Month: June 2021

As many blog posts and reflections begin, I have a confession to make. I probably have too much yarn. Now I know, the “probably” I put in should probably be removed, but I’m not ready to both admit I have too much yarn and do something about it. I am a fiber artist with no sales, no following, or customers. I just love to crochet, knit, weave, quilt, cross stitch, I even have a spinning wheel I’m rehabbing. I bounce from project to project, excited to try new techniques and styles. I watch YouTube for tutorials and ideas. Yarn, and all the things I can create with it, brings me much joy.

 There is a problem with this hobby of mine that I’ve noticed over the years. What I haven’t shared yet is that I am a wife and mother of 6 children ages 10 and under. My days are full. Full of homeschooling, laundry, cooking, baking, sunscreen, skinned knees, and picnics. My hobby time is in the evenings. Most of the time, this is fine. I am ok with cutting off housework that didn’t get done in order to have time for yarn and crafts as the sun goes down. But there are some days I find myself resentful of my little people, of their messes and constant hunger, of the churn of the laundry and crush of chores unfinished. I wish for days of silence with my yarn. I feel like projects which are supposed to bring me joy are wearing me down with the slowness of their progress. “Why can’t they just leave me alone?” “Why can’t I have some space to knit (or whatever I’m currently fascinated by).”

Each day that I allow myself to travel along this path the worse it gets. I am trying to store treasure in earthly things. In focusing on the crafting I am not doing, I am missing the opportunities God is giving me in the present moment. It’s like trying to capture air escaping from a balloon or gathering water in a sieve. The more apparent treasure I pile in the unhappier I become instead of the opposite. I am believing that my happiness lies in my ability to create things when I am surrounded with the greatest works of creation I could participate in, my children. The things I make can bring me happiness, but that happiness should be in service of my relationships with my kids and how I am living out my vocation.

 Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” When I choose to be fully present to my family, even in its disorder and chaos, it is also full of love, beauty, joy, and God’s will for our family. These are the treasures that will last a lifetime – beyond a lifetime. Doing God’s will, loving those He has brought into our lives, these are just a taste of the treasures of heaven.

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As I was reflecting on today’s passage, I was reminded of my high school days in JROTC. While the program had its pros and cons, I learned some important lessons about leadership there. 

One lesson that the program emphasized was that good leaders do not ask the people they are in charge of to do things they themselves are unable or unwilling to do. Good leaders don’t tell those they lead to walk an extra mile while they themselves drive. Good leaders walk that mile, too.

This seems to be one of the messages of today’s readings as well. Paul reminds the people of Corinth that he is not a perfect man, and he is not asking them to do anything he is unable or unwilling to do. Jesus reminds us that we must be willing to forgive others if we are seeking forgiveness for ourselves after sinning against the Infinite Good Himself.

It makes sense that a good leader and a good Christian should have this trait in common. Both leaders and Christians are called to be shining examples, in word and deed, to those around them.

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I often try to imagine what life was like in the early Church, in the first century, a Church still struggling to understand what it was meant to be, to become. My field of studies is the medieval Church, though that’s not where I go in my imagination—with its schisms and crusades and infighting, it’s not always a pleasant place to be! But the beginning, when everything was fresh and new and immediate and simple… that’s a place I like to visit.

Simple. There’s a word that the Church seems to have subsequently forgotten, right? But imagine for a moment what it was like in those times after the Spirit descended at Pentecost and the disciples formed house churches, modeling as they did Jesus’ own strategy when he sent his followers out into the places people live.

Throughout the book of Acts, every mention of a local Church or Church meeting, whether for worship or fellowship, is a reference to a Church meeting in a home. That’s easy for us to forget, with our pews and our stained glass and our organs. Most scholars agree that the early house Churches were rarely comprised of more than 15 or 20 people. (As many as 90 percent of townspeople lived in apartments—one or two rooms above or behind shops. Most apartments shared a public courtyard with adjoining units, and families cooked in the courtyards. Life happened in front of the neighbors. In first-world countries, it’s hard to imagine what the early Church experienced.)

So it was simple. In these dining-area courtyards, Christians assembled: to reenact the Eucharist, to pray, to plan evangelization, to teach, to baptize.

What distinguished them from us, their descendants, so many centuries later is, I think, their closeness to Jesus. Not everyone in these first small communities had known Jesus when he was alive, but some had. Others had parents or cousins or friends who had. His words were still fresh in their minds; theology hadn’t stepped in to distance them from what he had to say to them, from what he gave his infant Church.

What he gave them is what we read in today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, the practices known as the “three pillars” of the Church: prayer, fasting, and charity. 

There’s a reason they’re known as pillars. According to the dictionary, a pillar is “a person or thing regarded as reliably providing essential support for something.” Essential support. What the structure needs to stay intact.

What does the Church need to stay intact?

Jesus doesn’t simply gift his people with three pillars that will keep them strong and on the right path. He tells them very specifically how those pillars are to be used. When you give alms, he says, don’t make a big deal of it. Help people quietly; they’ll know, and so will God. You don’t need a street named after you or a civic award presented at a formal ceremony. 

When you pray, he continues, don’t make a big deal of it. Be quiet; be private. Don’t try to attract attention to your prayers; they’re not performance art.

And when you fast, he concludes, don’t make a big deal of it. Don’t call attention to yourself, don’t try to be holier-than-thou. God knows when you fast; and that’s pretty much the whole point of doing it, right?

You’ll notice that he isn’t saying “if you pray… if you give alms… if you fast.” These pillars of faith he’s gifting to the early Church are in fact a blueprint for how they are to live together in community. He is assuming that this is what his followers will do. He’s not concerned in telling them to pray, fast, and give alms: of course they’ll do those things! What he wants is for his followers, his new Church, to be very clear about its relationship to God and its relationship to the world. You do these things for closeness to the Trinity, not for societal approbation and rewards.

The Gospels have always struck me as keeping things pretty simple. Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Clothe the naked; feed the hungry; give to the poor. Pray always. Fast and give alms.

We live in a different world, of course. In a world where we don’t worship in each other’s homes. In a world of such staggering inequality that it’s difficult to see how almsgiving could change anything. In a world where our prayers often go unanswered. In a world where the Church’s requirements for fasting are hardly an inconvenience. We might yearn for a simpler time.

Yet we could keep it simple, if we tried. If we read Jesus’ words and applied them rigorously to our own lives and comportment and thought and faith. It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be…. Simple.

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