Skip to main content

Jesus and The Mooch

 

"The Mooch"

“I will not leave you orphaned; 
I am coming to you"

Have you ever experienced feelings of being lost or abandoned?

This is “The Mooch”

He earned that name after he appeared at the sliding door of our deck with a forlorn look.

Like many feral cats, we have no clue where he came from and how he happened to choose our deck.

So, being kind to cats, Elaine fed him.

From then on, we could count on his appearance.

Sometimes he would stay for an hour, sometimes he would stretch out and enjoy the sun most of the day.

His one rule was: don’t try to catch me.

One day he didn’t show up.

Then he didn’t show up for three days in a row and we concluded something happened to him or he simply decided to move on in search of another deck with a sliding door.

Once again, “The “Mooch” was on his own.

Jesus, though, made a promise to his disciples: he would not abandon them.

It’s hard to get through life without experiencing feeling lost or abandoned.

Certainly, Thomas and Philip had those feelings when Jesus talks about leaving his followers. (Jn 14:1-14).

Instead of leaving the disciples feeling abandoned, Jesus promised to return “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.”

Jesus reminds the disciples and us, those who follow Jesus’ commands love him; they will be loved by my God, and I will love and reveal myself to them.







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grantchester's Warning

"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, the owner would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (from Luke 12:32-40 ) I regularly watch Grantchester; a murder mystery set in 1950s England. The main characters are a local detective and an Anglican priest who, as a team, solve mysteries set in the town. Two aspects of Grantchester impress me. First, the simplicity of the 1950’s police communications done by a landline phone and not cell phone. Second, the simplicity of daily life with little television and fewer possessions allowing the characters to focus on their vocation of detective and priest. This simplicity is more than a nostalgic return to the “good old days”. Instead, it’s a Shaker type of simplicity where austerity allows freedom from distractions to focus on worship and community. Today’s distraction-filled world has seemingly countless activ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jesus’ Rules of Hospitality

“Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you.” (from Luke 10:1-11 ) There’s a true story of a seminary professor who asked a class to imagine the most challenging part of accompanying the 70 on their mission journey. Most of the responses were predictable: no money, no change of clothes, no food, depending on strangers. One student said, “Eat what is set before you.” The student explained that his father was a pastor in a very rural, poor part of South Dakota and often invited to dinner mostly by farmers. On remote farms people often relied on whatever they could kill or catch, such as squirrels , rabbits, and other wild creatures, even for guests so the father instructed the family to eat what was set before them. He added, “We just never knew what we would have to eat.” If you search Luke, you’ll find that Jesus often attends a meal, but never gives a dinner party. In Jesus’ rules of hospitality, being a respectful recipient by grac...
Post a Comment
Read more

Walking with God

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. (from Ps.103:1-8 ) Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk, writer and theologian, once asked himself a question he immediately answered:   How does an apple ripen? The apple, by simply being in the sun, fulfills its purpose of ripening, The apple doesn't try to ripen faster, it simply allows the sun to do its work.   There is nothing it can do to ripen itself. It can’t do workouts, tighten its muscles and then suddenly be a red, ripened, juicy apple in the morning. The apple just hangs on the branch in the sun, naturally ripening, where it receives its daily nourishment. This is the basic plan for how Christians ripen in their relationship to God. The difference is that Christians don’t naturally ripen in their relationship to God, we have to place themselves where we can be nourished. The beginning place of nourishment I find most helpful is the Guide to Prayer For All Who Walk With God. The daily walk in the...
Post a Comment
Read more