The "What If" Seeds of Tomorrow

    Daily we are called to plant the "what if" seeds of decisions for tomorrow.    At every planting, and it is often, we hold a "yes" and a "no".  We plant one and discard the other.  The only problem is that the "yes" and the "no" do not turn out the same every time.  The success of the planting depends on our responsible choice, the only consistent element of this prophetic undertaking.

    How often, though, do we choose the seed to be sown not because we see and know the outcome produced but on whim, fancy, or feeling?  How often do we choose one rather than the other only because it will inconvenience our life style of the present moment, even though someone tries to warn us of the dangerous outcomes.  How often can it be reduced to simply "I don't care about tomorrow, but what affects me right now."  And so we plant it, and say it is good.

   But that "what if" of tomorrow blossoms and grows because by choice we gave it a chance and not the other.  How often has it turned out to be a briar by which we have been cut and wounded?  How often have we recognized that one of those very briars by which we are now pained is the one we planted weeks, months, or even years ago?  We suffer the consequence of our decision now even though we regret what we have done.  "How shortsighted and selfish could we have been" yet we experience now the pain nonetheless of our reckless decision however convinced "we felt" at the time.  As we nurse our wounds we think now "how could we have done such a thing."

    The "what ifs" can be beautiful blossoms to enrich us or painful briars to wound or inflict a painful suicide because of the way we responded.  We do have the power of life or death by the "what if" seeds we plant.  In the end can we say, "and it was good"?

                                                                                                 little john 12/10/81

                                             Redemption's Daily Miracle

    There is something awesome that has taken place everyday for nearly two thousand years, something so special that man never dreamed it could be.  Yet, is is so often and so easily taken lightly and for granted by those who participate, those who should be profoundly touched by it.

    Like so many followers of Christ, I called myself Christian.  Yet for so many years I had lived a powerless life based only on knowledge, not having met and experienced Jesus, God's only Son, our Redeemer. I had been brought up and taught the beliefs of the faith.  Because of the time in history, or my own personal weaknesses and ignorance, or both, my spirituality was still academic, aloof, beyond my grasp.  Then one day at a serious fork in the road of my life's walk, I but glimpsed my poverty in spirit and was devastated.  At a point of emptiness and brokenness, I responded to an invitation to reach out, not from the head, but from the heart.  Beyond my expectations, I met someone who was more desirous to be united to me, than I had ever been to be united to Him.  Jesus entered my life, and my life is not the same.  At difficult moments, I often reflect on where I had been and how His faithfulness and power has touched me with a call to go further yet.  Out of these times, ponderings arise on who He is and what He is trying to teach me.

    Who is Jesus?  Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise to send a Redeemer to bridge the chasm caused by makind's first rebellious act.  He would come to enable, empower us to truly return to our Father, not as criminals, but as loved children.  The Messiah, as He was called, was looked forward to and longed for.  But that it would be God's own son incarnate, we couldn't comprehend such a deed.  Even though Jesus told us who He was and convincingly displayed that God's power worked in and through Him, His own people and leaders refused to believe because He didn't fit their interpretation, expectation, and understanding of the Promised One.  Most of the leadership, the intelligentia of the day and "spiritual guides", were scandalized by Jesus' utter humanness, warmth, and compassion.  Most of all, they were overwhelmed by His claims equating oneness with Yaweh - His Father's only begotten son.  To silence what they jeered to be bombast and blasphemy, they did their best to discredit the remarkable signs of power resulting from His works and teaching.  Their "twisted holiness" culminated in disgracefully closing what they considered Jesus' earthly career, orchestrating His death as a suffering, common criminal on a foreigner's cross.  They, therefore, successively confirmed the revelations given in their sacred writings of which they flaunted themselves to be so knowledgeable.  His death, however, only seemed to open an even greater can of worms in that the fact of an empty grave and a missing body, further allegations would be circulated promoting another of His most bizarre pronouncements of rising from the dead.  Sure enough, reports began and went so far as people claiming to have seen Him, alive and risen from the dead.  This Jesus had been too much a problem alive, and it persisted even now after His witnessed crucifixion and verified death by the resurrection recounts.

    Instead of an end, Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross and rising were the culmination of his obedient mission, and a new beginning for mankind.  It was destined to be remembered daily, not as a sentimental recollection, but by His commanded choice - do this in remembrance of me.  And so today, we continue to remember His sacrifice in and as a body when we celebrate the Eucharist.  At the Last Supper, He established the reality of His sacrifice in the context of the Passover meal, for He would shortly be the Lamb of God.  It was to perpetuate His visible presence and feed us as He Himself proclaimed.  Can this really be?  By His gift of faith we see.

    Yaweh spoke and it came to be.  Water into wine, sick and infirm healed, loaves and fishes multiplied, Lazarus revived from death, in each instance it came to be by the power of God's Son's call to do so.  Time after time, Jesus confirmed His divine authorization and the reality of God's power working in Him.  He even shared this power with those He chose and called.  They rejoiced at the realization of the results, both after the mission He had sent them on and after Pentecost as when Peter said "In the name of Jesus, walk," to the lame beggar, and he did.  When Jesus commissioned His apostles before He ascended, it happened.

    What's the point?  Jesus empowered His duly delegated disciples, authorized them, and it has been successively handed down till the end of time as He promised.  In the Eucharist, "This is my body.  This is my blood.  Do this in memory of Me."  are an obedient response.  What is repeated today, simply, comes to be.  The bread does become Christ's Body.  In sequence, the wine does become Jesus' Blood.  Simply, what is said under the authority of His name and in response to His will happens, becomes a reality.

    I, like most Catholics, believe this as an act of faith.  Daily then, we are in the presence of a miracle.  We eath His flesh.  We drink His blood.  It is just as He said.  We witness a miracle and are fed.  But one thing confused me.  How did the changing of bread and wine into His body and blood tie in with the sacrificial redemptive act on the cross.  Granted, it was established during the Passover meal, but it didn't even remotely resemble our understanding of a sacrifice.  We believe it is not a sentimental remembrance, but does become a power-filled commemoration.

    Then at the consecration one day, a host of thoughts connected.  I don't remember where I had read the material, but the meanings for the words body and blood in Jesus' spoken language had been defined.  The word for body was also used in His time by the Jews to denote person, the totality of who one was.  Likewise, the word for blood also stood for life, as indeed without it, one ceases to be alive.  When Jesus spoke the words at the Last Supper, as indeed they have continued to be repeated, by the power of His authorized word the bread does become His body, person, all that He is.  Likewise, the wine become His blood, His life-blood.  At that moment, I could see how Jesus' act was indeed a profound remembrance of His sacrifice, an awesome reality.  As the bread become His body, a totality of who Jesus is, a real miracle, and then as the wine becomes His blood, life, a sacrifice has taken place.  When the blood has left the body, life separated from the person, the memorial of the sacrifice that actually took place on the cross is in reality commemorated.  At the consecration of the bread and wine, the memory of the redemptive sacrifice is par excellance perpetuated.

    I do believe that I am indeed part of Christ's Last Supper, part of His sacrifice on the cross, part of His divine history and plan, and part of his reign until He returns in glory.  And it is not just for me uniquely, for I am but a small part of the plan with all who love, obey, and respond to His call - of all who believe and live out that call.  By His body and blood, I am fed.  It becomes part of me in response to God's laws that govern my body's ingestion.  However, I am more profoundly called and empowered to become like Him, God's child in Jesus' image.  I, we, can indeed experience being loved.  I, we, can indeed become holy as our Father is holy, for He is Abba.  Jesus is Brother.  The Holy Spirit does indeed dwell within empowering as Jesus promised.  Jesus died once and for all on the cross and the reality of that sacrifice is remembered around the globe as redemption's daily miracle is repeated ongoingly.  All of God's people share in this as the multitude did that were fed with loaves and fishes.  This time, the Lord is our food, our sustenance.  We are called to the eternal life that feeds and empowers us.  How awesome, grave. and real!  How tender, merciful, and loving!  My Lord and my God!      Amen.

                                                                                                             little john 1/25/86