The One Who Sent Me is With Me

Today's Gospel reading is one of my current favorites. It's not something that I usually think about, but it struck a chord with me today, so I'd like to share it. Let me preface this by saying that the first readings talks about the people complaining in the desert about how God had seemingly abandoned them...and then God sent a serpent to kill a whole bunch of them for their insolence. Nice. Not exactly what I imagine my good, loving, "Christian" God to act like. Then again, I wonder how I would feel if my children only complained about the food and the atmosphere after I saved their lives. I would probably be angry, too. The moral of the story is that they repent, and God resurrects those who He had killed.

This brings us to the Gospel (John 8:21-30). Jesus is speaking about his divine origination as the Son of God, something that happens most often in the Gospel of John and almost never in the other three Gospels. Jesus is telling his disciples, "Where I am going, you cannot come." This made them immediately think that Jesus was contemplating suicide, since that would probably cause him to go to hell, according to Jewish tradition. But instead, Jesus launches into this discussion about how He does not belong to "this world." Instead, he belongs to His Father's Kingdom.

Jesus had every opportunity to take advantage of his audience, here. He had fame, He had the power of persuasion, and He had the listening ears of hundreds and even thousands of eager followers. He could have made a statement right then and there that He was the autonomous God, and that He derived His power from no other source. But that's not what he does. He uses his advantage to point to the One who gave Him every kind of power. He points to God. "I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father has taught me." Wow. That's humility at its finest, if I ever saw it. I am realizing as a youth minister that it is not always easy to point everything back to God. I have experienced moments of weakness, where I let my pride speak for me, instead of letting the Spirit speak for me. There are times when I want to take credit for the great witness talk I wrote, or for the awesome youth group meeting I just planned. But deep down inside, I know that I would be nowhere without God. And Jesus realized this, too.

"The one who sent me is with me." What a beautiful phrase. We are sent by God, but we are never abandoned. God doesn't send us out into the world to do His bidding so that He can sit back and watch us be fed to the wolves. Instead, God sends us and then STAYS with us. God is present in the deepest part of our human experience: through the most profound joys as well as the most inexplicable pain. what an extraordinary concept. Maybe that's why God was so angry at the Israelites in the desert. They had forgotten where they came from. They had forgotten that God was providing everything to them, and that they didn't need to be complaining. Maybe we're all a little guilty of that. I don't think that complaining is always the worst thing we can do. Sometimes, it's the only thing we can do because something just doesn't seem fair. But these readings remind us that God has never abandoned us, and everything we have...we owe back to God.

Think about that next time you want to blame God for an unfortunate circumstance. If you are working through the muck with a trusting heart, then you're probably doing it right. And no one's perfect. I find myself trusting God completely some days, and on other days...well, it's a different story. But I've learned to take my own spiritual journey a day at a time, and it seems to be going pretty well so far.

"If God seems distant, who moved?" Recognize the work of God in your life, and stay faithful to that reality. And maybe the complaining will slow down after all.

Peace.