beaten and robbed by highway men. Each Judean travels alone. Each passes the wounded man in turn, each avoiding him. We surmise, therefore, that a hundred functionaries of the Zion Temple would do precisely the same. Each would give the bleeding man a wide berth hurrying past him, for touching him would render them ritually unclean, unable to enter the Temple. Neither man approaches to see if he is alive, for to touch a corpse would also make them ritually unclean.

Then, along comes a Samaritan, representing a very different religion. He instantly comes to the aid of the bleeding man. He binds the man's wounds. He brings him to an inn. He offers money to cover expenses for his nursing. What should the Samaritan care about "ritual purity"? He does not hold with the Zion Temple. For the worship of God in the mind of the Samaritan has to do with inner transformation (i.e. virtue), not elaborate and fussy externals.

The Samaritan would have been a recognizable hero in the the eyes of Northerners, who abhorred the recent innovation of of Judah-ism. But not only Northerners. Any Essenes present would also have identified with the Samaritan. Essenes scoffed at ritual purity. Their concern was setting a virtuous life before God. To quote the philosopher, Philo (who knew Essenes personally),

St. Paul, who wrote,

would also have resonated with the Samaritan.

When Jesus was admonished for not washing His hands, He replied,

By the time Jesus delivers the parable's punchline,

the religion of Judah-ism, held up to ridicule, has been decisively dismissed. No rebuttal. No objection.

Yes, Jesus taught in the Judean Temple. This is well documented. And why wouldn't He? Was He not sent to gather the lost sheep? We have just seen His derision of the Zion cult.

But on one occasion, His derision reached a point of rage .... which biblical commentators ever since have been at a loss to explain:

Let us note: "the Passover of the Jews." This is not our feast, St. John, implies. It is theirs.

Some readers today argue that Northern Kingdom-versus-Southern Kingdom differences were long past and forgotten by the first century. I invite them to reflect on this stubborn fact: that St. John uses the term, "the Jews," no fewer than sixty-six times to contradistinguish them from Jesus and His followers. And, of course, last Sunday's reflection makes a sound case that Judaism was not an ancient and venerable tradition by the first century but only recently had become a cultural imperative.

We also are shocked by the Prince of Peace Who could make a whip of cords, could lash and beat men, could turn over their wares. In our confusion, we say the Temple was being "commercialized" .... like an app choked with ads or a video stream hi-jacked by commercials. But there were not commercials in the first century. Indeed, there had been no industrial revolution. There was no middle class. None of the things we take for granted would have been present. That would be our culture, not theirs.

The phrase in this famous passage that stands out is οικον εμφοριον, / oikon emphorion , "a house of trade." Jesus roars: "You have made my Father's House house of trade — a place where animal sacrifice is traded in exchange for salvation."

Remember, Jerusalem was a great center of trade. Those present would have instantly understood oikon emphorion, loud and clear. Jesus is saying the life of God is no quick-fix. It is not an exchange of this for that. It is a life of profound inner transformation:

Writes Isaiah,

Isaiah gets down to business right away in his great book. Isaiah was a favorite writer among the Essenes. The best preserved copy of the Book of Isaiah we have was found in the caves of Qumran, the Essene library.

If animal sacrifice, which is the primary cultic ritual of the Judan Temple, is central to salvaation, then why is it not mentioned in the Ten Commandments? If the sacrifice of the altar is the centerpiece of Divine worship, then why is never mentioned by the Son of God .... except to excoriate?

Understanding that the first-century Levant stood at this crossroads, that this crossroads was a centerpiece of the Advent of God, we now hear Jesus' pointed question aright:

Actually, I would translate this Greek sentence differently:

The Greek word for trade is αντάλλαγμα / antállagma. It means, "a trade, a swap, something given in exchange for something else."

How could we get this wrong? Hearing the parable of the Good Samaritan, being mindful of Jesus' riotous demonstration in the Temple, How could we fail to understand the Lord's question?

These are not small matters. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is told following the question, "What must I do to be saved?" The Son of God is being asked what must I do to be saved? And He replies with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. You will be saved by trading at the Zion Temple. These priests and Levites will not be saved. Any others who hurry past this man in dire need will not be saved.

Jesus demonstration in the Temple with His whip of cords has to do with right relationship with God. He sees these men selling animals to be sacrificed as fatal impediments to the people. How can they be saved if they bought into this short-cut? They never begin their process of transformation! These are towering questions.

God has sent His Son into the world, Who set aside His superabundant glory, which He had before the world was. The Incarnation of God is this lifelong cross. In this, He models human conduct, which also must be self-sacrifice, leading to inner transformation, for we will have followed Him.

"Metanoeite!" He cries. "Be transformed!" .... in a world where no one is being transformed. They are too busy carrying animals to be sacrificed off to the Temple.

But Judeans have visited sophisticated and powerful Mesopotamia. In fact, they lived there. Have you met people who have gone off to New York? They have become the better and smarter set. They know! The Judeans have discovered the quick-fix for pleasing God. They need only slaughter live animals at an altar.

Discarding the ways of the Patriarchs; adopting, instead, the rituals of Babylon .... is this not the epitome of being lost? Is this not the center of a whole world that is lost? Is this not this the meaning of the phrase, "the lost sheep"? And is this not, therefore, the occasion for the Advent of God? The Father thinks so. "I was sent to gather the sheep," Jesus says.

Here is the great crossroads, I say fearfully, which confronts us even today. Do we have eyes to see it? Do we have ears to hear? Is our perception attuned rightly? For even today, people wave off their personal crosses. They wave off a life under Jesus' yoke. Instead, they say, "I will make a blood offering: Jesus! Jesus has died for my sins!" In this the Evangelical Christian feels eternally secure. In this way, the Western Catholic lifts up the bleeding body of Jesus for expiation. But a leading Russian Orthodox theologian of our time, Met. Hilarion Alfeyev, has written,

.... I might say the centerpiece of the Latin West: the sacrifice of the mass.

Meantime, the Lord Jesus confronts us with a fierce and challenging gaze. Do you recall the gaze He fixed upon the men selling sacrificial animals? He demands: "What will you trade?" .... "Are you of the opinion that trade is all that is necessary?" And He answers in the same breath:

The cross props up our failing senses. It is our support, our crutch, our crux, if you like. Our inner person is corrected. It is the cross which clarifies our seeing and sharpens our hearing. His yoke, His cross, will transform the inner person who now sees the Kingdom of God rightly.

And what does God require of us, my brothers and sisters? His ancient teaching to the Patriarchs remains ours today:

Trust in Him, for He is the Way and the Truth and the Life.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.