Are Your Springs Stuck?

The old furnace was making a ticking sound but failing to ignite. This wasn’t the first time that old stove had lost power. There was that awful sub-zero night in December when the boiler refused to lite and faithful Dave came out in the middle of the night to put her back online. Dave had this advice which sounded a tad risky: “Take a hammer and where the gas line comes into a box, just give it a few whacks with a hammer.” After a few weeks in the summer when the old burner is not being turned on, the springs inside get stuck. “Don’t worry...I know what I’m talking about...it happens all the time with these old stoves.”

Sometimes, I think our lives get stuck and our springs get a little rusty or worn out. We walk with a limp, forget to pay a fuel bill (God forgive us and the RGE), or worse we get too busy to connect with old friends. Perhaps, God needs to give you a whack with a hammer to loosen up your springs and reset your priorities. You spend too much time on the computer and not in the garden, or take pills to reduce your stress instead of walking the dog or going for a hike in the autumn woods. You spend lots of time watching football on the tube instead of more time playing with your kids or your grandkids. Maybe God needs to whack you over the head several times to get back online in His grace and doing the right things that make you healthier and happier.

Pray and reflect: “Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the springs that have sprung.” (Psalm 104:1)

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who are feeling agitated and stuck in their daily routines. Help them to see Your loving presence in the sunrise that blazes with Your glory. Turn on you your divine heat that helps us to calm our fears of violence and soothe our anxious spirits.

Obsessions

Do you have any obsessions? Over the years, I have had this obsessive habit of trying to capture on film a honey bee gathering pollen. This can be a dangerous obsession if one annoys the bee with your camera lens and the little bugger decides to take a bite out of your hide. Throughout the years, I have indulged in my habit and today’s photo was another feeble attempt to capture this unique moment. I will confess I simply have no idea why this subject fascinates me.

Its obvious to me that Jesus also had his obsessions. His habit had very little to do with drinking or gambling. Then again, his obsession was a gamble. I believe Jesus was “obsessed” with the “little ones.” His toxic habit of hanging with the poor folks labeled as outsiders, foreigners, women, the unforgiven. Jesus was so smitten that he would go out of his way to meet these folks to the horror of the elite. Worse, his habit was called blasphemy and today most likely be perceived as heresy.

On this feastday of St. Matthew, we find another addicted disciple coping poorly with his obsession. The tax collector who exploits the poor to line the pockets of the elite. Some namesake I got stuck with.

Lucky for me Jesus had another nasty habit. The knack to take whatever is thrown his way–the addicted personality–like the greed of a disciple to carry out the law. Jesus transformed Matt’s selfish habit into an opportunity to bring new life to hopeless souls. Matthew becomes the apostle of the Gentiles. A fresh voice that gently accepts and affirms anyone who believe they are doomed, forsaken, or “not good enough.”

I like to think that my “second-chance” namesake was given a “crisis experience” better understood as an opportunity to redeem himself when the Spirit of wisdom provided the “good news” is that all are equal in the mind and heart of God. Yes, we still struggle with this truth, but we need to believe like the bee who perseveres that there’s sweetness inside that flower.

Pray and reflect: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male or female; for you are all one in Christ, Jesus.” Galatians 3:28.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we put away all our toxic obsessions like prejudice, discrimination, intolerance and bullying. May the Spirit of wisdom and understanding give us tolerance, openness and a genuine desire to accept all God’s children at his table into our faith communities. For all “second chance” disciples, may our greed for special favors be transfigured into a humility that believes that God truly loves the ordinary people which is why he made so many of us.

God of Grace

A college professor reported that whenever she asks her undergraduate students what they believe to be the most important part of the Christian message, they unfailingly respond by speaking of forgiveness. Jesus came to bring a message of forgiveness, they say. Some of the more thoughtful students remember to add that he came to teach us how to forgive one another.

It appears to be a lesson in tough love. Yet, Jesus wants his students to wake up to the basic reality that divine mercy and human mercy are profoundly interrelated. We acknowledge this every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer: "Forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us."

We who follow Christ are always being commanded to do things we cannot do. We are commanded to love those who are not loveable. We are called to serve without counting the cost. But the hardest commandment is the commandment to forgive. We are invited to do this, not because it is humanly possible, but because as we try to do what God commands us to do, the ability to do it is given to us by the God of Grace.

A student shared her experience about a dad who abandoned her family: "Even as the vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them, and yet I could do nothing about it. I could not feel even the slightest spark of love or charity. And so I breathed this silent prayer. ‘Jesus, I cannot forgive him, please give me your forgiveness.’" And with that prayer she was able to lift her hand from her side and touch the hand of the man who had abandoned her. "From my shoulder," she writes, "along my arm and through my hand passed a current from me to him, and in that moment I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing depends, the world’s healing depends upon God. When our Lord tells us to love our enemies, he gives us, along with the command to do it, the love itself"

Lord, I prayer for all my Sonshine Friends that you help them realize that forgiveness is not an act of will; it is a function of Your divine grace. And if this morning you are at a point at which you simply cannot forgive, I do know one thing you can do. You can pray that the time will come when you can forgive Even if you cannot pray that prayer, you can be honest before God in confessing that you cannot. May God grant to each of us the grace to allow at least the seed of forgiveness to take root in our hearts. All this comes from God.