In the Gospel Story for the Third Sunday of the Year (Mat 4:12-23) Jesus begins his ministry and invites people to follow him. This is how the majority report sees it. The minority report is as personal as I let it. Scripture doesn’t just tell us about what happened long ago. It is the living Word of God speaking to us here and now in whatever is going on in my life, when I am open to it. When we are open to Abba, his word reaches deeply and at times powerfully into our everyday living. Perhaps it may ask me to let my idea of Abba grow into experience. Thomas Merton: “So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him as He really is. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him”.
The Psalm offers some insight: “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” It’s one thing to say this about Abba. It is quite another to pray this to Abba: Abba, you are my light and my salvation. You are my light helping me see you in new perhaps deeper ways, you being in me in everything, and I in you. To see everyday events in unexpected ways, to see the people in my life more clearly as reflections of you, to see the value of ordinary everyday life as you revealing yourself in us. Seeing is important. How we see shapes how we live. John O”Donohue: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” , , , “seeing” is an act of grace and imagination, where the quality of our gaze determines the beauty we encounter in the world”. If I look for beauty and for reasons to live in gratitude, this is what I find. If I look for ugliness and reasons to complain, that is what I find. I certainly have learned this the long hard way.
Abba, you, right here and right now, are my salvation. You are in me as I am in you. You help me make decisions, to change the values I use to make my choices, to be open to what is, to look for you in everything instead of fighting what I don’t like, to choose what course of action will deepen your life in me, perhaps to recognize you in everything that comes into my life. I ask the grace to live welcoming you in everything that comes to me, especially when I find myself involved in situations or relationships I would not prefer. If I am open to you, your Spirit will help me see what it means for me to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. Grant me the courage and wisdom for what you are inviting me to do to “come after you”, which these days is increasingly difficult, but sorely needed. I really do harm when I determine what I want Abba to be saying to me, and will not accept anything else.
Jesus lived and ministered in ordinary everyday life with ordinary people. He shows the importance of simple things, daily routines. He brought Abba’s healing compassion by how he lived and everything he did, not letting fear stop him in any way ever. Perhaps here I might look at my own attitudes and values. Might Abba be asking us to do the same with the gifts he gives us? Every one of us as we are is important to Abba. Dare we let the Spirit move us on our journey for all the folks in our life to be important to us, too? No part of our life, no person, is “unholy” or unimportant to Abba. The Spirit leads us to know this, sometimes in a most energetic way, kinda like Saul getting knocked off his horse. Am I in any way part of someone else’s suffering? Is there something I need to do or not do?
“You are my light and my salvation” is both a prayer and a way of living. We may come to realize, to experience, that no matter what is going on in our life at any time, the wonderful and the terrible, Abba is in it with us, his Spirit speaking to us. In our tradition we do not understand in order to believe. We believe in order to understand. Things can be so bad that what we believe makes no sense, until we begin to sense it in the depths of our heart. So often I would rather blame others rather than look at myself. We may hear “Come follow me” as Abba’s Spirit invites us to be part of his healing care for everyone, especially the folks in our life that we live and work with. Abba is in our reality as it is, not as we wish it were. “What’s in the way is the way.” We are in each other’s life because Abba puts us here, and this is where we encounter him. Whatever situation we are in is where we find Abba with us, especially in the terrible situations we see these days. We ask Abba to stop the violence, the abuse, and get upset when nothing happens. Perhaps Abba is saying to us “follow me” and work with him to make what we ask for happen. Much of what Abba is doing in our world he does through us.
Today we are preparing for a serious winter storm which will cause suffering and chaos. ICE is inflicting tremendous suffering on many good folks. There is terrible angry violence, name calling, blaming, and polarization throughout the world. There are many among us who are unhoused. Every one of us is carrying a burden of some sort that the rest of us know nothing about. We are all, on all sides of whatever issues, Abba’s beloved, and many do not understand this. And so it goes. Abba, “you are my light and salvation”, what are you saying to me in all this? In everything, Abba is in us, and we are in Abba. We are distinct from Abba, but not separate from Abba. This is who we are, and how we are. Not two, not one. Nothing has to change for us to know Abba among us now. Just sayin . . .