“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.”
Jer 5, 17
“At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am known.
1 Paul, 13, 13
“Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of those that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.”
Lk 4,
Saturday Mass at the small parish church was rocking. Despite the sparse number of cars in the parking lot, the congregation and choir sang their hearts out. The pianist played with power and flourish. I softly tried out some harmonies, tapping my fingers on the pew in front of me and tapping my toes inside my snow boots. The choice of hymns and inclusion of guitars spoke to my 60’s heart and I decided I would email an old friend and thank him for the decades of guitar and song he has given to churches around town.
Those gathered on the snowy evening moved through song into repentance, giving glory, and then sat to listen to ancient words proclaimed by their friends. Something happens when God speaks to you with the voice of the woman down the street who tells you that God knew you from before you were born or that everything passes away, prophecies, speech, knowledge. Everything but love. She is different when she reads those words. And we are different hearing them.
Then the priest reads the gospel where Jesus tells us that God didn’t sent prophets to the good widows of Israel or to its suffering lepers, but to a widow in a city of dubious repute and to a Syrian leper. The people listening to Jesus were ticked. They were the chosen after all. What was he trying to say? That God loved someone else more? Impossible.
It’s all about Love. Love doesn’t care where you were born or what language you speak. Love knows you from before you born and knows you better than you know yourself. Love knew the heart of the widow from Sidon and knows ours. The titles draped over you (or your ancestors), the degrees or certificates or lack of them, none of that matters. As Paul says, everything we can figure out or do in our lifetime eventually passes away. We don’t have the whole picture. God does, and incredibly, loves it. Loves every bit of it. Including us, gathered with aching backs and broken hearts.
The Holy One loves us from the inside out and gives us a bit of Love to keep us going. It’s our job to be prophets. To share that bit of love with the world because no one else has just that same bit. Like the jigsaw puzzle partially put together on the black foam board lying on my living room, a Christmas project not quite finished. We have to put our piece into the puzzle to make it whole.
Mass continued. Offering church envelopes and ourselves. Sharing prayer for peace with handclasps and hugs. Welcoming Love into our bodies eating bread and wine. More song. More piano and guitar.
People hung out in little clumps when Mass was over. Talking. Laughing. Sharing confidences. Asking for prayers. Getting hugs. Love all over the place.
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