True

I have a brother who is two years older than I.  He’s an engineer and teaches physics at a small liberal arts university in Tennessee.  I have heard my mom say on any number of occasions when referring to my brother and me, “Here’s my son, Art; he’s a priest.  And here’s my son, Steve; he’s the smart one.”  Thanks, Mom.

My brother has a sign hanging in his office.  It says, “Complex difficult problems often have simple straightforward solutions…that are wrong.”  Here’s a picture of the sign.

I love how the words, “that are wrong” are in much smaller print than the rest of the words.  You see, common thought is that, if we try really hard, we can find solutions to the problems of the world and the challenges of our lives, solutions that are simple and straightforward. Common thought is that such “simple, straightforward solutions” actually exist. And further, an associated common feeling to those common thoughts is that, because we cannot find “simple straightforward solutions,” there’s something wrong with us.

Could it be, however, that what’s wrong is not us?  Could it be that what’s wrong is the “simple straightforward solutions?” Could it be that what’s wrong is the very notion that such simple straightforward solutions actually exist?

There are immense challenges that we are facing in the world.  War in Ukraine.  War in the Middle East.  Political strife in our own country.  A strained economy.  Immigration concerns.  A climate crisis.  And these don’t even touch upon all the many messes in our own personal lives!  Surely, we think, there should be simple, straightforward solutions to these complex, difficult problems.  And clearly, there are always folks who are willing to step up and claim that they have the answer.  But do they?  I mean, really?  Well, the proof is in the pudding, and my observation of the pudding is that we must have left out a few ingredients.

You see, life is difficult.  It can be very, very good, but even for the most fortunate among us, life is difficult.  And the words enscribed on the sign hanging in my brother’s office have proven to be true time and time and time again.  

The world of Jesus’ day was fraught with complex, difficult problems as well.  And in Jesus’ day, just as in our own, there were folks who stepped up to claim they had simple straightforward solutions.  But they didn’t.  None of them did.

In contrast, Jesus offered few solutions.  What he did was to tell stories about what God’s kingdom looked like.  Instead of giving simple straightforward solutions, Jesus offered a vision of what the world could look like if love were allowed to flow freely.  Instead of giving simple straightforward solutions, Jesus encouraged his followers into a way of life that had the power to change the world.

Each Sunday, we retell the stories that Jesus told.  We remind ourselves of the lives Jesus encouraged us to live. We hear words of assurance that God still loves us, all of us, and that God adamantly refuses to cut and run. Each Sunday we receive not solutions to, but guidance through the complex, difficult problems of our world.  In doing so we are changed for the better, and hopefully the world, in some small way, is changed for the better too.  It isn’t simple.  It isn’t straightforward.  It isn’t easy.  But it also isn’t wrong.  It is the Way of Christ, and it is TRUE.

~Father Art