Click this link to read, to listen to, and/or to watch Lisa Frey’s reflection on this week’s readings. God willing, I’ll be back to posting my own reflections next week. Thanks for visiting Sitting with the Sacred. I hope you’ll come again soon.
I first heard the reflection that inspired today’s post as part of the Hallow App’s Advent #Pray25 Challenge. Though I’ll be writing about the reflection from Day 24 of the prayer challenge, which was released on December 21, I decided I’d go back to it for this week’s post because it invites me to imagine I’m one of the shepherds from the Christmas story.
The reflection reminded me that the Old Testament “is full of” shepherds — David for one— who were also leaders of their people. However, by the time of Jesus’s birth the life of a shepherd was not an esteemed one. Shepherds spent much of their time not within communities but outside of them and in the company not of other people but of smelly, dirty animals. One of the narrators of the reflection, Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in the series The Chosen, says that because of the isolation and company (or lack thereof) associated with their occupations, shepherds were often thought of as “coarse” and assumed to be criminals.
Now that I’ve shared this context, I’m going to listen to the reflection again. As I do, I’ll share what comes to me. You can listen to the reflection here. (If the link doesn’t give you access to the reflection, please let me know.)
My first thought is that, given the historical, it’s no wonder the translation of Luke 2:9 included in the reflection says they were terrified. Not only are they confronted with sights and sounds they’ve never seen before and don’t have the words to describe, but also they’re being given news that it seems they’re meant to share with “everyone.”
In response to this message, I can imagine a first-century shepherd thinking, “Of all people, why has God chosen me to receive this news now, and why would anyone listen to me if I repeat it? Why would anyone believe me if they listen?
God understands where these questions are coming from. At the same time, God strengthens their faith by telling them, through an angel, what the Divine Presence looks like and where He could be found in the most complete and tangible way on that night.
The shepherds being chosen as the first people outside Jesus’ family to receive the news of his birth is a reminder that God doesn’t use the criteria that humans sometimes use when making choices. God doesn’t rely on sight or any other biological sense when God chooses someone, nor is God’s ability to choose wisely negatively affected by past experiences with other people or even with the person God chooses. It’s often said there is no linear time for God the way there is for us. I take this to mean that there is no past or future in God’s perception. In some way that I can’t understand as I experience linear time, past, present, and future are all unfolding at once for God. And yet, Luke tells us, God entered time by being born of Mary in a stable.
At the invitation of reflection, I imagine myself a shepherd who approaches that stable and the holy family in it. I imagine Mary turning toward the sound of my approach and trying to rise from lying in the straw. I tell her not to trouble herself, that I’ve heard something of what she’s been through. I recount what the angel said.
Mary says nothing, but despite my protests, she sits up and gestures for me to come to her. I do as she asks, and she lifts her baby from the manger. Before I have a chance to step back, she’s placing the baby into my arms.
Dear God, help me hold him gently but firmly. Don’t let me hurt him. What would become of me? Of him? Of this sorrowful world if I dropped him?
He begins to cry.
The sound brings me back into the present of that stable. I focus on making him feel secure. In doing so, I relish his soft solidness and the warmth of him as he wriggles out of the cloths in which his mother has wrapped him. I see to it that he is swaddled snugly once again.
He already smells like the donkey who’s been watching over him. The smell is not unlike that of the sheep whose odor I carry.
Jesus, thank you for trusting me to come to you, to hold you. You were so vulnerable at your birth and at your death so that I could approach you when I am at my most vulnerable. Thank you for the gift of vulnerability — mine and yours. Amen.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
Matthew 1:19-20
This isn’t the post I was working on last week before I realized it needed more time. I’ll come back to that one when the readings lend themselves to the ideas and experiences I was wrestling with. This week, I’d like to sit with Joseph, as the Gospel reading, Matthew 1-18-24 invites me to.
Joseph is caught in the middle of what must have seemed like a huge no-win situation. The woman he intends to take into his home as his wife is carrying a child, and he isn’t the father of that child. I imagine Joseph thinking he should divorce Mary because all the evidence—except for I imagine what she’s told him about the visit from the angel — says she’s been unfaithful to the covenant made between him and her father. If the usual explanation for Mary’s condition is the truth and not the explanation she has given, the Law says Joseph has a right — and is probably expected — to divorce her.
But we’re told Joseph is a righteous man. Given this information, I like to think that his internal comes not only from not wanting to expose Mary to a public disgrace that might result in her being stoned. I’d like to think that deep down, he’d rather not divorce her quietly. Really, he’d rather not divorce her at all. I imagine him having had such high hopes for the future of his marriage and family. I imagine he cherished Mary’s deep love for God, her family, her friends, and her village. I imagine him having trouble believing Mary would betray that love and fearing that Mary’s pregnancy has come about as a result of violence on the part of an occupying soldier. (I don’t think I’m the first writer to put these thoughts in Joseph’s head. I think the movie The Nativity Story depicts him asking Mary if a Roman soldier is the father of her child, but I could be thinking of a different adaptation.) I imagine him thinking that if Mary is a survivor of such violence, who knows how the trauma has changed her. No wonder she’s not making sense. Maybe her mind is telling her this story about a visit from an angel because she blocked out what really happened. If this is the case, he wants to offer her and her child the shelter of his good name and his home even more than he did before he found out she was pregnant.
This train of thought leads Joseph back to the reality that people will talk. No matter how he handles the situation, people will talk. The life of a workman striving to nurture and to support a godly family was always going to be challenging. No matter what choice he makes, he now knows that his life will be exponentially more challenging than he thought it would. This situation is an invitation to be more concerned with living righteously than with worrying about offending the sensibilities of influential people.
These are all thoughts I imagine cycling through Joseph’s mind before the angel enters his dream. And then what does the angel have to say to him? “Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home” (Matt. 1: 20). I’ll continue by paraphrasing Mathew 1:20-24: “Mary hasn’t broken any covenant. The child she carries was conceived by the Spirit of God and is the Son of God, God with Creation.”
The angel’s message lays to rest Joseph’s doubts and calms his fears about what has happened to Mary. In other words, he has received consolation regarding troubling developments in his own life. He has also been chosen as one of the first to witnesses to the fulfillment God’s promise to send a Messiah.
Nonetheless, the angel’s message doesn’t promise that Joseph’s life will be any easier, thanks to his role in salvation history. He had to have wondered how he could teach the Son of God how to be a righteous man. He had to have wondered who would be the student and who would be the teacher, and I wonder if, on some level, he knew the answer was that he and Jesus would be both to each other. He had to wonder how people would accept a Messiah who had been brought up by a humble workman. I’m imagining Joseph wondering whether God would expect him to change how he supported his family so that the Messiah would be better prepared to lead his people.
The answer to this question seems to have been “No.” God is going to work through and to grow up with the help on the man who Joseph is. This process isn’t going to be smooth. The world that Jesus comes into — our world — is very broken by sin. And yet, God loves each of us as much as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.
In reflecting on this reading, I’m reminded that in becoming human, God didn’t end suffering. He entered into it and took it upon Himself so that it wouldn’t have the last word. Perfect love will. It’s a Love that doesn’t forget anyone. It holds close those who are afraid, ostracized, overlooked, ashamed, lonely, and vulnerable.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm
I want to go to the place described in Isaiah 11:1-10. The passage describes what a kingdom united to one on whom “the spirit of the Lord shall rest” will look like (Isa. 11:2). I’ve just quoted a single verse from the passage, but the excerpt in its entirety offers such beautiful imagery. Read the entire passage. If you’re like me, you’ll come away feeling all kinds of warm fuzzies.
In case you don’t have time to look the passage up right now, I still want this post to make sense, so I’ll summarize the verses. The Anointed One is wise, humble, and just. He “lifts up” every valley and makes every hill “low” (Isa. 40:4). In other words, he smooths everything out. His virtues effect eternal peace among and within all that is. The psalm further expands on the presentation of what this peace will look and feel like.
So does the third reading, even though it doesn’t paint an idyllic picture of the future and instead instructs the members of the early Christian community in Rome about how to conduct themselves. They are to look to the Scriptures for “encouragement that [they] might have hope” as they endure successive present moments that fall short of the promises that the first two readings make (Rom. 15:4).
When I first heard the third reading this time around, I don’t think I actually got its message. I found it difficult to see Paul’s instructions as part of fulfilling those promises. Romans 15:5 says to “think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The source of my struggle was that between most recently hearing this reading and returning to it as I prepared to write this post, I remembered it including a verse that tells Christians to be “of one mind.” These aren’t the words I’m seeing either in publications of the Sunday Readings or in my Bible. Nevertheless, a quick Google search for where “of one mind” appears in the New Testament letters brings up Philippians 2:2, whose message is very similar to Romans: 15:5.
I’m glad the epistle for this week was the passage from Romans and wasn’t a passage including Philippians 2:2. My gut reaction is that the instruction to be “of one mind” means that to be united with God and with each other means to agree about everything, to be essentially the same person, or maybe to be multiple robots produced by following one blueprint. But contrary to this (lack of) understanding, Paul assures the flock in Corinth that “there are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:4).When I went back to Romans 5:5 in light of this message, I noticed that the verse wants us to be in “harmony with one another. [Italics mine]”
Here’s what I’ve learned from my time in school and church choirs about what it means to be in harmony: it means one singing part blending with another so that the parts enrich each other’s qualities. When I hear a choir, my ears don’t perceive the parts as separate components unless I work hard to distinguish the individual parts. Instead, I perceive the components as one, rich sound that would be missing something without each part. Harmony fills out a musical competition, giving it movement, depth, and nuance. A musical composition without harmony sounds thinner and flimsier than one with it.
Applying my limited musical knowledge and skills to the third reading reminds me that being in harmony doesn’t mean that we must never disagree, nor does it mean that we should all be the same. Rather, it means being open to each other’s gifts. Being open to each other’s gifts is essential for each of us to reflect who we are in God. We can think differently and be different from each other and still “[w]elcome one another” (Rom. 15:7). We don’t have to distance ourselves from those who are different from us. To “welcome one another” is not to let fear disrupt the harmony God wants us to enjoy with each other and with Him. It is to recognize the truth that God works through each of us because of our differences — differences that, when employed for “produc[ing] good fruit,” blend to make one sound that’s all the richer for being layered (Mat. 3:8).
The Bible.The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm
As a whole, the readings above offer a lot of hope. They tell me that people from every nation, regardless of their circumstances, are invited to enter God’s kingdom. They remind me that “[my] salvation is nearer now than when [I] first believed” (Rom 13:11, The New American Bible Revised Edition).
Yet even as these readings inspire me, I find them daunting. The first reading tells me that its promises won’t be fulfilled without me first fighting a battle that won’t just be an uphill one. It will be an “upmountain” one. Isaiah envisions the place where God dwells as being on the summit of a mountain because the Jewish people had a long history of meeting God on peaks. These settings seem fitting because Scripture reminds me that God’s ways are not my ways. They are high above [my] own (Isa. 55:8-9). In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he reminds me to “think about what is above” (3:2).
However, if I take the concept of “climb[ing] the Lord’s mountain” out of the context of the rest of the passage, the words carry connotations of a meeting with God being the result of an achievement on my part (Isa. 2:3, The New American Bible, 2001) It isn’t. Isaiah calls me to make the trip “that [God] may instruct [me] in his ways and [I] may walk in his paths (Isa. 2:3). I have a lot left to learn and to do. The learning and doing will mean letting go in order to transcend “what is on earth” (Col. 3:2). It will mean letting go of the weights of selfishness and self-centeredness. It will mean recognizing that whatever is not God or does not share God’s character is temporary and may act like a weight that holds down the balloon of my soul and keep it from ascending to God. The heavier the weight, the harder it is to get out from under. I can’t just shrug it off. Only Someone above me can lift it, and that Someone is God. But God often doesn’t pry out of my hands what I have a white-knuckle grip on. Instead God waits for me to release to Him the burdens of selfishness that I clutch to myself, though His cross would lift them from me if I let it.
Still, it feels like another kind of burden to lay the burden of selfishness on the cross because it can be hard to recognize selfishness for what it is. It can feel like a weighted blanket I hide under. To come out from under this blanket is to be at my most vulnerable, to be naked, to stand out rather than be camouflaged by the temporary trappings of day-to-day life.
I won’t have forever to act as the Divine reflection on earth that I was born to be — that each of us is born to be. My time on earth may well end when I least expect it to end, on a day that previously seemed as uneventful as the one before it. May I recognize opportunities to act selflessly, to build community, and to make peace while I have these opportunities. This is the prayer that the New Testament reading I cite at the beginning of this post inspires me to offer. Amen.
The Bible.The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm
At the start of this week’s post, I think I should confess something: I forgot that with this coming week including Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t be able to follow my usual schedule for drafting posts. I posted last week’s entry and went on to other writing projects, glad that I had published my most recent post earlier in the week than I had the one that came before it. Only just now did I realize that with Thanksgiving coming up, I’m not ahead. I’m behind. So who knows how many mistakes I will leave behind in this post. Who knows how many things I’ll get wrong? I commend this post to God as I begin it, and to anyone reading it, Happy Thanksgiving, if you’re celebrating this week, and thanks, in advance, for your understanding.
November 20th is the last Sunday before Advent this year. Advent will be the time of spiritual and practical preparation for the Christmas season. The Christmas season traditionally begins on Christmas Eve and continues for three weeks after that.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to November 20th. It’s the Solemnity of Christ the King. The name of this Sunday got me thinking about what kind of king Christ is. He certainly doesn’t fit some images that come to my mind of earthly kings. He came to earth in a place that was a far cry from a sprawling palace. He did the opposite of keep his distance from all that was and is subject to Him. Instead, he shared his image with us. And bearing the image of God has far more to do with qualities of the spirit, heart, and mind than with the body alone, though he did and does have a human body and knows all the needs and challenges that come with having one. His hands and feet helped him carry out his mission here on Earth and helped to show us how to do the same, so that we could be his hands and feet once his earthly mission was complete.
He’s close to us not just because He became human but because He comes to us appearing like bread and wine and invites us to take his body and blood into our own. Though in Him “all things hold together,” He surrenders Himself to us in this way and in so many other ways through material gifts and the gifts of creation (Col. 1:17). He is not about gaining wealth.
He’s not about dominating others either. His message is that power comes, not in dominance, but in service and in cooperation. He doesn’t force His will on us. He leaves it up to us whether to see with his eyes, and His heart, and to act as His hands and feet. He respects the freedom and dignity of each of us.
He talks about a “kingdom” or a “reign,” depending on which translation of the Bible a person uses, but I can’t think of a verse where he refers to himself directly as a king. I think that’s because He possesses power in ways that human beings struggle to understand and/or to accept. He didn’t come “to be served but to serve,” “to testify to the truth,” and to show us how to live (Mark 10:45; John 18:37). Humans don’t have perfect words to describe His way of living, yet He had only words to describe it, so he used something like “kingdom” (Mark 1:15).
To me, the use of the word “kingdom” or “reign” is about characterizing that God is near and everywhere — above, within, among. And the existence of everything that gives life is thanks to God, even if we can’t always wrap our minds around this reality. To paraphrase Richard Rohr, the “kingdom” or the “reign” of God is about the Person who is the Source of and the relationship between all that’s good. Each of us plays an indispensable role in making that Source and our relationship to Him visible and active.
The Bible.The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven [brothers] had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
Luke 20: 33-36
I struggle with these verses because they seem to take a view of marriage as existing only for the continuation of humanity. This view of marriage is not very appealing to me. Let’s face it: I’m a romantic. I like the idea of the intimacy of a healthy marriage. I want such intimacy in my life after my time here on earth. So I take comfort in indications from other Scripture passages that if I strive to remain aware of the Divine Presence and strive to let it work in me in this life, I’ll find intimacy in the next one, even if anyone who can no longer die doesn’t need to reproduce. For an extensive discussion of where wedding imagery appears in the Scriptures, search for Bride of Christ on Wikipedia.
The parable in Matthew 25:1-13 implies that Jesus is a bridegroom, and the bridegroom arrives to enter the wedding feast. Anyone who doesn’t lose faith that the bridegroom will come and has prepared for his arrival will join the bridegroom at the feast (Matt. 25:10). Who is the bridegroom marrying? Anyone who has cultivated a relationship with him and is ready to consummate that relationship because anything that used to get in its has been removed. Anyone who enters into that consummation has become the person God created him or her to become. (See Klein.)
Such a person wears no masks, costumes or anything else from his or her mortal life. He or she surrounds him or herself with no defenses and carries no inhibitions because he or she doesn’t need to. There’s nothing to hide or defend against because all has been revealed and all that is not from God has melted away. (See 1 Cor. 3: 15 and Heb. 12:27 and 29.) The guests of honor at the wedding feast no longer know lack of any kind. (See Rev. 21:14) Their deepest desires are fulfilled, so they have no reason to be selfish, no reason not to be fully open to all God is and all God offers, nor are they left with any reason to be less than fully open to each other our and what each other offers.
The reality of eternal life is not merely one of intellectual existence. (Again, see Klein.) I don’t think of it as an eternal staring contest between the bridegroom and all his beloveds either. Instead, I think of it as creativity experienced to its fullest. After earthly life, if we are fully open to creativity at its fullest, who is the bridegroom of Scripture, we find ourselves in union with him and others who are united with Him. It’s a state that doesn’t mean the loss of intimacy but rather the fullness of it—because eternal intimacy isn’t limited by time, space, or anything else. It is intimacy with dimensions beyond our imagination, and it’s unending.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm
But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent. For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; . . . . [y]our imperishable spirit is in all things!
Wisdom 11:23-26 and 12:1
I’m starting with these verses because it would be helpful to me if they were permanently engraved into my mind. If your Bible doesn’t include the book called Wisdom, look it up. It’s an offering of poetically presented but practical advice and encouragement, just like Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are.
These verses are part of the Old Testament readings for October 30, and for good reason, it seems to me. Why? Because the New Testament reading for that day, Luke 19:1-10, tells the story of Zacchaeus and his neighbors. It’s a story that, for me, inspires a lot of questions. It says Zacchaeus was “seeking to see who Jesus was,” not that he wanted to listen to Jesus or talk to Jesus or even see what Jesus looked like. No, he wanted “to see who Jesus was” (Luke 19:3). [italics mine]. This says to me that he was curious about Jesus’ character and identity. Why does he think he can find what he seeks using nothing more than his eyes?
Well, Wisdom 12:1 tells me it’s not just his physical eyes that are at work. More is already going on here than meets the physical eye. That “imperishable spirit that is “in all things” is already at work in him. Maybe he knows it. I imagine he longs for the days when he was a valued and respected member of the community. I imagine he longs for the days when he didn’t see his reflection in a puddle and find looking back at him a man dressed in finery he had obtained by not sharing with his less fortunate neighbors, by extorting his them even, and in doing so, by betraying the call and community he had received as “a descendent of Abraham” (Luke 19:8-9).
I wondered what had caused the behavior that cut him off from his people. I began my quest for possible answers by looking “extort” on m-w.com and found it defined as “to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power.” I wonder why he got started down unjust paths. Maybe he was just prone to greed and selfishness. Or maybe as he was growing up, his family barely had enough to survive. Maybe he had felt powerless and as he came of age, greed and selfishness were the shields he put up to protect himself from the fear of repeating the struggles in his past. Maybe Roman authorities were extorting him, requiring him to meet certain quotas to protect himself and to be able to continue protecting and providing for his family. Regardless of why he had become the person he had become, I get the feeling that giving “half of [his] possessions… to the poor and paying back “four times over” anyone he has extorted would cost him more than material goods (Luke 19:8).
If Zacchaeus keeps his promises, he’ll have to face people he has badly hurt — probably not just in ways that affected them in the short term. He may have to face that he has made others suffer in ways that still others once made him suffer. Facing such a reality would reopen old wounds as would giving away the possessions he may have used to help himself feel secure. And these costs don’t take into account that Roman authorities may not appreciate his generosity. Their lack of appreciation could bring another level of hardship — or worse—to him and his family.
Perhaps the Roman authorities would bear appraising if they didn’t allow Zacchaeus to keep his promises of reparation and so they wouldn’t punish him. But I have my doubts. I remember the decisions I’ve read that authorities made during Jesus’s final pilgrimage to Jerusalem. If I had cost like these and the material ones Zacchaeus has promised to pay on my horizon, I have a hard time believing I’d have the faith to follow through. As I write this, however, I pray for that kind of faith. Faith aside, maybe Zacchaeus’ own fear the crowds and what they could accomplish will encourage him to keep his promises. The Lord works in all kinds of ways.
Maybe when Zacchaeus keeps his promises, his neighbors will forgive his unjust behavior toward them. But I bet the forgiveness will take time, and the time between fulfillment of the promise and the forgiveness will be difficult. Who knows what the people have lost as a result of Zacchaeus’ actions that cannot be paid back. Poverty has many ways of taking lives.
I imagine that some of the people in Jericho that day may have hoped Jesus would provide them relief from their poverty — for example, by healing a sick or injured family member so that person could return to contributing to the well-being of the family. And I imagine that while Jesus was in their midst he did work miracles. Yet other Gospel stories suggest not everyone who clambered after Jesus received what they had hoped to. When I consider this likelihood and that Jesus spent part of his time in Jericho having dinner with a person who contributed to the suffering of people who sought Jesus’s help and guidance, the Lord’s invitation to himself is challenging as much as consoling. I empathize with the people who call Zacchaeus out as a sinner.
Then there’s the reason I do find the story consoling. The narrative doesn’t tell me whether Zacchaeus kept his promises. Jesus announces that he’s coming to dinner at the tax collectors house before the promises are fulfilled. Now that’s mercy. That’s “overlook[ing] people’s sins so they may repent [italics mine] (Wis. 11:23). Jesus seems to know that Zacchaeus is going to keep his promises (Luke 19:9). I imagine that Jesus wants to reassure the crowd and Zacchaeus of this. Moving forward in time, I also heard somewhere — where I don’t remember — my apologies if you are the source — that names are mentioned in the Gospels when a person was known in the Christian community at the time the gospel was written. That says something about how things might have turned out for Zacchaeus. But as I go back to experiencing Luke’s story of Zacchaeus as if it currently unfolding, the message I get is this: Jesus knows — and wants to remind us and the extorted crowd — that Zacchaeus, like all the rest of us, needs to know that, no matter what a person has done, God wants his or her company. Zacchaeus needs to know God’s unconditional love before he can give it back to God and share it with the people around him. All of us need the same.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.174, Universalis Publishing Ltd.,7 Oct. 2022, https://universalis.com/.
The Old Testament and New Testament readings from this weekend offer reassurance for those times when we face helplessness, hostility, injustice, despair, and discouragement.
In Exodus 17:8-13, Moses, by himself, can’t send the army attacking his people into retreat. He can pray, but even that gets hard to do without stopping. That’s why God works through relationships, so others can support us when the balloons of our faith, which are inflated with persistence, deflate. In Exodus 17:12-13, support takes the form of Aaron and Hur holding up Moses’ arms whenever they grow fatigued from being extended in prayer.
The next time I’m the person whose balloon of faith is deflated, I’ll take comfort in Luke 18:1-8. It tells me that just making a habit of talking to God will open me to closer union with God, to doing God’s will, and to receiving God’s gifts. Even when the balloon of with my faith is no larger than a mustard seed, when my faith is more about being consistent than about growing in love, it has the power to shape me for the better, little by little, like a creek carving a canyon. Even when my faith is far from bottomless and my love far from unselfish, both virtues can sculpt me into my best self. They’ll grow in me — as long as I don’t give up on them.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
“The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
Luke 17:5-6
This weekend, when I heard Luke 17:5-10, I found myself imagining the apostles second-guessing their decisions to drop whatever they had been doing and follow Jesus. They’d seen healings and heard a Divine voice, but they were also still seeing so much injustice and suffering. Wasn’t the Messiah supposed to end injustice and bring peace — for all people of goodwill? I imagined the apostles weren’t just seeing suffering. They were feeling it. Maybe the day they made the plea recounted in verse 5, their body aches and dry skin were demanding their attention more than usual. Maybe they missed their families, too. It had been a while since they’d feasted and toasted any newlyweds. I heard their request as being akin to saying to Jesus, “We’re running on empty. We need to refuel, spiritually. And fast. What’s the best way to do that?”
“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’”
Luke 17:7-10
The reason I put the apostles’ plea in this context is the rest of the reading. Remember, it doesn’t end with Jesus’ reassurance about the power of a tiny seed of faith. What comes after the well-known images of the mustard seed and the mulberry tree is a parable about an “unprofitable servant” (Luke 17:10). Was this servant disobedient? No. He merely did only what was required of him (17:10). Because he doesn’t exceed the minimum requirements of being a servant, he’s unprofitable. Maybe another way to understand what makes him unprofitable would be to say that he follows the letter of what’s asked of him, but not the spirit. He obeys the master but doesn’t love him the way God loves him. He doesn’t treat the master like a beloved family member. (Of course, a human employer would be called to treat his employee the same way; faith trusts that God does that). Faith also doesn’t expect an immediate reward and is open to rewards taking different forms than expected. In other words, humility, perseverance, generosity, and patience are essential characteristics of faith.
Now, everything I’ve written in this post so far is inspired by my initial reactions while hearing the Gospel reading this weekend. Once I heard the homily, it became apparent that I wasn’t the only one this weekend to use this reading as a reflection—not just on the power of faith, but also on what faith is. The homilist spoke about what faith is, too. He said, “Faith is a gift from God and a response to that gift.” He went on to share three stories. One was about a mother diagnosed with cancer being confident that God would use her diagnosis for some greater purpose and being curious about what that use would look like. Another story was about a nun diagnosed with cancer who surprised the doctor because she didn’t look unhappy about the diagnosis. “Either way, I win,” the priest quoted the nun as saying. “Of course I’ll take the treatment.” If it worked, she’d gone serving God here on earth. And if it didn’t, she had faith that she would come to rest in the fullness of God’s presence. These were the second and third stories the priest told. The first was about St. Maximilian Kolbe, about whose life and martyrdom you can read here.
Only in the case of St. Maximilian Kolbe did the homilist reveal the outcome — at least the earthly one. These stories are reminders that faith doesn’t guarantee an easy journey. It doesn’t mean being certain about how this or that development is going to turn out. It means accepting our crosses, and not only that, according to the parable that makes up the second part of the Gospel reading for this Sunday. Faith means embracing crosses—not in the sense that we have to pretend that we like them—but in the sense that we trust they have meaning, and without knowing what that meaning is, we trust that God doesn’t want us to carry burdens in vain or alone. After all, God sent Jesus to carry our crosses with us and to keep them from destroying our souls. Furthermore, we can be the ones who turn our crosses into ways to serve the common good. We can help others to carry and to find purpose in their crosses.
I, for one, have a lifelong history of not embracing many of the crosses in my life. But I take comfort in the fact that every moment is a new opportunity to practice the faith I wrestled with in this post. Lord, help me. Amen.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Sitting with the Sacred 