Meditation on Luke 9:38-42

Where do they come from, these loud imperious voices deep in our hearts and minds, that dictate our understanding of who God is and what God wants from us, that drive us, and cause us to drive others as we ourselves are driven, sometimes—like Martha—to distraction? It is common enough for God to be masqueraded in our imaginations as a remote, imperious, scolding taskmaster, a figure formed in our minds by the personalities and circumstances that have loomed large in our early life experience, or our early religious experience. Our unhealthy understandings and expectations are easily projected onto God, the ultimate authority figure. Yet, if we listen closely to Jesus and his Spirit—as Mary did—he will defend and liberate us from such unhealthy understandings and false impressions of God, and from those who seek to impose them on us, who would scold us into mindless and sterile conformity—fundamentalism of the right or left.

Without serious, lifelong reflection on the life, death, and teaching of Christ, our Christian service is easily misinformed and misguided. We all have so much to learn—so much to unlearn. On this side of heaven, are our understanding and our service ever wholly free of blindness, subjectivity, self-interest, and error?

Let us then come humbly and gratefully to Jesus’ Table, to the banquet of his gracious sacrifice, where all are welcome, not because we have understood and practiced our faith impeccably, but because our spirits, hearts, and minds desperately need the nourishing grace and insight God provides, every bit as much as much as our bodies need the daily nourishment of food and drink.

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