Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Life with an almost-three-year old makes me realize some things I would otherwise have forgotten. This week, it’s the reality of how much power I actually have in shaping my daughter’s view of and interaction with the world. “What color is that, Mama?” “Why does it get dark, Mama?” “Why do I have to go to bed now?” Each of my answers to these questions shapes how she encounters the world. What would happen if I one day decided to tell her that blue things are actually named “red”? She would be a rather messed up toddler, I imagine.
But she trusts me to tell her the truth, insofar as I know and understand it, about the world. It makes me realize that there are many seemingly insignificant ways in which I, too, trust other people to tell me the truth about the world even though I can’t always prove these things myself. I’ve never seen an atom but I believe what scientists say about two hydrogens and an oxygen making water. I have never seen a “minute” or an “hour” but I trust in our communal sense of time. The more I think about it, the more I realize that trust is a very integral part of our community, our culture and our lives.
Trusting in others and deciding who to believe is also a theme in today’s scriptures. Whose witness and which community is shaping our sense of ourselves as Christians?
The ultimate question Paul is asking in his letter (1 Corinthians 15:12-20) is “Who do you believe?” Do you believe and trust us, the apostles who have seen Jesus with our own eyes and who preach this Jesus crucified? If you don’t believe us, Paul says, you Corinthians are still “in your sins” for you have no reason at all to believe in the fact of Jesus’ salvation. By the same token, if you don’t believe that Jesus has been resurrected, then you also don’t believe that we apostles are trustworthy or reliable. The Corinthians had not been around to see Jesus for themselves, but if they wish to believe in the good news of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, they also have to trust in Jesus’ followers.
Today’s gospel (Luke 8:1-3) also focuses on the importance of witnesses. Jesus is traveling with the Twelve, who each can vouch for each other, but he is also travelling with those like Susanna and Mary Magdalene who have been directly touched and healed by Jesus. What makes this a particularly strong witness – what compels us to want to believe them – is that they have all left behind their lives for the scary, new life that Jesus lives on the road.
In today’s world, trust is hard to come by. There are a lot of entities and people we don’t trust because we don’t believe that they have our best interests, or the truth, at heart. But today’s scriptures are asking us to ponder: how can we learn to trust each other, especially as Christians and as a Christian community? How can we become trustworthy people, to the point that people might meet even ME, and come to believe in Jesus Christ?
- Jana M. Bennett