Last weekend, I went to watch my cousins play school sports. I noticed that the players who made the most positive impact on the team were not necessarily the most skilled. Instead, it was the ones that played with the most passion, focus, attention and magnanimity.
It is possible to walk through our lives with our shoulders
slumped and our feet dragging along the floor. We don’t have to give our all to our work, families, worshipping communities, the planet, or God. We can stay on auto-pilot.
Auto-pilot is easy. It involves less responsibility, less hard work, and less pain. Many of us avoid complex situations and relationships in favour of peace. We don’t want to ruffle any feathers. But what, then, are our lives about?
Jesus does not live in auto-pilot mode.
Jesus is living fully. He is passionate about his father’s house, and he allows this passion to consume him entirely. There is no superficiality in him.
Jesus has gone to his “thin place” and encountered God. We see him regularly taking time out to pray; we see his familiarity with the
scriptures and traditions of his time. We see him engaging with the religious authorities and ordinary people of his time. These are signs of the depth of his way of life.
The father’s house is more than just the temple. It is everything that a “house” means - family, familiarity, security, norms and values, provision, and love. Jesus is fully consumed by his zeal for this house.
Jesus’ zeal reminds me of a quote by author Audre Lorde, “I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes - everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a … meteor!”
How
are you doing to live your life? With slumped shoulders, or like a meteor?
Reflections by Sean van Staden SJ
