Mal 3:19-20 / 2 Thes 3:7-12 / Lk 21:5-19
A woman was walking down the street when she heard a voice yell, "Stop! If you take one more step, you'll be killed!" The woman stopped, and in seconds a brick fell right at her feet. A few minutes later, as she was preparing to cross the street, she heard the voice again: "Halt! Don't cross the street now!" An out-of-control beer truck careened around the corner and didn't even slow as it ran the red light.
Deeply shaken, the woman asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm your guardian angel," the voice replied. "And I imagine you have some questions for me."
"You bet I do!" she said. "Where were you on my wedding day?"
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Mistakes! We've all made tons of them. And to some extent or other, most of us are still sitting right in the middle of them. It is to us that Jesus is speaking in Sunday's Gospel. He looks at Jerusalem's lavish temple and says, "Before you know it, it'll all be gone, not a stone left on a stone." And then He looks at His friends: "You'll be gone too."
Is Jesus just trying to make us feel sad? No! He's trying to give us back our future by getting us to look at our present while there's still time. He's trying to help us look at our mistakes, and name them aloud, and find a way of addressing them wisely, honorably, and creatively. We don't tend to do that too well.
Do you know the one hour of the week that accounts for more suicides than any other? Eight to nine o'clock on Monday morning, that dread moment when the accumulated burdens of one's mistakes at home and out in the world come to you face to face. What despair so many feel at the lives they have made. Einstein gave a brilliant definition of insanity: "Endlessly repeating the same process, and hoping for a different result."
Most of us have made at least some of our choices on the basis of values or goals we no longer hold. Many of our jobs, careers, friendships, houses, and lifestyles were and are real mistakes in light of what we've learned from Jesus about what really counts. Many of our old choices can't get us where we now realize we want to be, and that is in communion, in big family with our Lord at the center.
So why do we linger in those old mistakes? Are we insane, endlessly repeating the same process, hoping for a different result? Probably not insane, but certainly scared. Afraid to admit we were wrong for so long. Afraid to change. Afraid to start over at this late date. Understandable reactions, but useless. They keep us mired in our mistakes, and they keep us from using God's gifts as thoroughly and happily as He intended.
God has destined every one of us for really great things — not just glitter. And with that destiny comes His guarantee of all the help we need to achieve it — whatever our mistakes in the past. So, as Jesus has told us so often, "Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you." Face your mistakes and take back your future.
