Reflection - Surprises

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/073018.cfm
Jeremiah 13:1-11
Matthew 13:31-35

In the early years of our marriage my wife decided that it would be fun to arrange a surprise birthday party for me. Surprises were not a subject that had come up in the months we were dating; and had only made inconsequential appearances in the time since our marriage. It’s not that I’m against surprises; it’s just that I never learned appropriate behavior when on the receiving end — assuming there is such.

In any case, along with another couple, who were close friends at the time, she secretly made her plans. Food and beverages were bought and stored at the other couple’s house. The word of celebration was delivered to all our friends. All the elements of her scheme appeared to be coming together smoothly and I was oblivious to what was coming. When the day arrived, however, it became necessary to bring the party supplies to our house and that had to be done in secret. It was then that the master plan encountered the unplanned, and the spouse arranging the surprise got surprised. I can’t remember why I came home early, but my arrival on the scene was unexpected. I walked in on cases of beer being stuffed under the bed and immediately reacted with more than a few belligerent questions. My next surprise birthday party was a good thirty years later.

It was in reading the text from Jeremiah and the companion responsorial psalm that this business of surprises surfaced from among deeply-filed, trivial memories. The story in the Scripture text was hardly unexpected; in fact, it conformed rather well with what I already knew of the prophet. The image of the loincloth or waist-cloth, though lost to my memory midst other details from the Scriptures, was right in line with the kind of visual teaching Jeremiah frequently engaged in. The accusation that the Chosen People had “forgotten the God who gave you birth” was an ancient one. In fact, the text from the responsorial Psalm, which actually contains the line, comes from the book of Deuteronomy, which recounts what happened among them shortly after the Chosen People left Egypt. Their behavior then, as during the days of Jeremiah, had not even come close to the Lord’s expectations. So, six hundred years later, it was a case of same ol’, same ol’, been there, done that. No! The surprise was not in the text, though the text was the springboard from which the surprise came.

I was reading the text slowly for the third, maybe even the fourth time, seeking to hear the particular message which was contained there for today. An element of compassion for the accused had begun to creep in. Like us, the children of Abraham were surrounded by a culture whose teachings and lifestyle made it difficult to see with clarity either the holiness of God or the sin that was so pervasive among them. The two — God’s holiness and pervasive sin — are not always sharply differentiated. That’s true even for some of the holiest of men and women. It was in pondering the matter that I was abruptly surprised. In the midst of reflecting on the distance between the two I suddenly sensed the chasm between them which actually existed. It was like standing at the edge of a steep and deep canyon where the other side was barely visible. It was also incredibly overwhelming. Thankfully it was brief. But that brief image also made clear the futility of human efforts working alone in the face of evil which evil itself tries so intently to disguise. Just as the chasm was impossible for me to cross under my own limited powers, so too is the gulf between God and man impossible to bridge with only my own strength to rely on.

If the Israelites who left Egypt under the guidance of Moses, and if the Chosen People who occupied the Promised Land, and if those who were exiled during Jeremiah’s ministry, and if we today, like all of them, ignore the teaching of God or struggle in vain to live out his will it is probably because our attempts have their foundation in that misguided principle: “I’d rather do it myself.” Evil is superb in creating deceptive notions.

Like the mustard seed which needs nurturing,

Like the dough which requires kneeding,

The Kingdom of God, the presence of God within us, needs our personal attention. The power of evil to blind men to the truth, to disguise the hideousness of evil, to mislead about the desires of God — that power is impossible for me to overcome alone. It requires a measure of support and guidance and clarity which can only come from the source of all holiness. In seeking that there is no other route but to move closer to God. The brighter his light is in my life, the more sharply will evil be revealed for what it is.