Questionable Choices? Not!
The Gospel this Sunday (MT 11:25-30) is a warm and welcoming story. Jesus is speaking to his disciples and all those who gathered with them the comforting words, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavenly burdened, and I will give you rest…” Undoubtedly, we have all known what it feels like to be heavily burdened by our lives. Those are words we want to snuggle down into, like with a warm blanket on a cold night.
Today though, I was caught by the words that preceded them. Jesus says, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” I began thinking about the group gathered, who were listening to those words, and those to whom Jesus chose to reveal His Father.
Jesus chooses to reveal His Father to the Apostles. For a moment, let’s consider who they were. Peter, who was very often brash and bumbling, talked a good game but had a hard time living it. Thomas, who was known as the doubter. You can bet he did not develop that trait after the resurrection. He probably was always questioning Jesus. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, had a most annoying mother. Jesus chooses Judas, who would betray Him for money. He wants Matthew, a tax collector, considered dishonest and despised by most. This was not the most auspicious crowd for sure.
The choices Jesus made for disciples and the judgments He made for who he would befriend, help, heal, and spend His time with were done with care and intent. When we look, from the outside, at the crowd He chooses, it appears either laughable or pitiful. They were not the wise or learned, they were just regular folks who did not put on airs or tout their wisdom or wealth. They were the bombastic and the doubting, the sinners and the weak, the women and the children.
Jesus chooses average human beings with all the personality foibles and quirkiness we find in humanity. Jesus’ choices show His love of the very heart of humanity. They show us that Jesus loved humanity in its weakness as well as its potential. Jesus did not look for the perfect and haughty to reveal His Father, He looked for real people, like you and me.
We see the same things throughout history. Jesus selected regular people to do extraordinary things. Jesus chooses Paul, a persecutor of His followers to be His voice to the Gentiles. He wanted a bratty child who became Saint Therese of Lisieux, a Doctor of the Church. He chose a man, given to extremes, in Saint Francis of Assisi, and a man with a questionable past in St. Augustine. The list could go on. But the point is simple. Jesus chooses real people, people who experience life, and are not perfect to be His followers.
We must take heart and realize that we, too, have been chosen by Jesus. Jesus accepts us in all our humanness to reveal the great love of His Father to our world. Jesus saw in us potential that sometimes we do not see in ourselves.
He revealed His Father to the lowly and the simple ones. Too often, we back away from our faith’s challenges because we see ourselves as unworthy, not smart enough, or shamed by our sins. We allow our limitations to stop us from proclaiming God’s love, not just in our words but in how we live our lives. Jesus has given us the love of the Father and the wisdom of the Spirit; we must not squander it.
There is a beautiful little story about an interview with one of the Gold Medal Olympic skaters. She was asked by an interviewer how she got so good. Her answer was simple, “Every time I fell, I got up.”
Jesus’ disciples fell, the followers in the first centuries fell, the saints throughout the ages fell, and we fall too. But that is not an excuse to proclaim ourselves unworthy; it is an opportunity to get up, dust ourselves off, and once again be the chosen of God.
The thought of it is actually both humorous and hopeful. We are the motley crowd of God, and that is just the way He wants it.
May we all know God’s great blessing in the fullness of our humanity and His amazing love in all our failings.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
