Greetings friends,
This Sunday’s gospel reading is a series of parables that Jesus told to describe the life of faith. They are a hodge podge of images and each one can bear a great deal of study and contemplation. They can
invite us into deep meditation on what it means to follow Jesus.
Contrary to a whole lot of books written on the
subject of faithful living, there is not one single hard word, or even imaginary construct in the lot. There are trees, birds, pearls, fields, etc. All of the images are concrete items and places that the people listening to Jesus would know and could easily picture.
So, here’s my question to you, and perhaps a challenge as well, can you describe your life of faith, your response to God, and your hope for eternity in words that are easy for you to picture and explain? The truth of the matter is this, I did not make-up this challenge. It comes from The First Letter of Peter, verse 3, verses 15 and 16: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”
So, there are at least three pieces to this. 1) We need to know why we have our hope; our faith. 2) Others have the right to demand an accounting of it from us. 3) It needs to be ready so that we respond with gentleness and reverence and not the defensiveness and/or sarcasm we often use when caught unawares!
As you read the parables for Sunday, I hope that you will look deeply into them to see if they might help you find a way to describe what the life of faith has been to you. As Jesus has done, I hope that you will explain it using the ordinary things from your own world and experiences.
Bring to the challenge your questions, your concerns, your history, and your creativity. Who knows how it will appear. You might write a poem or paint a picture. We might get a great new parable or hear a beautiful song. Within you the Holy Spirit is at work helping you make your faith real. Let us all do the work of making this faith visible to others so that they too many know of God’s love and mercy.
Blessings,
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