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A Recipe For All Seasons
Last Sunday’s liturgy began by pointing out the vanity of everything on earth. The gospel warned us not to get to comfortable here on earth, because no one knows their departure day or time. If this is the hour, are we prepared? This Sunday continues that basic theme: to be always vigilant. But in addition to being watchful we should be living in faith.
Here we are in the middle of Ordinary time and we are confronted with a theme that is normally associated with the end of the Liturgical Year, and the season of Advent. We are called to be vigilant and anticipate the Master’s return. We are called to pay special attention to our Lord, living lives of faith, not simply at the beginning or the end of the Liturgical year, but every day of our life.
Quite simply we must stand ready for the Lord’s return, for the end of our specific time, as well as for his return at the end of all time. Likewise it is also true concerning other times, the times when God will open the door or window of our existence and call us into a deeper awareness of our sacredness, of life itself. Vigilance is a characteristic of all Christians, at all times, for all times.
Our vigilance allows us to recognize the Lord in the ones we love, as well as our enemies, in our day-to-day lives, at work and play, locally and worldwide, in which we are all linked. Vigilance enables us to respond to the call of discipleship, to serve where there is need, to carry out our life’s responsibilities in a reasonable and fair manner. We cannot be sure of the day or hour, because in a sense, every hour of every day is our calling.
We live in the expectation of the full and ultimate coming of God in the future, we also live in the presence of God now. This means God is present with us now as a companion in our lives. It also means that it is within God’s presence that we live, in fact God’s presence is the context within which our lives unfold. However, until all things are brought to fulfillment we live in the presence by faith. Faith is the way we live when we do not see what we think we must see in order to go on.
It is through faith that we cling to the essence of our dreams when they seem to be hopeless. It is through faith that we open up to new insights when we are invited into the lives of others. It is through faith that we courageously endure the heartbreaks of life that we all face. Faith is the inner light that enables us to carry on in the dark. Ralph Emerson wrote, “All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
Faith and hope are intimately joined. This is why, as believers, we are called to trust in the promise of God even when what is promised seems impossible. Faith is the way we live our lives before these promises unfold. We are promised a life of peace and harmony, and it is through our living the faith, that it is indeed brought to birth.
Faith lived is its own revenue, its own reward. We are assured that we will be blessed, but we can never be sure of the exact nature of the blessing. A life of faith can guarantee only one thing; that we will be able to live by faith. In faith we wait for the Lord, who is our help and our shield. Faith is both the cost of living as a disciple and the reward.
Faith enabled Abraham to put his future totally in God’s hands. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “I cannot hear what you say for listening to what you are.” It is faith that makes present God’s kingdom, by who we are and how we live.
We open a cookbook, we gather the ingredients, at times out of love, at times out of need, we labor and wait, for the process to unfold. And if we have followed the instructions we are thankful for the results. Our faith in the recipe provided us nourishment, pleasure, gratitude, and an opportunity to share our gift with others. The bible is our cookbook, we are the ingredients, and when joined together by the hands of God the results are eternal.