December 6/First Wednesday of Advent
Moving on from there Jesus walked by the sea of Galilee, and going up onto the mountain he sat down there. Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them. ~ Matt 15.29
The Jesus of Matthew’s gospel is a man of action. He traverses the towns of his disciples, proclaiming his message and healing the sick. He strides through grain fields on the Sabbath, crosses the Sea of Galilee in a boat, and even travels outside Israel to Tyre and Sidon. Yet some of the most important moments of Jesus’s ministry – including the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – occur when he is sitting down. On one level, writing for a Jewish audience, Matthew is indicating that Jesus teaches as a rabbi would teach (following the ancient custom of standing for the reading of the Scripture scroll and sitting afterwards to expound on the reading). But the evangelist also demonstrates that Jesus ministers powerfully through the simple fact of his presence. For us, the lesson in our busy, even frenetic lives, is that sometimes the best thing to do is. . . nothing. Or rather, to show up and be present to someone who needs us. To sit with a friend who has been hospitalized, to visit an older person who struggles with loneliness, to spend time with a young child reading book after book, to stop on the sidewalk and visit with a neighbor over the fence – these are all ways that we can minister to others by simply being there. (By the way, friends, this also entails putting away those darn phones, which disrupt our capacity for real human interaction with every ping and buzz they emit!) This small vignette of Jesus sitting as the crowds flock to him is a reminder that staying busy is not always the best way to heal the broken world. Being truly and fully available to others, and listening for the call that is embedded in the particular situation at hand, can be a powerful and life-giving ministry.
O God of peace, Speak to us in the quiet spaces of our lives and help us find the balance between doing and being. Amen.
To hear the Choir of Norwich Cathedral sing “At Even, Ere the Sun Was Set,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJGtxIrUYM4
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120623.cfm
