Good Help

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God's law, gratitude, healing, ignore, Jesus, John, pool, righteous, Sabbath, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tireless people, unnecessary, water

This morning’s gospel left me with many possible avenues of exploration. It’s the familiar healing by Jesus of the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 38 years but had no one to put him into the pool for healing when the healing waters were stirred. (JN 5:1-16) I first think (and thus have commented about) how impossible it sounds that he was lying around for 38 years and nobody lifted him into the pool. Secondly, it gives me pause to think about that scene and how the whole thing worked: how large the pool was, how and how often the waters were “stirred”, how big a crowd was there waiting (I think of the processions in the grotto at Lourdes with massive crowds) and finally how intent everyone must have been on their own invalid so that everyone ignored this man. So many considerations with little information to help me conceive of his predicament…

Today, however, I was caught by the end of the text after the healing where the man was berated for carrying his mat on the Sabbath as that was against the law. That sounds almost as ridiculous as the difficulty he had finding help! (I don’t mean to denigrate any precept of the Mosaic law; I remember when in my youth we were to do “no unnecessary servile work” on Sunday.) And in the end, when those “righteous” people found Jesus, they began to persecute him “because he did this (healing work) on the Sabbath.”

I have always heard that God’s law is higher than human law so in cases of doubt, it’s always better to look to God. And the word “unnecessary” in the creed of my youth eliminated a lot of concern in that way. So the final strain of my thought process this morning was about doctors and nurses and other hospital workers whose week is generally not like that of other people. Often they have rotating schedules – off one weekend and on the next. Sometimes they are called in for an emergency at any hour of the day or night. First responders are in the same category. What would happen if the hospitals and urgent care clinics and fire houses were closed on the weekends?

Today, I will pray for people who have no one to care for them and will bow in gratitude for those tireless people who serve in professions where their willingness heals our ills and can sometimes save our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sinners All

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blessing. wisdom. humility, divine love, failures, frailty, Jesus, Mark, perfection, PopeFrancis, righteous, sinners, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unconditional love, wholeness

In today’s gospel (MK 2:13-17) when he is asked why he is eating “with sinners and tax collectors,” Jesus answers that “those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.” Just in case they don’t get the point he adds: “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” I always wondered how the people at the table felt when he announced to the Pharisees and the scribes (who were not the dinner guests) that he knew he was eating with sinners. Most of us would be horrified to be put in that category; we would much rather believe that our sins are well-hidden. My perspective has shifted on this point, however, as I’ve gotten older and practiced letting go of what I consider to be my failures. The recognition that perfection might be a goal for the end of life, but only if it means “wholeness” as some have come to define it, is much less anxiety producing. A more sensible way to be is to live in the present, accepting myself as I am and trying to accept others that way too.

Although this way of being is more easily said than done, Pope Francis has been quite helpful in the consideration. When he announced to the world, “I am a sinner,” some could have thought he was just trying to help the rest of us think better of ourselves. I have come to appreciate that what he was really doing was embracing the totality of the human condition and acknowledging that no one is exempt from failure to choose the good – and even to be downright mean on occasion. If this holy man who has electrified the world with his loving, expansive touch can admit his frailty with an honesty that makes me believe he means what he says, why would I not follow his example?

Today I pray a blessing on Pope Francis for his wisdom and humility and for the genuine expressions of love that he pours out in word and deed wherever he goes. And I ask God’s blessing on all of us who are, indeed, sinners – that we might know the embrace of a God who longs to lift us from our sins with the message that divine love is unconditional and that we are, indeed, enfolded in that love.

Righteousness

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Abraham, complacent, God, holier-than-thou, hypocritical, Paul, pious, preachy, priggish, righteous, righteousness, Romans, sanctimonious, self righteous, smug, social justice, superior, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today in Paul’s Letter to the Romans we read about Abraham being justified not because of his good works (although that measure could have been used) but rather Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, a more important measure. (ROM 4:1-8) The words righteous and righteousness have always made me squirm a little so this morning I looked them up and found that they were the adjective and noun describing the condition of acting in accord with divine or moral law, free from guilt or sin OR morally right or justifiable arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality, e.g. righteous indignation. That helped me because I sometimes think of people others call righteous as angry in their pursuit of social justice. With this definition in my pocket I can be more tolerant as I, too, sometimes feel my blood begin to boil at things happening in the world.

I went one step further in my search this morning, however, and found the root of my discomfort. When I put “self” in front of righteous, I found the following: characterized by a certainty, especially an unfounded one, that one is totally correct or morally superior. Synonyms abounded: sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, smug, priggish, complacent, pious, preachy, superior, hypocritical. My first thought was that we probably all can name someone like that and then I decided I might want to look in a mirror on occasion to be sure that my faith and my sense of righteousness lies in God and not in myself! Look deep, I said to me, because it may be an occasional arising that eludes your consciousness. Upon reflection, I think that recognition might just be the reason for the “squirminess” that calls for some attention today. Once again – not where I thought this practice of writing would take me but somewhere I need to go!