Choosing our Slavery

 

The summer before my junior year in High School, I broke my right arm very severely. I was at a baseball game that ended up being cancelled because the other team could not field the minimum number of players. Instead, one of my fellow outfielders and I began to amuse ourselves as we took some practice fly-balls.

 

A younger player appeared in the outfield with us because his baseball game had concluded. He started competing with us for our practice balls. I remember looking at him directly and saying "Hey, this isn't your practice. Someone is going to get hurt”. I thought that he had listened. He hadn't.

 

My teammate and I decided to challenge ourselves by waiting on the pop flys being hit to us and then running at the last second to try to make a sensational play. It was fun for a while; until it wasn't. The young boy had gone nowhere and was just waiting for his chance. As I dove to catch the ball, he came in with both knees, one of them punching into the center of my right forearm - the arm where all my weight rested as I caught the ball. My arm was not just broken but also had a slight U shape in the forearm. Not my best morning.

 

However, my day was about to get worse. When in the doctor's office, I was told that the arm had to be reset, and that there was little more they could give me that would ease the pain. Not a fun experience, but the arm had to be reset for it to heal and be useful to me without severe deformity.

 

Similarly, in the spiritual world, the realities of being human (and redeemed human) follow the same patterns of life and death, health and deformity, pain and the avoidance of the same. The masters we choose will dictate to the health and growth that we experience in this life and in eternity. Our choices to avoid important and necessary spiritually invasive surgery can be embraced with eternal reward, or we can continue to experience the results of doing what is constantly intuitive, familiar, and comfortable. What is the name of the Master that is known to  oversee this group of short-sighted slaves?

 

This Sunday we listen as the Apostle Paul clearly teaches the ramifications of personal conversion, and its impact on the choice of masters that we still have. We baptized followers have only one master now, but we are still free to choose others. However, the choice to continue to follow other masters is a distortion and corruption of the “newness” of our salvation and transformation. We still must choose Christ and confirm our baptismal promises until that final day. May we choose the only Master who frees and loves, no matter how difficult and intimidating the callings of the cruciform life might be.

 

When we say NO to the other masters vying for our worship, we lay aside our “freedom” to distort and destroy our own lives, and we pick up the mantle of true freedom in Jesus Christ.

 

May the Peace of Christ be yours.

 

 

Fr. Tom