Jack Hardaway
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So often blessings and burdens are so closely tied together.
I have another Grandmother story. A short and simple one.
I am the oldest of my generation in a large extended family, siblings, 1st cousins, 2nd cousins, first cousins once removed.
One of the many things I heard my grandmother tell me over and over again through the years was this, “You are to be a good example to the younger children.”
Not would you, or you should, or you are supposed to be.
It was not a suggestion.
The imperative. “You are to be.”
Needless to say, I was not remotely up to the task, thus the oft repeated imperative refrain, like an eleventh commandment of Moses on the mountain, from on high, “You are to be.”
“A good example.”
“To the children.”
All my arguing, disagreeing, disgruntled-ness and outright failure did not change the Law from on high.
Jesus is speaking to us, just like my grandmother, through the words of the Mark’s Gospel this morning.
At first glance it looks like a random collection of sayings.
But on second and third glance, there is something much more going on.
And it is hard to hear.
We have to let go. We have to give up.
We have to cut away so many of the thoughts, ideas, emotions, the power, the rightness, the issues, the anger, the resentments, the intitled self-indulgent-ness, that we cling to, for the sake of others, that they may be built up in the faith that God is claiming the world back from the brink of annihilation.
Live like the good news, really is good news, because it is, and we are to be part of it.
You are to be a good example to the children.
That they may know God, that they may be set free.
Needless to say, we are not up the task. We have failed. We are failing. We will continue to fail. And in that failure we find God.
Life strips away so much from us as the years go by.
Following the Way of Jesus is just like that.
It strips away.
It is purifying fire.
It cuts away.
Until all that is left is only what lasts. The love of God.
Salted by fire, preserving only what lasts, love.
God was stripped of everything, everything cut away before our eyes.
Life can no longer be about my clinging to my precious dignity, and convenience, and annoyance.
A vision of God, giving up everything so that we may be free to love in that same way.
The salt has seasoned us.
You are to be.
A good example.
To the children.
