Dark Devotional: Prophet in a Bathrobe

For context, dear reader, a little “Inside Baseball” on how Sick Pilgrim chooses writers for our Dark Devotionals: There’s a list of contributors, a Signup Genius, and semi-monthly nagging reminders from the site administrators—pick a date, any date, please PLEASE guys just pick one. 

Your friendly (well, some of us are friendly) neighborhood Sick Pilgrims are, by and large, freelancers with day jobs and families and diagnosed mood disorders, but we love our readers and each other and this quirky-ass blog, so we sign up, and we do our best.

I suspect some of our more scholarly types actually look up the readings before they choose their dates. I, Theresa Reese Weiler, am not one of those types. I am the type who goes, “Hmmm, I don’t anticipate any specific crisis for the week of July 4th through 10th,” before gritting my teeth and adding my name.

So, yes, reader,  I am looking at the readings for the first time right now.

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Googling “Mass Readings for July 11 2021.” Click that link. Okay, Ordinary Time, let’s see what you’ve got for me…

First reading: Amos 7:12-15. 

Dang, I get the minor prophets confused. Haven’t even glanced at them since that time in 2009 when I got all hypomanic and read the whole Old Testament straight through. Which one was Amos? Quick review…ah! 

Amos was a doomsayer. He had a lot to say to the people of Israel, and most of it was bad news. Amos had no “official” status under which he could prophesy. He wasn’t the  son of a prophet, he wasn’t a member of any company of prophets, he was just a guy.  Amos was a shepherd, a country boy, called from the fields by God to prophesy to Israel, and Israel was not having it. 

Israel was like, “Um, Amos, is it? We are Israel. THE Israel. The original “one nation under God!” As if we could be deserving of the same judgment as the Gentile nations! Ugh, who even are you? You smell like sheep and you have sycamore sap on your tunic!” Et cetera. 

I feel you, Amos. No one in my nation wants to hear what I have to say about social justice and corrupt leadership and the coming apocalypsi either. To be fair, though, who even am I? I don’t have a degree in moral theology. I didn’t even go to Catholic school. I smell like Kraft Mac n’ Cheese and I have cat hair all over my bathrobe. 

Also, I apparently write dialog for ancient Judean kings in the voice of Gretchen Weiners?

Second reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

Oh, Paul. Your epistles are just…a lot. 

Catholic humorist Clare Coffey went viral for this observation: “The two kinds of Pauline epistles are 1. We are heirs through unfathomable grace to unimaginable glory. 2. I am as a personal favor begging you sick little freaks to act normal for five minutes.”

This passage, and the majority of the epistle, is solidly in the first camp, but I have always appreciated the tonal contrast between Paul’s letters: elevated for the Ephesians, corrective for the Corinthians, personal for the Philippians. Scholars point to the differences as evidence that some letters might have other authors, but I love the mental picture of a single temperamental apostle, stuck in prison, attempting to deliver to vastly different groups of weirdos the instruction they so desperately need. 

Come to think of it, Paul may be the most appropriate patron saint for all the teachers who have spent the last year and a half attempting to deliver meaningful instruction over Zoom. 

It could have been me. I could have been one of those teachers. Thank God I left teaching before COVID hit. Still, maybe it would have given me an opportunity to be heroic. Maybe I could have been something more than just another stay-at-home mom trying to avoid the iPad cameras so the first grade teacher doesn’t see that I’m still in my bathrobe at eleven in the morning. When I stopped teaching, I thought I was being called to something more. I thought I would have found my purpose by now. 

Gospel Reading: Mark 6: 7-13

Oh, this passage makes me itch. Sending them out two by two, carrying only a walking stick—no money, no second tunic, nothing? What if your partner was irritating? What if nobody would give you food and your low blood sugar triggered a migraine and there you were, wandering around in ancient Palestine in crushing pain, no Excedrin, partnered with Simon the freaking ZEALOT, probably? You KNOW that guy wouldn’t shut up and let you sleep it off…he’d be all like, “I bet it’s because you picked that fig on the Sabbath…” like, lay off, dude, I have a CONDITION!

Of all the Twelve, surely at least one of the Apostles, like me, loved packing?

Nah. They were all men. Men hate packing. 

Truth is, they were probably absolutely stoked by this whole mission. 

First of all, they were given authority: authority over unclean spirits, and the ability to deliver God’s healing to any who would accept it. Basically, Jesus gave them superpowers. Talk about being purpose-driven! Knowing that they carried with them, invisibly, that divine gift, knowing they could give people what they needed more than anything in the world—that knowledge must have given their steps more strength and surety than any walking stick. 

Second, they were sent on a journey and yet freed from the obligation to pack. Bonus!

Finally, Jesus told them to just crash wherever someone was willing to take them in and tell them all what’s what. How would that even work? Did none of them have social anxiety? Moreover, if anyone wasn’t willing to listen to them, they could just shake the dust off their feet on the way out the door, as a judgment on not just that house, but the whole neighborhood. 

They didn’t have to, for example, sit for hours listening politely to Rucham droning on and on about his unique approach to goat husbandry. They didn’t have to offer to help with the dishes— “Oh please, I insist!” They weren’t bound by courtesy to drop hint after delicate hint—-“Well, you’ve been so kind…” “Is that the time?” “I don’t want to keep you…”—until at last your hosts allowed you to leave. They could literally “go with God.” Move on.

To be given a clear mission, specific instructions, and the divine authority to carry it out successfully—what must that feel like? To step out confidently, walking stick in hand, knowing you were on the exact right path? 

I mean, I know they were all eventually martyred, but to feel that sense of purpose? I envy it.

How long has it been since I felt confident in my path? Have I truly been given any authority, any particular power to carry with me on my journey? Oh, shoot, speaking of journey, it’s my weekend to go visit Kiddo at the hospital. Maybe this time I won’t pack. Ha! Just a walking stick. And by “walking stick” I mean “rental car.” 

Taken together, these three readings tell us that God put us here for a reason. He endows us with gifts. Sometimes the gifts don’t make sense to us. Sometimes they don’t make sense to anyone else. Some of God’s people are shepherds, some of us are prophets, some of us are teachers, some of us are feral little sickos in need of a good talking-to. 

Sometimes the mission is clear. Sometimes it isn’t.

Sometimes you’re the Apostle. Sometimes you’re the neighborhood goat magnate, standing in his doorway, wondering what that dusty-footed hippie was talking about. 

I mean, God loves boring old Rucham, too. And I believe he will keep trying to get through to him. 

In the meantime, we wait. We tend to our sycamores. We make Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese. We watch over our flocks. We go visit our kid in the hospital. We pack. We unpack. We check our e-mail.

Oh, crap, my turn to write a Dark Devotional? Already? Deep breath. Look up the readings. Do I have anything to say? Sigh. Won’t know until I start typing, I guess.

I don’t know if I have a purpose greater than this. I don’t know if my ultimate mission will be big or small. I don’t know how long my journey will be. None of that is up to me, I guess. 

I’m not sure of much, but most days I am sure of three things: 1. God exists. 2. God loves me, and 3. I have stuff to do.

I usually do it in my bathrobe. 

Theresa Reese Weiler is a Detroit-area musician, writer, and Sick Pilgrim’s resident goofus. Follow her on Twitter @SometimesReese for more jokes and vulnerability. www.weilercreativemedia.com