Trans-rational river-entering
Monday, February 18, 2013
First Week of Lent
Matthew 25:40
Jesus is talking to his disciples, “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Every moment of every day, I am in the company of Jesus. Not Santa Jesus, who makes a list and checks it twice, then measures with care if I’m naughty or nice. Jesus is busy loving, not listing our sins.
This is not the judging Jesus. This is the needy Jesus.
Strange to think of God needing something from me, but with the incarnation, God has assumed that position.
Jesus is inside our skin, and when we need, he needs. He insists we understand that we are not alone from each other. We are all inside each other’s skin. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
This river of human life was never meant to be observed from the bank. But once I’m out of the flow and watching, it looks fast and furious. I’m “safe” up here; wouldn’t I be crazy to jump back in? How can anyone survive rapids like that?
Now that I am an Enlightened Individual, I might decide not to re-enter the frantic human race. But really, if I don’t I die. What will it take to make me choose life? Richard Rohr calls the motivator “great love and great suffering,” which open my heart and then my mind. Like God, I am needy too, for things my ego cannot supply.
There is nothing for it, at last, but to jump back in the river. We just don’t get along without each other. Jesus says this with calm assurance, and adds that we will meet him, and in him encounter true and complete love, every time.
Lord, open my mind to the people behind any words or ideas, to real needs and real pain. Let me see my own real needs and my own real pain, and how you meet me and love me and release your joy.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1142
