Scripture:
Reflection:
In reflecting on our first reading from 2 Kings today, I felt as if I was watching the nightly news, reading the local paper, listening to the latest updates of life and death that surround us in our daily lives. The killing of Zedekiah and his sons, the pillaging and destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the persecution of its inhabitants made me very sad! War continues to go on in the Ukraine, Gaza, Syria to name just a few places on a national level. Senseless shootings, negative rhetoric, poverty, homelessness and so many forms of abuse are daily occurrences for so many in our cities and neighborhoods. It makes me very sad!
I am sure I am not the only one who is experiencing this deep sense of sadness and frustration! How do we as faithful believers in a God of peace and justice work to overcome evil with goodness, hate with love, apathy with understanding and unbelief with faith?! For me, I can only let this feeling of sadness consume me for a short time before I focus on how to combat the sadness with a sense of joy and hope. Recently, we participated in the Poor Peoples Campaign, whose focus is to bring awareness to the greater community that poverty is the 4th leading cause of death in our modern world. It brought joy to my heart to be a part of this larger group of people of all ages, denominations and cultures who came together at our state Capital to share ways to combat this evil and bring about a lasting justice. Sadness was replaced by hope in a small way that day!
Jesus gives us another example of how we can turn sadness into hope and joy as found in the gospel today. We know Jesus spent his time here on earth preaching the good news, curing the sick, challenging the status quo, serving the helpless and downtrodden, to name just a few ways he sought to grow the kingdom of God here on earth! Jesus saw the leper who came to him asking to be cured as a person of faith who believed in the good news. Lepers in Jesus’ time were seen as worthless trash, sinners of the worst kind and shunned by all. Jesus was able to see beyond how society saw this person and recognized him for the inherently good person that he was. How do we treat the lepers in our society? This is a challenge for us who find ourselves in the midst of so much chaos and sadness. How do we bring hope and joy out of the pervasive sadness that engulfs us at times? If we are who we profess to be, people of the gospel, living the good news and calling others to do the same, then, aren’t we called to see the lepers of our time as Jesus saw the leper in the gospel passage today?! There are many ways to do this if we remain open to the spirit guiding our way. I was invited recently to join a ministry team who visit the women’s prison in our area. We go once a month to pray and listen to our incarcerated sisters. It is an eye-opening and humbling experience for me each time I go. I am overwhelmed by the courage and hope of these women as they face daily what could be seen as hopelessness and despair. It gives me joy to pray with them and listen to their highs and lows.
I was relating to my two young grandchildren about this prison ministry recently and they were dumbfounded and confused about why I would visit bad people in prison! It was one of those teachable moments we have every once in awhile with our young ones! I explained that oftentimes people are in prison because they have done something bad, but that doesn’t make them a bad person. Furthermore, they are worthy of our prayers and mercy and presence. I like to think that this is something we all need to remember when the sadness of the world overwhelms us. Mother Teresa said, “We aren’t called to do big things, just little things with great love.” Amen.
Theresa Secord is a retired Pastoral Associate at St. Agnes Parish, Louisville, Kentucky.