By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver
©The United Church of Canada, 1985
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-88622-196-X
7M/12/85/APL
Used with Permission
Wednesday
Blessed incompletion
Luke 12: 49 - 53
Both Matthew and Luke report that Jesus said, "Don't think I came to bring peace on the earth." It's an uncomfortable thought. We wish it weren't part of the record. The saying can be used to justify all sorts of futile wranglings. It can be used to legitimate all sorts of stubborn self-righteousness. Its true meaning cannot even be approached if we take the remark out of the context of the total life and teaching of Jesus.
At the same time it cannot quite be gotton rid of. Identifying with sinners is a divisive thing to do in most societies. And it is a painful thing to love sinners at the same time as you uphold rightness.
- Luke prefaces these uncomfortable words with two sentences from the lips of Jesus that he alone records. They break into the text out of nowhere and appear to be spoken to no one in particular. They have the sound of inner reflections which have bubbled up into audible expression because some inner connection was made. I find them very revealing of the person of Jesus.
- "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled !
I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained
until it is accomplished!"
These words also speak to everyone of us who has ever taken up any serious responsibility. To embark, even in the most modest fashion, on a piligrimage to discover one's purpose in life is to enter the disturbing space between constraint and accomplishment.
I have been thankful many times that Luke included these sentences in his record, as I often find myself painfully impaled between constraint and fulfilment. In living out my life, especially if I let the world in, I am overwhelmed by all that's called for and all that's not getting done. A person could be ground to bits by that kind of burden. But these words remind me whose company I am in. They invite me to discover again that to be impaled between constraint and accomplishment is the state of salvation. If it is God's call, it's enough to be called; to be between the call and its accomplishment is to be in touch with the living God.
A remark made to me outside a downtown mission church in Vancouver brought me a clear understanding of how such things can be.
I was ushering one of the regular users of our facilities down the steps. He was the kind that caught your heart and tried your patience. Alcohol had claimed him and was destroying his mind and body. It was obvious that he had been well educated, but now he hardly ever uttered a coherent sentence. And he was a nuisance, tying up the phone and the office receptionist to no discernible purpose. Thus the regular practice of ushering him down the steps.
"God bless you, Frenchie," I said as I passed him through the door. He spoke the one, clear, coherent sentence I ever heard him utter. "You know better than that; God only blesses those who please him."
Between the call to get through to him with a different word, and accomplishment that he be reached with it, is a painful place to be. It puts a burden on you. But can you see how it is a glorious burden. That burden doesn't tire you out; it keeps you going.
Thy Kingdom Come- Almighty God,
- All our crying for your kingdom to come feels as if we are washing our hands of the mess that's here now. You fix it.
You put it right
You finish the job. - All that praying can be our way of saying, "Get it off our backs!"
Right enough. We'd like it off our backs - this messed-up world with its confusion confounded by the zealous application of conflicting solutions.
But it doesn't feel right to get it off our backs. It is our brothers and sisters that are suffering and we can't quite escape the thought that we have contributed to the mess.
There is no question, we long for a state that's not here now. Have you put that longing there? Is that what your servants of old meant by "seeking a city that is to come',? Will having no lasting city here empower us to care unceasingly for this one? Will that get the world off our backs and into our arms?
Gracious God, hear our cry - Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen