Who said "tweets" are bad for you?

I love Pope Francis!  He has so much wisdom in his humility, and he shares it with us every day in his homilies and in his "tweets."  I would love to dissect and discuss every single one of the tweets, but I just don't have the time!  But three recent tweets all shared the same theme which, in my opinion, tie in nicely with our Independence Day celebrations this past week.  I hope you enjoy. 

 

“We cannot live as Christians separate from the rock who is Christ.  He gives us strength and stability, but also joy and serenity.” (Pope Francis, July 2.)

Whenever there has been or is a rebellion for independence, whether that be a nation or a teenager, there follows a necessary search for identity. When the first thirteen rebellious colonies broke from England they then had to spend years figuring out and fighting among themselves about who they then would be. We can spend our lives making personal declarations of independence and thereby we think we are free. I remember a commercial from years ago about a brand of bread. The little boy told his mother he was running away from home. She asked him if he would like her to make a sandwich or two for the trip. He softly said that would be okay. Then he asked his mother if she would drive him.

As much as we love and fight for freedom personally and nationally, spiritually we have to fight to retain our sense of relational dependence upon God. While everything around us invites or urges us to shake off anything that hinders our freedom, that kind of rebellion leaves us alone with just what we wanted, our selves. While self- reliance sounds psychologically healthy, religiously and spiritually it is a phrase of foolishness. We can celebrate “self-made” persons for their independent works, but they really were not self -made at all.

We are given life, nourished by the loving motherly sandwiches of life. We breathe the sustaining air, receive the nurturing sun and rain and then, we can rebelliously stamp our foot and shout, “I am who I choose I am!”  In the very midst of our declarations, Jesus sends elders, apostles, advancers to tap God’s foot towards us, around us and announces that the “kingdom of God is at hand for you.”

“The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love.” (Pope Francis, Jun 2.)

“How many kinds of moral and material poverty we face today as a result of denying God and putting so many idols in his place!” (Pope Francis, Jun 12)

We are similar to the “First Thirteen” colonies then who know from whence we came, but rebel at that kind of dependent identity.  Who we are is a bit tangential to who we will be through our own achievements.  It does seem in the history of God’s relationship with humanity that God expects this resistance as part of God’s relational pattern with us.  It seems that we struggle for our own identities by resisting and shaking off so that we can create our own kingdoms which are at our hands and for ourselves.  It seems that God says, “Well, you won’t know who I really am until you try to find out who you are by your own self-identifying efforts.  Good luck and I will not be waiting for your return, but laboring for your emptiness to free you to look up and smile.”