I watched this Tree pie trying to gather stick for its nest from the rose apple tree in our garden. It laboured for a while and not being able to break a branch that was too strong for it, the bird looked distressed and gave repeated bird calls to express its helplessness. The last photo above was when it rested for a while before it started to break a twig instead of a branch.
This effortful activity which did not give the Tree pie what it wanted was a sight which brought to my mind the words of Jesus: 'Come to Me all who are weary and heavy laden, I will you rest....' (Matt. 11:25).
This passage directed my attention to what happened to some people after Jesus entered the Jerusalem temple . 'And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done and the children who were crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the son of David 'they became indignant' (Matt 21:14-15).
It was following that, 'Jesus left them and went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there' (Matt.21.17). When I read, 'And when Jesus entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred saying, who is this? And the multitudes were saying, this is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee' (Matt 21.10-11) I felt even more aware of the divided attitudes people had towards Jesus.
Those who could not see and hear were healed and therefore they were jubilant. The children were singing chorus of praise and welcome. The city was stirred and the Chief priests and scribes were indignant. It was when I noticed this bunch of flowers in our garden, it occurred to me that a withering flower was also in that cluster.
Jesus received acceptance from many and indignation from some. That was what Jesus encountered during His public ministry!
According to the narration in the Matthew's gospel, from the middle of the chapter 21 to the end of 25 th chapter, Jesus spoke to people in the temple (21:23) and elsewhere on themes related to Christ's mission on earth in parables and stories. These chapters which summarised the teachings are sandwiched between His entry into the temple and the plot to kill Jesus, which appears in chapter 26.
What engaged me as I was reading these teachings of Jesus from the middle of chapter 21 till the end of chapter 25, was a persuasive and Jesus calling people to turn to God, who was beckoning people to ''Come to Him ....to find rest for their souls'!
I felt moved how Jesus overcame the compassion fatigue in the midst of provocation, intimidation and indignation from the religion leaders. Although, Jesus, 'left them and went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there'(21:17), in the teachings between chapters 21 and 25 in the Matthew's gospel, we find Jesus calling people to come to Him!
Jesus went from Jerusalem to Bethany to stay although He came to Jerusalem, 'having known to be taken up, he kept his face towards Jerusalem' (Luke 9:51). The place Bethany was a place Jesus was well known because Jesus brought back Lazarus to life !
There are three thoughts that come to me about Jesus, while in transit from Bethany to Jerusalem. Jesus 'lodged' in Bethany while He was on the way to Gethsemane and Golgotha.
1. Jesus the Shepherd
The words of Jesus, 'I am the good shepherd' was made manifest during this short time that Jesus lodged in Bethany before proceeding to Gethsemane.
Jesus spoke parables of the two sons who differed going to the vineyard initially on request from their father, the landowner who was refused the vine press by those to whom he entrusted, the marriage feasts to which the invited guests did not come, the tender shoots in the the fig tree as a sign of the season to come and the parable of ten women with lamps, where five did not have oil in their lamps and missed meeting the bridegroom, while He 'lodged' in Bethany.
I presume that it was a difficult season in the life of Jesus, as those for whom He came, seemed to reject Him. The agony that He expressed in the Garden of Gethsemane, 'Father why have you forsaken me' started early and got intensified, after Jesus displaced the merchandise from the temple and restored it as the house of prayer. Out of his own inner discomfort came the above parables which revealed the compassionate nature of God 'who goes after the one sheep that was lost'.
The difficult seasons are also times when something profound can come to being!
Dr A.K.Tharien, a medical graduate from Miraj Medical College was working at the CSI hospital at Kancheepuram, when he heard about the drought in Dindigul district, following the failure of monsoon in three consecutive years. People were starving! During his visit to have a first hand information, he found people who lived in the planes of the Palani hills at Oddanchatram feeding on saw dust to feed their hunger! That was what moved him to start a medical work in that place in 1955, which currently is a a large hospital where young people go for short periods to receive clinical training and to find their vocation. Talking about this experience Dr Tharien once told me, that 'when a farmer wants a better crop he ploughs deeper and longer. So it is with God, who allows difficult experiences in our lives to make us more ready for self giving orientation and thoughtfulness towards others'.
It is only when a person has a shepherd heart, he or she can turn a difficult experience to be formative for himself and others.
Jesus was not welcome at Jerusalem, and yet it was in Jerusalem where Jesus was getting ready to lay down His life!
2. Jesus the Sojourner
Jesus early in his public ministry had said, ' The foxes have holes, and the birds of air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head' (Matt. 8:20). Jesus lived as a traveller moving from place to place often conditioned by the needs of people, whether it be a large gathering to speak to or visiting a home to heal or being in the temple to preach, or meeting people at the way side or walking in the night on the water to meet the disciples ,whose boat was caught in a storm.
Now in the final season of life, Jesus was compelled to lodge in Bethany when He was preparing Himself to be in Jerusalem. It was Jesus who said: 'And whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words as you go out of that house, shake off the dust of your feet'(Matt 8:14). When Jesus came to this experience of not being received, what we see is another persuasive approach to reach people and to talk to them in parable to turn their hearts towards God.
Jesus was a sojourner searching for those who were ready for the good news of a loving God.
Two sojourners I found in Health care service in India were Dr Earnest Forrester Paton and Dr S Jesudasan who having worked together in London and Pune came to Tirupattur, a small town in Tamil Nadu in 1920 and established a hospital with specialisation in eye care and the Christukula ashram. It was their habit to travel to villages looking out for people who needed health care. They brought people with different health care needs to the hospital, looked after them and left them back in thier homes. Their mission was 'to go to people where they were and be near to them'.
I remember meeting Dr Paton in Kotagiri in 1969, a year before his home call. He was physically weak and needed assistance to move about. He was communicative and retained good memory. In that short meeting, two messages from his life stayed with me. He and Dr Jesudasan, having established the first ashram in the Christian tradition believed in taking care of those who could not take care of themselves on their own. His reference to four men, lowering a paralysed man from the roof, to the presence of Jesus and Jesus in commendation of their faith healing that person (Mark 2:1-13) highlighted the vocation with which he lived. He lived with a heart that stayed near to people who had little to live on. The second message was how Dr Paton and Dr Jesudason lived caring for others in the hope that they would form small communities who cared for each other. The stories I heard from him authenticated how health care of a person became the interest of the community. He spent half of the month going from one village to another. It was a symbol of the sojourning call he lived!
The sojourners are those who find home in the hearts of others!
3. Jesus the Submissive one
Jesus had made His position clear during his association with His disciples, that '..son can do nothing of Himself, unless He sees the Father doing...' (John 5:19). His words, 'My father is working until now and I myself am working' (v17) gave a clear indication of the way Jesus went about doing good. He lived in the will and mission of the Father.
It was at the time when John baptised Jesus, this truth about Jesus as the 'beloved of the father' was made known to all around Jesus, because a voice from heaven said: 'My beloved son in whom I am well pleased' (Matt.3:17).
Jesus was able to make a public declaration of His mission in life, when in the High priestly prayer, Jesus said: 'The words which Thou gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from Thee and they believed that Thou didst send me' (John 17:8).
What we find at the time of His engagement with people at the temple during the passover was a mixed reaction. The pharisees and scribes questioned his authority.
Even in the midst of such a provocation, Jesus disengaged them by his decision to teach them through parables rather than confront them.
St Paul's description of Jesus, 'Although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a bond-servant ..(Philip 2:6-7) was fully demonstrated in the week before His trial. He was still in a giving mood and was not in defence or confrontation.
This submissive role of Jesus to His Father was evident during his public ministry. To be submissive would mean being open and guided from beyond oneself! Jesus was the incarnate, the Word becoming flesh, who dwelt among people to enable them to respond to God's love in their lives! Jesus became submissive to love, to let that happen!
It is in relationship within marriage this submission of love is experiential! It is not submission to an authority but to the lover who gives himself or herself fully and mutually!
Dr Paul Brand, a surgeon working at CMC Vellore in the nineteen sixties, was in the habit of kneeling beside the bed of patient especially when he examined the abdomen of a patient. I remember asking him during an interview about the reason for it. He said, it was easier to examine by kneeling. He added, that 'it is a way of respecting a patient and acknowledging gratefully that we learn from the patient, while examining'! I thought that it was intellectual humility and relational regard of a high order.
I remember Dr C.K. Job, a former professor of Pathology of CMC Vellore telling me that 'it is when you take your colleagues seriously, and relate respectfully, the benefits exceed the good outcome at work. We grow in trust and mutuality and practice honouring each other'! Dr Job was well known for the courteous ways he regarded others, in spite of being a global leader in research in Leprosy.
The way Jesus responded to the experience in Jerusalem before his trial and crucifixion suggest to me that:
Jesus was a shepherd; Jesus was a sojourner and Jesus was submissive !
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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