"GOD HAS SOMETHING TO TELL US"

God always has something to tell us. No circumstance of life, no hour of human need finds God silent. God can address the need of every human heart.

The poem is entitled, "Parole."

"She prayed like that

For hours.

Third pew from the back,

Head resting on the rail.

Then a candle to the virgin

And another prayed by

The side altar.

What sin could need

Such fervent prayer?

Hard to think this small woman

Transgressed large in anyone's eyes

But her own.

And yet the look, as she passed

Down the aisle to the outside sun -

Unmistakably,

Gratitude."

She must have heard God say something. God always has something to tell us.

Another woman...who knew both the burden of transgression and the weightlessness of gratitude...knelt at Jesus' feet during his dinner with Simon. Jesus was reclining on his side, as was the custom of those times, with his feet stretched out, away from the table; she came in and prayed a prayer of love and thanksgiving, using her own hands...tears...hair...and precious oil as a kind of living rosary on which to count the graces she had received from God. Social expectations and pious judgements be damned; all she wanted was to show her love for Jesus. Simon was baffled in the presence of such shameless affection and extended his critique beyond the woman to Jesus as well: guilt by association.

But Jesus had something to tell him. God always has something to tell us as we make our judgements about others. Whether we are openly derisive, as Simon was, in his mind and heart, or silently inspecting, God always has something to tell us.

A year or so ago, a man and woman were having a garage sale. Among many other items, they had decided to put out a mirror they'd received as a wedding gift. The reason they were selling it was that it had a gaudy, aqua-colored metal frame and they just couldn't find a room in their house where it looked good. Shortly after the sale began, a man (who was looking to decorate his apartment) bought the mirror for one dollar. He was all excited, and he said as he bought it, "This is a great deal; it still has the plastic on it." Then he peeled off the aqua-colored protective covering...to reveal a beautiful gold finished frame underneath.

You know, self-righteousness is an ugly thing. It puts a nasty "aqua-colored" film over a person's eyes and makes it so they can't see the inner value in another's soul. Self-righteousness like Simon's is the type that scorns tears, laughs at repentance, mocks mercy. His is the attitude of the school yard bully that just knows he's better than you are, and he has every intention of reminding you of that. And I've no doubt that, as Simon was watching this woman kneel at Jesus' feet, he was thinking of some sharp, ugly comment to make that would embarrass her and, with her, Jesus.

Jesus knew this. Jesus always knows what's really in our hearts and minds. That's the point at which he said, "Simon, I have something to tell you." He didn't say, "Hey, everybody, listen to this story." His words were for Simon personally and particularly.

That's how God speaks to us: personally and particularly.

Jesus told a story that he knew Simon would be able to relate to. To the Simon of 2001, he might have said, "Suppose two people have credit card debts. One owes $500.00 and the other owes $5,000. On the same day, they each get a call from a collection agent who says, 'Congratulations! Visa has decided to cancel your debt! You can cut up that card now, free and clear!' Which one of them do you think would be more excited?" Well, obviously, the one who owed a lot more.

Jesus then goes on to try and help Simon understand what the woman he looked down upon so much was really doing. She was expressing the depth of her gratitude...because she knew how far she had been separated from God and, having been forgiven and restored to right relationship through Jesus, she was celebrating her new, "debt-free" status with acts of loving service.

Jesus wanted not only for Simon to better understand this woman, but - in seeing her more clearly - to also better understand himself. Simon had a bad case of "goodness." He wouldn't have claimed to be perfect, but he was a "good" person...at least in his eyes. Have you ever noticed how you can look out a window and see the things that are outside...but if you adjust your gaze, you can also see your own reflection in the glass? Simon was more than willing to look through the "judgement window" at this woman...but he wasn't willing to adjust his gaze so as to see his own reflection.

Sometimes we all have a tendency to think less of ourselves than we really deserve. We can be hard on ourselves sometimes. But sometimes, some of us have a tendency to think a bit more of ourselves than we really deserve either. Spiritually, it really does pay to know yourself well. As Ann Landers once put it, "Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful."

Now that may seem to fly in the face of all the work we do to try and achieve the "positive self-esteem" that is so needed in our lives today. Jesus was certainly an advocate for and ideal example of the concept of "positive self-esteem." But positive self-esteem and feeling that "I'm just good enough to be a little better than you" are two very different things.

Author Ray Burwick puts it like this: "Positive self-esteem is a realistic appraisal of self, and when we look at ourselves this way, we can see that we are like other [human beings]. Pride is an unrealistic appraisal of self. We think we are better than others. Low self-esteem is an unrealistic appraisal of self. We think we are not as good as others, and these two things - [haughty] pride and low self-esteem - stifle God's best for us."

The woman knew something about herself that Simon did not understand about himself. The woman knew just how far from God she had been spiritually, so now she brought herself close to Christ physically; her love was her response to what she had already been given. Simon thought himself close to God spiritually and had brought Jesus close to himself physically just to see what he might be able to get.

Simon, of course, like all of us, had a need for restoration in his relationship with God. There was room for forgiveness in his life, just as there is room for forgiveness in all of ours.

The story is told of a small town in Spain where a father and his teenage son had a relationship that had become strained to the point of breaking. Finally the son ran away from home. His father, however, began a journey in search of his rebellious son. Finally, in Madrid, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in the newspaper. The ad read: "Dear Paco: Meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father."

The next day at noon in front of the newspaper office, 800 "Pacos" showed up. They were all seeking forgiveness and love from their fathers. They all had become estranged through circumstances and choices.

Simon had no room to be judging this woman who cried and poured out her love. That's what Jesus was trying to tell him. In the book of Romans, Scripture says it to us in words like this: "You...have no excuse for passing judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are judging yourself because you are just like they are. There is no difference between you and them...for all have missed the mark and fallen short of the perfection of God. Your justification - your restoration - is not something you can orchestrate but it is a free gift of grace given from God through Jesus Christ."

You see, Jesus has something to tell us. We can be like Simon: self-righteous, pious and "good" - seeking Jesus only out of curiosity. Or we can be like that woman: not changing who we are in order to be loved by God but allowing the power of God's love to transform our lives.

This is what God has to tell us: We are all Aldonzas and God is our Don Quixote.

Aldonza serves drunken camel drivers as a waitress by day and in other ways by night. The Man of La Mancha sees this whore and yet sees something more, something no one else sees, and he says, "My Lady."

She looks at him with incomprehension and exclaims, "Lady?"

"Yes, you are my Lady, and I shall give you a new name. I shall call you Dulcinea."

Later Aldonza suffers the ultimate insult. She is raped. Don Quixote finds her hysterical and disheveled; her blouse has been pulled off and her skirt ripped. He says compassionately, "My Lady, Dulcinea, oh, my Lady, my Lady."

"Don't call me a Lady," she cries. "Oh God, don't call me a Lady. Can't you see me for what I am? I was born in a ditch by a mother who left me there naked and cold - too hungry to cry. I never blamed her. She left me there hoping I'd have the good sense to die. Don't call me Lady. I'm only Aldonza. I'm nothing at all."

As she runs into the night he calls out, "But you are my Lady."

The Man of La Mancha, a knight serving his beloved Lady, seeks his adventure. But at the end he is alone, dying from a broken heart, despised and rejected. To his deathbed comes a Spanish queen wearing a lace scarf. Quietly she kneels beside him and prays. He opens his weak eyes and says, "Who are you?"

"My Lord, don't you remember? You sang a song, don't you remember? 'To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear the unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go...' My Lord, don't you remember? You gave me a new name, you called me Dulcinea." She stands proudly. "I am your Lady."

Like Aldonza, no human being is worthless and unlovable. God looks at each of us and sees the royalty in us. God dreams the impossible dream about us. In Christ, God fights the unbeatable foe...bears the unbearable sorrow...runs into hell for a heavenly cause - and we are affirmed into new life. Amen.

MCC St. Louis - Check Us Out!

This page hosted by Get your own, Free Homepage