Seventy-nine years ago today my parents were putting the finishing touches on their new house on our farm. The original house on the farm had burned in 1937. It took four years for them to be able to build another one. Part of the time during those years they lived in town. Part of the time they lived in the chicken coop on the farm. Life was just settling into something good for them when events in the Pacific Ocean set everything awry. They had the radio on the morning of December 7, 1941 and learned of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Their world, THE world, was changed.
I grew up hearing stories of how thankful they had been that they had not only finished the house in 1941, but that they had also bought a large pressure cooker for canning and a sewing machine that year. “Those two purchases made such a difference for us during the war years,” they would say on December 7th every year. That date, because of events in the world, stood in our family as a watershed memory in our family story.
I grew up, too, hearing stories of sacrifices of family members who fought in the war, and of the sacrifices required of pretty much everybody on the home front. Those stories, along with the ones of the Great Depression, gave me as a child a mindset of “When there’s a problem: problem solve.” That mindset was a great gift my parents gave to me.
Today’s Gospel
People are problem solving in today’s Gospel. The scene is Galilee early in Jesus’ public life. “The power of the Lord was with Jesus for healing,” Luke tells us. There was a man who yearned for healing, but he could not get to Jesus. His friends carried him on his stretcher, but Jesus was in a house and they could not reach him.
So, they went up on the roof of the house, took off some of the ceiling tiles and lowered the man right in front of Jesus. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘As for you, your sins are forgiven.’” There was then a bit of an argument because Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven,” but, in the end, Jesus said, “Pick up your stretcher and go home.” The man “stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God.”
This story is a favorite of mine because it wasn’t even the man’s faith that saved him—it was the faith and the creative problem solving of his friends. I must admit that I would like to know the rest of the story of this incident—how come the man had such dedicated, creative, and bold friends, what was the man’s illness, what happened after he was healed. We do not know those wonderful stories of faith. We do know the event made a serious impression on Jesus’ disciples. Matthew (Matthew 9:1-8), Mark (Mark 2:1-12), and Luke (Luke 5:17-26) all three tell the story.
A Highway to Our God
Our first beautiful reading today from Isaiah talks about building a “highway to our God.” It comes from the end of “First Isaiah,” chapters 1-39 of Isaiah, which were written before the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon. After this poetic section of prophesy, Isaiah tells of the history of King Hezekiah. Then, for us, on Wednesday readings from Isaiah will come from chapter 40, which was written toward the end of the Babylonian exile.
The wonderful goodnesses of God described today will not come until after Jerusalem falls and many of the Jewish people are carried away into exile. In the meantime, they must have been offerings of praise from the people as they hoped for what they promise. It is like God promising the US the plentitude of our recent years on the eve of Pearl Harbor in 1941–or our offering God our present moments with praise for hope for the future.
How beautiful and comforting Isaiah’s words:
The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song….
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
With divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
Then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
“Keeping” Christmas
As I pray from today’s readings, I can’t help but also ask God: How can I problem solve? What do I do about “keeping” Christmas?
We decided over Thanksgiving that it is best if we are not together as even immediate family. We have NEVER not been all together on Christmas Eve. How do we CELEBRATE, though apart?
With COVID raging in our community, the traditional ways I have celebrated the whole Christmas season would be imprudent–company and visits throughout the 12 Days of Christmas, lots of visits and small food gifts to many friends who are elderly or ill.
We are at war with a virus, and sacrifices are demanded of us. We are exiled at home, not Babylon, but exiled nonetheless. And my conscience says to me that now is the time to “keep” Christmas in some new way that loves my neighbors without physically being with them.
Problem Solving with Spiritual Works of Mercy
What comes to mind as a solution to this problem is to look at the Spiritual Works of Mercy. The Spiritual Works of Mercy are:
- To instruct the ignorant
- To admonish the sinner,
- To comfort the afflicted,
- To counsel the doubtful,
- To bear wrongs patiently,
- To forgive wrongs readily, and
- To pray for the living and the dead.
It has struck me this week as I have prayed, that COVID does not interfere with doing ANY of those seven things. They all can be done on Zoom or by phone or via email or by snail mail or simply in my heart. They can be done without a need for shopping, baking, or visiting. They could be done, even if I were not able to attend church on Christmas. (Though please God, let me do that!)
I can do them—can my will bow to circumstance and do them with a sense of CELEBRATION? Yikes! That requires a sacrifice of praise that is beyond my comfort zone. Yet an attitude of praise seems essential if I truly KEEP Christmas. I am reminded of St. Paul’s words to help me:
What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written:“For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)
So, TODAY I’m revising my Christmas To Do lists. I’m problem solving like the friends of the paralytic man. I’m bringing my family, friends, and self to Jesus via taking the tiles off the roof. I’m going to keep Christmas via the Spiritual Works of Mercy and do my best to do it creatively with an attitude of praise.
Prayer:
When You cared for your people of Israel, Lord, You had to problem solve a lot. You did it sometimes by sending prophets who gave comforting words for times of distress. When You came at Christmas, Mary and Joseph had to do a lot of problem solving. When You began to build your Kingdom, You problem solved in many ways. Be with me, now, Lord, and help me to problem solve the keeping of Christmas in ways that satisfy my human heart AND that bow to the need to practice habits that work for the good of all. I beg You, give me the gift of true praise as I do it.
NOTE: Follow up to last week’s reflection. You can find information about Jesse trees readily on the internet. Basically, you read a story from the Old Testament and hang an ornament on a tree branch each day of Advent. You can find lists of stories or you can make your own. A Kerygma tree is a Jesse tree that continues through the Christmas season. I kind of made that up, so you are not likely to find anything on it.
People also asked about our questions during our parish “how are you holding up” calls. Briefly, (1) How are you? (2) Questions, especially for older parishioners, about ability to watch Sunday mass, access parish news via Flocknote, and use the parish website–with offers to help or give paper information if needed (3) conversation about “making it through this” and prayer requests (4) if we are again able to bring communion to homes, would you like communion brought to you.
