Holy Wisdom
Have you ever had the feeling
that you have been set-up? You walk into
a meeting where a decision is to be made and not long into the discussion it
seems that the outcome was pre-determined by the others there! Somehow, before
the meeting, an agreement was reached but you were left out only to be brought
in at the time the decision is to be finalized. And if the feeling is more than
just a feeling, but a reality, that will churn up some emotional heat. One’s
response may not be constructive!
It
also is possible to be set up to fail. That can happen in something as ordinary
as a sporting event. This being baseball season, it offers a perfect example.
The pitcher is always trying to set up the hitter to swing and miss. They now
even keep statistics on swings and misses and it is one factor that pitchers
are rated on!
However,
the story does not always need to be negative. One can be set up to succeed.
This is the approach we take at the puppy kennel with each new puppy client.
And I think the same could be said for the training kennel. For a puppy client,
we not only provide an extensive socialization program for the puppies covering
the 8 weeks they are with us. But we also go through a list of some 25
recommendations of things to do with your puppy once you get home. And, of
course, it is also spelled out in greater detail in our book the Art of Raising a Puppy.
Does it always work? No. But the objective is to make it possible for the family
and the puppy to grow up together in the new relationship that will be
rewarding for both.
This
morning’s gospel reading brings the sermon on the mount to an end. In so doing
it presents us with a host of symbolic images of Christ’s central role in our
salvation. On the surface the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, the healings
before the multitudes, and the calming of the Sea of Galilee are miracle
stories. Sandwiched in between is the encounter with the scribe who seeks to
follow Christ. However, in all of these incidents the real point is about what
following Christ requires of us. [1]
Christ’s
vocation is to be available to all to witness to the Reign of God. He shows us
what this looks like in the many healings of the sick and his going out to save
the outcasts and the poor. This is his vocation, which is underscored again
when he warns the scribe that the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. He
is not to be found in a particular location; he is always available wherever
there is need. In turn, our response is like Peter’s mother-in-law, who, once
healed, immediately begins serving Christ. This isn’t about servility, this is
about the unmistakable necessity she now knows and feels that her life, her
very salvation, comes in serving Christ and doing as he did. And that image is
reinforced when he healed all those in the crowd who were brought to him.
But
then comes the change in focus. Now he must teach his disciples once again what
their vocation is to be. He tells them to “go away to the beyond.” This is a
break with the familiar: the multitudes, the healings, the teaching of the
people. Jesus and his disciples will now leave behind the customary and the
familiar to go to a place where he must engage in the more intimate teaching of
his disciples to be his successors on earth when he is no longer physically
with them. This is a place of insecurity, uncertainties and danger. But to do
this he has to set them up.
He
knows that the Sea of Galilee quickly can become unsettled by a storm. And once
they are out at sea the inevitable storm arises. The evangelist uses the phrase
“there came to be a great shaking in the sea.” In a sense he is helping us feel
the same terror that the disciples are experiencing. This isn’t just a storm,
but the shaking of the disciples to the very marrow of their bones. And Jesus
knows this is going to happen and he calmly sleeps as the drama unfolds. This
fearful episode has to take place, because it is through this experience that
the disciples come to understand that their very lives are intimately linked to
Jesus. They must tie themselves to him with every fiber of their being. Jesus
is letting them begin to understand what it means to participate with him in
his passion, death and resurrection. He is letting them experience firsthand
the trials that are to come their way as his successors. In the boat they now
live the Lord’s Prayer: “deliver us from evil.” They cry to him for help, to
save them from death. They need the strength only he can give to persevere in
the trials that they must endure after his death and resurrection. The courage
needed in their vocation can only come in union with him.
Jesus
was not going to tell them about this experience in advance. Imagine the
conversation: OK friends, I know that there is a great storm arising in the Sea
of Galilee so let’s go out and meet it.
This might work for some modern-day storm watchers but not for most of
us. Few are going to sign-on for that experience. So, he had to set them up.
But he didn’t set them up to deceive them or for them to fail. He set them up
so that they might succeed in the great mission he has set for them.
A
lesson we can take from all this is to realize that the many challenges that we
face in our lives are also there to help us grow in wisdom and in the knowledge
that both the joys and the trials are all necessary parts of the journey God
has set us on. Welcome them, knowing that we are not alone in facing them, but
that we always have help.
Christ is in our midst!
[1]
Fire of Mercy, Heart of the
Word: Meditations on the Gospel of St.Matthew, Vol. 1, Erasmo
Leiva-Merikakis, San Francisco, Ignatius, 1996, pp. 339-377.
