Mtr Mary Trainor

O Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end…*

Dear friend,

It’s a lovely promise and so well deserved. It’s a promise I have made. Sometimes it’s a promise I forget or, more likely, push aside when it’s inconvenient.

Today’s Office Gospel from Luke offers a polar view of how it is that humans accept God. At one end is a certain ruler, who had many possessions; at the other, an infant, who owned nothing and was reliant upon the grace of others.

I’ve always found this an interesting teaching. The ruler is a good man, who knows and follows the commandments. He seeks out Jesus in order to deepen his faith. A stumbling block keeps him from full embrace of God’s kingdom: His accumulated belongings. He can’t imagine letting them go, so he walks away.

An infant, Jesus tells us, whose only desire is food from a nurturing presence, is a prime candidate for the kingdom of God.

Be thou ever near me, my Master and my friend...

I once thought more literally about what Jesus told the ruler to do. Sell your possessions and give your wealth away to help those in need. And, to be like an infant, relying on God for one’s life and sustenance.

Now I see it differently, that it’s less important to give all away, than it is to not let possessions become our Master. And I don’t need to become a helpless infant in order to be closer to God. But it does require that my first desire is relationship with the Holy.

When our life’s energy is spent accumulating, acquiring, and achieving, when we’re too self-absorbed to be vulnerable, that’s when we’ve missed the mark.

I shall not fear the battle if thou art by my side...

Sometimes the things that distract us are not tangible wealth or possessions. Sometimes pursuit of our faith itself can lead us astray.

I recall a story from my early time as an Episcopalian. A woman was worried about the eternal life of her grandchild. Her son had married an adamantly unchurched woman, who wanted nothing to do with rituals of the church. Including baptism.

The woman told--no, bragged--to her friends at church that she had secretly baptized the little boy while bathing him one night. Against the wishes of his mother and, by association, his father. Her son.

It’s a cautionary tale to me, showing that it’s possible to use the mechanisms of faith itself to go astray. The ruler was obsessed with all that he owned. This grandmother was consumed with doing what she believed to be right, over against the wishes and beliefs of others. And in so doing, left out the essence of the baptismal act, the need and right to be encircled by a community of believers--the body of Christ.

Possessions. Wealth. Rules. Willfulness. Ignorance. So many things can lead us away from God, even if we think we are following faithfully.

Nor wander from the pathway if thou wilt be my guide.

Mtr Mary

*The Hymnal 1982, Number 655, O Jesus, I have promised