A PLACE TO LAY HIS HEAD

Sometimes we talk big without thinking of the consequences. A “teacher of the law” comes up to Jesus in Matthew 18:19 and says, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus knows there is more to following God’s way than the teacher imagines.  It is hard work. The Galilean responds with a statement that haunts me:  “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

I feel sad about that. I feel sad that Jesus, traveling from one side of the country to the other, always on the road, always with a line of people waiting for their next moment with him, always with a world to save, didn’t feel he had a place to hang his hat. A corner of a bedroom where he could stack his books, or a kitchen counter where he could store his favorite insulated coffee mug.

Maybe that is what was so delicious for him when, on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus stopped for awhile in the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. For just a few minutes he was able to experience “normal.” For a couple of hours he could close the door, look through last Sunday’s paper, catch a few minutes of Sports Center, and ask for a second helping of lamb fajitas.

In their book The Spirituality of Imperfection Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham talk about being “at-home” with ourselves. Being able to “accept our own imperfect humanness.” They talk about being able to forgive ourselves, letting some others get close enough to forgive us, and being open to trust.

Forgiveness and acceptance are, they say, key to being “at home.”

Home is, ultimately, “that place where we find the peace and harmony that comes from learning to live with the knowledge of our own imperfections and from learning to accept the imperfections of others.  Such a place, such a home…rests jointly within self and within some group of trusted others.”

Perhaps that is who God calls us to be as God’s people: “a group of trusted others.”

When we are in that kind of place “we experience a falling away of tensions, a degree of balance between the pushing and pulling forces of our lives.”

As we walk towards Jerusalem, let us pray God would take away from us anything that would keep us from becoming a community of “trusted others.”

And as I find my way towards the city on the hill, I want to say to Jesus: “I wish I could have given you a place to lay your head. I wish I could have protected you from the storm outside and around you. I wish I could have given you a place.”

I wonder if my heart will do?

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark