Unexpected encounters with Christ

I had good fortune this week to be part of a team hosting a retreat for first-year teachers from schools across our province. There were close to seventy teachers at this retreat center outside of Kansas City, and we spent four days and three nights together with the intent of reflecting on our calling to teach, and praying for strength and guidance as we proceed in this endeavor. 

I have been on several similar retreats over the years. They tend to follow a similar pattern of keynote address by a retreat leader, personal reflection time, and then some small-group time where the retreatants are expected to discuss what they have experienced up until that point on the retreat. It is the latter that I always dread, as I am not one to talk too deeply about what I am feeling, and this is especially the case when it comes to strangers. I didn’t know anyone in my small group; they were all from different schools across the province. 

This retreat though was different, and the members of my small group found a deep connection very quickly. In each of our sessions we lost track of the time and found ourselves wanting for more time to process what we were experiencing together. It was a happy surprise for me, as the thing that I had dreaded the most ended up being the most important part of the experience for me. 

I came away from this with a new way of looking at my way of seeing the world. Until recently, I have tended to think that I should be able to puzzle through things that trouble me on my own, and that my thoughts are mine to keep locked away, away from everyone else. This desire to keep things to myself sometimes leads me to even try to hide my thoughts away from God, the one that today’s readings reminds me I should always bring myself to. This recent experience of being vulnerable to strangers, and allowing them to be vulnerable with me took us to a much more nourishing space than we would have found on our own. 

Perhaps God sends us the loved ones in our lives - and sometimes loving, and lovable strangers - with the intent of allowing them to help us understand our own hearts and minds. In today’s reading from Jeremiah, God tells us that ‘I, the Lord, alone prove the mind and test the heart.’ At first blush that might lead one to believe that we shouldn’t trust in others at all; that we should place our trust in God only. 

But God also became flesh so that He could walk among us, and so that we could encounter Him in our own experiences. It is through these encounters with Christ in the flesh that we should also learn how to encounter God in all of the other persons in our lives. In today’s gospel, the rich man asks God to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn the rich man’s brothers that their greed will be their downfall, and God responds by saying that everything and everyone that his brothers need to hear from are already present to tell them what they need to hear, if only they were willing to listen. 

How many times has God placed His words in someone else’s mouth for me to hear? How many times have I failed to realize that He was talking to me? I am grateful for my recent experience and His voice in the mouths of my new friends, and hopeful for the next time God surprises me with something that should have been so obvious to me had I simply stepped outside of myself and invited God in. 

Author: Tom Garrison, Principal