St. Paul is quoted as saying in the First Letter to the
Corinthians that “Jews demand signs and wonders from those who claimed to be
messengers from God.” It was as if they were saying to God’s messengers, “Prove
what you are saying by doing something extraordinary.”
The bottom line of this gospel is that God comes to us especially
in the very ordinary, rather than the spectacular and dramatic, events of life.
The Scribes and Pharisees were always looking for “signs” – dramatic and
spectacular happenings and super-human personalities to “prove” that God was
active in the world. Truly, God is to be found in the ordinary events, in the
ordinary moments and in the ordinary people of this world. That is why so many
people missed Jesus when he was here on this earth. He was so ordinary, while
they were looking for something spectacular. While they were looking “out
there” and “up there,” while they were looking among the famous and the
powerful and the well-connected, God’s “sign,” Jesus, was standing right in
front of them. They missed him because he was just “too ordinary.”
Our traditional Christmas story is a perfect example. That story
is told by the evangelist, Luke. Luke wrote for the underdog, the little
people, the left-out, the losers of the world. When he tells the story, he
emphasizes the dismalness of Christ’ birth: a poor young mother delivering her
baby in a barn amid the smell of dung and donkey breath; greasy, crusty,
bumbling sheep herders; doves dropping their stuff from the rafters; the
restlessness of cows and no one to care. Luke wants his readers to know that
God comes, not just for the rich and famous and powerful, the young and
healthy, but especially for the lowest of the low, in the most desperate
of circumstances. God comes for, and loves, every human being who has ever
lived on this planet no matter how insignificant they may be in the eyes of
others.
Many of us are very much like the Jewish people of old. We want
“signs and wonders” to prove that God is alive and active in our world! Even
today, we have people running all over the world looking for those “signs and
wonders!” They look feverishly for God working in our world today in places
like Fatima, Medjugorje and Lourdes! I
am sure God has worked there, but we don’t have to go to those places to see
God working. He is working right here, right under our noses, right now in this
very place! We just have the eyes to see it!
Think about all the knee replacement surgeries, heart by-pass
surgeries and cataract surgeries that have been performed on many of you! Think of the kidney and heart transplants and
even brain surgeries that have been performed next door. Think of this
beautiful building - what it took to build and what it takes to operate it.
This Home is a miracle itself, really!
To find God working in our world, all we have to do is look around
us. We just need to look at this place, and the people in it, through the lens
of faith! Miracles are happening every day, right here and right now! All we
need do is wake up and pay attention. That’s what prayer and preaching are for
- not to wake God up to pay attention to us, but for us to wake up and pay
attention to the marvelous things that God is doing right under our noses.
As Jesus said, in another place, in this very Gospel of Luke
(10:23-24)
“Blessed are the eyes that see what you
see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but
did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."
No comments:
Post a Comment