Human Thinking and Divine Thinking – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; September 15, 2024

You are not thinking as God does, but as human beings do.

The contrast between human and divine thinking is stronger than appears here in St. Mark’s Gospel.

If we were to follow a more literal translation, Jesus first asks the Apostles, Who do men say that I am? Then later he says to St. Peter, You do not think the thoughts of God, but of men.

This stands in contrast to St. Peter’s reply to the question, Who do you say that I am? Since that reply is not a thought of men, it must be of God. That is how St. Matthew reports Jesus’ words, Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. (Mt 16:17)

Who do people say that I am? Can sound like “what does the crowd say?” Or, “What is the popular opinion on the subject?” The word, “men”, however directs us to human nature. It is not just the “crowd” that fails; left to itself human nature is unable to attain the truth about Jesus; left to itself human thinking is at odds with God’s thinking.

This is very important. We could say that the whole process of conversion to God involves a change from human thinking to divine thinking. St. Paul writes to the Romans, in this regard, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed in the newness of your mind, that you may approve the what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. (Rm 12:2) St. Augustine described faith as “thinking with assent.” (“On the Predestination of the Saints, I.v) That means assenting to and, we could add, approving of, or taking pleasure in, the thoughts of God, the thoughts made known by God.

Jesus begins talking about his upcoming crucifixion; St. Peter rebukes him. Human thinking definitely does not choose crucifixion.

I certainly never had a parish council advise me, saying, “You know, Father, what you really need to do is go out and get yourself crucified.” Now, in my case, that might be good; the parish council might not be shutting down a divine way of thinking on my part, but human recklessness.

In today’s Gospel, however, St. Peter is trying to act as Jesus’ parish council and give him some good solid human advice. He seems to need it, the way he is talking about getting himself killed.

Now, Peter has just declared that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, but not many people recognize that; they seem to think that he is the reincarnation of some past prophet. So the Messiah’s parish council is going to advise Jesus about how he needs to be known and get his message out. Keep up your teaching work; keep working miracles; make friends, find allies; then when you are well known, respected, and admired, the time will be ripe for you to act, to establish your kingdom. That is the sort of advice that Jesus’ would be advisors from his family in Nazareth gave him: Go into Judea that your disciples may see the works you do. For there is no man that works in secret, while seeking to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. (Jn 7:3-4) In other words, leave small time Galilee and seek the big stage.

That is human thinking: it establishes goals in this life and lays plans to achieve those goals, plans based on the way men ordinarily act.

A politician wants to get elected to office, so he tailors his message to what he thinks will win votes. Very few Americans think that abortion, in all circumstances, regardless of the situation of the mother, is a grave evil, tantamount to murder. So, no politician will support that position. That is human thinking.

An entrepreneur conceives a project that he thinks he can sell to people; he has a conjecture that he can at least persuade people to want his project. A professional fundraiser, if he is sure that he will get paid, might try to raise money for a new Benedictine monastery, but an entrepreneur is not going to dedicate his life to promoting Benedictine monasteries; there is no large market for that. The entrepreneur cannot expect many people today to choose a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Again, that is all human thinking.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We are human beings, so we can hardly avoid thinking as human beings. Nevertheless, consider that word Jesus’ spoke in last Sunday’s Gospel – Ephphata! Be opened! (Mk 7:34) We can, and should, open our human thinking to God’s way of thinking; we can, and should, subordinate our plans to God’s plans, which are wonderful indeed. (cf. Jdg 13:18)

St. Peter got a glimpse of God’s wonderful way of thinking when he professed his faith in the Christ, but then when he heard about the Cross, he quickly fell back into the human way of thinking.

So what can we say about God’s way of thinking? How can we summarize it?

In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God; this was in the beginning with God. Through him all things were made. (Jn 1:1-3) The Word that is God, God the Son, the 2^nd person of the Holy Trinity, is, we can say, God’s eternal thought who reveals God’s way of thinking.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:14) So God’s eternal thought is made known to us, above all, through Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, God’s word to us.

This is what Peter glimpsed when he said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Mt 16:16)

But why would the Son of God do that? Why would he become man? To make God known to us, surely, but he could have done that without becoming man; the all-powerful God had a million ways and more to make himself known to us. No, he became man to overcome an obstacle, an obstacle to the realization of God’s wonderful, amazing plan.

So, he became man also to reveal God’s love to us. Indeed, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (Jn 3:14)

But there is still that obstacle. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (Jn 1:29) In his mercy God becomes man, makes himself and his love known to sinful man, and teaches us the way of life.

Even then, following our human way of thinking, we have two problems.

First, we don’t really think we are all that bad; we don’t really understand why it was necessary for the Son of God to die on the Cross. Why couldn’t God just forgive our sins? What harm did they really do to him?

Second, we could readily misunderstand the result; we could readily think that Jesus did all this to free us to live our life here, to thrive and be prosperous. We could think, “Alright, Jesus, if you say so, if you really need to go get crucified to accomplish your purpose, so be it. Thank you for doing that; thank you for setting us free to live our lives.”

Then, however, we will be brought to a halt by the law he gives us in today’s Gospel: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. That is the divine way of thinking. This is just as much the law of Jesus as his new commandment to love one another; indeed without the law of the Gospel given today we will misunderstand love one another. (cf. Jn 13:34)

Following Christ on the way of the Cross is something very difficult to say the least; we do not undertake difficult things unless we expect something great that will compensate for the difficulty. So St. Paul writes, the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us. (Rm 8:18) This is the glory of the children of God. (Rm 8:19)

And so: “The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’ [2 Pe 1:4]: ‘For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.’ [St. Irenaeus] ‘For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.’ [St. Athanasius] ‘The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.’ [St. Thomas Aquinas] (CCC 460)s

God did not become man to free us for a prosperous life in this world, but for a goal the greatness of which is worthy of himself; he became man to restore us to God, to unite us to God forever, to receive us into the embrace of the Holy Trinity.

Only when we begin to glimpse the greatness of God’s goal for humanity, can we also begin to grasp the gravity of sin that required the Son of God to become man and die on the cross, to remove the obstacle of sin and open for us the path to heaven. If we lived under the rule of a king, we might be able to grasp the gravity of rejecting an invitation to the royal wedding; sin is the rejection of the invitation to the divine wedding, a worse offense in proportion to the greatness of God over any human king. (cf. Mt 22:1-14)

The biggest stumbling block for us in relation to God was and is the Cross. (cf. 1 Cor 1:23-24) The Cross is unintelligible apart from the gravity of sin, which is unintelligible apart from the greatness of the heavenly goal.

So for the divine way of thinking, the Word becoming flesh is but the first step, the second being the crucifixion of the Son of God, as the Lamb of God who takes way the sins of the world; but the Cross is the way, not the goal; so the third step is the resurrection and the ascension into heaven, where he wishes to lead us. Since this is all for our sake and for our salvation, we must follow where he leads, through the Cross to heavenly glory.

This whole divine way of thinking is summed up in the Holy Eucharist, which really, truly, and substantially contains the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, crucified and risen, always given to us as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who nourishes us with the life of grace, transforms our soul from within, gives us strength to follow him upon the way of the Cross, and so leads us to eternal life.

Human thinking is content with a little bit in this world; God has planned a great and arduous work for us, but that is because he has in mind an even greater reward.