Thursday Week 24 Year I

These readings leave me somewhere between gasping and all numbed-out by too much good news! Who’d have thought you could have too much good news, too much blessing, too many promises of good fortune?! But that’s the strange economy that gets played out in both Paul and Luke today—a kind of tumbling, over-pouring, gush of words—as if saying it fast and saying it over and over might get it through our thick skulls. God has given us so much in an outpouring of generosity that we can be just as unstinting in our over-bubbling gratitude. But even then God will not be outdone and will overload us with even more—gifts in full measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, poured into our over-burdened lap.
But like I said I’m a little to world–weary to take either Paul or Jesus at face value. I know there must be a catch. I know there has to be the small print … what’s in it for you God? And besides the last few days have shown the magnitude of the forgiveness the world demands and I’m not sure I have it in me.
In the face of all the over-pouring promises of God there is the icy realism of the prince of this world. “Don’t get carried away! Don’t give till you see what you need! Don’t build up your hopes they’ll only get dashed! Don’t take a risk you’ll only get hurt. Don’t let God get too close you’ll only be disappointed!”
Aren’t both these voices working already in the first days of retreat? The surprising, too-good-to-be-true, overwhelming what-ifs of God—what if God really loves me? what if God really has plans for my peace? what if God really thinks I don’t need to change?” And the sweet, safe, comfortable, reasonable, deadly voices of worry, of fear, of doubt, of regret.
But God is not reasonable—God’s calculations run in ever growing circles of ever greater gifts. And I know, despite my doubts, where my deepest desires lie—surprise me God!