Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Today is September 11, for many Americans not a feast day but a day of mourning and remembrance. On that morning 25 years ago today, I was in my car on my way to the gym to work out when I heard a report on the radio that a plane had struck one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I pictured a small private plane that had somehow gotten off course and crashed into the tower. I felt sad for whoever was in the plane, said a little prayer for them, and drove on. I never imagined any in the tower was hurt.
By the time I got to the gym, put my things in my locker, and got on the treadmill, all the TV monitors above the treadmills were showing live coverage of the twin towers, and we all watched in horror as we realized things were much, much worse than I had imagined. I felt it in my body, a kind of sick fear in the pit of my stomach. In the following days we began to hear the stories of those heroic individuals who risked their own lives, and sometimes lost them, in order to lead others out to safety.
Given the date on which the lectionary presents us with today’s passage from Luke’s gospel, I couldn’t help but remember this shining example of the exact opposite of what Jesus presents us with in his parable of the blind leading the blind. Instead of leading anybody into a pit, those heroes led all of us out of the sick fear in the pit of our stomachs and back toward hope—hope in the goodness human beings are capable of.
Today’s passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians speaks to this memory, I think. Paul says he can’t boast about preaching, because he is obliged to preach. It’s easy to suppose that Paul is referring to some special, personal call to preach, but in fact all we who are baptized are obliged to preach. “What? Not me!” I imagine you saying. But think about it. Our baptism means being united to Christ, becoming part of his body, living out his mission of generous love, powered by the gift of his Spirit.
What I hear in Paul’s reflection about his own experience of preaching is this: whether he does it willingly or unwillingly, he has to do it, and either way, his reward or recompense for preaching isn’t honor or a paycheck, but the preaching itself. How to make sense of that assertion?
Here’s one way. When we accept and do the mission entrusted to us, we are at one with our God, who actually by grace does it in and through us. Being one with God-in-action is being one with the inner freedom, the love, the boundless generosity that is God. St. Catherine of Siena said that “God is crazy in love with us.” To feel that love, to feel it coursing through us and flowing out to others, is an experience of deep peace and joy, even in the midst of hardship or challenge.
God crazy in love with us, ourselves crazy in love with God and with everyone and every thing God loves—that experience is pure gift, pure grace, and recompense aplenty.
Before you say that all this can’t possibly apply to you, remember that familiar saying, often wrongly attributed to St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” Those who led others out of the towers were certainly, and powerfully, preaching. Any time we stop focusing on ourselves and instead direct our attention and our energies in any way, large or small, to serving others, we too are preaching. Preach it, sisters! Preach it, brothers!
— Margot LeBreton Merz