It was the first evening this summer for Marguerite and I to go visiting. We weren’t sure what we would find. While neither of us admitted it until later, we were both a bit nervous. Neither of us had ever gone up to someone’s door, knocked, and said, “Hi, my name is Marguerite” or “My name is Mary.” “We are from Good Shepherd. We are out visiting tonight, and we have come to visit you.”
What would we find?
Well, that night we found two people we didn’t know who belong to our parish. One had just come back from Rehab after hip replacement surgery. She thought maybe Father had sent us because she’d had the surgery. That thrilled her! The other had some family company visiting, but she sat out on her patio and talked with us for at least a half hour. Both were surprised and happy we came. Both said, “Come again.” Both were friendly people who made friends with us easily, but from the conversation, neither had close friends in our parish.
Make a friend
What we found that first night has been confirmed on subsequent Wednesday evenings as we visit older members of our parish whom we either don’t know or don’t see consistently at mass. What we found out is this: people respond with friendliness to friendly people expressing interest and caring. And when you tie that to God and church, people appreciate the connection.
Our efforts rest on some survey research that shows that in our mid-size parish (about 750 families), 40% of the older members (over age 65), once they or their spouse cannot drive, have no ready way to stay connected to church. Almost half the older people in our parish are not part of an extended family of the parish, and either they have no children, have no children in Frankfort, or have no children in Frankfort who are active Catholics.
If they are to stay connected to church, church must reach out to them.
Of all the interesting things we are discovering on our visits this summer, what stands out in my mind is this: the common denominator of those we visit is THEY HAVE NO FRIENDS ACTIVE in the parish. Originally we thought we would discover people who need transportation to church or communion brought to them. We thought we would find people angry at the church or unconcerned about faith. We have found some of that. But mostly, we have found very friendly (but sometimes lonely) people who are isolated from church—and friends of faith.
Be a friend
That was not the case today in our Gospel reading. Some FRIENDS bring a paralytic to Jesus. Jesus heals him. This event is also found in Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26. In the other two versions, we have an important added detail: so many people were crowded around Jesus that the friends could not get the man to Jesus. So they went up on the roof of the house, stripped off the tiles, and lowered the man on his bed down in front of Jesus.
ALL THREE versions have the words, “seeing their faith, Jesus said..” All three also record Jesus as saying to the paralytic, “your sins are forgiven.”
This I find to be as fascinating as what we are discovering on our visits to elders in our parish.
It was not the paralytic’s faith that Jesus saw. Jesus saw sin in the paralytic. In our version today, Jesus says, “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”
It was the FAITH OF THE FRIENDS that Jesus saw. And in response to the faith of the friends Jesus healed the man on the pallet and expressed God’s forgiveness of the man’s sins.
This is very powerful to me. Very good news.
Now it is true that “God has no grandchildren.” My faith cannot save my children. It cannot save my friends. Each person must choose to follow Christ, to walk the walk of faith.
BUT, our Church teaches that faith is a OUR RESPONSE to GOD’S LOVE FOR US.
God loves first. ALWAYS. Faith is our natural response when we recognize that love.
God often initiates (mediates) his love through us
I remember often words of Mother Teresa. [I am away from home and writing this quote from memory, so every word may not be exactly right] Someone asked Mother, “If God is love, how do you explain starving children?” Mother responded, “God is love, and he provides enough food. How do you explain that you are not sharing your food to feed them?”
God loves me, and I respond with faith. God loves you, and you respond with faith. We believe, we trust, we love.
AND
God can, as he did in the Gospel today, heal and forgive those we love BECAUSE OF OUR LOVE.
But…there’s a catch. A piece I am only beginning to see—in part from what I learn visiting on Wednesday nights:
We have to bring our friends to Jesus.
Bring a friend to Christ
In the Gospel, the friends did not come listen to Jesus, then go home and say to their paralytic friend, “You should have heard Rabbi Jesus today. He was great!” They didn’t just tell Jesus about him, “We have this friend who needs you.”
They picked up their friend and took him to Jesus. They carried the weight of him. They didn’t give up when there were barriers. They got creative. They got bold. They pushed through and put their friend where Jesus could see him and heal him. THEN Jesus could love as God loves; Jesus could heal and forgive as God heals and forgives.
But, like people have to feed starving children, people have to bring people to Jesus.
There’s more than one way to do it
Now prophets and prophetic voices can also bring people to God. And sometimes God puts us in a position to name uncomfortable truth instead of to offer helpful service.
In today’s first reading, Amos is in that position. He is naming uncomfortable truth. Apparently to be a prophet was not Amos’ intention. He tells Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, “I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. THE LORD TOOK ME from following the flock, and said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
So Amos did. For his trouble, he got evicted from Israel and sent to Judah.
But what he said was still truth. And his purpose was to bring people to God.
The psalm response today is, “The judgments of the Lord are true, and all of them are just.”
And justice for others may depend on you and me knocking on doors, remembering God’s love is often mediated through people, and speaking truths. We might be a missing link in people’s journey to God.
Prayer:
Lord, you know I’d much rather carry someone’s mat to you than speak uncomfortable truth or knock on doors. But just now, in a conversation at breakfast with a person I met only yesterday, you set up a situation for me to do all three. Lord, it is so very easy for me to keep the lessons I’m learning in neat little boxes to just use sometimes when I can plan it. But in my soul I know You are teaching me to be prepared all the time to recognize the needs around me, to bring people to you one way or another, and, when the point in the conversation comes up, to name even uncomfortable truths. You are teaching me HOW to bring people to you. Keep teaching me, Lord. And give me the humility and grace to keep knocking on doors, having conversations, and looking around to see who might be hungry for love or truth. Give me the humility and grace to make mistakes, learn from them, and keep following you. Amen.
