Serious faith for misfits, lousy joiners, and other homesick souls
Last night I saw a friend again that I have not seen for awhile. I was nervous about seeing him because of how we last left each other. What I left knowing is that we both desired our friendship more than we desired to look backward and be right. We forgave.
“Jesus called to himself a child – the essence of one who is powerless, dependent, needy, little, and poor. He placed the child ‘in the midst of them,’ as a concrete, visible sacrament of how the Kingdom looks. Jesus’ act with the child is interesting. In many of our modern, sophisticated congregations, children are often viewed as distractions. We tolerate children only to the extent they promise to become “adults” like us. Adult members sometimes complain they cannot pay attention to the sermon, they cannot listen to the beautiful music, when fidgety children are beside them in the pews. “Send them away,” many adults say. Create “Children’s Church” so these distracting children can be removed in order that we adults can pay attention.
Interestingly, Jesus put a child in the centre of his disciples, “in the midst of them,” in order to help them pay attention. The child, in Jesus’ mind, was not an annoying distraction. The child was a last-ditch effort by God to help the disciples pay attention to the odd nature of God’s kingdom. Few acts of Jesus are more radical, countercultural, than his blessing of children.”
* I wrote this yesterday evening 12/1/11. To my great surprise (chronological) baby #2, Matthew, was born at 11:45 last night. It is to him I promise to share his hope and to whom I dedicate todays reflection…
Babies
Lately, there is a lot of them in my neighborhood. WIthin one mile of my house three babies are being born in as many months. Three. I feel like even I am going to be changing a lot of diapers just by law of odds. I think having babies is an extraordinary act of hope. This is, of course, true because it is some kind of faith in the life beyond our own lives being worth living. This alone inhabits the essence of trust. But that is not all…
I graduated a semester early from high school and tried getting work as an actor. I was cast in an educational film which provided the opportunity to meet a person with AIDS for the first time. Something clicked in me and I felt an enormous deep inner compulsion to held ease the suffering, for at the time the best treatments would only add a handful of painful years to one’s life. That was then …
