Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
My children teach me new things everyday. Sometimes they are little factoids they have picked up from some educational show or book. At other times they remind me where my deepest weaknesses are or just how sweet and loving they can be. The latter has been particularly prominent as we have just brought home our fourth child and the other three are the most amazing caregivers for their little brother. Their actions and my time on paternity leave has really drawn me to today’s Psalm.
The Psalm begins by extolling the Lord. Those exaltations begin because of God’s greatness, power and glory. Then, in the final stanza, God is exalted with these words, “He raises up the lowly from the dust; from the dunghill he lifts up the poor” (Psalm 113:7). This is a characteristic of God that we need to celebrate and imitate more boldly!
My children dote on their little brother, not because he is strong, charming, and helpful, but because he is weak, fragile, and vulnerable. They exhibit a godliness in their care for him.
I have been challenged these days to similarly raise up my kids. As I help with the big kids and the house it can be easy for me to push my kids away and do the tasks at hand as efficiently as possible. But a sign in our kitchen often reminds me, “Fat souls are better than clean floors.” So we find ways to include the kids in all that needs done to raise them up.
This is what God does and yet too often we believe the opposite narrative. We think that God is looking for the person who already has it all together and just wants to shine the spotlight on him or her.
But no! God raises us up from dunghills (my kids would die laughing if they knew I was talking about dung in this reflection).
We need to boldly celebrate that we worship and follow a God that is in the business of elevating. Too often we sell God as one who looks for imperfections to then call them out so we must correct those imperfections. Rather, God looks for imperfections so that he can raise us beyond them and he can correct them in us.
May we be attentive to those the Lord is raising from the dust now and may we respond if we hear the Lord calling us from our own dunghills.
- Spencer Hargadon