Friday, March 27, 2009

Today’s text

John 12:26-28

[Jesus said] Whoever serves me, must follow me, and my servant will be with me wherever I am. If anyone serves me, my Father will honor him. Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name! A voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will again glorify it.'

Reflection

Yes, you do glorify your name, even in us, and we have so little to do with it.

You call us to follow you into the tiny details of living. There, you urge us to give our hands and attention to small tasks of caring that make common life possible: making meals, getting the paper work done, looking after family members, cleaning up the mess on the floor, talking to an angry or distressed friend or colleague whose trouble always appears at the most inconvenient times.

Often, we feel more is being asked of us than is right or fair--and much more than is comfortable for our schedules and desire for a little peace and quiet.

But in the midst of our days, if we are blessed, we may notice that we are giving and loving a couple of inches beyond our natural capabilities or intentions.

You take us beyond ourselves through the little commitments you move us to make, commitments to be helpful and human. Through them, you make us more human than we had intended.

You move us to give ourselves beyond what we prefer. And there you are glorified. For you are the giving that knows no ending, and you draw us to give as you give, to love as you love, surprising us that some inkling of holiness should appear in us through our grudging surrender to tasks that must done, though we prefer that someone else would do them.

When we open our lives but a crack to you, you insist on sanctifying us in spite of ourselves. Or maybe that is just the way it works for me. But I don’t think so. Even my brother, Jesus, was troubled by the way of cross. He, too, wanted another way.

But it is the challenges of our lives that move us beyond ourselves to glorify you by becoming part of the great giving of life and love that you are, O Holy Mystery.

So glorify your name … in us. We will resist it. But there is a beauty you insist that we bear. And it is your own.

Pr. David L. Miller