THREADS OF GRACE

Our lives are made up of stories, countless stories, hundreds of thousands of them. The older we get, the more stories we have to tell. Most of them are truly mundane and quite uninteresting even to the main actor in that story: our self. Even the minutest detail in our life is a story. I always kid our youngest daughter, Tracy, because when Tracy tells a story, she tells a story. When she lived at home, it would take her five minutes to tell us that someone was at the front door.

Yes, that is a slight exaggeration, but not by much. The point is that there is a story behind every decision we make, every move we take. We do not make that decision out of the clear blue sky. We do not make that move, take that step, however short or long it is, without something preceding it; and, whether we realize it or not, whether we are cognizant of it or not, that something entails a story.

We are a people of the story. Whenever we gather, however small or large that gathering, whether at a family dinner, a Sunday worship, a class in school, at work, at play or at the local coffee shop for a chat with a friend, we each bring our personal stories with us and make that gathering into a larger story. The truth is that were we more aware of that truth, perhaps there would be less conflict and more cooperation in this world. For the further truth is that in one way or another we all have similar stories to tell. Only the names and places and circumstances are changed, but not the basic story.

That basic story is about a life lived with ups and downs, joys and sorrows, wins and losses. No one is exempt and no one is immune. It does us no good to complain that others have it better than we do because we have it better than others. And, yes, some people seem to suffer more than others and others seem to be more blessed than others. But we never know.

The only life we truly know about is our own, and often we do not truly know much about that life. Why? A simple answer is to say that we tend to go from one story to the next without much reflection on that last story. Yet it is only when we take the time to think about our life and the stories we have to tell that we can come to grips with what our life is all about and where we should be going next.

What we will discover in the process is that what has held us together when we thought our world was falling apart, what has kept us moving when we wanted to shrivel up and hide, have been those threads of grace that has kept us together, God’s grace and the grace that comes from those who are walking this journey of life with us. That said, it is also true that the many blessings of life that have come our way are more because God’s grace has been present and not because we have been someone special. Often we are unaware of those threads; but when we take the time to reflect on our life’s story, they become quite evident.

The tapestry of life – our personal life, the lives of those around us, the life of the world –is, if you will, woven together by those threads of God’s grace.

IT IS ABOUT ME

Each one of us has an ego whether we are willing to admit it or not. We are all selfish. That’s the way we were created. We came out of the womb thinking we were Number One, that the self always comes first. That belief was reinforced during our infancy when our every whim and need was attended to and as quickly as possible but certainly not as quickly as we felt we deserved.

All that notwithstanding, the truth is that when are we involved in something, whatever that something is, it is about us. It is about us, about me, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is essential that we realize that what is happening is about us and we must somehow in some way respond.

What we also have to realize is that it is also more than just about us. It is about everyone else as well. And sometimes, perhaps more often that we realize and certainly more often than we are willing to admit, it is more about others than it is about us. It is really and truly about them. Their problem, their issue, becomes our issue because we are now aware of it.

That is especially true when it comes to the living out of our faith, which, of course is to be done 24/7, every minute of every hour of every day. Every second of our life we are called through our baptism – and the promises made for us when we were baptized and which we renew each year – to seek and see and serve Jesus Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. In other words, it is as much about our neighbor, whoever that neighbor is and wherever that neighbor lives, as it is about me, whatever that “it” is at the moment.

As baptized Christians we promise to strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being. Not some. Not just those we love, but each and every one of them. Again, it is all about them as much as it is all about us. But in order for it to be all about them/him/her, it also has to be all about us/me first. Each one of us is vitally important in doing God’s work in resisting evil and in proclaiming the Good News. We cannot do any or all of that if we do not realize just how important we are, each one of us, in God’s grand scheme.

It is all about me because if I fail, others are hurt. If we fail, many are hurt. Yes, too many people – and sometimes we are one of them – lose sight of this truth and think that they are more important than others, that the world or at least their corner of the world, no matter how small that corner is, revolves about them and is only about them. It does not, never did and never will.

When we finally allow our ego to take back seat, or at least step aside for a moment, it is humbling to realize just how important we are in God’s ordering of creation. It is even more humbling to admit that we are not as important as we sometimes think we are. It is about us; but in being about us, it is also about how we full the responsibilities God has entrusted to us.

FALLING SHORT

As Christians, as followers of Jesus, as people who promise and regularly renew that promise to live out our baptismal vows, if you are like me and I suspect you are, we sometimes feel we simply cannot live up to that task. It just seems too, too difficult. And so we fall short all too often. This failure becomes even more onerous when we begin to compare our lives to Jesus’ life or at least the picture we have of Jesus’ life when we read the Gospels.

Perhaps it is not so with you, but when I read the Gospels and when I know I am to follow Jesus the way Jesus lived and loved, it just seems to me that Jesus has set the bar too high, far too high. Nowhere in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry do the writers report a scene where Jesus, having spent the day healing and teaching, finally throws up his arms and says, “Enough is enough! I’m out of here. No more healing for today. Let’s go, guys,” and off he and the apostles head to some place somewhere where there are no people pleading for his attention.

Yes, the Gospels do recount those seemingly rare times when Jesus goes off alone or when he and his disciples do so. But there surely had to be those moments in Jesus’ life when he vocally, and in no uncertain terms, had had enough and just said “No! No more!” and walked away with needy people standing there, mouths agape and minds wondering what they had said or done to foster such a reaction from this obviously kind and caring man. What brought this on?

The only glimpse we get of Jesus’ humanity is at the end of his life when he in the Garden of Gethsemane practically begs off doing what he knows he has to do and when, on the cross, he wonders if God has abandoned him after all the good he had done in this life. I can relate to that Jesus. However, the always-kind and always-caring and always-ready-to-respond-to-the-needs-of-others-and-never-not-doing-so Jesus, that Jesus can be quite intimidating.

The only consolation is that I am not Jesus and God does not expect me to be Jesus. God expects me to be me. That is what I should expect of myself. None of us is Jesus nor can we be. We can be only who we are and that is gifted but limited human beings who on occasion do have to say “No” to the needs and demands of others in order to take care of ourselves so that we can say “Yes” the next time our time and talent are needed.

Issues arise we must deal with. We fall short for many reasons. Sometimes we do so deliberately, and sometimes not. However, it is when we fall short because we have not taken care of our own needs, taken care of ourselves that is when we have a real problem and one that we must not ignore.

Self-care is just as important, perhaps more important than taking care of others. Even if the Gospels fall short in recounting Jesus’ taking care of himself, we can be sure he did. We must not fall short in taking care of ourselves either.

 

WELL-BEING/BEING WELL

There is a part of us that focuses on our well-being, that desire that we be healthy, content, satisfied with our life and everything about it. Many ingredients go into our well-being, and many of them are out of our control. One of those ingredients is being well. Much of that is indeed in our control but some of it is not. Sickness and disease, accidents and tragedies know no bounds. We all fall victim in one way or another throughout our lives. And when we are not well, so, too, is our well-being not well.

There are two ingredients that are vital to our well-being and our being well. The first is a sense of purposefulness and the other is a sense of belonging. Both are necessary and both need each other. If they are not present, both of them, then our well-being will be less than it could or should be and we will not be well spiritually, physically and emotionally – all three.

We all know people who seem to be in perfect health but act as if there is something missing in their lives. This is especially true as we grow older, certainly after we retire. We used to be this, whatever that vocation is. We had a position, a job, a responsibility. When someone asked what we did, we could tell them and even tell them proudly. But now we are retired, our job has ended and we seem to have no purpose in life. I’ve known parishioners who died shortly after they retired because they felt and believed that their purpose in life was over.

They were wrong, of course. They did not realize that they now had a new vocation, a new job. They simply had to discover it. They had gifts and talents to share even if they had always taken them for granted. Now they had to take them as a gift to be given to those who needed them. No matter how old or how young we are, we all have a purpose in life. We simply need to discover it and we will be well and we will be content with our well-being.

Not only do we need to find a sense of purposefulness in our lives but we also need to have a sense of belonging. We all know people, and we may one of them, whose family is all gone – all have died or all have moved away or all no longer are a part of our lives. Yet we never have to be alone. We can choose to be but we do not have to be. When we belong to a faith community, to a church, we are never alone. We belong.

Both of these ingredients to a sense of well-being and being well are intertwined. We can find a purpose in life when we belong to a community and that community to which we belong helps us to find purpose in life. The community helps us discover the gifts and talents we have long forgotten or taken for granted and pushes us to put them into use in other ways than perhaps we did before.

A satisfied well-being does not come naturally. We have to work at just as we have to work at keeping ourselves well. And yet, even though none of us is ever in perfect health and all of us fall short of a perfect well-being, knowing our purpose in life and belonging to a community that supports us helps to make our life as well as it can be.

SOMETIMES SILENCE IS BEST

The trouble with us preachers, or at least one of them, is that when we are asked a theological or religious question or placed in a situation that all but calls out for us to respond with a definitive answer, we invariably open our mouths. Even worse, all too often we end up putting our foot firmly inside. It is an occupational hazard that is dangerous to all those involved. The same may be true in other vocations. I only speak of the one with which I am most familiar.

Remember the story of Job in the Bible? Job lost everything: his children, his possessions, and almost lost his wife who became impatient with his seemingly endless patience over all that had happened to him. On top of all that, he found himself covered from head to toe with boils that made his life even more wretched and miserable. Even though his wife remained faithful, she blamed Job for what had happened to him – and to her. He must have done something wrong, something so sinful, that God punished him in this way. He had to have. And she said so.

In the midst of Job’s agony along came three of his closest friends. They sat in silence with Job for seven days. That seemed to be a comfort for him. After all, what could they say anyway? They could do nothing to alleviate his pain and agony. They could not bring back or restore all that had been taken from him. There really was nothing for them to say or do. And that is what they did: nothing, just sat in silence.

But there must have been some kind of preacher in each of them. They ended their silence and began to lecture Job about his condition. Each in his own way told Job in no uncertain terms that he must have done something so terrible and sinful that God had no recourse but to punish Job in the way God did. Very simply it was all Job’s fault and that of no one else, period. It would now be best for Job, each said, for Job to confess to his sinfulness, ask God for forgiveness, and then just maybe, maybe God would heal his boils and restore him to physical health. Maybe.

They should have just shut up, just kept their mouths closed and sat there in silence with Job. Once they tried to play God, it all went south on them. They no more knew why Job did nothing to deserve what happened. It was not that he was sinless. It was simply that he had not been so sinful that such a tragedy was the deserved punishment. Thus, all these friends did was make matters worse and cause Job’s pain and suffering to increase. Their silence would have been golden.

Sometimes saying nothing says it all. There are times when all words fail and any words we do utter only make the situation much more difficult for the person who is suffering. That is true not only when we find ourselves being with such a person but also, on the other extreme, when we find ourselves experiencing deep love and awe or being overwhelmed with the wonder of creation. Words fail, then, too, and we shouldn’t muck it up with words that come up short. Silence, sometimes, is not only the correct response. It is the only response.

 

I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE

In this life in this world we are all in it together. As the poet said, no one of us is an island alone unto oneself. We need one another. That is why we were born. That is why each of us was and is blessed by God with gifts that no one else has in the same way that we do.

We are called to use those gifts to the betterment and blessing of others and discover a better and blessed life for ourselves when we do.

Sometimes I think we forget that truth. Sometimes we do not recognize just how blessed we are, what gifts with which God has blessed us. Sometimes, even when we realize what these gifts and talents are, we make light of them, downplay them, and even denigrate them because we believe our gifts pale in comparison to the gifts and talents with which others are blessed.

And they do. Every gift I have, every talent that God has given me, can be and is topped by someone else. There are better preachers better pastors, better priests; better writers, better husbands, better parents -- the list is endless – than I am. I know that. The people I have served over the years know that. My wife and children know that. The saving grace is that I am not alone.

The truth is is that it does not matter. We are all gifted by our gifts, but no matter how superior they may be, they are limited. There is always someone who is better than we are and we are better than others. It is a waste of time and quite useless to compare gifts. What we are called to do and what God expects us to do and what we should demand of ourselves is to recognize the gifts with which we have been blessed and then use those gifts to the best of our ability even as that ability and those gifts are limited because of human nature – because we are not God!

Whenever we do that, what we do is make others better people. Whenever others use their gifts to the best of their ability, they make me a better person. That is why it is so true to say that I am because you are. I am who I am because you are who you are. We are who we are, we become who we are becoming because others are who they are in our lives. You make me me. I make you you. We help make each other. That is the way and that is why God both created us and blessed us as God did.

God did not create us islands unto ourselves nor intend for us to become as such. God created us to need one another in this world. What we are, rather, and what God intends for us to be, is a community: one community, one family, one world. We are a people created by God to love and care for one another, each of us using our gifts to help make one another grow into the person God wants and we ourselves want to be and can be. That is our task.

Thus, the truth is that without you I am less. With you I am more. Again, I am who I am because you are who you are, and vice versa. If we only realized just how important we are to one another, if we all understood this truth, we would make this world the community that God created it to become. We still can.

LETTING GO OF THE EGOS

We men, or perhaps I should speak only for myself but I sincerely doubt that I do, have this seemingly innate need to want to fix everything that goes wrong or at least believe we can do so with just a little help from our friends. We think that there is simply no problem that is beyond our ability to resolve or solve. And even if we cannot resolve the issue at hand because it is beyond our own or combined capabilities, we will give it our very best shot.

If we take the time to look at some of the messes we have gotten ourselves into, we will discover that what we did sometimes was head down the road where no sane person would venture, where even angels themselves would not dare to tread. We knew this beforehand, of course, yet we foolishly placed ourselves in positions we should have avoided with the proverbial ten-foot pole. But we did not.

Perhaps this daring-do attitude stems from a macho gene that we men seem to be born with or at least somehow think we should possess even if we know deep within our head and heart that a wide yellow streak runs up and down our spines – speaking only for myself here, of course. Sometimes that yellow streak does save me from myself, but not always and not often enough.

This foolishness to act all on our own may be understandable and even forgivable, men being men, humanity itself being what it is. And what it is, and we men have no claim to it simply because we are men, women are just as guilty – what it is is our inability, certainly our unwillingness as human beings to trust in God rather than in ourselves alone.

The truth is that we will never fully place our trust in God until and unless we let go of our egos. Yes, we trust, even believe that God walks with us in our journey through this life, that the Holy Spirit guides us and that Jesus gives us the strength for the journey; but there is something in us that wants to believe that we can solve and resolve everything that comes our way. When we cannot, and it seems only when we cannot, do we hand the situation over to God.

None of this means that we do not do our very best to solve the problems that come our way, that come to every human being, problems like sickness, disease, loss of any kind: physical, mental, material. We do try to do our very best. What it does mean is that we often take too long to trust that God will help us, wait too long to put the situation in God’s hands, to acknowledge that we are not God. Doing so, we somehow believe, would be a blow to our ego.

Yet the fact is that we have to let go of our egos if we want God to do what only God can do. That does not mean that we do not do our part. God will not do for us what we can do for ourselves. It simply means that we sometimes have to realize that we cannot resolve the problem at hand without God being part of the solution from the get go. And for that to happen, we have let go of our ego from the get go.