Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Today’s text

John 24:44-46

Then he [Jesus] told them, 'This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms, was destined to be fulfilled.' He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, 'So it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead … .'

Reflection

Destined … it needed to happen. But didn’t you have choices, Jesus? Surely you did, or you are not human like me, and I know that you are, though perhaps with fewer struggles over whom you really are and for what you were made.

You knew your destiny, and your decisions were guided by that knowing. You knew your life was to be a sign of the Father’s rule.

You knew every moment of your existence--of every person’s existence--was lived in the field of Loving Presence. You knew the truth you lived would be resisted and denounced.

You knew your life was a threat to ‘business as usual,’ a contradiction to life as we most often live it. You knew this contradiction would bring conflict and that faithfulness to God’s dream would destroy you.

It was destined, necessary, and you chose that destiny. I love you for this. You move me. You chose, and the life you choose is a portrait of everything I want, everything I most value and everything the world should and will be.

But try as I might may soul falls downcast when the things I do are not successful, when my life seems so forgotten and lived in a corner, so different from once upon a time.

Can I surrender to this destiny, to living and loving in my place, knowing my successes will be few and small, my failures common and my best labors soon forgotten or dismissed as having little import?

Can I choose, as you chose, the necessity of living and loving in the place and way the Loving Mystery has given me?

And why, oh why, should that last sentence bring such tears?

They are tears not of shame but of recognition of the central truth of one’s life: how small and yet how great one person’s life truly is … when the destiny of time, place and circumstance are not refused but chosen.

In that choosing, we--I--become as you, one who recognizes in the next task, in the day’s simple duties the destiny for which one came into the world, a simple destiny: to love, to give oneself, to choose one’s place and time as gift and grace, however great or obscure.

In that choosing, the Father’s holy kingdom shines amid whatever struggles, resistance or apathy prevails. But by choosing and living that destiny, in given-ness to our moments the Word in us is fulfilled, and the heart comes to know that this, alone, is enough.

Pr. David L. Miller