The story of the birth of Jesus as handed down to us describes how God slips into our history – largely unnoticed, certainly unrecognized. Recruiting willing collaborators, God puts into action the greatest clandestine operation ever undertaken. Our history is revealed to be thoroughly permeated by God and this cannot be undone. We can tap into this divine energy and advance God’s designs for a more human and humane world. May it be so! Blessed Christmas and a very Good New Year!
There are countless paths onto the heart of the Mystery that claims our heart. Often called spiritualities, these winding ways entice us and invite our full, total response. Monks in solitary cells, ascetics, wandering teachers and preachers, nuns who dedicate their lives to the care of others in the name of justice, may come to mind when we consider spirituality. Techniques such as mindfulness, fasting, chanting may be used. But most of us, with our crazy-busy days, have trouble relating to much of what seems to constitute the spiritual life. We crave deeply to become freer, more fully alive, more loving, more truly human and we cannot see a connection between this deep inner hunger and a lot that proven traditional (and misunderstood) spiritualities seem to require. They just don’t fit us. We’re not world-class spiritual athletes.
The Judeo-Christian scriptures offer numerous examples of what could be labeled mini-spiritualities. In just a few verses at a time we can find clues to how we might enter more deeply, more completely into a positive relationship with the Presence that calls us to fullness of life and, at the same time, into dynamic, creative, life-giving interaction with all that makes up our shared world, including our self.
From time to time I hope to unpack the riches of one or another of these mini-spiritualities in this space. In the meantime, take care.
What paralyzes us? Stops us cold? Prevents us from acting freely as we would really prefer to act?
In Jesus’ time infirmity, sickness, disability – any form of neediness was generally taken as a clear sign that a person was not in God’s good graces. (This way of thinking persists to today.) There must be sin, not keeping the law, some uncleanness at work. Labeled, “sinner” (and labels attached by society have tremendous power and can become embodied) there is now shame for one’s self, one’s family, one’s tribe. Labels can be sinisterly effective. When internalized we become what we are told we are: Outcast, Object of pity, Worthless, Dis-graced. Our health declines. Or we become paralyzed, unable to move, no longer able to function on our own. To whom or to what do we give authority to paralyze or dis-able us?
A person who was paralyzed is carried to Jesus by four men who refused to be put off by the crowd packing the space where Jesus was teaching. They lift the person on the stretcher up onto the roof and make a hole large enough to lower the person and stretcher down directly in front of Jesus. Imagine bits of debris dropping on the people below. Seeing their faith, the gospels report, Jesus responds. The paralyzed person is brought by his or her community into Jesus’ presence, undaunted by the challenges this entails. How often are we unable to come to God to ask for what we need on our own? In how many ways does our family or community carry us when our individual faith is weakened or paralyzed?
Those who bear the paralyzed person believe that Jesus can help, the he has power from God to heal. They also believe in the goodness of the person on the stretcher. Somehow they have experienced this goodness. Despite the labels applied, this person is “worthy” of being healed and liberated. They care.
But Jesus does not begin by lifting the person who was paralyzed to walk. He addresses what lies beneath the surface – that which aggravates the paralysis – affirming and assuring the one who lies before him: “There is nothing in you or about you that prevents God from seeing you as anything other than beloved – your sins are forgiven – both a command and a fact. There is truth here for all of us.
Knowing, believing, feeling that this is true the person is able to respond to Jesus’ second command, “Stand up, pick up the stretcher that no longer defines you and go home with those and to those who believe in you. Luke 5:17-26
We have been designed to savor, to appreciate, to be in awe. From the womb we begin to explore all that seems new, different, interesting. Infants find everything about them and around them fascinating. If we are able to be free of the need to simply survive, we enter into the realm of wonder and amazement. It’s our “go to” place. We are at home with the vast, unknown, unexplainable that gently invites us to open ourselves to the adventure of discovery that is being an alive human being.
Sadly we can too easily drift out of touch with our spiritual roots. Our minds, our emotions are often formed and oriented in other directions. Instead of finding our place in the universe, we are channeled toward a job or a relationship that we are convinced is the answer for us. What is called responsibility takes over – without any explanation of why, responsible to whom, for what. Reason rules and often overrules us from continuing our inner journey.
We do not lose our natural sense of wonder. It’s still there waiting for us to outgrow trying to act so much like we have been told a grownup acts. Sometimes the realization that there is something missing in our lives seeps to the surface of our consciousness and moves us to seek deeper meaning. We can always begin again where we left off as children.
How often Jesus observed that people who didn’t (and don’t?) count much are the ones who have the inside track on God’s ways! For example, children. They (like women) were considered property, and as almost useless until they grew enough to help the family in some concrete way – sons by learning and participating in the family’s work, daughters when a profitable marriage was able to be arranged.
It’s not the wise, the learned, the clever or those who think they have successfully figured life out who are leaning into the Kingdom of God. It’s not even the well-to-do or the healthy who are first in line. What a shock if they discover that they’re not even close!
Jesus encourages and invites us to become like children. They “get it”. What is to be childlike? What qualities does a child innately possess that puts them at the forefront? Children generally are open, simple, trusting, still able to wonder at the world and to dream about what it might yet become.
Many children, though innocent are not naive. Just by living they pick up the basics of how things “work”. Even when they are deceived, they sense what is fair and what is not. It’s true that they are quite powerless to do much, but just maybe, doing things is not as high on God’s agenda as it is on ours.
Could it be that we who consider ourselves wise or in the know complicate things too much? Have we lost spontaneity, trust, awareness of how awesome it is simply to be alive? Have fears, ego or illusions closed us in our own self-made universe?
The season of Advent invites us to be (or to become again) like children waiting for Christmas, believing in unimaginable possibilities, dreaming of a world where God’s graciousness is unhindered by our grownup act – where we can be surprised again by beauty, goodness and love in our midst. (Luke 10:21)
At the beginning of the 19th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is passing through Jericho. It’s not his destination and he senses that his hour is near. No time to stop now. The slow, steady ascent to Jerusalem still lies ahead.
The chief tax collector for the area, wealthy and despised, is a little man named Zacchaeus. He has a very comfortable life, in terms of having things, thanks to his collaboration with the Roman oppressors. It’s a job. Somebody will do it. So why not him?
Zacchaeus, who needs to be up on all the news, hears that this “Jesus” and his entourage is in town. This is a spectacle that Zacchaeus does not want to miss. He’s heard all kinds of differing reports – even this far south of Galilee – so that he just has to see Jesus for himself.
The crowd is too big and Zacchaeus too small. He cannot see. He knows the town and runs ahead on the route Jesus must take and climbs a sycamore tree.
Jesus, and the crowd with him, stops. Jesus looks up, sees Zacchaeus out on a limb and calls to him,”Zacchaeus, come down. I need to stay with you today.” Zacchaeus looks into Jesus’ eyes and sees himself reflected there in a whole new way. Is this who he truly is?
Zacchaeus, overjoyed, quickly climbs down and wholeheartedly welcomes Jesus into his home. The crowd reacts, murmuring angrily that this holy “prophet” would consent to receive hospitality from a public sinner. Zacchaeus, standing tall, responds by offering half of what he owns to the poor and to repay any he has cheated fourfold. What has happened?
Jesus saw what was in Zacchaeus’s heart and knew that the way in was to ask him for help. This request coming from need opened Zacchaeus to healing and liberation. Zacchaeus did see Jesus. Jesus interrupted his urgent journey. Zacchaeus received a new sense of himself and of his life.
What are we willing to do to see Jesus? How does the crowd obscure our vision of what is true and good? What do we need to let go of in order to welcome Jesus into the intimacy of our heart?
Jesus is looking over Jerusalem. His hour is at hand. Yet at this moment he is feeling no excitement, no anxiety, no dread. Jesus’ heart is aching. He weeps.
You came to offer us a new, a different way of seeing, of living, of treating one another – an alternative to the painfully inadequate well-worn paths we habitually tend to follow. You lay before us shalom – an all-encompassing, all-inclusive peace – and we prefer to put on another layer of armor.This one more technologically advanced than the last, bolstering our illusion of security. After all. it’s us against them. We do not recognize, nor can we read, the signs of the times.
You warn us. Yet we go about our business as usual, convincing ourselves that we are happy in our denial. The kind of response you propose, the kind of change you ask of us is too much, opening the way to terrible suffering for many: devastation, destruction, death.
For you, the consequences of our refusal to radically change are all too clear. Today the whole world is Jerusalem. You look over it. You weep.
There’s urgency. Jesus is moving quickly south along the Jordan Valley on his way to his destiny in Jerusalem-whatever that may be. He continues to teach as he journeys, stopping only as necessary. A crowd accompanies him, anticipating a showdown and the beginning of a new era with Jesus as king.
The end of the 18th chapter of the Gospel of Luke has Jesus approaching Jericho, an oasis and the junction with the main road westward to Jerusalem. On the outskirts of the town a blind man sits, begging from the bustling traffic that passes by. Having relied on his sense of hearing for some time he recognizes the noise of a larger than usual crowd and asks what’s going on. “It’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth,” he is told. The blind man cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The crowd tries to silence him. He calls even louder, “Son of David, have mercy!” Jesus hears, stops and asks that the man be brought to him.
With great delicacy, Jesus, unassuming, asks the man, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man answers, “Lord, let me see.”
This is a prayer that requires great courage. “Lord, let me see.” Do we really want to see? Seeing, truly, might very likely challenge us to change-the way we do things, the way we treat others, our selves, creation: the way we live. Maybe it’s a prayer we need to return to often. Once we see, we are responsible. We can no longer sit on the side of the road.
The first person the blind man sees is Jesus. And he chooses on the spot to follow Jesus on his way up to Jerusalem.
“Lord, let me see.”
Is fear or hope stronger in me?
Can I trust even when I cannot see a way out or forward?
Fear is waiting to own us. We can become dependent on what feels like security.
It takes courage to believe when there are no clear signs or guides.