Faith that is faith kindles a fire. The source and origin of this fire is divine love. While we are made out of love to love, love doesn't seem to come naturally to us.
Last night I watched a few episodes of the wonderful comedy Derry Girls. In one episode, a new student arrives at the girls' Catholic school in Derry from Donegal. While ethnically Chinese, the new student is culturally and linguistically Irish. Some of the members of the group consisting of the series' main characters are eager to "recruit" the new "exotic" student into their cohort. A few others are not so sure. Michelle, the most outrageous member of the group, says "I hate people I don't know."
Once you put following Jesus first in your life sooner or later, almost inevitably, you will find yourself at odds with others. Why? This gets back to how unnatural it is for us to love others. Jesus calls us to radical love. Yes, we are to love even the people we don't know, especially the ones we meet. This gets back to the whole idea that being a Christian means making yourself a neighbor.
According to Jesus, your neighbor is not necessarily the person who lives nearby. Rather, your neighbor is the person you encounter who needs your assistance, like the robbed and beaten man needed the assistance provided by the Good Samaritan.
It has been observed that no good deed goes unpunished. While I don't believe most good deeds are punished, it seems to be the case that most go unnoticed and unrewarded. For the Christian, this is more than okay. It is best. In a very real sense, doing the right thing is its own reward.
Does that sound discouraging? It probably does. I don't know about you, but I often find life quite discouraging. I'll be really honest. I am suspicious of people who never seem to get discouraged, especially those who seem to think discouragement is anything other than the dissonance created by the clash of our expectations with reality. Such an attitude strikes me as inhuman and, when it is imposed on those who are discouraged, inhumane.
It seems important to briefly note that I think there is an important distinction to be made between dicouragement and despair.
Our reading from Hebrews provides us with a source of encouragement. When you find yourself discouraged, the sacred author urges you consider what Jesus endured in his passion and death. I realize that what the author of Hebrews urges his readers, who were originally Jewish converts to Christianity who were experiencing persecution for being Christian and, as a result, were tempted to abandon the faith, is somewhat presumptuous in our context.
I recently finished Marilynne Robinson's novel Jack. It is a brilliantly theological story. One question that Jack, the ne'er do well white son of a respectable Presbyterian minister from smalltown Iowa, asks the pastor of the black Baptist Church he winds up attending for a time in Saint Louis, is what's the difference between faith and presumption?
Robinson is too good a writer and theologian to answer that question directly. But she doesn't exactly leave this question hanging. Rather, she answers it through the story. Her answer, if my reading is correct, is that it is often, even usually, difficult to tell the difference.
Not only do my challenges pale in comparison to Jesus', they pale when compared to those faced by most people. This doesn't make my challenges nothing. It doesn't render them unimportant or silly. After all, I can only live my own life., facing what my circumstances cause me to experience.
I often write about the challenges of following Jesus. I rarely write about the consolations. I take consolation from what Jesus endured. Didn't he endure this for me? Am I not one of the sinners who oppose him but for whom he endured the humiliation of the cross, despising its shame? I believe I am. I believe you are, whoever you are.
If I am serious about following Jesus, it's the fire of divine love that fuels my pilgrimage as I walk with him to the cross. Isn't this the same fire that sustained Jeremiah as he languished in the dark, muddy cistern without food?
Jeremiah was thrown in the cistern for doing nothing other than saying what God inspired him to say. It was the fire to Jesus refers that emboldened Jeremiah to once again, after he is rescued and assured he wouldn't come to harm, say what God told him to say. What did God tell Jeremiah to say to the king and to Israel? To surrender to the Babylonians, seeking terms of peace, instead of fighting in the presumption that God would save them.
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