It is no secret that we humans often do the exact opposite of what God would have us do. Neither is it unknown we often know what God would have us do, but instead we too frequently do quite the opposite.
Often-times our refusal or inability to do what God calls us to do is our misunderstanding of just who we are called to be and our desire to be something else or someone else even when we do have some understanding of who we are. In so doing, we actually misused and abuse the Christian faith.
It seems we have all, at times, wanted the Christian faith to be something that rescues us from our humanity. That is, we want to be something and someone other than who God created us to be. We want escape from our humanity. We want to be transported into being someone who is always healthy, does the right thing, is admired by most everyone, and is really good at all we do.
That, however, is not in the human job description. No where do I see God or Jesus or even St. Paul or other authors of scripture demanding perfection. Instead I see them as calling us back to our very human roots.
Notice the parables of Jesus. He uses images of a dysfunctional family, a vandal sowing bad seed among good seed, righteous clergy passing by a beaten man on a lonely road, a grateful ordinary peasant woman rejoicing at the discovery of a lost coin, and laborers in a vineyard, among other day to day images. These are not calls to perfection or an escape from our humanity, but taught as an opportunity for the imperfect sinners to learn from them and plunge back into our humanity to find our fix there, not outside of our humanness.
What parables might we create today in our day- to- day experience? The parable of the frustrated office worker whose WiFi went down, perhaps. Or the in over their head driver who bought a new car that is smarter than they are. Maybe the wealthy 1% and the gap between them and the growing number of poor. ..oh we have that one already, the Rich Man and Lazarus.
The point would not be to create heroes, but to bring us back to where we are supposed to be as humans living with and for others. Heroism is not humanity’s call; compassion, community, and love of neighbor in the day to day of ordinary life is the call. Occasionally when answering this call a hero or heroine might be created. These are more accidents or by products than destinations.
When an unknown department store seamstress in Montgomery Alabama refused to go to the back of the bus as local ordinances required, who knew she was to become an historical icon? She certainly had no idea. Others had done as she had, but remain unknown. Rosa was tired. Tired from working hard and tired of such discriminatory ordinances. In her resistance she was simply calling those around her back to their human roots as those created by God.
We are called to be neither Wonder Woman nor Superman. Our Christian faith is to allow us to drop the Wonder and the Super and just be woman and man….human. Amazing things do often happen when we do the ordinary things we are called to do with the gifts we have.