Reflection
I facilitate a support group for widowed people. Several have told me they like to visit the gravesite, not because they believe their deceased spouse is only present there, but because it is a physical manifestation of the body’s location. They also tell me that their spouse’s spirit is with them in so many other ways every day. The gravesite itself is not the point but instead, as a quiet and private place where all emotions are accepted, it has the potential to lead them into something deeper. It allows them to return to their daily life with more awareness and greater peace.
Similarly, Solomon declared that the magnificent temple he built could never hold or contain God nor be the only place God is found. Instead, it’s a place where people can enter a beautiful and holy house to lift their prayers and feel connected to God.
The temple itself is not the point, but it has the potential to lead the faith community and its members into something deeper that allows their spiritual lives to be enriched.
Jesus felt the same about the laws and traditions of the Jewish faith. He was highly critical of those who made the laws and traditions the point, which led to their harshly judging anyone who didn’t “properly” uphold them. The laws and traditions are not the point, even as the practice of obeying the laws has the potential to draw people into deeper awareness of God’s presence in their lives.
Jesus himself fits into that paradigm, too. There is a danger, and it seems pervasive these days, to worship Jesus (who never asked or wanted to be worshipped) rather than to faithfully follow him (which he did ask us to do.) We too easily worship the messenger but ignore the message, feeling justified by our prayers, Mass attendance, or obedience to laws and tradition rather than to how we live as disciples. Liturgy, our prayers, and our obedience are important, absolutely, but they are not the ultimate point. They are the means by which we are fed so we can enter into something deeper, enabling us to bring in the outcast, feed the hungry, defend the powerless, stand against injustice, and live as Jesus did.
In this coming week, let’s recommit ourselves to the message as well as the messenger, becoming ever more transparent receptacles and instruments of the transformative power of Christ.
