Hosea 11:1-11
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21
“Back
when I watched two-year-olds acting up in public, I was determined that my
children would never act that way … then I became a parent.” Every Parent
It has been said that the only reason parents survive
the “terrible twos” is because toddlers are not strong enough to kill with
their bare hands and are not capable of handling lethal weapons! Toddlers
possess a natural strength, however, that leaves many parents – maybe most,
probably all – questioning their own sanity when they once thought having kids
would be a great idea. It is the strongest sense of irony that we spend
two years teaching them to talk, spend the next twelve years wishing for a
little peace and quiet, and then perhaps the next couple of years praying they
will open up once again.
We know, of course, being a parent brings our greatest
joys, a sense of immortality, and also some of our greatest fears, sleepless
nights, and most profound heartaches. When we get older and our children
become more and more independent and soon leave the nest, we spend considerable
time adjusting to the so-called “empty nest” syndrome, learn to enjoy it, but
then hope the kids will call or visit from time to time.
Raising toddlers and getting past the “terrible twos”
is a cycle of ups-and-downs, constant adjustments, and a lot of introspection
in wondering whether standing our ground in the midst of an earth-shattering
tantrum is worth the hassle, often giving in for just a few moments of
peace. Yet we also know that teaching our children the meaning of “no”
means we are in for the battle of our lives – sometimes to the point that many
children do not grow up understanding life has limits, and rights always come with boundaries and
great responsibilities.
Take all this in, all the ups-and-downs, all the
heartaches and heart breaks and headaches, all the joys, and all the fears –
and only then can we get even a glimpse of what our Heavenly Father endures …
constantly. We only have to deal with one, maybe two toddlers at a time;
and as grandparents we have the privilege of calling our kids and telling them
to come get their little … cherubs when we’ve had enough.
Our Holy Father deals with the shocking reality of the
“terrible twos” constantly and in perpetuity. For our Lord, it never
ends. And I think He would have it no other way.
It's not easy understanding the mind and heart of The
Lord when we separate Him from our own realm and the realities we face.
We envision Him as some distant Being far removed from daily living because we
more easily see the greed and hear the hatefulness of the world. It
becomes worse when such things come even from within the Church herself when we
get a little too full of ourselves. Often like toddlers, we mistakenly
believe the Church exists to serve us
rather than that we are called to serve one another.
Yet we must also understand we have grown beyond the “terrible
twos” ourselves in our spiritual being, we’ve been taught and trained in such a
way that we are capable of bringing honor and glory to our Holy Father just as
we are commanded to honor our earthly
parents – one of those “no latitude” commandments. Capable, but not
always willing.
What we choose to do with what has been imparted to
us, however, may be another story altogether. And much of it depends on
how firm a hand guided us in our spiritual infancy just as we needed when we
were growing and learning to walk and talk, constantly testing our boundaries,
and ultimately testing our ability to trust those charged with our well-being.
Think about this.
When a toddler is moving away from us and toward something that could be
dangerous or may only annoy us, we call out to them. We warn them.
We may even threaten them. As
they continue toward that thing, whatever it is, they look back. Then we are left to wonder: are they only
making sure we’re still there to rescue them?
Or are they testing us and their boundaries??
How is it that we cannot see ourselves and the Church
in the life of a toddler? We might think that being so inwardly directed
– as a toddler often is – we might be more self-aware because we have the
maturity to be so introspective. We should see that in spite of our
sense of entitlement, life really does not revolve around “me”. We know it, but we just don’t really want to
believe it.
As it was Israel.
“Out of Egypt I called My Son – yet the more I called them
(not “Him”), the more they (not “He”) went from Me” (Hosea 11:1-2). Though Israel was surely eager to escape that
life of degradation and maltreatment in the beginning, it soon came to be Moses’
great challenge to drag the people of Israel kicking and screaming across the wilderness! How often they wanted to go back! Independence became too difficult especially
when they had a distorted recollection of having once been spoon-fed by their
Egyptian task-masters.
And how often did The Lord have to put His foot
down? Not quite as often as He gave His “son”
enough latitude to stretch their legs and test the boundaries. As with a toddler, though we must always be
there to protect them from real harm, we also know they must make their own
mistakes and explore and learn.
Sometimes the correction for Israel was quite severe when they went too
far off the grid; at other times over the course of those forty years in the
wilderness, it took a very long time to realize that their rebellion had harmed
the community as a
whole and had caused the Father – surely expressed in Moses’ exacerbation! – a lot
of grief along the way.
Fast forward to Jesus’ time, and it appears the tantrums
have not abated! “Tell my brother to gimme …” (Luke 12:13). Like a toddler who believes he or she is owed
something according to the culture’s standards and their own desires, the
person in the crowd still did not quite get the idea that we are owed
nothing. It must be said, however, that Jesus’
parable of the rich man with the storage problem was as much directed at the
one complaining as to the one withholding the family inheritance.
Known as the “property laws of toddlers”, the list
goes something like this. “If I like it,
it’s mine. If it’s in my hand, it’s
mine. If you have it and I want it, it’s
mine. If I had it a little while ago but
set it down, it’s still mine. If it looks
like mine, it is. If I saw it first, it’s
mine. If you are playing with it and I
want it, it’s mine. If it’s broken, it’s
yours.”
So with gentle (and sometimes forceful) correction, we
teach our toddlers a life of virtue. We
teach them about community property (sharing), about being kind in the company
of other toddlers (hospitality), and we teach them even to give up a thing when
it seems to mean so much more to the other little cherub (charity,
self-sacrifice). Somewhere along the
way, however, the lesson is lost; and like a toddler who worries more about
what’s “mine” than the abundance of what can be shared, we soon end up with
nothing when the thing we were willing to protect at all cost is taken from us –
as with the rich man and his storage bins.
“The
more I called them, the more they went from Me; they kept sacrificing to the
Baals, and offering incense to idols” (Hosea 11:2).
Call it “pitchin’ a fit”. We do what seems right to us without
realizing that everything we do – and even everything we don’t do – is a
reflection of not only what we’ve been taught, but is also often a measure of
our rebellion, a testing of boundaries to see what we can get away with.
And in spite of our rebelliousness, our Holy Father
still speaks: “I took them up in My arms; but they did not know I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with
bands of love. I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent
down to them and fed them” (Hosea
11:3-4).
None of this is to suggest willful rebellion will always be met with Divine kindness or
patience. We will not always be “lifted
to the cheek” of The Lord, but it does seem He will always be at the
ready to “bend down” to us in order to feed us, to teach us, to
strengthen us, and also to correct us.
The New Testament borrows the flight from Egypt to
refer to Jesus and the Holy Family having fled to escape Herod but soon being
called back when it was safe. There is
certainly that reference which cannot reasonably be disputed. As it pertains to the full meaning of Jesus’
life as a reflection of the Holy Word become flesh, however, I prefer “I
bent down to them and fed them”.
It is not enough to simply know Jesus came; it is more
to us to know – and to appreciate – why
Jesus came, why the Holy
Father deemed it necessary to reach out to His Beloved in such a life-changing
way, and what He was willing to do for our sake: “I bent down to them …”
I suppose we will always struggle against certain
boundaries as long as we do not break completely the “cords of kindness” with
which we are led. Every moment, every
trial, every tribulation, every challenge, every heartbreak, every moment of
fear and uncertainty is a test and a preparation for what more will soon
come.
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