“Go from your country, your kinsmen
and your father's house to the land
that I will show you... You are to be a blessing.”
that I will show you... You are to be a blessing.”
–Genesis 12:1-2
What are the Beatitudes but a call
for us to leave our place of security and comfort and go to a foreign land –a
place of vulnerability, of risk and of blessing. In Genesis, God calls Abram to leave his
homeland, his kinfolk and his father’s house to go forth to a land that God
will show him. In that place and by
becoming vulnerable to the curses and blessings of these foreign people, by
leaving behind his security and earthly support system and putting his trust
wholly in God Abram becomes a blessing.
“Blessed are you who are poor…”
“Blessed are you who hunger…”
“Blessed are you who mourn…” –cf.
Luke 6:20-21 & Mt. 5:3-11
Is this not a call to us to leave
behind our homeland of culture and identity, our kinfolk of support and
insurance, our father’s house of security and comfort and go to a foreign land
that Jesus is showing us: a land of hunger, poverty, mourning, meekness and
abuse? Go not where we are safe and feel
secure and accepted, but where we feel some risk of rejection and martyrdom
even. What greater love is there than to give up your life for another?
But how do we live this out? What does it mean in our daily life? For me, there was a wonderful incident the other
night that assured me that I had stumbled in the right direction. I was volunteering at the hospital with the
chaplain’s office. The chaplain tapes a list of names to his door for me. It is
usually a longish list, but he will highlight the ones that he wants me to
visit. Usually I just visit those highlighted names; I tend to be a rule
follower. But as I was heading to the elevator I noticed a name --someone I had
visited before–not highlighted. And something inside me made me feel that I should
visit that patient.
I imagined that I would go up, say
hello to him, perhaps offer a prayer and be on my way. But when I got to his room on the 4th
floor, he was asleep. So I was about to
go back to my assigned list when I noticed a man who looked a little troubled
in the room next door. So, I poked my head in and asked if there was anything I
could do for him. He was very hard of
hearing, but he was also quite clearly agitated and needed someone (or
something). So I struggled to talk with
this elderly man, but I listened as he told me that he was anxious about his
daughters and confused about why he was being left at the hospital. After a
while I offered to pray. He didn’t
understand at first, but as I began to pray the Our Father, he fell right in
with me –as if suddenly something clicked.
A nurse arrived while we were praying and when we finished, she began her
business with charts and scans, but she also began to ease his worries by
reminding him why he was in the hospital.
I left and tried the other man
again. He was still asleep. As I turned
to leave and go back to my assigned names, another nurse approached me. He wanted to know if I was the chaplain,
because a patient had just died and his family needed someone. My first reaction was a start of fear. I’m
not a chaplain and I wasn’t sure what to do.
But, instead of hiding behind my lack of qualifications. I explained
that I was a volunteer, and asked him to show me where the family was. Standing at the door to the room, I asked God
for a blessing and went inside to be with a family in deep and unconsolable
mourning.
That was a place and a moment where
I felt weak and slightly afraid. I hungered for the security and safety of the “right
words,” but I had only my presence and a selection of psalm to offer them. I
felt fearfully vulnerable. But, it was the place God lead me. And so I trusted.
I trusted that whatever happened –this wasn’t about me. It was about their
sorrow and their need to have someone come and pray with them in their time of
mourning. And so I went. And praying
with them, sharing psalm 42, listening to their memories and their pain, hearing
what a loving father the deceased was, all of it –I believe it was a blessing for
them, but I am certain it was a blessing for me.
And it all started with me reading
a name on my list that wasn’t selected for me by the chaplain, but (I guess)
was by the Holy Spirit. The first step
was leaving the safety and security of the highlighted names, to go somewhere God
was leading me. Then, visiting the man
who was almost deaf was a second step. He wasn’t the one I felt an attachment
to, and I only stepped into his room because I could see him through the window
and saw what looked like fear and confusion on his face –in his eyes. It was
uncomfortable and awkward trying to talk with him –but because I tried, because
I didn’t just give up and walk away, I was still on the floor when the other
man died and because I left his room when the nurse started her work I happened
to be walking out the door just as the other nurse came looking for a
chaplain.
And by being vulnerable what did I
find? An opportunity to become a
blessing. And an opportunity to be
blessed. And you know, I think in that
moment of blessedness I had a brief glimpse of another foreign land: Heaven.
Perhaps what Jesus is telling us in the beatitudes isn’t just that being poor,
or meek, or hungry or thirsty or suffering for Christ is good for us; perhaps
what He means when He says “blessed are…” is that to offer ourselves in this
way is truly blessed; it is a taste of Heaven.
Think about your own life. When
did you feel most blessed? Was it in a moment of earthly success (a 100 on a
test, a new job, successfully completing a project or getting an award for some
achievement) or was it when you offered yourself completely (in all your
brokenness and insufficiency) and found that you were received and you were a
blessing to someone who needed you?
To become a blessing is to be doubly
blessed.
Maybe your vocation is to be a chaplain. (There are even Catholic women chaplains - it's something you study for and get a license or something.)
ReplyDeleteYou are always a blessing to me as yet another layer of you peels away, and still, there is more. Mimi
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