There’s a story told of the sixth
century Irish saint, St Kevin, a man known for his feats of heroic
prayerfulness. He was a hermit who lived in a cave by the side of Glendalough,
a lake in County Wicklow. According to legend, at the beginning of Lent one year,
Kevin settled down to pray. He stretched out his hands, as he was wont to do,
and sank deep into prayer. So deep was his prayer, that he didn’t notice when a
blackbird landed on his hand. So deep was his prayer that he didn’t notice
either when she flew away and came back again with a twig in her mouth. So deep
was his prayer, in fact that he didn’t notice her going to and fro for all that
day, hour after hour, bringing twig after twig, weaving them together. He
didn’t notice her bring dried grass and weave that into the twigs either. He didn’t notice
until right at the end of the day, when he opened his eyes and realised that
there in his hand was a perfectly woven nest, and the blackbird sitting in it.
And underneath her were three sky-blue eggs.
“Ah!” thought
Kevin. “Now what shall I do? Sister
Blackbird has honoured me with her company, trusted me with her young. Hmm!
Well, there’s nothing for it but to wait, and while I wait, to pray”. So
Kevin did. According to the story, he prayed for days and days, sitting quite
still, not stopping to sleep or to eat. One week passed, and two, and in the
third week he saw the eggs crack open, and little by little the blackbird
chicks emerge. But that didn’t mean he could move. Far from it. Now it was even
more important that he stayed still as the parent birds brought food to their
chicks. So Kevin just carried on praying. By the time the chicks were ready to
fledge and fly the nest, Lent was nearly over, and as Easter Sunday came he
celebrated the new life of resurrection, and the new life of the chicks that
had grown in the nest of his outstretched hands…
Well, you can believe it if you
like, but it’s a good story, whether it happened or not.
I like it because it makes me
wonder what unexpected thing God might have put in my hands to deal with.
Perhaps it is something which I would rather not handle – maybe Kevin had at
least the odd moment when he wished that blackbird had nested somewhere else.
Often in our lives there are situations which seem to us to get in the way of what
we really want to be doing with our lives. We could be so much better, holier
people if only… If only, we didn’t have that awkward boss at work, that
difficult relationship at home, that illness to deal with, these cares and
worries, those doubts and fears. These things seem to us to be distractions,
diverting us from the path we planned to take.
And yet, it is often in facing up
to and dealing with these awkward realities that we find the greatest blessing.
We find our hearts and lives expanding because of them. Sometimes we may find a
solution to them. Sometimes we may end up having to live with them, but what
looks like a diversion from the straight road we’ve mapped out can be the
pathway which leads to life in all its fullness, if we are prepared to let it
be.
The Gospel reading we heard today
reminds me of that too. Jesus is in the territory of Tyre and Sidon, foreign
territory. Tyre and Sidon were Canaanite port towns to the north of Israel.
What was he doing there? We aren’t told. Not having a seaside holiday, that’s
for sure. Tyre and Sidon were a byword in Israel for sin and trouble, rackety
towns where all sorts of people came and went, where sailors did what sailors
have always done on their runs ashore. Maybe the father of the little girl whose
mother comes to Jesus was a sailor. It’s certainly unusual for a woman to be
out on her own like this, taking the initiative in challenging a male leader.
Maybe he was a sailor who had gone away to sea and never come back, a sailor
with a girl in every port, and she just happened to be the girl in this one. We
don’t know. But she is obviously a nuisance, even to Jesus.
His disciples beg him to send her
away, and he seems inclined to try, but she keeps on at him until he gives her
what she wants - her daughter’s healing – and he doesn’t just do this, he also
acclaims her faith.
It’s an awkward story. Commentators
have puzzled over it ever since it was written. Jesus seems so rude. They have
tried to say that perhaps he doesn’t really mean what he says when he compares
her to a dog and tries to send her away, but I don’t buy that, and I think if
the Gospel writers meant us to read it like that they would have said so. I
think it is what it seems to be; a story about Jesus learning and growing. I
think that’s precisely why he went to Tyre and Sidon – to challenge himself. And
I think he found there the challenge that, even for him, felt like a bridge too
far. But, helped by this woman, who had just seemed like a nuisance at first,
his vision expanded to encompass this Gentile. The Gospel writers, I believe,
included this awkward story as an encouragement to their hearers, who were also
often struggling to accept those who found their way into the early Christian
community,. “Even Jesus found this tough, and yet, what a blessing there was in
accepting the stranger – however strange!”
So. I wonder. If we stretch out our
hands in prayer today, as St Kevin did, what or who will we discover that God
has placed into them? What are the inconvenient, awkward, puzzling realities
that we struggle to hold, that we would rather put down somewhere and walk away
from? Perhaps, like St Kevin, like Christ himself, we might find that, in God’s
economy, there might be blessing hidden in the pain, new life hatching in our hands,
if we have the patience and the faith to hold still and watch?
Amen
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