POSITIVE THINKING

The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale's landmark book, has some basis in Scripture. Offhand I don't know where. For the present moment it really doesn't make any difference. The point is simply well-taken and very important. Peale spent a lifetime trying to convince everyone that there is indeed power in positive thinking.

Yes, there is power in the cross and power in the blood, as those old hymns remind us. No doubt about that. But neither the cross of Jesus Christ nor his death on that cross nor even his resurrection from the dead to eternal life mean very much if we are down on ourselves or down on our faith or down on our church. Nor can even they do very much for us either. If we do not want to get well, or worse, if we feel that we are so ill that we will never get well, we won't, no matter how good the medical team, no matter what is done for us medically, physically or spiritually. No matter anything.

The first step toward a healthy anything is to be convinced that there is a road to recovery, that good health and vitality is indeed possible no matter how gloomy the prognosis. Doctors have been known to be wrong. And miracles do happen. Wonders never cease if one expects something wonderful to happen. The most difficult thing to do is convince ourselves that something wonderful can and will happen, if we want it. That's positive thinking.

Positive thinking is the important first step. Without it we are doomed to trip, stumble and fall. With it we can take the next step and the next and the next: one step at a time. No leaps and bounds right off. Save that for later. Right now: one step at a time. Positive thinking is first, the first step.

But positive thinking is not enough. All the positive thinking and all the faith in the world won't do us one bit of good if we don't do something, if we don't help the situation to improve. Work, a lot of hard work, is also demanded – on everyone's part. No idlers, no shirkers, no buck-passers if we want something done. We all have to pitch in and lend a hand and an arm and a leg. Then our dreams and hopes, our positive thoughts, will begin to become realities.

We're not looking for miracles. That would be nice, of course. But even those who looked for miracles from Jesus had to have positive thinking. They had to believe that he could and would do something good, something positive for them. And then they had to do something in return: they had to go up and ask. And if a miracle did happen, they had to go on living it and not revert back to their old ways.

But thinking positively is where we must first begin in any endeavor as individual people and as a community. Negativity never builds up. It always tears down. Add prayer to thinking positively and we have step two. Steps three and four, whatever they are, will follow. The future for us as individuals, as a community, as a world, is only as bright as we think it will be. I happen to think that it can be very bright. I pray that it will be, but I must do my part. So do each one of us.

AND YET…

God does not play favorites and yet it surely does seem that way, doesn’t it? Personally, I know I am abundantly blessed, especially when I compare my gifts to those of so many people I know and the millions I do not know. Their gifts, or I should say, seemingly lack of them, pale in comparison to my abundant gifts. I am very blessed. But that certainly unanswered question is: “Why me and not them?”

I believe God loves each and every one of us to the same degree, namely, totally. But if measured by gifts given, it certainly does not seem that way: not in any way and not in the least. And yet, doesn’t that seem the way we measure God’s love for us: by the gifts given, the prayers answered, the blessings received – or not? That is how we often measure love in this life anyway, is it not?

The truth is that no one of us knows the mind of God let alone even begins to understand it. We don’t even understand God: how God is God or simply how God is. When I try to, I quickly change the subject. God is completely beyond my comprehension. All I can do is believe and trust that God knows what is best for me even if I, at times, at many times, think otherwise.

So what does God ask of me, ask of each one of us who believe but do not understand or even begin to comprehend? The simple answer, but not the easy one, is to do the best we can with the gifts we have been given, no matter how many or how few. It is useless to ask why we are blessed (or unblessed as the case may be) because we will never know the answer, not in this life anyway.

But it is not useless and, in fact vital, that we ask about our response to our blessings an un-blessings, if you will, as vast or as limited they may be. On the one hand, while we certainly do not like the bad that happens to us for whatever reason it happens, we can certainly ask why we have failed to use our gifts as we could and should have. On the other, while we may and often do place God on the hook for the bad that happens, we are left on the hook for the bad we have caused because we failed to do our best or maybe even failed to do anything.

None of this, of course, answers the question as to why bad things happen to people who do not deserve what happened to have happened. Is it God’s will that the baby dies, the cancer kills, the accident happens? I don’t believe it is. What I do believe is that God does not abandon us but gives us all the grace and strength we need to make resurrection and new life from it. That will never be easy and it certainly does not answer our question about why the bad happened.

What we have all discovered, and hopefully learned, is that is sometimes the greatest gift, the greatest blessing of all, is finding and living that new life in whatever form it takes.

WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?

Jesus is Lord!” “Jesus is the Messiah!” “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior!” We see those words written on subway walls and tenement halls, to steal a line from Simon and Garfunkle. We also see them written on rocks along the highway, on placards at football games, and on billboards next to buildings. We hear people say those words on television, in church and standing on the street corner.

And Jesus would have none of it. “Don’t tell anyone who I am,” Jesus said to the disciples; ordered the disciples. “You know who I am. That’s enough for now.” And it was, for that moment. Yet I don’t think Jesus would say it any differently today. Telling everyone who Jesus is is the easy part. It’s really no big deal. The harder part and the bigger deal is to live what we say, who we say, Jesus is.

It is fine to tell the world that Jesus is our personal Lord and Savior. We can even purchase space along the highway to profess our beliefs on billboards. We can buy expensive seats at big-time games in order to hold up a placard that will be picked up by the ubiquitous television camera. But nobody really cares what we say we believe or who we say Jesus is. What they really care about is what we do about what we say we believe about Jesus.

What does it mean to us and to everyone we encounter when we say that we believe Jesus is the Messiah? What does it mean, not theologically or in words, but what does it mean in our relationships one to another, personal relationships? How is that belief lived out as we encounter others on our daily journeys? At the point in the Gospel story where Jesus told the disciples not to say anything about who they said he was, Jesus’ admonition was correct: they still did not know what that meant. They thought it meant that they would become very powerful people. They thought wrong.

Sometimes we also think wrong. Sometimes we think that believing in Jesus will make us powerful, bring us material possessions, wealth, prestige and all the trappings of the good life – just as the disciples supposed it would bring them whenever Jesus the Messiah came into power, worldly power. Sometimes that is still the message that is conveyed by all those signs and words and professions of faith. It was then, still is and always will be the wrong message. The only real message is the cross, quite the opposite of what we might think, what Jesus’ disciples thought.

In a sense, they learned the truth of what it meant to follow Jesus and they learned it the hard way: by living out their faith in Jesus. That was the only way for them and that has been the only way for us, if we must admit to that truth. It is not easy being a follower of Jesus: turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, forgiving those who have harmed us. The list is long and we know it.

If we truly believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, we do so by living out that faith in him by our very lives, not so much in word but always in whatever we do so that others make come to know our love for Jesus through our love for them.

 

GOD DOESN’T PLAY FAVORITES

Sunday’s Gospel about the Syrophoenician woman who came to Jesus begging him to heal her daughter who was possessed by an unclean spirit and her own personal faith made me think about my own. When I am honest with myself, I have to admit that I see so much of that woman in me, at least, thankfully, only at times. But even so, I can relate to her situation.

And so I wonder if, at a first reflection on the story, if Jesus was simply testing the Syrophoenician woman. I wonder if he simply wanted to see if her request was based on her own faith that he could really do what she wanted him to do or if she simply had heard about Jesus and was taking a chance. As the Gospel points out, she certainly knew of Jesus and what he had been doing, the miracles he had been working. Maybe she truly believed Jesus could cure her daughter or maybe it was simply a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained. I wonder.

That is not uncommon in this life. People who have no faith often say a prayer just before surgery or just before embarking on some risky venture. If God answers their prayers, if the surgery is successful, if the adventure turns out well, well and good. If God does not answer the prayer, well God never did anyway, so they think. They say that there are no atheists in a foxhole. There may be no atheists when the last resort is prayer even to a God one does not believe in.

Sometimes, even in the lives of the faithful, even in my own life, I must admit, God is the one we turn to as a last resort. We do all we can, all we can think of, and then when we have run out of options, we turn to God. Sometimes, instead of putting the need in God’s hands up front, we do so almost in hindsight. That is not to say that when we do turn over the situation to God, we back off and let God do the rest. God always expects us to do what we can do while God is doing God’s part.

The woman in the Gospel had done all she could to get help for her daughter. Her daughter was still possessed. She had run out of options. But, as the conversation between her and Jesus seems to indicate, certainly as Jesus’ words and actions seem to attest, the woman truly believed that Jesus could do something. Moreover, she believed that Jesus should do something even if she was a Gentile. Her faith brought her the miracle she wanted and needed.

At first glance this passage seems to indicate that God plays favorites. I suspect that it sometimes seems that way. “Seems” is the operative word. Why do some people suffer more than others? Why are some prayers answered and some not? Truly God hears our prayers no matter who we are. In fact, we know God knows are needs and wants even before we open our mouth in prayer. Our prayers are answered or not, not because God plays favorites but because God knows what is best for us better than we know what is best.  What was best for that woman was that her daughter be healed, and she was. Isn’t that what, too, want when we pray: what is best for us?