The Very Things That Bring Joy Could Get In The Way

I have seen many Spiritus folks downtown at Jazzfest over the past 9 days – taking in the incredible music, celebrating the summer and enjoying the community of people that gathers every night. It really is such a unique and amazing experience to feel that energy.

This weekend I also attended a wedding of two wonderful people, Ana and Nicole. My wife, Lynne, was the celebrant and I was the “Plus 1.” And while I know Ana and Nicole, it turns out I knew a few more folks there than I anticipated. The ceremony was lovely and the reception was a blast! I also got to have some great conversations with the people I knew. One had recently completed the Camino and talked about their spiritual transformation as they walked. Another shared work they were doing related to our local Catholic Worker house. A mom and dad of 3 talked about the joy and fun of raising 3 children (the youngest being only a few months old). 

So many beautiful stories. So many wonderful people.

I relay all this because I think that it is ever important to remember that – while the bad stuff often grabs the headlines – there is ALWAYS goodness, beauty, joy and love in our midst. It can easily get overshadowed sometimes by the hardship, by the mean-spiritedness and the challenges of the times we’re living in (personal and/or collective). But it is there.

In Genesis 18 today, God has plans to send havoc upon Sodom and Gomorrah because the “sin” in that place was so grave. God tells Abraham of the plan, and Abraham has a few questions for God.

[Note: In this passage and others, the depiction of God may not always be the most flattering. God seems to be getting upset quite often and wants to use their power to punish folks for the offenses. Of course that’s not who God is, but it’s a story that has had some pretty significant reverberations in our spiritual lives – thinking that God was always mad with us and was going to punish us…]

Abraham then starts to bargain with God and says (and I’m paraphrasing), “OK, I understand, but what if I find 50 good and just people there. Would you still destroy the place?”

God says, “OK,OK. Find me 50 just people and I won’t destroy it…”

Abraham then goes on, “I mean, who am I to even challenge you, God? I’m nobody…But would you settle for 45 people?”

God says, “Fine…45 people.”

Abraham talks God down: 40…30…20…10!

God relents and says, “For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it.”

Why I love this passage is that Abraham is aware that there is sin, corruption, greed, injustice, idolatry and a whole host of other things going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. AND he is also aware that there are other story lines and realities that exist there as well.

There are good people.

There are things to celebrate.

Not everybody is corrupt or greedy and thinking only of themselves.

I know that I can sometimes easily get down on this world and see it as a singular, fallen reality. But that’s not the whole story. There is always goodness. There is always beauty. There are people and movements working for the common good. There is fun and laughter and joy.

Now might be a good time to ask, “Where have you found joy, laughter or beauty lately?” These, too, must be part of our spiritual practice!

In our gospel from Matthew 8, one of Jesus’ followers says to him, “I’ll follow you wherever you go.” Jesus offers one of his somewhat cryptic responses when he says, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” And then another potential follower says, “Let me go first and bury my father.” And Jesus says, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

At first glance, Jesus may come off as a bit rude, and this passage may seem to have no relation to what I was talking about earlier. But I think it actually does…  Just as Abraham reminded us that there are always alternative story lines that we can pursue, Jesus warns us not to get stuck and to stay radically open to God’s call.

I recently read a quote from John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way that said, “For Jesus, salvation is less about getting you into heaven and more about getting heaven into you…It’s less of a transaction and more of a transformation.”

Imagine with me for a minute a riff on today’s gospel. Imagine that God is inviting you or me into the kin-dom. And we respond,”But, God, I have Jazzfest pass? I need to use that first…” Or maybe, “But there’s a wedding today that I need to attend…”

The VERY things that can bring joy and beauty into our lives can also be stumbling blocks when it comes to responding to God’s kin-dom.

Just to be clear, I am not saying that we cannot experience God’s kin-dom at the Jazzfest or at a wedding or at any other event! It’s not a theology where the world is “bad” and we’re only supposed to be doing “holy and spiritual things” – whatever those things might be! But what Jesus often reminded his followers was that they were being asked to put God’s ways first.

In his own life, Jesus worked hard to discern God’s will for him. He knew that the pull of family, of success, of money, of certain commitments or of everyday life could veer us away from what God is asking of us. And while all of these things might, in fact, bring some joy into our lives and even be “good things”, they can just as easily prevent us from responding because they make demands of us and need our time, energy and resources.

Jesus’ words invite us to reflect on where our time and resources go and who benefits most from them. It asks us to evaluate our literal home (or homes) and remember that our Teacher was an itinerant preacher and healer who warned against putting our faith in the material world (and especially into systems that concentrate wealth among the few). His words invite us to take a good look at what we value most, who we are in solidarity with and what risks we’re willing to take for the most vulnerable in our midst.

I have found that, quite often, following Jesus relates more to what Meister Eckhart, a 13th century German Catholic priest, called a “spirituality of subtraction” – whereby we let go of all that separates us from God versus adding things to our life. This subtraction could be about our possessions. It could be about our attitudes. It could be about our fear of losing someone’s approval. It could be about letting go of spiritual practices or relationships that no longer serve us.

It could be just about anything.

So for today, if I had to try to create a little poem to sum up what I see as the spiritual teachings we find in our readings, I might say this: