Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
There may be no “I” in team, but there are many among us who function as lone rangers. Lone rangers may be acceptable in some places, but even in the movies the “Lone Ranger” has a partner in Tonto. Teamwork means we are part of something bigger than us and this means trusting all the member of your team. The trouble is when this trust is shaken or destroyed we lose our ability to function as a team. At work when one part of a department is carrying the rest, a lack of respect can lead to resentment or perhaps hostility. In a marriage, when spouses mistrust or feel jealous this can create an imbalance that stress’s their relationship beyond healing. Even sporting teams and siblings can lose their focus when a perceived inequity leads to jealousy or even hostility.
In our first reading, we find a group of brothers (who act like a team) facing a tough scenario. Into this scene, we learn the story of how there brothers sold their youngest sibling into slavery. Their lack of trust in the love of their father forced them to believe that they needed to take matters into their own hands. What the siblings failed to realize is that the Lord worked through their unfaithfulness to their Father and Brother to make blessings in disguise.
It is important to the story, that before the blessings were revealed, they had to come to terms with their own wrongdoing. Indeed, their suffering for three days in jail made them think deeply of not only their own tomb, but of the metaphorical tomb in which they laid their brother. Fortunately for Joseph, his brothers and for all of us, God’s mercy can be ours if we place our trust in the Lord. Joseph’s freeing his brothers from bondage happened on three levels. First of all, he let them out of jail, then he challenged them to come to terms with what they did wrong and thirdly, he provided for their physical needs.
Joseph weeps like Jesus weeps when we fail to connect the dots right in front of us. How many times has someone come to our aid or asked us for help and we have failed to recognize them as Christ? How has our lack of trust in the Lord prevented us from being on God’s team? How often is the God’s reign being proclaimed by our neighbor and our hardness of heart has prevented us from receiving the message?
Spend some time today placing your life more deeply into the Lord’s hands. Invite the Lord to help you connect the dots of how the Holy Spirit is moving in your life. Then give thanks and pray, “Lord help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that You and I together can't handle. Amen!
-Michael Montgomery