Fourth Sunday of Lent: Restless Hearts
[Prepared for the closing of the Annual Retreat for the Deacons of the Diocese of Bellville, IL]
According to a survey conducted last month by CareerBuilder.com,
four out of five US workers have yet to land the perfect job.
The story of the prodigal son
along with the story of the resentful older sibling
seem to indicate that perfect job has been an elusive dream
for many centuries.
The younger son got tired of feeding pigs
and his older brother was fed up with hoeing potatoes.
In fact, some people claim that only forms of employment exists:
The job you have and the one you always wanted.
When it comes to identifying “the dream job,”
career development experts tell us that little to do
with getting a degree or getting well.
It actually goes back to that question that kids hear all the time:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The key to a dream job
is to focus on what sparked our interest as children,
before we were educated, coached, labeled
then sent to three-day training seminars.
What sparked your interests as a child?
In the survey I mentioned,
the Midwest had the highest number of respondents
who wanted to be cowboys or firemen.
In the South, 14% of respondents wanted to be President.
19% of respondents in the Northeast
expressed a strong desire to be princesses.
Of course, these on-line survey does nothing more than reiterate
what St. Augustine expressed centuries ago
in a much more eloquent way:
“Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you.”
The Bible is full of restless people and shuffling feet:
the son who runs off to the city
the brother who grumps his way down the road to the field.
Peter and Andrew leave their nets on the dock,
Susanna and Johanna leave the dishes in the sink and the clothes on the line.
Aquilla and Priscilla set sail with Paul,
John Mark gets mad and hitches a ride home.
From the campsites of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis
to St. Joseph adjusting the pack on the donkey in Bethlehem
all the way to the cave of St. John on the Isle of Patmos in the Book of Revelation,
it’s hard to find who spends much time at home.
Indeed, St. Augustine got it right.
“You have made us for yourself, O God,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Of course, restlessness can make a person reckless.
As in today’s gospel.
I’m sure there’s something of that in some of us here.
There’s bound to be some folks who walk the reckless path
of the younger son.
Folks who tendency is to max out their credit cards,
spend our lives with abandon…
only to find that, eventually, loneliness catches up and starts pounding on the door.
Others, of course, keep their noses to the grindstone,
win the promotions, put in 60 hour weeks and pay lots of tax
and, in their restlessness they refuse to rest until Social Security kicks in,
only to discover, sadly, that resentment is one retirement benefit
they can bank on for the rest of their life.
But there’s another kind of restlessness contained in today’s gospel.
A restlessness that reflects the restlessness of God himself.
Go back to the passage in today’s gospel
and you’ll see that the Father is most restless of all:
There he is,
pacing the floor,
his eyes on the horizon
and, finally, that undignified run from the front porch to the end of the lane…
the crushing embrace
of the skinny shoulders
of that stupid boy…
Surely, in this story, the Father’s heart is the most restless of all.
So, is there anyway that CareerBuilder.com can help us
understand spiritual restlessness
in light of the dream job we’ve always wanted?
Absolutely.
Their on-line survey contains a biblical truth we mustn’t overlook.
Remember what they said about going back to what you wanted to be
when you grew up?
What sparked your interest as a child
is what your soul still yearns for today.
It’s the one thing both brothers need
but are too proud and too “grown up” to ask for:
Yet what they need is what you and I want:
The secure embrace of someone who loves you
as though there were no one else in the world to love.
22% might want to be cowboys.
24% might want to be princesses.
But 100% us long for love
and 100% of God longs for us.
According to a survey conducted last month by CareerBuilder.com,
four out of five US workers have yet to land the perfect job.
The story of the prodigal son
along with the story of the resentful older sibling
seem to indicate that perfect job has been an elusive dream
for many centuries.
The younger son got tired of feeding pigs
and his older brother was fed up with hoeing potatoes.
In fact, some people claim that only forms of employment exists:
The job you have and the one you always wanted.
When it comes to identifying “the dream job,”
career development experts tell us that little to do
with getting a degree or getting well.
It actually goes back to that question that kids hear all the time:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The key to a dream job
is to focus on what sparked our interest as children,
before we were educated, coached, labeled
then sent to three-day training seminars.
What sparked your interests as a child?
In the survey I mentioned,
the Midwest had the highest number of respondents
who wanted to be cowboys or firemen.
In the South, 14% of respondents wanted to be President.
19% of respondents in the Northeast
expressed a strong desire to be princesses.
Of course, these on-line survey does nothing more than reiterate
what St. Augustine expressed centuries ago
in a much more eloquent way:
“Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you.”
The Bible is full of restless people and shuffling feet:
the son who runs off to the city
the brother who grumps his way down the road to the field.
Peter and Andrew leave their nets on the dock,
Susanna and Johanna leave the dishes in the sink and the clothes on the line.
Aquilla and Priscilla set sail with Paul,
John Mark gets mad and hitches a ride home.
From the campsites of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis
to St. Joseph adjusting the pack on the donkey in Bethlehem
all the way to the cave of St. John on the Isle of Patmos in the Book of Revelation,
it’s hard to find who spends much time at home.
Indeed, St. Augustine got it right.
“You have made us for yourself, O God,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Of course, restlessness can make a person reckless.
As in today’s gospel.
I’m sure there’s something of that in some of us here.
There’s bound to be some folks who walk the reckless path
of the younger son.
Folks who tendency is to max out their credit cards,
spend our lives with abandon…
only to find that, eventually, loneliness catches up and starts pounding on the door.
Others, of course, keep their noses to the grindstone,
win the promotions, put in 60 hour weeks and pay lots of tax
and, in their restlessness they refuse to rest until Social Security kicks in,
only to discover, sadly, that resentment is one retirement benefit
they can bank on for the rest of their life.
But there’s another kind of restlessness contained in today’s gospel.
A restlessness that reflects the restlessness of God himself.
Go back to the passage in today’s gospel
and you’ll see that the Father is most restless of all:
There he is,
pacing the floor,
his eyes on the horizon
and, finally, that undignified run from the front porch to the end of the lane…
the crushing embrace
of the skinny shoulders
of that stupid boy…
Surely, in this story, the Father’s heart is the most restless of all.
So, is there anyway that CareerBuilder.com can help us
understand spiritual restlessness
in light of the dream job we’ve always wanted?
Absolutely.
Their on-line survey contains a biblical truth we mustn’t overlook.
Remember what they said about going back to what you wanted to be
when you grew up?
What sparked your interest as a child
is what your soul still yearns for today.
It’s the one thing both brothers need
but are too proud and too “grown up” to ask for:
Yet what they need is what you and I want:
The secure embrace of someone who loves you
as though there were no one else in the world to love.
22% might want to be cowboys.
24% might want to be princesses.
But 100% us long for love
and 100% of God longs for us.
posted by BlueCollarPreacher at 11:18 PM
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