How Jesus Calls Each of Us

Mark 10:49: How Jesus Calls Each of Us

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, he is calling you.”

Each day at the beginning of my lunch period, a former student stops by my room for a visit. As I am tidying up my room, he opens the door and greets me with, “How is your day, Mr. Blackburn?” It is a stock greeting that I have come to expect over the past two months, and my response usually links back to how he is doing in school and life. Although we only get three minutes of dialogue each day, I have noticed the following: He is stressed out with school work, busy working in his family’s business, and in need of attention and acceptance. And to be honest, his daily visits sometimes annoy me. I feel guilty, but there are times I selfishly hope he would stop by weekly instead of daily. A recent event, however, showed me how wrong I often get it, how blind I am to Jesus’ presence in my life.

A few days ago, I celebrated my birthday. I like to keep this quiet, celebrating only with my family. But when this student entered my room, wished me a Happy Birthday (he remembered from last year when his class mistakenly found out), and presented me with a handmade present, I could not believe my blindness. Most moving, however, was the message he enclosed on a 3x5 index card. It contained the following line: “You have been like a father figure to me.” I was (and still am) speechless.

Jesus calls each of us in ways we often fail to see. God’s voice is heard in the call of those around us, looking for our attention, kindness, and love. It is a call that comes during our free time, challenging our selfish nature, calling us to love outside of our comfort zone. This incident reminds me that I am no different than the blind Bartimaeus. And I need our Lord to open my eyes so that I, too, can rise up and follow him on the way.

I pray that we are all blessed to see those moments when Jesus appears in the least expected places of our day and that we always respond with love.  

Have a blessed week!

Stan

What Does it Mean to be Truly Great?

Mark 10:43-45 (NABRE): True Greatness

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Greatness is something for which many of us strive. We work hard at our jobs and have gone to professional, trade, college, or graduate school. Our hope is to be the best we can and to achieve the American Dream -- independence, livelihood, and a status of achievement among our peers. Being great in our society is being respected, elevated, and admired. But Jesus, as he so often does in the gospels, turns the tables on our perspective of greatness.

Greatness is service. According to Jesus, being truly great is giving to and providing for others first. It is easy to “look out for number one,” as James and John illustrate in today’s gospel. Jesus, however, corrects them by presenting the inverse. The self aggrandizement of the disciples is antithetical to Christ’s definition of greatness. And Jesus provides the perfect example of service: He willingly dies the death of a criminal in order to bear our sins and make us right with God.

Greatness is taking on the role of a slave. The last thing many of us would choose is to live a life of slavery. Now this in not slavery in the historical sense -- the inhuman, immoral ownership and treatment of human beings as property. Slavery in the Christian sense points again to the service of others before ourselves. Jesus best illustrates this when on the day before Passover and his impending suffering and death, he washes the feet of the disciples. In first century Palestine, washing the feet of guests who enter a house was a job reserved for the lowest-ranking servant. In John 13-1-17, Jesus disrobes himself, gets down on his knees, and cleans the feet of the disciples, modeling the duty of a slave to drive home his point: Following Jesus is to do as he does, to love as he loves, to give as he gives. And that means living life as a slave of love and self giving to others.

Greatness is giving up our lives for the love of the other. Jesus clearly states that he came not to be served but to serve and give his life up in order to free us from the sins that imprison us (Mark 10:45). Look at any crucifix and you will see a suffering Jesus, who in agony dies the most painful death possible during his time. And he dies between two criminals, a scandalous social statement. The crucifix is not, as some fundamentalists argue, a symbol of failure. Rather it is a reminder of how far God goes to express his love for us. It is a reminder that Jesus, God himself, willingly died a painful, human death for each one of us. Why? Through his human suffering, God expresses his deep, limitless love for each of us; on the cross, he illustrates his desire to be with us for eternity. True greatness is to give up our lives for the love of another.

We are not expected to mount a cross on Calvary anytime soon. But we are faced with many choices to love throughout our day. How many of us have family, loved ones, and friends to whom we gladly give our time? That is true greatness. Greatness is lived out through the many times we put our lives on hold to serve and love someone in need. Greatness, moreover, is lived out in the many small sacrifices we choose in the living moments of our lives.

Loving God, we pray to choose the love of others over the love of self. Your word tells us it is something the disciples often did not understand. Jesus, however, found the best teaching method, his life’s example. Please give us the grace to follow Christ’s example and live lives of true greatness. Amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

Our Failures and God's Grace

Mark 10:20-22, 26-27 (GNT): Jesus is Our Perfection

“Teacher,” the man said, “ever since I was young, I have obeyed all these commandments.”

Jesus looked straight at him with love and said, “You need only one thing. Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.” When the man heard this, gloom spread over his face, and he went away sad, because he was very rich.

The Good News of Jesus Christ is free, unmerited, and for all. The gospel is God’s gift to give; it’s not ours to earn. We don't have to go through life crossing off a list of commandments to say we are good people and warrant heaven. We can’t! The Ten Commandments, moreover, are the means by which God reminds us where we fail to love him and our neighbor (see Romans 7). No matter how hard we try (and as Christians we should try our best to abide in the commandments of God), we will never be able to keep them all with perfection.

The rich young man in Mark 10 feels that he has kept the law. But Jesus reminds him just how short he has fallen: “. . . [S]ell all you have,” Jesus says, “ . . . then come and follow me.” After witnessing this, even the disciples ask, “Who then can be saved?” This is, as Jesus instructs, impossible for us to do on our own. For as Mark writes, “Jesus looked straight at them and answered, ‘This is impossible for human beings but not for God; everything is possible for God.’” The gospel is God’s work through our cooperative “yes.”  

Let us examine our lives -- our families, our circle of friends, and our vocation -- and notice the places where we fail and fall short. Do not be discouraged, however. For our failures only remind us that God’s grace, love, and mercy are plentiful and abundant. And through the salvific love of Jesus Christ and our faith in him, we will be held up and made strong as servants of his love in this world, no matter how human and imperfect we are.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

Grace and God's Loving Choice

Colossians 3:12-14 (GNT): God Chooses Us

You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity.

There were many years in my life that were spiritually empty. During those years, however, I would never admit I was missing anything. But there was something under the surface of myself that lacked; there was an indiscernible emptiness. If asked, I could not identify it. Through grace, however, God reaches out to us. And one day, I experienced the burning desire to discover Jesus in my life. For some time, I felt like I chose to embrace Jesus, and there is truth in that statement. It was my decision, for example, to open the scriptures, pray, and seek a church community during that time. In Paul’s passage to the Colossian church, however, he reminds us that God loves us and chooses us for his own. This makes so much sense: Why would any of us experience the need for Christ in our lives? What is the catalyst? Is it our life experience and context; or is it something else, something deeper? The answer is simple: It is God’s grace.

Through grace we are reminded of God’s love for each of us. We are called, Paul says, to “clothe [our]selves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” We are to be tolerant and forgiving of each other, for God himself became human frailty so that he could die in our place, taking on our umpteen faults and failures. And if that is not enough, Paul proclaims that God’s forgiveness, care, and concern for each of us are bound in the same way that we are bound to each other, in the perfect union of love.

As we begin a new week, let us go out into the needy world knowing that we are each chosen and loved by our great God. And as we bask in the warmth of his love, let us soak it in and reciprocate it to the world through forgiveness, “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

I pray that God’s blessings be upon you and those you love and encounter.

In Christ,

Stan

What Part of our Lives Does Jesus Demand?

Luke 9:59-62 (NABRE): What part of our lives does Jesus demand?

And to another [Jesus] said, "Follow me." But he replied, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father." But he answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God." And another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home." Jesus answered him, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God."

There are no "Yea But"s when it comes to following Jesus. We are called to follow him in every aspect of our lives. Work cannot be the exception; our personal lives cannot be the exception; our family lives cannot be the exception. We are called to be dedicated disciples bar none, devoted in every inch, nook, and cranny of our lives. But this is a tough task for us humans, for we are all human and susceptible to conditional living, susceptible to sin. 

Jesus, however, reminds us that his calling must come first in our lives. And this does not mean abandoning our familial responsibilities. It means, on the contrary, blessing our familial responsibilities with our newfound faith in Christ. We are to embrace Jesus in every aspect of our lives -- family, work, public, and private. 

Jesus answered him, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God."