One of the first movies I remember watching was "The Wizard of Oz". I was only four or five. Our neighbors had a new TV. Our two families watched it together. The thing I remember most is getting freaked out by the flying monkeys. I was so scared that I did not sleep the night in fear of those darned monkeys. I continued to have nightmares for months afterwards thinking that those winged primates were coming after me! I was so frightened that I didn't care (or I didn't know) that Dorothy and Toto got to go home to Auntie Em in the end.
Jesus goes home to Nazareth in today's Gospel story from Mark (Mark 6:1-6a). He goes to the synagogue to preach and gets criticism instead of compliments. His old hometown neighbors talk behind His back, bad mouth Him, and tell Him that He's not "all that". This is very odd for this part of the Gospel of Mark. In this first half of the Gospel, everything that Jesus does is wonderful, never seen before, healing, powerful, compassionate, forgiving, and most of all successful. Everywhere He goes He is able to heal, forgive, exorcise, or do whatever it takes to care for peoples' needs. Everyone is praising Him and are in awe of God because of Him. But not in Nazareth. It may have been a case of His former neighbors and relatives being too familiar with Him. Perhaps they remembered the little snotty nosed Jesus, and couldn't get passed the fact that He had grown up physically and spiritually. After His Baptism He was on a mission from God. His homeboys and girls could not get their minds around the change that had occurred in the boy they knew as Mary and Joseph's son.
I have two things for us to think about this week (and two things for you to comment on, if you wish). First, are there individuals or even groups of people that we have failed to let grow in our minds, hearts, and lives? Are there family members, friends, co-workers, classmates, or others that we treat like we did when we first met them? Secondly, is our relationship with God that way too? Do we pray to God in the same way we did when we were ten, or when we were on that retreat? Have we let our relationship with God grow up as we have?
Please feel free to comment or just mull over my comments. I'm hoping you are finding this useful for you. I'm enjoying tring this. If you'd like for me to improve what I'm doing somehow, please feel free to let me know. Also, if there's someone who you would like to share this with, please pass it on.
paz,
Fr. Chuck
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Change is inevitable; it is a part of life, like the movement of water in the stream. Yet, change seems far easier to accept in the world around than in the people around. I have an easier time seeing the beauty of the changes that made the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone than the beauty of the changes I see in my sister. Why is that? Would I find it easier if I had a part in the change? If I could say that I was the cause, could I accept it easier? Or would that make it even harder?
ReplyDeleteIn my life, I have found that those I have the hardest time accepting, those whom I do not allow to grow in my mind, are those who are closest, especially my own family. In particular, when I have not seen the changes in process, it can be difficult for my mind to embrace that growth, to fully accept the new person before me. Yet, the person I have the most difficulty allowing to grow in my mind is myself. I would find it much easier to be as I was when I was ten. The world made much more sense then, and I didn't need to bother myself with it. There was far less responsibility. But God called me forth from my dark corner, from under the rock where I had been hiding, and God keeps calling. To grow in relationship with God, I too must grow and change and become more than I think I can be, more than I have ever seen within myself. I think God calls each of us to be more than we see in ourselves and more than others see in us.
When I was growing up in Idaho, my family and I would travel to Yellowstone frequently. I don't remember being bored with the sameness, or upset with changes. I never saw a buffalo and thought it should be an elk instead. It was the way it was. I saw life through the eyes of a child, and perhaps that's what I need to do again. I don’t need to allow people to grow and change in my mind, but I need to see people not as I want them to be and not as I think they should be. I need to see people each time as the first time, just as they are.