While I was reflecting on the readings, three odd happenings occurred on the same day: in my garden a crow was attacking a possum who had stayed up late; the bus “spoke” and told the driver to put the handbrake on despite being in heavy traffic; and I took a new way to walk to uni. These things sound unconnected; however, they all seem to be related to the readings.
It seems that by sitting on the crow’s usual perch, the possum was disrupting the crow’s day. Disruption is rife in today’s readings – Jeremiah and his community were causing each other grief, the people Paul wrote to were navigating their new way of life in the capital of the Roman empire, and Jesus and Peter challenged each other. Perhaps we have experienced some, or all, of what those in the readings experienced – saying things that others don’t like or don’t understand, hearing things we would prefer weren’t mentioned, challenging what is heard, and trying to navigate a new environment.
The readings make it clear that some of that activity can be readily classified as “God’s way”, while other actions are human. Unfortunately, in life, it is not always quite so easy to tell what is “God’s way” and what is not. Every day we get bombarded with messages from all sorts of places – family, friends, strangers, online, offline, news, opinion - the list is endless and the messaging is 24/7. How are we supposed to know what is from God and what is not? For me, this is where the talking bus comes in. Although the bus was giving instructions for the handbrake to be applied, the driver was in tune with the vehicle and knew that the message was the problem, not the bus. In the readings, the characters stay connected to God in several ways - Jeremiah takes time out to replenish their relationship, Jesus and Paul use their experiences to provide encouragement and instruction to others, while Peter and the Roman community listen and take the messages to heart.
What happens next? This brings me to that new path. It was taken after feeling a gentle nudge – go this way. So I did. The path travelled through public gardens and was beautiful, but also hillier than my regular route. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the quickest way to get to the uni. While it may not have been as easy as my usual route, the decision to change was worth it. After choosing God’s way instead of human ways, life was not always easy for Jeremiah, Peter, Jesus, Paul, and the recipients of Paul’s letter. It left them with souls that thirsted for God and nothing else mattered and gave them direction, strength and hope. Their choice allowed them to see the world through God’s eyes, eyes that see every single person in the world, our planet and everything on it, as beautiful and a reason for taking up a cross. Jesus invites us to do the same.
