Manifesto: Enough of Enough!

A Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter 2026

The Crucified & Risen Christ returns to us with wounds in his hands, not a measuring stick!

One of the most searing accusations Jesus makes against the religious leaders of his day is that: They place burdens on others and do not lift a finger to help. And, in the midst of the battle between Jews and Gentiles in the early Christian community, and communicated to us in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter says: “Why, then, are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?”

We tend to live our faith as if it required the imposition of maximum burden. When all along its been about learning how to receive excessive Life! We have been set on an utterly new trajectory toward life and life abundant!

So, Sacrificial Life is over! Moral Perfection is uncovered as never possible and never asked of us. The Crucified & Risen Christ desires one thing for all of us: that WE LIVE!

And living requires growth. And living requires change. Living deepens and expands by failure and through the wild and intentional work of healing. The Fullness of Life can only be lived through the wounds and not by a measuring stick!

And all we must do (all we can do) is stay in relationship with the One who loves us and is Life itself. He alone can transform even our greatest sin, our deepest shame. He alone can walk with us through the wounds of a life and make those wounds the very portals of richer and more precious life.

Sacrificial Life is over! That means we do not need (indeed never did need) to live Measure for Measure. The life God desires for us cannot be measured. He invites us to live by a Measureless-Measure, because the life he offers us is beyond anything we could ever measure, count, earn, or deserve!

Not too long ago I returned to St. Teresa of Avila’s famous line: Solo Dios Basta! “God alone is enough!” And finally, I believe, I realized what Teresa meant. Those are profound words of outlandish liberation. She meant: WE don’t have to be enough because with God there is no such thing as enough. I don’t need to put all the effort and energy of my one beautiful life into being Good enough, Smart enough, Strong enough, Holy enough… In God there is NO SUCH THING AS ENOUGH! God says to each of us: “I never asked you to be enough. And if there is any enough, then I’m it! Stay in me, remain in me, dwell in me, and you will see: There is no such thing as enough. So, stop measuring your way to enough and, as a necessary by-product, always judging yourself and your brother and sister as never measuring up!”

The lie of Sacrificial Religion, Sacrificial Life; the illusion of Moral Perfection is that enough is possible and not only that, enough is demanded of us by God. And what kind of life does that leave us in? Moral Perfection is a lie. Purity Culture is a trap. Rigid rule keeping is deadly. Enough will never be enough because in God enough does not exist. It just reduces us to little people running around with our little measuring sticks hoping at some point to see some real progress so we can put our trust in our own efforts rather than in God. And in doing so we can find it too much pleasure in uncovering and declaring the failure of others, as a means to distract ourselves from our own.

The Crucified & Risen Christ comes back to us with wounds in his hands, not a measuring stick! Again and again, he tells us: You don’t need to measure because the life I give you is measureless. Instead turn your focus on how you can heal because in healing there is a Love Energy (the Holy Spirit itself) released afresh and that Spirit unleashed can exponentially expand our healing into healing for others and then what do we discover? Not enough, but rather the true center of our very existence: Abundant Life! All Jesus wants for any of us is to Live! And life is change. And life is growth. And life requires failure and it requires our willingness to heal by staying in relationship to the only One who can transform any failure, no matter how grim, into the fullness of Life fully Alive in each of us!

The Crucified & Risen Christ returns with wounds in his hands and not a measuring stick! The Life he promises cannot be measured but only set free by our intentionally walking through the wounds of life and finding true healing. The Spirit he sends us works by a measureless-measure and will not submit to our measuring sticks and our desperate attempts to be enough.

Let today be the day we each say: I’ve had enough of enough! Instead let us turn our energies towards walking through the wounds of life, recommit to healing and staying in relationship with the One who can take that healing and expand it beyond our imagining. Jesus says to us once again today: I live and all I want for you is to be truly, fully ALIVE as well!

It is time to say: “Enough of Enough!”