I am sure many of us have had the experience where we run into a friend from years ago, and we pick up right where we left off, as if there were never really a gap of years between visits. That is a sign of a good friendship and great compatibility of personalities.
Recently, something like that happened to me. It was a married couple with whom I became good friends in one of my early assignments, in a parish from many years ago. They were part of my social life in the parish and even had traveled with me overseas, but in recent years, with my moving to different assignments and their busyness with family and life, we just lost touch.
Just days ago from my writing this column, they invited me back to their home for a visit, and it was great, just like old times: good, sarcastic, razzing humor! Good friends pick up where they left off, as if time had not elapsed. So, it was a great visit, but there was one thing that was different: The wife had just been informed by her doctor that she had about two months to live because of a fast-spreading cancer.
As a priest, I deal with death and dying all the time, but when a longtime friend, just a few years older than me, gets a terminal diagnosis, it’s just different. In the face of her mortality, she is still the great and fun person she has always been, but her values have changed, and that was obvious.
In the time we visited, we spoke of the weightier things — her salvation, her family’s salvation, her love of her family, their faith, their lack of faith, and on and on. In the face of death (which most of us can only imagine), a person’s values adjust to what is really important. If a dying person’s values don’t change, then there is something wrong.
In Luke’s Gospel, we have what is known as “the Sermon on the Plain,” in which Jesus offers his teaching as to how his disciples should live, and those teachings are not for pansies. He says, in part, “To you who hear, I say love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you …. From the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours, do not demand it back” (Luke 6:27-30).
Now, at this point we might be tempted to over spiritualize these commands, but we really should take them at face value, because that is how Jesus intended them. The commands Jesus gives in his Sermon on the Plain might seem pretty unrealistic, but they are not. My good friend’s situation can teach us that some things are more important than demanding earthly justice for past hurts or for having our belongings stolen. Even when we are treated poorly and taken advantage of, Jesus teaches us to respond in a way different from what our first instincts might be, because some things are more important. And what is more important? Salvation.
If we go through life demanding justice for past wrongs, then we will lose sight and focus on the weightier things. My friend now looks at everything through the eyes of God, love, and salvation, and although her situation and the situation for her family is desperately sad, she has actually been given a beautiful gift: the gift to see things how God sees things.
The trick for all of us, of course, is to strive to look at the things of the world through this same lens. We all can easily get caught up in things that are petty, and the more we get caught up in the pettiness of life, the more unrealistic Christ’s commands will seem to be.
If we can look at everything in this life knowing it is just a prelude to what is really important, then we will be more ready for what comes next. And not only will we be happy, we will be joy-filled. Christ’s tough teachings are not meant to cause us stress, they are meant to cause us joy.
