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/.
I almost never serve God entirely willingly. Starting to draft this post is a drag. The thought of going back to watching a baking competition is much more pleasant than the thought of having to come up with my own content. Yet I always enjoy having written here, and the thought that someone else might be encouraged by something I’ve written keeps me coming back.
Too often when I’m at church, my mind isn’t there with my body. My mind is either on a hamster wheel of anxiety or wandering in a daydream. I’m most inclined to pray alone, outside, and in my own words—the fewer the better.
Yet I recognize that while some moments of practicing faith can and should be solitary, faith isn’t living if it’s not a group activity as well as an individual one. Liturgies and formal prayers are part of that group activity. The more fully I engage in such group activities, with their ancient, traditional prayers, the more they have the power to put the movements of my heart, mind, and will into perspective and to unite them to the mind, heart, and will of Christ. To the extent that we all experience this transformation into communion, we’re united to each other. This communion spanning time and space and joining God and creation is what liturgy offers, Showing up for it each week is part of my commitment each week to wrestle with getting out of my own head.
Do I think God doesn’t hear my prayers because I struggle with being present in the moment and with choosing to participate in life? No. God doesn’t need me to pray. Prayer is for my benefit and for the benefit of all creation. The more space I have in my mind, my heart, and my will for this benefit, the better I’ll able to receive it and the more good it can do me and the world around me. This is what the verse from Sirach means to me.
But I’m far from being able to fully receive this benefit — and not just because my faith often isn’t as alive as it might appear. I don’t feel as courageous as friends seem to think I am. My default approach to life is not to rock the proverbial boat, not to bring disapproval on myself, and not to disrupt my routines — because disruption triggers anxiety. My default approach is to follow my inclinations. I don’t write this blog because my faith, hope, and love are mature. I write this blog because I want these virtues and others to mature in me.
I constantly fall into the trap of comparing myself to others. I either focus on how my life doesn’t measure up to theirs or how their lives fall short of the ideals I wish we both lived up to. This tendency toward comparison makes me sinful and unwise, and it steals my joy, the very joy God brought me into being to share. And for that reason, the prayer of the tax collector in Luke 18:13 is also my own: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
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
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.
Last week, I wrestled with what Jesus in Luke said faith was and wasn’t. Picking up where I left off in Luke, this week I see what faith — even faith the size of a mustard seed — looks like in action. I also get glimpses of what having even more faith can do.
In Luke 17:11, I read that Jesus is journeying through Samaria and Galilee on his way to Jerusalem. This man Jesus is totally open to the will of his Father. That’s one way I would define faith — openness to the will of God that, when unobstructed, means union with God. This faith leads Jesus into the less-than-friendly territory of Samaria. Later, it will lead him to suffer and die and return to life, never to die again.
In verse twelve, faith allows him to hear pleas for help — pleas from people his culture has teaches him he needs to stay away from so that they don’t make him unclean and ostracize him, too. Faith leads Jesus to cross geopolitical, cultural, and spiritual borders. Faith leads Jesus to put the needs of others ahead of his own security and convenience.
Faith — perhaps closer to the size of a mustard seed — leads ten ill people to call out to Jesus for help — even if only from a distance, in deference to the human laws they’ve been compelled to obey.
Jesus responds differently than he does in other stories of healing. He doesn’t heal by touch. The passage suggests the people he heals aren’t even healed in his presence. They’re “cleansed” on their way to “show themselves to the priests” (Luke 17:14). This part of the story offers a number of lessons:
God isn’t limited by laws and rules such as the ones first-century people were subject to regarding what we would today call Hansen’s Disease. Yet in this story, God works in the midst of those codes. God still usually works within certain scientific laws, and Divine Goodness can be recognized within any prudent and just regulations we establish today.
Cleansing and healing often don’t happen suddenly but as we are continuing about our business.
After we read about Jesus’ instructions to the group of ten, we learned that one of them “realiz[ed” he had been healed [and] returned, glorifying God in a loud voice, [falling] at the feet of Jesus and [thanking] him” (Luke 17:15-16). When I first heard these verses this week, I interpreted them the way I usually hear other people interpret them. I understood them to say that the whole group realized they were healed, but only one person came back to praise God and thank Jesus.
But now I’m wondering if only one of them even realized he was healed. It would be strange if someone didn’t realize he or she was healed of Hansen’s Disease. However, I find it relatable that someone can experience another kind of healing or another gift and not realize she’s received it for a long time or ever. And I know what it’s like to wait and wait for solution to a problem, only to go on about my business without appreciation or gratitude until I encounter another difficulty that I want smoothed over. So maybe the one who came back was both the only one to realize what he had received and the only one who offered thanks for it in Jesus’ presence.
In response to the man’s gratitude, Jesus wonders out loud where the other nine are (Luke 17:17). That’s a relatable response, too. Who, after helping ten people and being thanked by only one of them wouldn’t wonder where the other nine are? As Jesus wonders this, he points out that the man who returned is a “foreigner” (Luke 17:18). He then tells the man, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you” (19).
Here’s what this story tells me about what the faith that saves the man isn’t:
It isn’t a particular posture.
It isn’t identifying with a particular group.
It isn’t words.
Faith is a response .of the heart, the mind, and the will that may be expressed by one or more of the above and by what a person does with that faith as she continues on her way. Faith, in the story explored for this post, is expressed with humility, awareness, and gratitude. To encounter these qualities, it’s often necessary to pause in the midst of our busy lives. We are meant to pause, but not to stop traveling permanently. Instead, the pause helps us to be mindful of God as we journey on.
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.
Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. 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.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
Luke 13:23-27
“All I can think about are the ways I don’t feel strong enough to enter.”
“I know,” Jesus replied in my mind. “That’s why you needed me to be born, to bear the weight of human existence, weakness and sin. That’s why you needed me not only to bear the burdens of being human for 30 years or so, but also to bear the consequences of all sin in a way no other person could. I had to bear it all, so none of it would have the final say in your life if you let me bear it with you. My bearing it all and letting it kill me briefly made it so that weakness and sin will only kill you if you hold onto it instead of giving it to me. Don’t hold onto burdens I have already lifted, and if it’s our Father’s will that you carry a weight for a while, don’t believe the lie that you have to carry it alone. Don’t give up when you fall under the heaviness. Not giving up is what it means to strive. That’s why I said to ‘strive to enter the narrow gate’ (Luke 13: 24). The keyword is ‘strive.'”
“But you said ‘many will not be strong enough’ to enter (Luke 13:24).
“It takes a lot of strength to maintain hope — assurance that Good has had the final victory over Evil — in the midst of suffering. It takes a lot of strength not to try to save face, to practice the humility of sharing your burdens, and/or to make the sacrifice of admitting you’ve been wrong and done wrong. And the more you fall into the traps of pride, the easier it is to believe the lie that you always will. It takes a lot of strength to let go of the illusion that it’s best for you to control everything in your life. It takes a lot of strength to keep hoping and striving in the face of life’s uncertainty and its obstacles. You know all this as well as I do.”
“Yes, I do know. I also know I don’t have the strength for any of that.”
“Come to me, and you will,” he said. “Trust that I’ve given you the strength, and when your trust wavers, keep daring to trust again. Keep seeking me, and you’ll find me” (Matt. 11-28-30; 7:7).
“If that’s true,” I asked, “Why does the Master lock the door in the parable? Weren’t the people he locked the door against seeking him?”
“Had they striven to do as the master does?” he asked. “Did they act on what he taught in their streets, or did they only hear the sound of him teaching? Did they ever have a one-on-one conversation with him, or did they hide in the crowd, like a movie extra? Did hiding feel safer than greeting the host, or were they simply content to linger in sight of the house rather than crossing its threshold while the door was open? Did they greet the host when they accepted the food he offered? Did they receive his offerings? Did they have gratitude? Did they open themselves up to him, and did they allow him to open himself up to them?”
He continued, “Who doesn’t want to protect the peace of his or her household from disturbance and from strangers who might harm the household? Who wants to let in someone he or she doesn’t recognize, especially when it’s dark and hard to see who or what the stranger has with them? Who wants to let in a stranger who seems to want the master’s help, but might want to use gaining entry to harm the master and his loved ones?”
This master knows the intentions of all who knock on his door,” he reminded me. “This master knows who and what they’ve brought with them, and he knows whether they are prepared to leave outside anything he doesn’t want to in his house. He knows whether they are ready to make peace with him and work with him for the good of his household. If they aren’t, they aren’t ready to enter it, which is not to say they can get ready by themselves. As I said before, it takes strength to surrender to purification, the purification that’s necessary to embrace and to be fully embraced by Presence and Loving Relationship (“The Pain of Disconnection”; “Images of the Trinity”). I look out for for myself and for the good of my family and all that belongs to me. I think even someone with more limited knowledge and resources will usually do the same.”
“I think so too.”
Works consulted
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
This weekend, my pastor said that another way to put this verse would be to say that faith makes what we believe in come to pass. I find this interpretation a lot easier to understand than a more literal English translation of the original Greek. That doesn’t mean I find either version any easier to live.
When I’d like to imagine a certain outcome, and conditions don’t seem to lend themselves to that outcome, I have such a hard time believing it will happen. Yet when I’m dreading a certain outcome, I experience it not just as if it’s going to happen, but as if it’s already happening.
The understanding of faith I began this post with is a good reminder to keep my eyes on the spiritual prize while I make choices that do my part to make a good outcome possible. My mind, heart, and body can get in the way or out of the way of the unfolding Ultimate Good. My mind, heart, and body can also cooperate in bringing about that Ultimate Good.
The parable in Luke 12: 35-40 is about expecting that Ultimate Good — expecting to be united with God — in mind, in will, in heart, in body, and in deed. I believe the Ultimate Good can be experienced in the clearest and fullest way after death. For me, this total, unobscured union is what Heaven means.
I usually hear and read that the parable in Luke 12:35-40 presents two scenarios:
what it’s like to be in Heaven with God, to have had God’s heart and mind and have done God’s work even at times when a person hasn’t been able to experience the fullness of God’s presence.
what it’s like, at the end of life, not to have recognized that Heaven is a possibility, not have sought union with God, and without reconsidering, to have done the opposite of what God would do.
But I think there’s also room in this parable for the story to be about expecting the good that God brings each day, acting and thinking as if I know today’s the day, that, like a package I received notification of, Divine goodness will arrive.
More often than a package does, a gift from God waits on the threshold of my awareness. However, unlike a package, I don’t always see a Divine gift with my physical eyes or recognize it with my wounded soul. When I don’t expect to receive God’s love each day, I may not ,experience it when it arrives. And not experiencing or recognizing it can feel — emotionally and spiritually more than physically — like receiving the beating the unfaithful servant receives in the parable.
Lord, give me the grace to expect, to receive, and to share Your love each day. Amen.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
I’ve often read and heard that Jesus’ parables include twists, that an element of surprise is often included, and this element increases the impact of the story all the more. The parable of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) is no exception to this observation. If we were hearing the story in Jesus’s’ time on earth, we might have been surprised that the Samaritan is the one who stops to help the victim. It’s my understanding that Samaritans and Jews were far from close allies around the 1st century A.D.
I wonder how Jewish hearers of this story would have felt about the fact that the priest and the Levite don’t seem to notice the man lying bloody by the side of the road. Angry at the priest and the Levite? Angry at Jesus for presenting these two characters in that way. Cynically unsurprised as in “That’s just like a priest to act that way”? Or would they be unsurprised in another way because they had heard Jesus before and were used to the ways he turned their expectations upside down? As with any story, how an audience member responds to it depends not only on the culture from which he or she comes or the status he or she has in that culture, but in the unique combination of experiences that an individual brings to the hearing.
I listened to this parable on an app that invited me to put myself into the story. Before I did that, I saw a reflection on the parable whose title asked me whether I was a victim or perpetrator in the story. I was a little surprised that when I closed my eyes and played the events in my mind, I was neither one.
I was a beggar lying on the opposite side of the road from where the victim would fall. I saw myself in this position because I can’t walk or stand. My arms don’t allow for much extension or have much strength either. If I had lived in the first century and had miraculously survived to be born and then survived to my current thirty-eight years, I’d probably stay home and be cared for by my extended family, so long as I had living relatives, as I do now. But if I were the only one of my people left, I wouldn’t have much choice but to have someone place me by the side of the road to beg for food and coins, so that’s the position I felt prompted to imagine myself in as I prayed with this parable. The position allowed me to witness the scene.
I witnessed the man being beaten and then robbed, but I didn’t make a sound because I didn’t want the perpetrators to attack me. Then, as they hurried away, and the victim and I lay turned away from each other, I thought to myself, “God’s law requires that I help this man, but he can probably still move more than I can. So what can I do?”
Beg passersby to help the injured man. That’s all. To imagine myself doing it, I’ll have to imagine I’m braver, more hopeful, and more altruistic than I am. Because if the priest and the Levite ignored the injured man, why would they give any indication they heard me calling? Perhaps because I’m persistently making noise, while the injured man isn’t. Perhaps because they’ve seen me there before, and giving me a few coins time would make them feel good without costing as much as helping the injured man would. Maybe they would answer me but would say they could do nothing because they had somewhere to be and they were already late. Besides, they didn’t have any more money on them. Maybe next they would command me to hush, and I’d clutch at their robes until they shook me off until I lost my grip. I would be silent then until they were out and of earshot.
I would feel that all was lost. What was the point in nagging people? It wouldn’t change anyone’s mind or help the injured man, and it would make things worse for me.
But so what if it gave me new rips in my scraps of clothing and some new scrapes and bruises? A man’s life was at stake, and more of that life pulsed out of him with every second that went by.
But so what if it gave me new rips in my scraps of clothing and some new scrapes and bruises? A man’s life was at stake, and more of that life pulsed out of him with every second that went by. Maybe the events of this day were one of the reasons I was here. Maybe my persistence would do some good, even if it wasn’t for me or the man, and and even if I didn’t see it.
So when I saw another man approaching at a distance, I spoke for the victim again, first in a whisper and then in a shout as the stranger passed me.
He didn’t acknowledge me but stopped to wash the other man’s wounds, lifting the victim onto his own stooped shoulders and making his way back to his horse to drape the man over the animal.
Only then, caked in dust, flushed and sweating out of every pore did he trudge over to me and hold out a coin.
“No, save it for him.” I nodded toward the man lying across the horse.
He dropped the coin into the dirt and strode toward his animal.
As he rode out of sight, that was the last I saw of either man.
Would the helper have done what he did without my pleas?
Probably.
But the price of silence had been too high to find out.
What might have been didn’t matter. What mattered was the good that had been and would continue to be.
What follows is a new continuation of the story I posted last week. Like last week’s story, it uses fiction writing techniques to engage with Scripture.It is based mostly on John 20:17-28 with a few verses from elsewhere in the Gospels mixed in as indicated.
In a way I couldn’t explain, Jesus wasn’t just alive again. He looked and felt more alive than ever before. More alive than I was. And yet I felt as if seeing him like this, touching him like this had transferred some of that life, that energy, to me. It filled me and overflowed, compelling me to run back to where the eleven disciples still living hid behind locked doors.
I came up against the locked doors sooner than I expected to. I could neither recall all the turns I’d taken, nor did I remember climbing the stairs that led to them. It was as if the doors had come to me.
I glanced around, peering into every shadow and raised my hand to knock the signal that only the followers knew. I hesitated, surprising myself. Though I was thrilled to have received a new purpose directly from the Teacher and eager to fulfill it, it was precisely because of this mission that I didn’t want the doors to swallow me again. The encounter had dissolved my fear. The Lord’s power was stronger even than death. What else could I fear? Why should only the followers huddling behind the locked doors get the message? Nevertheless, I trusted there was a reason the Teacher had instructed me to him tell only the brothers.
So I told them “I have seen the Lord. I’ve embraced his feet, and he told me to tell you this: ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ (John 20:17-18).
I received looks of confusion and suspicion in reply with, perhaps, astonishment mixed in.
“Why would he appear and speak to you?” John asked.
“He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, to the woman with a hemorrhage, and to the woman about to be stoned for adultery. And don’t forget Mary and Martha in Bethany.”
“Yes, but that was before he was crucified,” Peter said.
How could he speak as if I didn’t know this?
I was soothed a little when he continued. “No doubt things we don’t understand are happening. Grave robbers would never take the time to separate the burial cloths and fold them neatly, but even if what you say is true, what does it mean for us? What are we to do?”
I opened my mouth, No words came out for far too long before I was able to admit, “He didn’t tell me that.” Had I run away too quickly? Surely he would have called after me if I had. “But he’s told us this, so he’ll tell us more when the time is right.”
“You’re suggesting we should wait here,” Thomas said. We’ve already been doing that for two days. Your news changes nothing. We’ll be discovered eventually and suffer the same fate as the teacher. Surely we cannot return the way he has. Why delay the end that’s God’s will? In the meantime, I can pray out there just as well, and I will.” He strode toward the doors before turning to face us. “May the Lord be with you, brothers and sisters. He didn’t slam the doors behind him, but part of me wished he would and hoped, somehow, the sound would result in a visit from the Teacher and instructions about what to do next. If he did, perhaps he would tell us that Thomas acted rightly despite his unbelief. Jesus hadn’t told me to tell the brothers to stay behind the locked doors.
The Teacher did visit us, but not until hours later, when I was helping to prepare the evening meal. I didn’t hear the secret knock and, apparently, neither did anyone else because what I did hear was a collective gasp.
When I looked up to see what happened, I saw the Lord. The ten remaining brothers saw him too. They lay facedown on the floor.
“Peace be with you,” Jesus said.
Gazes lifted one by one.
Touching his wounds told them he was as substantial as he had been before Passover, that he wasn’t a spirit or only a vision.
The men began to talk over each other as they praised God and asked what to do next and what was to become of them.
Jesus replied by repeating, “Peace be with you,” and he added, “As the father sent me, so I send you . . “. (21). Then he breathed like he was blowing out a dozen candles at once and said that in doing this, he was giving them the power to share the Abba’s forgiveness with whomever confessed their sins and seemed sincere in their desire to let go of what was not of God.
For a moment after Jesus spoke these words and gave the disciples this gift, we were all silent. In the midst of our silence Jesus vanished, even though the doors were still locked.
The men began to murmur amongst themselves. Who would believe that after everything that happened the previous week, they had the authority to speak for God, to call people to repentance and to tell those who repented that God had forgiven them?
“Supper is ready.” I called to them over the cacophony of their spoken unanswered questions.
Peter said that hearing me made him aware, once again, of the weakness of his faith.
“Please forgive me for doubting what you told us. I confess it’s so easy to forget so much of what the rabbi has taught us, but now I remember that he said that in the kingdom of God, the last would be first and the first would be last” (Matt. 20:16).
For a moment, my pride resented the implication that I was one of “the last.” I never felt that way when Jesus’ eyes met mine or when he spoke to me. But I Jesus had chosen me as a disciple by name the way the original twelve had. I had begun following Jesus after he freed me from invisible torments that had plagued me since I began to turn from a girl to a woman.
Furthermore, women were not disciples. And now Jesus had asked his disciples to take on a new kind of priesthood, to assure repentant people that God forgave them. Priests were not women.
Yet Peter was asking me for forgiveness. The Holy Spirit was indeed mighty. I dared not presume too much, but I didn’t think it would be doing so to remind the others of something else Jesus had said. “I remember too his words about what the kingdom would be like. And I remember that when he taught us how to pray, he said the Father would forgive us if we forgave those who wronged us (Luke 11:4). I don’t blame you now for your suspicion, given that I saw him die myself and given my troubled past. However, I confess that at first my pride enjoyed that Jesus said come to me at the tomb, and my pride was hurt by your questions. I was wrong. I see that now, and I will do my best to serve my brothers and sisters as Jesus did.”
“In the name of Jesus, my sister, I forgive you of all your sins, and I ask my brothers to forgive me of mine.”
John spoke for the brothers and for the Father in offering Peter forgiveness, and then he confessed his own sins, among which was doubting the truth of my proclamation, and Peter and I forgave him. All of us followed John’s example in seeking forgiveness and offering it.
Then we all sat down to discuss what else we remembered from Jesus’s teachings. We also wondered if Thomas and Judas needed to be replaced. It seemed there needed to be twelve leaders, one representing each tribe. We knew Judas had taken his own life, but what would become of Thomas? And how would the remaining disciples know who should be appointed to replace the ones who were no longer with the group?
It was in the midst of these questions that the familiar knock sounded on the other side of the doors. It might be Thomas, it might be someone else who had discovered our location and method of entering it, or it might be Thomas having betrayed us for his own gain. After all, Judas had done no different just a few days before.
“I’m going to open them,” Peter announced without hesitation. “We’ve seen that no betrayal, no darkness has the last word unless we believe it does and give ourselves totally to that belief. God is distant only if we push Him away.”
The moan of the doors seemed unusually loud as Peter unlocked them and pulled them apart.
“May I come in? Thomas asked. He didn’t look up, and his shoulders slumped.
“What can I do except sit here among friends and wait? I can’t teach the people after everything that’s happened. What he taught us seems like empty promises now. And I can’t go back to the life I had before he called my name. I’m a different man now. I’m not sure I’m a better one, but I know I’m a different one.”
Peter put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Straighten your back, and look up, Brother.” And Peter told Thomas about everything that had happened while he was away.
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (25).
A chorus of protests went up in response to Thomas’s declaration. When these left Thomas unmoved, the protests turned to prayers. Prayers continued over the breaking of the bread for several days. Whenever we broke bread we also sang Psalms, and each of us did our best to recall a different lesson learned from Jesus.
Seven days passed. Then suddenly, though, as before, no one had unlocked the doors, Jesus stood before us, saying, “Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe'” (26-28).
Thomas did what Jesus had invited him to do, and he said, “my Lord and my God.”
I was grateful for these words. They reminded us who Jesus was and that he would still show us the way to Abba. Our challenge was to follow him there by living as he had shown us by example. And what a challenge it was.
When Thomas had expressed his refusal to believe without proof that he could touch, I’d had two reactions. First was anger. That was before I realized that we all might have said the same. We’d had the same disbelief. We had simply expressed it in different ways. Second, I’d feared the wrath of God for him and for all of us — more, I realized, than I had feared any Roman soldier or high priest.
But destruction had not rained down upon us. Instead, Jesus had given Thomas what he had needed.
Still, since the teacher had begun returning to us, he had never seemed to be able to stay for very long. I wondered if our sphere couldn’t contain him now the death couldn’t defeat him. I wondered if there would come a time soon when we couldn’t touch him or see him the way we’d been doing for the past week. If so, would we have to rely on what he’d already given us to keep the doors of our hearts open to the faith that he was still alive and still with us?
Suffering and the fear of it had made it so easy to forget all that Jesus had given us. But Jesus understood this. After all, he had called out to God from the cross asking why he had been abandoned (Matt. 27:46). Yet he had still had the faith to ask why.
Maybe that kind of faith — one that keeps asking while the senses and the mind don’t believe or understand — the faith that keeps asking even when it seems pointless — maybe that’s the one that keeps the doors of the heart from locking Abba and His children out.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Two days from today, once again, the Gospel reading will be an account of Christ’s Passion. I decided that reflections on the Stations of the Cross would be fitting accompaniments to this narrative. This year, I’m sharing with readers of Sitting with the Sacred the Reflections on the Way of the Cross for Life with a Disability that I first wrote for The Mighty, an online forum, network, and information source for people affected by disabilities and chronic illnesses. The reflections I’m linking to here were originally published on The Mighty March 28, 2021.
Sitting with the Sacred 