Why is it that whenever we experience something out of the ordinary, seemingly miraculous, the tendency is to elevate the event or experience itself, without much consideration of the perhaps deeper implications of the event? There is nothing wrong with these moments of revelation or outstanding epiphany, where clarity and affirmation reign; however, it becomes problematic when these glorious experiences become the benchmark or measuring stick for all other experiences we may have. We in a way idolize them in such a way that we blind ourselves to perhaps a deeper meaning and more life-giving engagement as a result of the experience.

While we go about intently searching for the next time something out of the ordinary and outstanding happens, we miss the everydayness of the moments in between. The past miracle has us passing over the present in order to look for a recurrence in the future. Sometimes we throw all of our marbles so to speak into the game, and unwittingly sacrifice perhaps the more precious wealth that can be mined and deepened in the single moment of the present – right now – whatever you are doing – or not doing.

In this pure presence in the moment, expectations of outcomes are suspended when we surrender to a simple notice of them and then let them go. We can see everything around us as dignified in the very fact that they ARE – people, things, all of creation. This surrender is the ability to accept the moment as it is replaces the ‘business as usual’ mode of the mind that sacrifices everything (including others) for clarity, fitting something into a set format, and solving anything that looks awry.  Don’t we now have that opportunity in all of the pandemic’s disruption of normalcy?

Sacrifice and surrender seem to crop up in today’s scriptures. In Acts (Acts 14: 5-18), we hear first how both the Gentiles and the Jews seek to stone Paul and Barnabas, who then escape to the surrounding countryside and heal a man who had never walked.

When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out …”The gods have come down to us in human form.” They called Barnabas “Zeus” and Paul “Hermes,” because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus…brought oxen and garlands to the gates, for he together with the people intended to offer sacrifice.

The Apostles Barnabas and Paul tore their garments when they heard this and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, “Men, why are you doing this? We are of the same nature as you, human beings. We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.

This tendency to idolize something or someone always involves the practice of sacrifice. In this case, sacrifice is revealed as precisely what is not the desired response. Paul and Barnabas try to remind the people that they are mere humans just as they are – the only difference being perhaps their ostensible openness to sharing the Good News that they have been given. The Good News is intended to help all of us who perhaps have so to speak never walked before.

Jesus seems to be telling something of the same to his disciples in the gospel today (JN 14: 21-26):

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name— he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”

Wow, this is a far cry from “garland and oxen at the gate” to offer sacrifice. Here, there is no requirement that we get rid of anything, blame someone, or kill something in sacrifice in order to secure an ongoing life of fulfillment. The dramatic play of miracles that can bedazzle and sometimes seduce us into a form of idolatry is here being replaced with a simple invitation to…surrender. Notice that this is not surrender in terms of giving something up as much as receiving something offered in such a hospitable way that it is referred to as a dwelling or a home. It is a letting be – an abiding.  The only requirement is that we surrender to and in Love. Love seems to be the primary commandment that Jesus had, yet he insists it’s an open invitation to all, all the time, no matter what, leaving us with the simple albeit complex, given today’s cultural voices, task of surrender: Saying “yes” to the now-ness, the presence of Love LIVING in each moment of our lives.

Talk about spectacular! How is it that our God loves us so much that We are home for Him? We are the dwelling that She desires. The great 14^th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, speaks of how God delights in the human soul so much that God sits in the soul,  as she says, “for in us is God’s most familiar home.”[i]

To be God’s abode is so radical if we really consider the implications. It is the most intimate level and passionate expression of what it means to be a fully alive human being. We are dignified by the Love life of God dwelling within us. We only have to open the door, say yes, surrender, or whatever word describes the possibility for you. This is no half-hearted affair, but a life-long commitment to relationship.

This is the Divine Presence that comes to us in more ways than we can imagine, when we allow God to sit within us and love through us. This is the BIG now that we can allow to be cultivated within us so that the past and the future stop dividing our souls and come together in the moment of Love that cannot be found so much through seeking, but miraculously suddenly appears “through walls and doors,” as the Risen Christ!

In this Divine indwelling, we are as the people described Paul and Barnabas “gods… come down to us in human form.” God is saying that I want to move in you..all of you… and set up housekeeping!   So that whatever we do, wherever we are, whomever we encounter, it is at that same moment a divine encounter with God, whose heart and home is in all of creation and so wonderfully specific in Humanity!

[i] Fr. John-Julian, OJN, The Complete Julian of Norwich (Paraclete Press, 2009), 315.

(posted May 20, 2019)