Today’s Gospel has caused me fits all week. I couldn’t reconcile the loving message of “Do not be afraid little flock” with the end times apocalyptic imagery of “be ready for you never know when the Son of Man will come.” I just couldn’t figure out how “not worrying” could mesh with “be wary, the end is near.”
But then, a bat flew into my bedroom in the rectory.
Now it’s not unusual to have a bat in an old house…however, I have an unnatural terror of anything bigger than a fly flapping their wings near me… especially inside my house….A bat and me in the bedroom was terrifying, and as a result I spent a good portion of this week being very distracted. I wasn’t ready for anything except worry.
My worry and my obsession became so acute that I wasn’t living the life I normally do. I wasn’rtwasn’t taking the time to pray, I wasn’t taking the time to exercise, I asn’twasn’t taking the time to sleep. My priorioties, because of my worry, got all messed up.
And then, late on Friday night, it hit me---“this the point of today’s readings---worrying, fretting and obsessiong about things shows a tremnendous lack of faith.”
Faith is an elusive concept…it’s next to impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t have it and it is almost impossible to acquire through shear will and determination. Faith develops over time. It’s a give and take relationship between each of us and God. We give a little and God gives a little and pretty soon we’re engaged in a dance with God, we let go of something—usually worry, control or doubt--making room for more of God’s grace to seep into our daily lives.
Faith is a beautiful every changing thing….it’s wonderful when we feel full of it and it’s terrible when we feel devoid of it.
As I fretted about when and how that bat got into the house, as I worried that another bat may get into the house, I was devoid of faith. When I worried about the bat, I didn’t reach out and love my neighbor. When I obsessed about how terrified I was when the bat was swooping across the room, I wasn’t thanking God for the fact that I have a roof over my head, a roof that could also house a bat. When I was worried sick about that bloody bat I wasn’t at peace.
Peace is that space when we finally stop struggling, stop fighting. Peace is the space in which our faith lives.
It’s easy to think that peace is a God thing….but sometimes I wonder if peace instead is really an us thing. God’s peace is always with us, we just fail to notice a lot of the time.
God is Peace. When we’re distracted and worried we push that Peace, which is God, out of our consciousness And end up, much like the Israelites in today’s reading from Isaiah, forgetting to “do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow.” In other words, when we disrupt God’s peace, we don’t love our neighbor. When we disrupt God’s peace, we aren’t being faithful.
In our epistle from Hebrews the author reminds us that Abraham and Sarah had faith beyond all reason--- their ability to laugh at the absurdity of God’s promise of pregnancy at their advanced age, suggests a peace in their core, a peace which allowed them to toss their heads back and laugh at God’s gift….sure they worried and had their moments of doubt, but at their core Sarah and Abraham said, ok God, whatever you say. They may have been incredulous, they may have thought, “this is ridiculous” BUT they walked in the Peace of God, instead of running from it…
Instead of being ruled by fear, they allowed God’s good pleasure to take hold.
In the Gospel Jesus is telling us not to worry, to let God have God’s way with us, for if we do that, if we keep God uppermost in our hearts and minds then it is God’s great pleasure to lavish us with great joy—with the Peace and Love of God, the Peace and Love which is God.
The Gospel lessons of the past few weeks have been clear about one thing:
The distractions of life---worries about money, worries about legacy, worries about status, worries about bats, are all diversions designed to keep us in charge instead of God. And when we put ourselves ahead of God, when we cover that peace which is God with our doubts and our fears we become a “faithless generation.” When we shroud the peace and love --which is God--- with our own despair and fretting, we are turning our back on our Creator’s good pleasure.
When we fail to trust in God, when we forget to have faith, when we feel that having faith is just too risky, then we are denying the legacy of all who have walked this earth before us. We are denying the faithfulness of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses and Miriam, of Mary and Joseph.
Of course we need to be responsible and prudent, but when the due diligence of our daily lives becomes the driving force of our existence—then we are in trouble. For it is God’s great pleasure to see us toss our heads back and laugh at the fact that sometimes life doesn’t go as we plan, sometimes we have bats in our bedrooms and sometimes we have worry in our hearts.
In spite of whatever distraction life presents to us, our Creator God’s greatest pleasure is to give us the Kingdom---a place overflowing with peace and joy.
And maybe even a few bats. +
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