Thursday, January 11, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Eli’s story ends
The Philistines gathered for an attack on Israel. Israel went out to engage them in battle. Four thousand Israelite soldiers were killed.
This surprised the leaders of Israel, so they decided to carry the Ark of the Lord into battle the next time, sure that this would ensure victory.
It did not. This time 30,000 Israelite soldiers were killed, including both of Eli’s sons. The Philistines captured the ark, which turned to be a terrible mistake on their part. When Eli heard the news he fell backwards from his chair and was also killed. 1 Samuel 4-6 tells the story, of how things just got worse and worse. God did nothing to stop it.
How did Samuel feel? The Bible doesn’t say. He might have thought he was to blame. All this happened after he was called and spoken to by God himself. I imagine he felt alone and even lost. Why would God do this?
In her book, Survivor, Christina Crawford writes: “Lost is a place, too.” That’s a deep truth  often lost in a world within which success, achievement, and good appearance define meaning and value.
 That phrase can teach us that sometimes it’s good to be without success, without health, without achievements to bolster us, without good appearance, and even without meaning. Being down and out, alone, lost, struggling for meaning, and looking bad, is also a valid place to be.
John of the Cross would agree with that. If he was your spiritual director and you explained to him that you were going through a dark, painful patch in life and asked him: “What’s wrong with me?” He would likely answer: “There’s nothing wrong with you; indeed, there’s a lot right with you. You’re where you should be right now: in the desert, letting the merciless sun do its work; in a dark night, undergoing an alchemy of soul; in the garden, sweating the blood that needs to be sweated to live out your commitments.”
Think of how Jesus intervened in many lives and brought healing and happiness to where there had been misery and hopelessness.
A leper came and knelt, begging Jesus, “If you wish you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the leper. “I will do it. Be made clean,” Jesus told him. And the leprosy left him immediately and he was made clean.
Excited beyond belief, skin free from the old sores, this man jumped up and told everyone he met about this, in spite of Jesus’ words commanding his silence. There’s no record of the healed man’s thoughts late that night, as he considered his disobedience. Could Jesus really have meant what he said? The leper had been so sad, and now he was so happy. He must have thought he would live forever. His life was new and so was he.
But the leper’s years of suffering were a “place” too, and his happiness was built on a foundation of grief and pain. In my short few years of human life on earth, joy and grief echo in and out, day by day. Feeling like I’m at the top of the world and feeling like I’m at the bottom of the dungheap.
I really don’t need to sort them out. Something deeper lies beneath them both. Maybe we could call that “presence.” I notice God’s presence first in the suffering, though. Rolheiser, thinking more of what John of the Cross would say:
He’d tell you that this can be a good place to be, a biblical and mystical place. That doesn’t make it less painful or humiliating, it just gives you the consolation of knowing that you’re in a valid place, a necessary one, and that everyone before you, Jesus included, spent some time there. The desert spares nobody. Dark nights eventually find us all.
The desert heat of loneliness is helpful in softening the heart, enough at least to let it be painfully stretched. That happens more easily when we’re lost, unsure of ourselves, empty of consolation, aching in frustration, and running a psychic temperature. Not pleasant, but that’s a place too.
When I have a fever, I’m quick to run to the medicine cabinet. Too quick? At least I will pray and rest and be still and wait, as well as take the aspirin.
Our souls are bowed down in the dust, our bodies are pressed to the earth. Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy.
(1 Samuel 4, Psalm 44, Matthew 4, Mark 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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