This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
I have lost my job. My girlfriend just broke up with me. I have finals this week. I have a killer deadline at work. My romantic life is going well but is highly perplexing. This year I actually lost money, paying out more to provide for my family than the money I earned. My teenage children are running with the wrong crowd. I have an exciting new business opportunity. I’m really worried that my presentation at work won’t be up to snuff with the executives. I can’t keep all my family’s schedules straight. I am late, late, LATE!
Realities like these make up the stuff of our lives. Sometimes the words of the first reading sound really enticing, on every level: “Give me neither poverty nor riches;
provide me only with the food I need.” Perhaps we would like to have just enough, but not too much, guaranteed for life, so that we wouldn’t have to run around like chickens with our heads cut off. Maybe then we would have time for God. Maybe then there would be room in our hearts for Him.
The words in today’s Gospel passage probably resonate less with us: “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.” Whatever our vocation, it involves taking care in some way, directly or indirectly, of others, which by definition means being prepared and provisioned. This is the very definition of responsibility.
And certainly, there is nothing wrong with having a job and earning money, with doing the things we need to do to manage the realities of our lives, as part of our vocation.
Perhaps the error does not lie in the sort of things we do. Perhaps the error does not lie in how much we have or do not have. Perhaps, for many of us, the error does not lie in attachment to riches and luxuries.
Perhaps what keeps us from living Gospel detachment from earthly realities, rather, is our attachment to fear. Fear is the unfortunate fruit of Adam and Eve’s desire to be “like gods.” And in our lives, it points directly to the sin of pride. Unfortunately, when we adopt the role of God in our lives, with that comes God’s responsibility: That is, the final, buck-stops-here responsibility to provide for ourselves and those we love.
If our attitude is more like that of the new Eve, the Blessed Virgin Mary, we recognize in a real, practical, palpable way that we live entirely dependent on God’s role as Lord and Provider. We may still do the same sorts of things in our lives, but we relax. Even though I could lose my job if this presentation comes out badly, even though I may missing something crucial on my family’s schedule, even though I feel unable to make my relations with my spouse go smoothly, even though the eternal salvation of my children is not guaranteed (!), It’s all good. It’s all OK. The buck simply doesn’t stop with me.
We perceive the terrible effect of our human race’s definitive “no” to God with original sin, in the immense difficulty we find in letting go of our absolute sense of responsibility. Ironically, though, letting go of this is critical to carry out, even imperfectly, our true responsibility: The responsibility to love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves. Fear chokes our ability to love.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Examine your life with Jesus. Try to put your finger on the areas where you act as if the buck stopped with you, and where the fear you so carefully strive to conceal is controlling you. Talk to Him about what guarantees He will give to you if you place those really risky areas in your life in His hands and stop worrying about them. If you do this, will you let Him down? Or will He, rather, take care of you?
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