Saturday, May 18, 2024

18 May 2024 - can't compare


When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about him?"
Jesus said to him, "What if I want him to remain until I come?

Peter had just been called to follow Jesus on the way of the cross, and been told that he would give his life for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel. Naturally, this wasn't an easy thing to accept, although now, for love of Jesus he would in fact accept it. But he still couldn't help but ask and wonder about the fate of John, the beloved disciple and the one who had accompanied him to investigate the empty tomb. Peter may have wondered why it seemed that he was being singled out for such a difficult path. Why him and not another? John seemed in some ways to be favored as the beloved disciple. Was this just another arbitrary privilege? Humanly speaking, it would be easy to envy the one who did not have to endure martyrdom. 

What concern is it of yours?
You follow me.

It isn't helpful to try to compare the path appointed for ourselves with that of others, especially when this doesn't encourage us to become more sympathetic and supportive of others. Comparison makes it too easy for us to get caught up in the individual difficult elements of our own path while obscuring the different but equally real challenges faced by others. Moreover, it draws us out of the present moment where grace is found and makes us think only of the challenges of the future for which grace has not yet been given. This makes those challenges seem as though we will face them alone and unaided even though we know by faith that when they finally come Jesus himself will give us the grace to face them as his followers. The important point is that we ought to focus on our own path. This doesn't mean to ignore others or to be unsympathetic toward them, but rather to follow our own specific calling. There is a unique contribution Jesus is asking from each of us, a unique way in which we are called to use our gifts, a unique place in which he is asking us to sow the seed of our lives. If everyone tried to live out the Gospel in precisely the same way the wondrous diversity of the Kingdom would be lost and the manifold ways that it was meant to spread would not be realized.

This is the reason, then, I have requested to see you
and to speak with you, for it is on account of the hope of Israel
that I wear these chains.

Leaning too hard into our own expectations can prevent us from receiving the grace Jesus wants to give us for a specific situation. If Paul's expectation of martyrdom in Rome had been too strong he wouldn't have been ready to use his situation to proclaim the Gospel. Yet he was sufficiently flexible that even the chains of his house arrest were no hindrance from him proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. Neither circumstance nor expectation would prevent Paul from proclaiming Jesus in any way that he could, because he realized, "the word of God is not bound!" (see Second Timothy 2:9).





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