Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
Reflecting on Hebrews 12: 1-4
The sidewalks in our neighborhood are terrible. I’ve tripped on the cracks so many times that every time I kneel I suspect I have some permanently broken bones from falling on them so many times.
That’s probably why that little sentence at the end of the letter to the Hebrews caught my attention: Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed. Oh, for a straight path down our street! Chastened by experience, I walk with my head down, watching out for the gaps that are waiting to send me flying.
There’s a metaphor here, I think. The author has been making a case for suffering, suggesting that pain is God’s gentle correction, a loving parent’s way of setting us back on the straight and narrow. That’s not a theology that necessarily stands the test of time, but his theme is that, wounded― but not fatally―we are now encouraged to make a new path in life, a new way of walking through doubt, boredom, chronic pain, and the many temptations that try to trip us up.
There are many sidewalks. Some of them are sparkling new, but you have to make the effort to find them. Their names are Release from bitterness. Gratitude. Acceptance. Embrace of Jesus. Others are easy to find, in fact you may have been walking them for years. Their names are Inertia. Cynicism. More interest in your iPad than in your children. (And, young readers, more interest in your phone than in your parents!)
Make a new path. Don’t let the old wounds fester. Step away from the habits that have carved the ruts in your life that keep tripping you and hurting you. Today’s a perfect day for a nice walk.
How are you working on a new way of walking?
Kathy McGovern ©2016