Wisdom 2.12,17-20 The wicked prepare to ambush the just man
James
3.16-4.3 The
wisdom that comes from above makes for peace
Mark
9.30-37 Anyone
who welcomes one of these in my name welcomes me
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We learn lots of things when
we’re on the move.
I have on my bookshelf a book
called A Philosophy of Walking.
It reminds us that there is
something about walking along with others that makes our quality of
conversation different from when, say, we’re sitting face to face in a meeting
or other setting.
In scripture then it’s no
surprise that whilst people walk along that transformational happen.
Two dejected disciples walk along
with a stranger who opens up the Bible for them, so much so that afterwards they
describe their hearts as ‘burning within us’ as they walked along and he talked.
The stranger was Jesus Christ.
Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of the
Church, was on his way to arrest more Christians in Damascus.
On that journey he was struck
down by a dazzling light that blinded him; the blinding refocused his vision so
that he, who we know as St Paul, recognised that the light was… Jesus Christ.
Philip the Apostle was walking
along a road in Gaza, of all places, when a chariot came alongside him and he
chatted with an eminent Ethiopian man who quizzed him about the Bible: ‘who is
this suffering servant that the prophet Isaiah writes about?’ (cf Acts 8.26-40)
They discuss. Of course, the suffering servant is… Jesus Christ.
Here’s a great spiritual
discipline.
Try walking, slowly.
Look around.
Sense what is going on.
Look forward.
Sideways.
Look up (but don’t trip).
There’s no hurry; put your phone
down, take off your headphones.
Slow walking – spiritual and
physical - will help you foster an awareness that opens you up to transformation,
a moment when you realise that walking alongside you, behind you and in front
of you is… Jesus Christ.
Now, that is all in contrast to
the discussion taking place amongst the disciples as they walk along with
Jesus, as described in our gospel reading.
They walked through Galilee, a
region of northern Israel. Here with Jesus Christ absolutely present to them –
not talking about him, but talking with him – what is their reaction?
They don’t understand and because
they don’t understand they are scared.
There is a lot to understand
about life, faith and being a Christian, but there is absolutely nothing to be fearful of, save losing those
things that are not of Christ.
Christ’s ‘perfect love casts out
fear’ (1 John 4.18).
What last week’s Gospel reading,
and today’, tells us is that the way we find life, life in all its abundance
(John 10.10) is through letting go of self and embracing Christ; this is what
it means to ‘take hold of the life that really is life’ (2 Timothy 6.19).
The response of faith, and hope,
and love is not the abject fear of losing the things I have become comfortable
with, ingrained habits of sin or denial of God’s mercy, but the response is
rather a holy fear, of awe and trembling before the majesty of God.
Walking along that road, the
non-understanding, fearful disciples, begin calculating what they will lose, in
worldly terms, if they indeed follow this man to Jerusalem and to suffering,
betrayal and crucifixion: ‘take up your cross and follow me’ he has said (cf Mark
8.34-37)
So as they walk they shut down,
they turn in on themselves and start arguing about who is the greatest of them
– something they can’t even admit to, not out loud, even to Jesus - because
they know the grasp for human greatness, adulation – other people cooing over
them – is seductive and addictive.
What we so often want are those
intoxicating things money, sex, power, adulation, fame, perfection, and just
other people thinking we’re great, or at least okay.
It’s frightening to hear that all
that counts for nothing in the eyes of the God who loves us .
That is where the example of the
child comes in.
It’s not that Christ says we are,
or should be, immature, or kept in a forced state of naivete, but he says
accept love without question and without condition.
The love of God is not a
transaction to enter into or a bargain, but something to bathe in.
The child receives love in that
way, and we start losing that wonderful gift all too quickly.
‘Revisit’, Jesus is saying, ‘what
it is simply to be loved without having to prove anything to anyone’.
If, as St Thomas Aquinas puts it,
love is ‘willing the good of the other for the sake of the other’, then that is
first what Christ gives us and, second, what disposition towards others must be.
I love not because I want or need
to win; I love not to make up for a lack in myself; I love simply because I
love and will the good of the other without condition.
With that assurance of love and
salvation, we don’t need to worry about what we don’t understand of our faith –
it’s about the heart before the head – we don’t need to be fearful, we don’t
need to retreat into power struggles and asserting ourselves over others.
Rather, we find the strongest way
of all, the virtuous way, the true way, the way of Jesus Christ, where we walk
the path of life simply savouring the fact that we are loved, and receiving
that love as a child, without fear or anxiety.
Welcome that love, for then you
welcome Christ and the loving Father whose face he reveals.
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