With summer fast approaching, I imagine some families are already dreaming about where to spend their vacations. Planning a trip usually means getting directions. With advice from AAA and the use of MapQuest, I consider what route serves me best. After all, getting lost can be so frustrating at times.
If and when we get lost, common sense tells us to pull over and ask for directions. Life itself is a journey. No wonder, Thomas asked Jesus, “How can we know the way?” Indeed, how do know which way to go when our hearts are troubled or a choice has to be made?
In the spring of 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic, arriving in Paris thirty hours later. When he became lost approaching Europe, Lindbergh had no one to turn to for help. He had to rely on his own intuition and a certain amount of luck to find his way to Paris. Some of us venture through life like that but we have guidance that we can rely on every moment of our life journey, especially when our hearts are troubled.
I am not talking about GPS systems or MapQuest. The guidance is none other than Jesus Christ himself. In response to Thomas who asked, “How can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Having made the journey of life to God, he comes to guide us every step of the way. “No one,” Jesus points out, “comes to the Father except through me.”
Not everyone would agree with him. They opt instead to find their way through life and to God using their own directions, or directions given them by anyone other than Jesus. Thumbing through the gospels, we can find countless people who chose not to follow Jesus. Some found his words impractical and told him in effect to go fly a kite. His sayings, such as “Turn the other cheek,” or “If someone asks you for your coat, give him your shirt as well,” are nice but very unreal, thank you. Even now, many people think that what Jesus has to say could be summed up as a nice moral guide, but his words “don’t tell it like it is.”
But the words we hear in today’s gospel are not the words of a dreamer. Jesus didn’t come to tell his listeners how the world ought to be. He came to tell us, “This is the way it is, folks. If you want to get to God, the only way is through me.”
When Isaac Newton announced the law of gravity (what goes up must come down), he wasn’t pleading for an ideal situation. He was stating a fact of life that cannot be altered. And that is how Jesus felt about the truth he was proclaiming in this gospel. He came to give us the best way to truly find God in our lives.
Those who cannot or will not accept the truth which Jesus proclaims in the gospels and the teachings of the Church, reject whom Peter called the cornerstone. Consequently, they stumble and fall through life, convinced that is their destiny. If they find their hearts troubled, they need to ask themselves, “Which way have I been going? My own way or the way of Jesus Christ?”
Jesus’ advice, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” is a holy directive on how to live with adversity. These words are not a magic eraser intended to wipe away our difficulties. But when we refuse to allow our hearts to be troubled, we free our minds to seek creative and constructive solutions to problems. When our hearts resist being troubled, we can love those who are the source of our trouble. And if we love them, they cannot become our enemies.
Today’s gospel may have sounded familiar since it is often read at funerals. When we hear the line, “I am going to prepare a place for you,” we think of a future residence that will be our home for all eternity but we don’t have to die to live there.
There is a “for rent” sign hanging in the window right now. The cost to live there is our willingness to follow Jesus directions for getting there. The dwelling place he has prepared for us is a place for us to rest from our labor, to pray, to work for the kingdom of God now, to find shelter from the stormy events that can occur any time.
Someday, we will live there permanently but until then, the Lord is here to guide us through whatever challenges we will be required to face in this lifetime. He has revealed to us a way of living and loving that just won’t go away. For example, he tells us, “love your enemies, do good for those who hate you, pray for those who maltreat you.”
Imagine how different our world would have been had his advice been heeded. A century ago, the war to end all wars was fought in Europe. Instead of ending all wars, the trail of bloodshed continues to this day, only now in the Middle East instead of Europe. Will we ever learn that violence simply begets more violence?
To get back on the right track, Jesus urges us to love. He would have us begin by practicing the lesson close to home. Love the person you think is most against you; try loving your enemy for enemies are defeated by making them your friends, not by conquering them or sabotaging their reputations.
The American poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, once said, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been!” Yes, our lives might have been very different if we had dared to follow Jesus’ direction, his way, when we chose not to. Peter tells us that those who choose Christ are living stones. As living stones, we must let God shape us by his truth if the world is to experience joyful rather than troubled hearts.