Monday in 6th
Week of Ordinary Time
Eucharist at Emmaus
house chapel, Edinburgh
TRUE WISDOM
James 1:
1-11; Mark 8: 11-13
“My
brothers, you will always have trials. Faith is put to the test to make you
patient”. This isn’t news we want to hear. It has echoes of that old catholic
tradition of saying this is a vale of tears. It also plays into good old
Scottish fatalism. Life’s an uphill struggle to please a God who’s a bit like a
demanding parent and for whom you’re never going to be quite good enough; or life is an obstacle course and God is the drill sergeant watching you fall
flat on your face.
But this
isn’t what James is meaning. Trials are to make us “fully developed, complete,
nothing missing”. In other words whole, all that we want to be and more than we
can think of – more than we even think we want for ourselves. This is the
wisdom that’s going to form the Christ life in us. So here’s a thing, when we
ask God for things (I ask God for a lot), is wisdom on the list? You remember
Solomon was blessed because he didn’t ask for wealth or power or the lives of
his enemies, but for wisdom. And James sets the bar high on what wisdom means,
because he says, with wisdom you won’t be forever buffeted about by the waves
of life – up one minute and down the next. That strikes me as a wisdom worth
asking for.
With wisdom
you know what’s worth setting your heart on – what really makes you rich or
poor in the eyes of God, because for God it’s all topsy turvy. We see each
other differently with God’s wisdom. (We “look at the world through your eyes”
as one of our liturgies says).
And this is
what the Pharisees just don’t get in today’s short Gospel. They’ve just seen
the feeding of the 4000, so they basically show up and say “Do it again!” or “show
us something else, what else have you got up your sleeve, Rabbi? Show us a sign”.
But the sign is right in front of them, to quote James again: a fully developed
human being, complete, nothing missing. The wisdom of God shown in utter
humility, God made flesh. They just don’t get it, but we should. Jesus is the
sign. Jesus is the Wisdom. Through all the buffetings we get and the testing of
our faith and the testing of our patience, his wisdom, if we accept it, is the
Way to life.
Alongside these words, here is a reflection received today from Sister Joan Chittister, which echoes this invitation to be fully human and
whole:
Meditation 10
Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving—
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vows
A hundred times
Come, come again, come.
–Rumi
Commentary by Joan Chittister:
When we make the spiritual life
“a caravan of despair,”
we betray the God of life.
Life is a growth process
that melts and shapes us
and brings us to the white heat of living well.
It is a long, long process—full of stumbling
and errors and failings and sins.
All of which teach us something
about ourselves, about living,
about becoming all we are meant to be.
Nothing is inconsequential to sanctity,
there is nothing to despair.
It is all a matter of choosing
to choose differently,
if necessary, the next time.
–from God Speaks in Many Tongues by Joan Chittister (Benetvision)
Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving—
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vows
A hundred times
Come, come again, come.
–Rumi
Commentary by Joan Chittister:
When we make the spiritual life
“a caravan of despair,”
we betray the God of life.
Life is a growth process
that melts and shapes us
and brings us to the white heat of living well.
It is a long, long process—full of stumbling
and errors and failings and sins.
All of which teach us something
about ourselves, about living,
about becoming all we are meant to be.
Nothing is inconsequential to sanctity,
there is nothing to despair.
It is all a matter of choosing
to choose differently,
if necessary, the next time.
–from God Speaks in Many Tongues by Joan Chittister (Benetvision)
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