Dear Lord, give me the grace I need today to see clearly. Simplify my heart. Restore in me a new innocence. Let me ask simple questions about the choices before me - where they will lead. And, help me purify my desiring. Heal my lust for more things, more comfort, more respect, or more power. Let me know Your love and Your grace, and I will be rich enough, and ask for nothing more.
Reflection
Sometimes I wish I could be as simple with my faith as Bartholomew. I would really like to know why Nathaniel (Bartholomew) was convinced that Jesus was “the Son of God, the King of Israel" simply because Jesus said, “I saw you under the fig tree.” (John 1:45-51)
I’m thinking that Nathaniel was rather young at the time that this event occurred: he shows the sort of cynicism that is usually associated with young men in their late teens at the same time as being rather pure or "free from guile”; again, something associated with a young man trying to be innocent and pure of heart. I don’t think that Jesus is being sarcastic in what He says; this is just part of the exchange of names and titles at the heart of this particular reading.
What happened under the fig tree is never going to be completely clear to us on this side of eternity. From what Jesus says and from Nathaniel's reaction we can surmise that it was a very private and personal matter, one in which Nathaniel struggled (and won) in what was primarily a matter of honesty or straightforwardness, maybe of interior fidelity to God's love. Jesus's next words are a matter of encouragement, a calling of the young man to great deeds. Jesus will later go on to expand the "angels ascending and descending" to say that "no one has gone up to heaven except the One who has come down from heaven" (John 3:13) and to say "I am the way" (that leads to the Father) (John 14:6).
I think that we too are called to struggle with our devils, especially internally, so as to be pure of heart before God even more than before other people. We need to review our values, our excuses, the things that we wish to hide from, and the things that we repeat to ourselves about our judgments of other people, their motives, why we have trouble with them, etc. This is the fig tree where we wrestle with ourselves to become truly gentle and loving, without guile.
This past couple of months, I’ve been “sitting under a fig tree” of my own. We have a relatively new “bigwig” in our company who has ruffled more than a few feathers (including my own) by his management methods. My (and others’) inability to come to terms with this management “style” has resulted in some not so Christian epithets for him. I know that instead of being angry and resentful for some of the unkind and—I might add—unwarranted remarks he has made about me and some of my friends I should be praying for him, but it is really difficult. Just when I think I’ve “forgiven those who trespass against me”, he comes up with something new for me to brood about.
Actually, I should be grateful for the struggle, because internal struggle opens the door to the Lord, letting Him reveal Himself to us as our Way to God.
His coming to us will still be unexpected: we know not the day nor the hour, not the situation nor the messenger --- and it just might be one of those people from Nazareth that we have been spurning...although I’m pretty sure we can rule out Harold Camping.
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