Discipline
In today’s second reading, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes about discipline. He tells the Hebrew people not to disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when He reproves them.
The word “discipline” creates certain images in our minds. We discipline our children. Or, we were disciplined when we were children. We may associate the word with “pain” because discipline can definitely be painful. It may be physically painful, or it may bring us mental or emotional pain. I think most of us think of pain and discipline as two sides of the same coin.
But, here’s the thing: The Greek word the writer used here is “paideia” and it’s translated as “discipline”, but it also means education. We see that usage in our modern language, too. In higher education, a discipline is a field of study. Mathematics is a discipline. Chemistry is a discipline. Social studies is a discipline.
When you think about it, the painful kind of discipline, the kind that might mean a smack on the backside, or being grounded, or losing some other privileges, is really about education, too. Isn’t it? How many times have we all been disciplined to “teach us a lesson”. My grade school principal had a paddle that he wasn’t afraid to use from time to time. He called it his “board of education”.
Another way to look at it is how many times have you heard someone vow to “teach that guy a lesson”? That usually doesn’t mean “I’m going to sit him down in a school desk and tell him about the French Revolution”, does it. The painful type of discipline usually teaches us something, or at least it should. When mom yelled at us when we started to cross the street without looking, it may have hurt our little feelings, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as getting hit by a car would have been.
The writer tells the Hebrews to endure their trials as discipline (and God knows the Hebrews had their share of trials) because later on it will bring them the fruits of righteousness. After all, if a good parent disciplines his children, how could an all-good God do any less? Wouldn’t he use discipline, the painful/educational type of discipline, to direct us in the way He wants us to go?
Pretty much every type of earthly but not holy human activity has some sort of cost attached to it. The people who want to enjoy those things will usually ignore the cost, or try to blame the cost on something else, but it’s there regardless.
Eat too much, you’re going to get fat. Drink too much, you’re at least going to have a hang-over. Worse, you may ruin your health, destroy your family, or worst of all kill yourself or someone else in a drunken-driving accident.
Promiscuous sexual activity can lead to disease and unwanted pregnancy. Living together before marriage gives a couple a distorted idea of what marriage is really about and leads to much higher rates of divorce.
There’s no free lunch when it comes to sin, but like the Hebrews of Jesus’ time, a lot of us either just don’t believe it, or we’re not smart enough to learn the lesson. We just don’t think a loving God would let us suffer, but it really doesn’t matter what we think, does it? It’s very clear from today’s Gospel that our actions can have eternal consequences.
Our casual attitude about God’s discipline leads us into some seriously wrong thinking. It’s probably not something that happens overnight, but gradually we begin to excuse ourselves from our obligations to our God. We begin to think that we don’t really have to go to mass every Sunday. Surely that’s not what keeping the Sabath day holy is all about. It doesn’t hurt if I sleep in just once in a while. Then once in a while turns into most of the time and next thing you know I’m going to mass on Christmas and Easter.
Or we convince ourselves that we don’t have to follow all of the Church’s teachings. After all, they’re just man-made rules anyway. Besides, the Church is out of touch with the twenty-first century. They should try to keep up with the times.
And, why do I have to give my money to the Church? The church has lots of money already. I see the bulletin. Our parish is doing just fine. I’ll just give them a few bucks a week. That should be enough.
I’ve said every single one of these things myself. It took me a long time to figure out what God was trying to teach me through his discipline.
So what? What’s the big deal if we DON’T learn from God’s discipline? Luke gives us the answer in today’s Gospel. If we don’t learn these lessons, this discipline from our Heavenly Father, we’re going to be on the outside looking in when our judgment day comes. “After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, “Lord, open the door for us.” And he’ll say that He doesn’t know us.
“There will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of god and you yourselves cast out.” I imagine it will be even worse when we see Aunt Mary, and cousin Bob, and the guy from across the street inside the gate while we’re on the outside looking in.
We have no idea of what heaven and hell are like, but I suppose that if hell were nothing more than not being let into heaven, it would an unbearable punishment. That’s all it would take. There wouldn’t have to be fire, or brimstone, or a red guy with horns and a pitchfork running around. Just knowing that I had the chance to spend eternity in the presence of God, and that I'd blown it, would be more than enough damnation for me.
But we have the chance to avoid being tormented for all eternity if we just pay attention to what God’s trying to tell us. Accept the discipline. Learn from it. Use it to point you in the right direction.
When a submarine fires a torpedo, there are a lot of things that can keep the torpedo from hitting its target. There are currents that move the missle from one side to the other and up and down. The currents alone can cause the torpedo to go way off course. It’s not the torpedo’s fault. It’s outside the torpedo’s control.
But the torpedo has help. Over and over it sends out signals to its target and waits for them to bounce back. If the signal says, “look out, you’re going too high”, the torpedo corrects itself and gets back on course. If the next signal says. “oops, now you’re too low“, the torpedo corrects itself again and gets back on course. This happens over and over until the torpedo reaches its target, thanks to the discipline of the guidance system.
We have a guidance system too. It comes from God in the form of the scriptures, and the teachings of the Church. If we follow God’s guidance system, then we can assume we’ll be welcomed into His heavenly home when our judgment day comes.
Like the man said:
"At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it."
The word “discipline” creates certain images in our minds. We discipline our children. Or, we were disciplined when we were children. We may associate the word with “pain” because discipline can definitely be painful. It may be physically painful, or it may bring us mental or emotional pain. I think most of us think of pain and discipline as two sides of the same coin.
But, here’s the thing: The Greek word the writer used here is “paideia” and it’s translated as “discipline”, but it also means education. We see that usage in our modern language, too. In higher education, a discipline is a field of study. Mathematics is a discipline. Chemistry is a discipline. Social studies is a discipline.
When you think about it, the painful kind of discipline, the kind that might mean a smack on the backside, or being grounded, or losing some other privileges, is really about education, too. Isn’t it? How many times have we all been disciplined to “teach us a lesson”. My grade school principal had a paddle that he wasn’t afraid to use from time to time. He called it his “board of education”.
Another way to look at it is how many times have you heard someone vow to “teach that guy a lesson”? That usually doesn’t mean “I’m going to sit him down in a school desk and tell him about the French Revolution”, does it. The painful type of discipline usually teaches us something, or at least it should. When mom yelled at us when we started to cross the street without looking, it may have hurt our little feelings, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as getting hit by a car would have been.
The writer tells the Hebrews to endure their trials as discipline (and God knows the Hebrews had their share of trials) because later on it will bring them the fruits of righteousness. After all, if a good parent disciplines his children, how could an all-good God do any less? Wouldn’t he use discipline, the painful/educational type of discipline, to direct us in the way He wants us to go?
Pretty much every type of earthly but not holy human activity has some sort of cost attached to it. The people who want to enjoy those things will usually ignore the cost, or try to blame the cost on something else, but it’s there regardless.
Eat too much, you’re going to get fat. Drink too much, you’re at least going to have a hang-over. Worse, you may ruin your health, destroy your family, or worst of all kill yourself or someone else in a drunken-driving accident.
Promiscuous sexual activity can lead to disease and unwanted pregnancy. Living together before marriage gives a couple a distorted idea of what marriage is really about and leads to much higher rates of divorce.
There’s no free lunch when it comes to sin, but like the Hebrews of Jesus’ time, a lot of us either just don’t believe it, or we’re not smart enough to learn the lesson. We just don’t think a loving God would let us suffer, but it really doesn’t matter what we think, does it? It’s very clear from today’s Gospel that our actions can have eternal consequences.
Our casual attitude about God’s discipline leads us into some seriously wrong thinking. It’s probably not something that happens overnight, but gradually we begin to excuse ourselves from our obligations to our God. We begin to think that we don’t really have to go to mass every Sunday. Surely that’s not what keeping the Sabath day holy is all about. It doesn’t hurt if I sleep in just once in a while. Then once in a while turns into most of the time and next thing you know I’m going to mass on Christmas and Easter.
Or we convince ourselves that we don’t have to follow all of the Church’s teachings. After all, they’re just man-made rules anyway. Besides, the Church is out of touch with the twenty-first century. They should try to keep up with the times.
And, why do I have to give my money to the Church? The church has lots of money already. I see the bulletin. Our parish is doing just fine. I’ll just give them a few bucks a week. That should be enough.
I’ve said every single one of these things myself. It took me a long time to figure out what God was trying to teach me through his discipline.
So what? What’s the big deal if we DON’T learn from God’s discipline? Luke gives us the answer in today’s Gospel. If we don’t learn these lessons, this discipline from our Heavenly Father, we’re going to be on the outside looking in when our judgment day comes. “After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, “Lord, open the door for us.” And he’ll say that He doesn’t know us.
“There will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of god and you yourselves cast out.” I imagine it will be even worse when we see Aunt Mary, and cousin Bob, and the guy from across the street inside the gate while we’re on the outside looking in.
We have no idea of what heaven and hell are like, but I suppose that if hell were nothing more than not being let into heaven, it would an unbearable punishment. That’s all it would take. There wouldn’t have to be fire, or brimstone, or a red guy with horns and a pitchfork running around. Just knowing that I had the chance to spend eternity in the presence of God, and that I'd blown it, would be more than enough damnation for me.
But we have the chance to avoid being tormented for all eternity if we just pay attention to what God’s trying to tell us. Accept the discipline. Learn from it. Use it to point you in the right direction.
When a submarine fires a torpedo, there are a lot of things that can keep the torpedo from hitting its target. There are currents that move the missle from one side to the other and up and down. The currents alone can cause the torpedo to go way off course. It’s not the torpedo’s fault. It’s outside the torpedo’s control.
But the torpedo has help. Over and over it sends out signals to its target and waits for them to bounce back. If the signal says, “look out, you’re going too high”, the torpedo corrects itself and gets back on course. If the next signal says. “oops, now you’re too low“, the torpedo corrects itself again and gets back on course. This happens over and over until the torpedo reaches its target, thanks to the discipline of the guidance system.
We have a guidance system too. It comes from God in the form of the scriptures, and the teachings of the Church. If we follow God’s guidance system, then we can assume we’ll be welcomed into His heavenly home when our judgment day comes.
Like the man said:
"At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it."
posted by Mike at 9:53 PM
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