One thing I love about my current work and ministry is that there is no “smoothing out” the rough edges of life. This can be a little painful at times (abrasion usually is!), but it also helps me to keep things very REAL in my own life and relationships, especially my relationship with God.
Not long ago, I was helped in “keeping it real” in a Bible study I offered on Matthew 6:25-34. This is the famous, comforting passage where Jesus tells his followers to “consider the birds of the air” who do not gather into barns and yet are still nourished and fed. I thought this would be a certain winner for the small group who joined me, among whom were a few current guests of the homeless shelter.
I was wrong. After reading the passage and beginning to pull out of people what Jesus might be saying to us through it, one young man stopped us in our tracks. “Listen,” he said, “I appreciate thinking positive and everything, and I’m grateful you’re trying to help me to do that, but I just don’t buy this. Jesus tells us not to worry about what to eat, but I’ve never seen God come to me with a plate of food. It just doesn’t work that way.”
I took a minute to collect myself before answering – because, frankly, part of me wanted to start arguing. Several really inappropriate ideas for how to continue the conversation occurred to me: mostly variations of, “OK, so God hasn’t come to you with a plate of food … but people are feeding and clothing you right now BECAUSE OF HIM! What about that???” and “Well, what are YOU DOING about getting something for yourself??? Don’t pin your suffering on God as if it’s all his fault!”
Fortunately, I realized in that moment that I ask his question, too. “OK, Lord, I shouldn’t worry – but then sometimes really bad things DO HAPPEN to me and to others I love. What does that say about you? How can you care as much as you say, how can we be so precious to you if you let us die of cancer and have horrible misunderstandings in our families and suffer from debilitating mental illness and, in much of the world, terrible wars and strife? Are you really so great? So loving? So kind?”
So I gave my brother the answer I give myself in the teeth of sadness, anxiety, and doubt. “You’re right, in a way,” I admitted, “God doesn’t take away all the hurt and suffering and hunger and everything. That’s a result of sin and it’s not going away anytime soon. But in Jesus, God came to earth and was hungry with us. He did not sow or reap and he died naked and thirsty on the Cross. He shared our deepest poverty with us – death – but then He rose from the grave in power, and invites us to share his death and triumph in our lives. And, as if that weren’t enough, He feeds us with his own Body and Blood every day at the Altar…”
I would like to be able to say here that this young man was compelled by my eloquence to recommit his life to God – but he wasn’t. I don’t know where he is today or what he’s up to. But I thank him for the gift he gave in that Bible study – the gift of keeping it real.
Watch a beautiful 3-min. video about our ministry in downtown Steubenville here.
-Sr. Agnes Therese Davis, T.O.R.
