My daughter knows that if she asks me for something to eat I will give it to her. It did not matter if it was two in the morning or the afternoon, if she was hungry I fed her. I explained to my wife that one of my father's relatives had a daughter who asked for another piece of cake very late in the night and her mother refused to let her have it. She sent her to bed without that piece of cake. That daughter died in her sleep. To this day I will feed a child, regardless of what time it is, if they tell me they are hungry.
Think of the boldness of those of us who proclaim that God is our Father. In the prayer that Jesus taught us we say simply, "Give us this day our daily bread." Recently when meditating on this I pictured myself as a child with my hands out, simply asking God for a piece of bread. The image in my mind reminded me of the stance we take when going up to receive communion in hand. We place our hands forward as a throne, like children, like beggars. In asking simply God rewards greatly, giving us not just bread, but the body soul and divinity of Christ. He gives us more than we ask for, far better than we deserve.
As Christians we are called to live out our lives in the image of Him who we have been created in. That is, we are to emulate God in our actions, in our thoughts, and our words. That's a challenging thing when you think of the image of God as Father, as the one who is being asked for sustenance, peace, and tranquility. He provides freely, generously, and more powerfully than we ourselves even expect. Forgiving our sins, meeting both our physical and spiritual needs, while also helping us to move forward and grow into the person we are created to be. We can find the source of that image in Christ himself.
That's our challenge then isn't it? To be childlike in our faith in that we trust God to reach out to us and give us what we need, but also to be the image of the invisible God to those who are hurting, frustrated, and lacking in their lives. We ourselves receive Christ in the Eucharist, then we must go out into the world and share it with those who have not. By giving food and drink to the widow, the orphan, the refugee... the moment they ask, and even more than they ask for. Also, in giving spiritually to all in need. This is what it means to love. To treat people as a whole, not as a part. To interact with them more than on a superficial level, but on a level that unites us as one body.. That's what happens when we encounter Christ at the Mass... are we allowing that to happen when we encounter Christ in His most distressing disguises?
Lately, as most of you know, I've been having some kidney issues. As part of the treatment for this 10mm kidney stone my doctor suggested I invert myself to 45 degrees every night after having consumed sixteen ounces of water. They already took the step of doing lithotripsy to break the stone up into smaller pieces (hopefully). Now the goal is to use gravity and fluid to get those pieces up out of the bottom of my kidneys and through the bladder to freedom. The Exodus of the kidney stones eh? So I've been taking this old box spring and placing it on the couch to create as much of an angle as I can. Then I drink my water, wait thirty minutes and lay with my face downhill for half an hour.
What I did not expect is that my daughter would love this time. She can't wait to get on the mattress and lay next to me reading or watching TV. Daddy are we going to do that tonight? Then we play around, I poke her and tickle her.. and sometimes I roll over on her and mash her like I forgot she was there. All the while she's giggling, reading, or often just falling asleep. It's a comforting time. It's an amazing moment of bonding that I will cherish for years to come.
Yesterday my buddy Clyde Joshua came over while I was cleaning out the garage and it reminded me of when Moira was very little. He was walking around asking questions, pointing at this or that, or laughing and running away when he thought I was going to 'get him.' He would follow right in my footsteps and hand me this or that, and mimic the things I was doing. Moira used to do that when she was very small. In fact, she mimicked not just the good, but the bad. Isn't that how kids learn to do the bad anyway? Children remind us of that fact when they pull out those special words in front of grandma or at school. They become their parents. Sometimes I open my mouth and my dad pops right out... That's a big responsibility!
Today's Gospel reminds us of that truth, and gives us a better option. Jesus is always upsetting the cart. He never walks away with people indifferent. Either they love him or hate him, but they always make a choice, they are always challenged. Today they are mad at him, again. He has just equated himself with God! Today we would just kind of laugh if someone did that... "they're crazy!" It was very serious to his contemporaries. Serious enough they had him killed for it right? Then he goes on to speak that truth, that children do what their parents did.
Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what he does, the Son will do also.
There is that pesky Amen, Amen again. Remember, in the Semitic languages often there are no superlatives. (Good, better, best would be "good" "good good" "good good good", brings a whole new meaning to Holy, Holy, Holy eh?) Amen means that what he is saying is truth. It has that connotation of this has been confirmed, it has been supported, it is upheld as the truth. So to say Amen and Amen.. he's saying this is the truth of the truth! It's as if Jesus is saying "Pay attention to what I am about to say!" Then he goes on to affirm that notion that as the Son he mimics his Father.. he follows in his footsteps. If God raises the dead? So does Christ. If the Father heals the sick? So does the Son. If He frees the captor and forgives sin? Well so will Jesus himself.
That brings an amazing level of depth to that reading from Isaiah in which God lists off a litany of the things he will do to bring his people back to him, back to freedom, back to love. He declares he will feed them, give them drink, protect them from the elements and never forsake them. Regardless of what they ever do he will always remember them. That's a powerful promise to us today as well. God wants us to be in relationship with Him. Jesus himself is offering a personal invitation to each and everyone of us to be in this amazing personal covenant, not just a private one with God alone but in communion with his entire Body, the Church.
That begs the question for those of us who claim to be a part of that Body though... If children mimic their parents, then who can we claim as ours? When I was young my daughter would follow me around, just as Clyde Joshua did yesterday. The words I used? She used. The things I did? She did. The places I went? She went. I was just telling my friends last night that Saturday of last week I had a bad day. You know those days when you wake up and the world seems off kilter? I couldn't get out of this bad funk. I was snappy. I was rude. I was a jerk. I stormed around like some monster seeking to destroy an enchanted forest. My wife and kids took the brunt of it. If anyone had seen me that day, would any of them been convinced I was a Catholic at all? Probably not. I wasn't acting like my Father at all.
How then do we know how to act? We emulate the Son. He healed the sick, he cured the blind, he fed the poor and hungry, he offered forgiveness and compassion to all he met, and above all he proclaimed the Kingdom of God. Are we doing that? Do our actions show others that we are Children of the Most High? Are we reaching out to the poor, the destitute, the widow, and the orphan? Are we welcoming the strangers who come into our midst? Are we building walls or bridges? As we journey through the last remaining days of our desert of Lent, let us take time to examine who we are... to draw closer to God... so that when people look at us, they can say "Now there is a child of God, there is a person who loves others! There is someone I want to be more like."
This morning I had the wonderful privilege of leading a communion service for our parish. About 6:30 as the kids were getting ready for school, I was in the living room preparing for my role. Between helping find hair brushes and signing papers for school I read vocally and re-read the readings for the day. I prayed that God would provide me with a lector for the day (since our normal lector for Friday's was on a mission of mercy, and of course God provided.) Around 6:45 I began to pick out the hymn we would sing (which is also normally done by the same gentleman and brother who is the lector on Fridays.)
So much to the joy of my children just before 7:00 they were serenaded (notice how that word reminds you of a grenade?) with my wondrous rendition of "will you let me be your servant." Now I'm one of those guys that gets music lyrics completely wrong. From Like a Cheestick (like a g6) to Rock the Catbox (casbah), I've gotten them wrong for years. So I wasn't surprised at all this morning when I sang the wrong lyrics to this song, to which my eldest of course corrected me.
"Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you, pray that I may have the strength to..."
From behind a closed door in the back of the house a disembodied voice bellowed "It's grace!" "What?" "I said it's grace!" "What!?" The door opens and she says "I said it's grace, not strength.. the lyrics are 'pray that I may have the grace'. The door closes.
Isn't it funny how sometimes God corrects us through others? How that something so simple as her just being herself was a moment of 'ah ha' to me? There is such a huge difference in me having the strength, and me asking for the grace to let you be my servant too. It reminded me immediately of the scene where Jesus says he's going to wash Peters feet and impetuous Peter declares Lord no! You will never wash MY feet. Jesus then tells him If I do not wash your feet, you will have no part of me. Then here I was this morning crying out with Peter, Lord then wash not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!
All too often we forget to humble ourselves enough to accept God's grace. He offers to do something for us and we turn our back on it, lifting ourselves up and saying I don't need that! Our pride gets in the way. It's when we try to do things on our own strength that we find ourselves falling back into those same old sins. You know when you say "I've got this beat, I haven't done XXXXX in weeks, I have finally mastered myself." that we fall. When we rather turn to God and say "I'm not strong enough to do this on my own. I need you. Please heavenly Father, send me strength, send me grace, send me help;" that is when we find ourselves able to resist and live a Christ like life.
We often hear that saying that God will not give us more than we can handle. I'm not sure I agree with that. Sometimes I think God allows us just a bit more so that we can break, so that we can say "God I'm not strong enough for this.. help me carry my Cross.." So today I ask, and pray; will you let me be your servant?
