Help Us With Your Right Hand

June 23 2008
Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

By Beth DeCristofaro

They did not listen, but were as stiff-necked as their fathers. (2 Kings 17:14)

Help us with your right hand, O Lord, and answer us. (Psalm 60:7)

You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:5)

Piety

Jesus, your forgiving, loving life challenged but did not hurt those to whom you spoke truth and life. Help me love and not hurt others by what I say and do. Help me see you in others so that I love rather than judge. Help me with your right hand to not be blind and stiff-necked but filled with your grace and blessings.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/062308a.shtml

Jesus just can’t seem to let it go the importance of forgiveness and judgment in these recent readings. He even puts forgiveness into the prayer which, he teaches us, goes straight to the top: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…” Easier said than done. Staying in constant communication – prayer – with our Lord for encouragement, guidance, and prodding to help us see our own stiff-necked attitudes and our wooden-beamed hypocrisy is fundamental.

A distracting factor is our belief that we must “forgive and forget”. Forgetting a hurt is almost impossible for us humans. Look at the animosity between Turks and Greeks or sports fans who can recite stats and scores from games lost years ago. I still find myself agitated with a family member who hurt others years ago. I believe that I’ve forgiven him but I struggle to forget. In fact I choose to remember that I now don’t trust him, that he brought pain to my father and that he was self-centered.

Perhaps we can turn the lack of forgetting is actually a cross which can aid us into growing toward, not away from God; a way to relax our stiff-necks. My agitation affects me physically (stiff neck is not just an image). In my remembering, I could choose to pray for this miscreant and remember that God gave him a second chance. I could remember that I have made mistakes and, by God’s grace, I have not made the specific mistake that this relative made. I could consider, with awe, that God created this relative and that “God doesn’t make junk”. Who am I to trash this person? I could remember that each day, with my assent, God draws me ever closer in love just as God draws my relative ever closer. That is both gift and promise. I could rejoice that we all can try, try and try again. But first we get out of our own way by removing the beam from our own eye and looking for God.

Action

Thanks, Cursillista Laura, for a timely e-mail anecdote. Have you read the story of the taxi driver who refused to get mad at the dangerous and churlish actions of other drivers? His attitude was “the law of the garbage truck” which he explained as: “He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.”

I would add that by taking on the garbage of judgment, lack of forgiveness, anger, revenge or by not removing the garbage (beam) from our own eyes, we leave no room for grace. Not taking on the garbage allows God to fill us with grace. Grace allows God’s fruit to bloom in the world through our actions, uncorrupted by garbage. What garbage have you taken on? What measure are you reaping by measuring out judgment and lack of forgiveness? Say a prayer for yourself and for the one needing forgiveness. What are the fruits which you bring to God’s world?