Some thoughts from the “minority report” aspect of today’s Gospel Story (Luke 6:17, 20-26), what it seems to be saying to me. It is worth noting that the Story tells us “raising his eyes toward his disciples he said”. Jesus was speaking to his disciples, not to a crowd. He was offering his disciples sort of a job description for being a disciple. For a while, now, since my heart attack in the car event, I have been trying to make gratitude, or gratefulness, and welcoming everything that comes into my life because it is of Abba, an integral part of my “prayer life”. It’s been interesting and a growing experience. Then all this current stuff happens, and it’s a whole different ballgame. Everything is up in the air. How can all this be of God – the nastiness, the meanness, the damage to people for whatever reason, the destruction of what has been so familiar, the angry and often violent polarization, and so on. Then there is today’s Gospel Story with its offer of a new and very real perspective, truly a gift in its own way if I am open to it, and I pray that I am.
Life is a gift of Abba. I haven’t done anything to earn the reality of being created and being alive. Every gift is an opportunity to make some kind of a choice, and life is filled with opportunity. The gift of today’s Gospel Story is, among other things, an opportunity for me to grow. I can’t look at other peoples’ hearts, only my own. I’m being reminded that everything I don’t like about other people is also in my heart, which probably has something to do with why I dislike them in others’ hearts. I know I am capable of great violence and anger. It just hasn’t happened for a while, but it is still there. I see hints of it and of self-serving behavior in the ways I interact with some folks, and this needs to stop. The more I look at myself the more I see the gift to me of today’s Gospel Story. It is almost a road map from where I am to where I need to go. Mychal’s Prayer goes well here: “Take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, let me say what you want me to say and do what you want me to do, and keep me out of your way; and if I move in a direction that is not of you, please stop me”.
I’m coming to believe that implicit in gratitude is trust of some kind. I am thankful for life, and I trust that the one who gives me life, Abba, will move me where I need to go, often kicking and screaming. I think gratitude also implies being open to surprise. Maybe surprise might be another name for Abba, because he sure has been full of surprises in my life, and, I suspect, in other folks lives also. Having things go my way is no longer as important as it once was. The Story invites me to ask myself where I fit in the Story. This will take a while to discern, but it certainly is a question worth asking. This might be a worthwhile theme for my Lenten practice. Wonder where this will take me if I choose to go with it?. Probably to some places I really don’t want to go, again.
A possible lesson of the Story in today’s current affairs is that violence doesn’t work, nor does a self-serving attitude, or abusing others in any way. It only begets more self-serving violence and abuse. This is what we’re seeing both in our own country and all over the world. Self-servingly using other people to satisfy my own needs just creates more abuse and more hurt. Both are spreading too much and too fast.
The Story reminds us that our brothers and sisters everywhere who are suffering because of political motivations of others are very close to Abba. This sounds nice, but what does it men for them? Does it get them what they are looking for? Does it help with the pain of separation, deportation, Guantanamo? I don’t know. Then there are the people who are actually causing the hurt with their choices and decisions, and the people on the ground who are doing the hurt. How do they feel about what they are doing? I’m no longer an active chaplain, so there is much that I can no longer do. Are there invitations in all this that I’m missing? Again, I don’t know. Life is a journey, and gratefulness just might be a roadmap for wandering and wondering.
Today’s Story is very much about people, both the oppressed and the oppressors. Abba loves each of them in both groups. This is hard to understand, but it is reality. We prefer a god who sees justice as we do, but this god is not the Abba whom Jesus introduces us to. We like the idea of a merciful and just God, but we want to decide who God is merciful to, and who he gives justice (which many want to see as punishment) to.
The Story also reminds us that what it teaches is not what many folks want to hear. There’s an old saying that people like a sermon on sin unless it about their sin, then they get angry. The reaction to Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde’s recent homily makes this very clear, as do recent remarks of political leaders, a number of whom take issue with Pope Francis on the meaning of the Gospel. A few American bishops are speaking up in a powerful way, but not the national association. It’s interesting to note who people are listening to and agreeing with.
The difference between the Beatitudes and the Woes is disturbing. It’s easy to point fingers, blame, and condemn, but not so easy to look at myself, which I’m finding out yet again. I’m looking at the Story from the perspective of what it says to me. I don’t know what it says to others. In all honesty, I have to say it’s good to be playing the back nine, and know there is “more” coming at the next step. I am most grateful for the heart attack in the car experience.
When I look at the people I am privileged to know in my life I am most grateful for all of them, even the ones I, for whatever reason, don’t like. I want them to be in the Beatitudes, and I want to get myself out of the Woes. While I care deeply about the “majority report”, I don’t want to be distracted from looking at my own involvement in the nastiness that is causing such hurt and suffering. Just sayin . . .