IT USUALLY DOESN’T TAKE MUCH

 Author Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed into his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing. I just helped him cry."

That was probably all the old gentleman needed at that moment. No words of wisdom or consolation, no promises of "if you need me, just give a call," nothing deep or profound was needed right then:  just someone to cry with him, to feel with him, to be with him.

So often, I think, we think that it takes a lot to be a Christian, that the demands to love one another are overwhelming if not downright burdensome. And, to tell the truth, sometimes they are. But not always and not most of the time. Most of the time all that is asked of us, all that the other needs from us, wants from us, is just to be there. Just be there and keep our mouths closed, our hands idle and our hearts open.

There is an old church-camp song that comes to mind that begins "it only takes a spark to get a fire going," and goes on to remind, "that's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it." It only takes a spark. It only takes very little. That's how it is with God's love. That's how it is with love, always.

Our lives probably wouldn't be as complicated as we make them, our faith wouldn't be as difficult to live as we think it is, if we would only remember that it usually does not take much to be a person of faith. It doesn't take much to live out our faith.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the problems we tend to have with our faith are not theological, like trying to understand God. They are intellectual in that we make it difficult to understand what faith in God demands of us as a response. We'll never understand God. That is a given. But we can certainly understand what God asks of us -- and the response to that asking does not depend upon our understanding the mind of the One who asks.

But we often act that way, like children. Like children we want to ask why God wants us to respond, want to know the reason for doing what God asks us to do. As parents we get exasperated when our children ask why. We want them to do what we ask them to do simply because we asked and want them to trust that we would never ask them to do anything that was wrong. But they ask us anyway. And we ask God.

Yet, just as we would not ask our children to do anything they could not do, so it is with God. And, again, that which we ask of our children, so with what God asks of us: it usually doesn't take much. There is no need for deep theological or intellectual questioning. Like the little boy in the story, it is usually no more than sitting with the other and helping him to cry.

IS IT I?

"One of you," Jesus said, "one of you will betray me. One of you, my best and closest friends, will betray me before this night is over." And with that statement the internal and external questioning began. To a man it was one and the same: "Is it I, Lord? Am I the one who is going to betray you?"

The Gospel writers don't tell if or how many of the Twelve quietly pulled Jesus away from the rest, whispered in his ear, and asked, "Is it I?" The writers wrote after the fact. They knew by then whom Jesus was talking about: Judas. It wasn't necessary for them to have each man ask the question, only the one who already knew the answer.

But aside from Judas, each one of them must have wondered if he was to be the one. Jesus, after all, knew them almost better than they knew themselves, maybe even better. Maybe he knew about some flaw in character that would lead a faithful follower to betray the leader he loved. Maybe. So, I think, each asked the question.

The reality, of course, is that the question was not a one-time question because the statement was not a one-time statement. Jesus could walk into any gathering of his followers to day -- any church, any clergy gathering, any Sunday School Class, any Bible study, any prayer group, and make the same statement: "Before this day is over, one of you is going to betray me." Like Peter and Andrew, like Judas and John, like all the Twelve, each one in each group would begin to ask, "Is it I, Lord? Am I the one you're talking about."

The answer would be one and the same to each and every one in each and every group or gathering: "Yes, you are the one. You all are." And we, like Peter who said he would never deny Jesus, would begin to protest that we would never, ever do such a thing.

But we do, and every day. Every day of our lives we betray Jesus. For every time we deliberately do that which we know we should not do, we betray Jesus. Every time we deliberately fail to do that which we know we should do, we betray Jesus. Every sin of omission and every sin of commission is a betrayal of Jesus by the one who professes his or her faith in Jesus.

Perhaps our only consolation is that our betrayal does not lead to Jesus's death on the cross. But that is not much of a consolation when we begin to realize that our sins of commission and omission hurt other people. Perhaps the pain and suffering we inflict on others is not as great as that which was inflicted on Jesus, but it still hurts. We still cause pain and sorrow to others because of our sins. There is no escape from that reality.

Not a pleasant thought but one we must think about on occasion if only to remind ourselves that every day we are faced with the choice of either living out our faith in Jesus, as difficult as that may be at times, or turning away and betraying Jesus, as easy as that might be at times. "Is it I, Lord?" we ask. "Yes, it is," Jesus replies. But with the grace of God and the support of one another, it does not have to be me/us.

CRIES FROM THE HEART

A friend of mine is a jazz enthusiast. A while back we were talking about the good old days. He told me that he and two buddies who also loved jazz, especially the blues would, on regular occasions, go to the local club and hear the best of the best -- both from the local bands and from those on tour.

He said that they had a certain criterion for judging who could really play the blues. It was how they played "Help Me Make It through the Night." It is a cry, from the heart, that goes right to and into the music. At least it should. He was saying that if you haven't experienced it, you really can't play it. You can make the sound, but it won't be coming from the depths of your soul, your heart. It may be music, but it won't be the blues.

There have been times in all our lives when our prayer, our plea, our cry, was simply, "God, help me make it through the night." The cry may have been the result of the death of a loved one, a sudden and tragic accident, an unexpected failure, a hurt inflicted by someone we loved most. The list is endless, but that pain escapes no one. The cry from the heart comes to and from all of us. It was Jesus' cry to God the Father in the Garden the night before He was crucified: "help me make it through the night."

And when everything in us cries "No more. I can't take any more. I can't take it any more," there is more: more nights, more pain, more tears. It takes courage, an act of the heart, not only to cry out to God for help, but to even want help, such is the severity of the pain. The pain eventually passes as the night turns into day, even though that "day" may be weeks or months, even years. The pain goes away even though the scars remain. Such is the way of life in this life.

But we never go it alone. No, we never have to go it alone. Sometimes we do. Our cries, however, never go unheard. God does hear, always hears. And God, always, somehow in some way, gives us the grace to go on even amidst the pain and darkness. Nor do we go it alone in our pain. No, we never have to go it alone. That is what our church family is for and what it is all about. We are to be there for one another, not just in the good times when all is well. More importantly, we are to be there for the other when it seems to the other that all seems lost and too painful to bear.

I write this not as some sort of personal, present self-confession. I write this not as a downer, if you will, nor as a reality check. It is written simply as a reminder that no pain of ours goes unfelt and no cry of ours goes unheard by God.

It is also a reminder that, as Christians, we are to reach out to others in pain and to listen to others as my friend and his buddies listened to those men back then playing the blues. Because if we listen well, we'll not only hear the pain, we will feel it. And we will be able to hear that pain, feel that pain, because we've all been there at one time or another in our own lives, several times, probably. We've all cried out from the heart. We've all made it through the night by the grace of God and through the love and support of friends who also have played and sung the blues.        

 

SEEING WITH NEW EYES

I've lost the source, I apologize, but a wise person once remarked that "the real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes." So true.

I like new things: new cars, new homes, new watches, new pens, new computers. I'll stick with the what I have, however, when it comes to my wife. New does not always mean better. The older we get the more we are likely to say, "They don't make them like they used to," meaning they were better back then. But, then, they sometimes make them better than they used to as well. It all depends. But so often in searching for the new (and better) all we have to do is open our eyes and look at the old. So often I read the same passage of Scripture over and over again. I've read it so much I can recite it from memory. I think I understand it completely. Then suddenly I read it with new eyes and come away with a new and better understanding of that old passage.

As a church community we like things the way they are. And yet we know deep in our hearts that never changing will cause stagnation and eventually death. So the temptation is to keep changing, be ever new, look for the latest trends in church growth, the latest gimmicks to attract new people and/or new money: find "new lands." But before we do that, maybe what we need to do is look at who we already are, what we already have; but look at it from a different perspective, look at ourselves with new eyes. When we do that, we just might discover that there is already among us what we need to grow, to be, to become the church and the community we are called to be.

That is not to say that change is not necessary. But, again, change often comes from looking at the same thing from a different point of view. We don't move what we want to change. We move ourselves so that we can see with new and/or different eyes, from a differing point of view. We can do the same when it comes to ourselves. We think we know who we are. We think we know our gifts and our limitations, our abilities and our shortcomings. And we probably do, for the most part. But perhaps we have been looking in the same mirror for so long that we've simply grown accustomed to the face. Maybe we need to look into the mirror from a different angle.

The same is true whenever a congregation stops to take an inventory about where it is. During this time of looking back on the past and reflecting and planning on the year to come, the temptation is to let well enough alone, especially if we think everything is well enough. Just don't mess with a good thing. But to not look with new eyes means that we may very well fail to discover what we need to see to help us grow. Again, that is true for us as a parish as well as for us as individuals.

We tend to take so much for granted, you and I. We believe that change is either not possible or too frightening. We want to grow, to be better, but we are reluctant, often, to do what needs to be done. And what needs to be done is usually not some major change but simply a change in position so that we can see ourselves and our parish with new eyes. When we do that, when we allow ourselves to dare to look again at the familiar, the safe, with new eyes, we just may be surprised at what we discover.