Tuesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Sometimes I feel like the work I do is pretty futile. I worry about whether I'm doing what God wants me to do, and I worry about whether I'm doing the right things. For example, I have no idea if I'm reaching my students in my classes, where I am trying to teach the gospel and show them that Christianity is a way of life. That's a pretty tough sell, sometimes, for my students, because they're often accustomed to thinking that Christianity is just the stuff you do on Sunday for an hour, or that Christianity is just a bunch of beliefs about Jesus who lived a long time ago.
Today's readings remind me about the importance of persistence in being Christ's disciples. In today's gospel passage (Luke 12: 35-38), Jesus compares us to servants who are keeping lamps burning, waiting for their master's return. We are like those servants, waiting for Jesus to return to us. I can easily imagine these servants (me included) getting bored and tired around 2am, thrumming the table with my fingers and wondering, "WHEN will he get here? How rude to make us wait. Doesn't he know we need to sleep? How annoying."
We Christians are living in this in-between time - between when Jesus lived and died and rose again 2,000 years ago and the time (whenever it is) that Jesus will show up again - the time when God will be all in all. Reflecting on this, I think: no wonder my life seems futile sometimes, because I am part of the Great Wait, along all the other Christians past, present and future, wondering when Jesus will get here. All that waiting can seem boring and futile and pointless and even annoying. I think it is no wonder that there are many who decide that it IS actually pointless and futile, and they leave Christianity altogether.
I can understand that - the desire to leave seems much more compelling than sticking around with a bunch of people who, let's face it, often are sinful and hypocritical and all the others things people call us Christians. (I am certainly counting myself in that number of sinful Christians!)
The simple fact is, though, that I find the Light so much more compelling than the annoyance at having to wait for it. Once I stop to think about it all, I find it so amazing that God is making us all one, as Paul proclaims in today's first reading (Ephesians 2:12-22). For example, each week at the Mass, I find it so crazily wonderful that we all are there together at God's table, eating together, regardless of our histories with each other, and our backgrounds, and whether we know each other well or not. God has invited us there and shown us a better way to live together.
And I see this miraculous Light in the people of South Africa. After apartheid ended, pastors in South Africa devised a way for people to learn to live with each other and perhaps even forgive. The alternative was hatred, which no one wanted. So for years, people who had perpetrated apartheid would publicly profess all their crimes and try to make amends. And people whose lives were affected would offer real forgiveness. I have met people for whom this has happened and it is amazing.
And at the most simple level for me, I see - every single day - my family members who love me and forgive me despite whatever thing might have happened that day. My one and four year olds get upset with me for having to work on the weekend or evenings, sometimes, when they want to play with me. But we try and try again to make time for each other in those times and places. Every day is a new opportunity to try to love each other and I think that's a miracle too.
So you see: we are not just merely waiting. We have been entrusted with a task while we wait, which is to show the way to the Light. In all times and places, if possible, we are meant to be carrying this light of God's that we see in our own lives. I'm reminded of a song I heard on a retreat several years ago:
"There is a candle in every soul - some brightly burning, some dark and cold. There is a Spirit who lights a fire, ignites a candle and makes his Home. Carry your candle, run to the darkness, seek out the lonely, distressed and poor. Hold out your candle for all to see it. Take your candle, and go light the world."
To be able to do this task of carrying the light requires two things: the first is that we are able to SEE the Light; and the second is that we are willing to share that Light with others - especially the "lonely, distressed,and poor". My prayer for all of us today is that we gain eyes to see, and that we become willing participants in God's life.
- Jana M. Bennett