Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
"When you're discerning something, sometimes God throws bricks, and sometimes he throws toothpicks" were the words of a man who had discerned out of the seminary and is now a husband and father. These words came to mind as I read today's gospel. The recollection was not due to discernment but to the fact that I feel like this passage has come up again and again over the years since I returned to the faith. So when it appeared in today's readings I knew immediately that it would be the focus of my reflection.
This story is remarkable and there is richness in it that I have explored in the past but today I want to take us to the end of the passage. As the scene closes after the possessed man has been freed and the swine have cascaded over the cliff two peculiar things occur. First, the town begs Jesus to leave and he complies. Second, the man begs to return with Jesus and he refuses. I think these two incidents give us plenty to pray about this day.
First, the town's response to Jesus calls to mind something we sometimes forget. God's action and will in our lives can be disruptive. It is a holy disruption that calls us from sin, injustice, selfishness, and complacency with the status quo, but it is disruptive none the less. We can become attached to that which God would disrupt and in turn resist what he would want to accomplish in our lives. We can even want God to back off some because we don't feel ready for what that holy disruption would look like. We have to ask ourselves, daily, what in my life makes me uneasy about following Jesus more radically?
Second, Jesus' response to the man reminds us that God's holy disruption does not disrupt our obligation to those around us. The man who seeks to travel with Jesus was enslaved to a legion of demons. Jesus freed him from that. But then he commanded him to remain and share the good news of his freedom. The man who once seemed like the most enslaved man in the town was shown to have been freer than everyone else. The town's enslavement to complacency was made evident when they begged Jesus to leave. However, the freed man was not spirited away to be freed from inconvenience. Instead, he was entrusted with the mission of sharing the freedom he had found in God's holy disruption. Just as we constantly need to surrender ourselves to God's holy disruption we need to witness to others the freedom we have found in the Lord.
Lord, give us the authentic joy to embrace your will and share your freedom.
- Spencer Hargadon