Goodness. If this isn’t a…”Squirrel!” Passage, I don’t know what is. There’s so much going on here. One thing after another. We barely catch our breath from the first miracle and we’ve already moved on to the next. So much is happening here that it’s hard to get our bearings.
There’s this literary device I learned about in my English classes. It’s Latin, of course because it has to sound fancy: “in medias res”. Which really just literally means, “in the middle of things.” It’s when you begin a story in the middle of something else that’s already going on. You start the story in the middle of the action. This happens all the time in storytelling. The king has already died, and Hamlet must take revenge. Achilles is filled with rage right at the beginning and we have no idea why. Odysseus is imprisoned while everyone else is going home after the war. Before the opening credits, Walter White is racing through the New Mexico desert in his RV. The Montagues and the Capulets have been fighting for years before Romeo meets Juliet. It’s great for storytelling. It draws us into the action. It gives us questions that we can’t wait to have answered. We stick with the details because we want to find out more, not just to find out what’s happening right now, but to discover what’s got us into this mess in the first place, and maybe even find some clues as to what will happen next. History tends to repeat itself, after all. Sometimes telling the story, not from the beginning, but from “in medias res,” is the best way to grab folks’ attention and then keep it. It’s sort of a storyteller’s fancy way of multitasking.
And our reading today is a whole lot of Jesus multitasking. He’s being interrupted in every moment. We are shoved into the middle of his action, and it seems like the poor guy doesn’t get to focus on a single thing, His attention is constantly drawn to something new. Over and over again this happens. First, while Jesus is just walking along, he sees a random tax collector, and calls to follow him. Then, while Jesus is sitting at dinner with a whole bunch of sinners, the Pharisees interrupt to criticize him. While Jesus overhears them talking to the disciples, he sets them straight. But even before he’s done saying these things, a leader of the synagogue interrupts his dinner to tell him about his dead daughter. Then, on his way to see this girl, he’s interrupted by a woman who’s been hemorrhaging for twelve years. Jesus sets his mind to do one thing, and then the “tyranny of the present” interrupts him and he must divert his attention.
This, psychologists say, is terrible for our mental health. And, in addition, multitasking is ineffective. You can do one thing at a time much more quickly and efficiently than if you tried to do all the things all at the same time. But doesn’t it feel like our whole lives are happening “in medias res” - in the middle of the action? The world never stops. Joy insists on invading when we’re grieving. Sorrow floods in when we’re celebrating. Work still needs to be done even as we’re resting. Two kids fall in love while their families are feuding. Flowers bloom while cannons are blasting. The world keeps spinning, and Jesus, in our reading today, gets a full blown serving of it. Everybody wants a piece of Jesus. And somehow, in medias res, he gives it to them.
So what’s our gospel writer trying to tell us about who Jesus is in the midst of all this middle of things? Is Jesus like The Flash or Sonic the Hedgehog, he’s so fast that time literally slows down, objects move in slow motion, and he can attend to everything, seemingly all at once? Or is he like the perfect soccer mom, who can tie shoes, drive the carpool, serve the snacks, and order the triple latte all at the same time? Is this passage meant to separate us from our likeness to Jesus? Remind us how very far we are from being the Son of God? Maybe. Maybe Jesus is the superhero that we can never live up to, the ideal we’ll never reach, the God who is far away from anything we can ever be.
I know that when I get overwhelmed with all the things going on in the world, in my life, I just want to shut down. Go back under the covers. Close my eyes until the world rights itself again. When I’m in the middle of the mess and I can’t juggle one more thing, I want to drop it all, let it go, burn it down, give it up. Maybe if I hide from the dishes long enough, they’ll do themselves. Or maybe if I ignore the injustices in my own country and others, they’ll eventually resolve themselves, right? Right? And since there’s no possible way that I can feed all the millions of hungry people in the world, there’s no point in sharing my lunch, right? Right?
Since there’s so much going on in the world, all I can do is keep my head down and focus on myself and my needs, right? Right? Since I can’t solve the war, or fix the crisis, or heal the sick, all I can do is just tuck my head between my knees or under my shell and not enter the story at all?
Sometimes, that is definitely, exactly, what I want to do. Don’t put me in the middle of the action. Let me out. Help me escape. My work doesn’t make a dent in anything anyway. The war goes on. The families keep feuding. What difference does one person, one love story, one adventure, one discovery, one person’s narrative in the midst of it all, make anyway?
Our poets, our storytellers, our heroes, and our Jesus, say it makes all the difference in the world. The Talmud has a saying, “Man was created alone to teach you that whoever kills one life, kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire. That’s why we’re in the middle of the action. Not so that we can fix it all, but so that we can help one, and in that way, fix the world entire.
This is how Jesus works.
Don’t you think, if Jesus wanted to, if God wanted to, he could snap his fingers and just like that, fix it all? Couldn’t Jesus have reclined at the table, used some Jedi mind trick and called Matthew, taught the Pharisees, healed the hemorrhaging woman, and raised the girl from the dead while knit an afghan, updated his Facebook status, and ate lunch? Couldn’t God simply solve the hunger and end the wars and heal the earth in one fell swoop, leaning back in “his” lazyboy, dozing off while the infomercials come on? Couldn’t God fix this all, so so easily?
If God can, why does God choose not to?
Maybe God’s a jerk?
Or maybe God can’t?
Or maybe God knows and understands something that we don’t. But for whatever reason, God doesn’t work this way. Jesus steps into our worlds, in the middle of all the action, and he shows up for one, one alone, and then another, and another, and another.
God shows up for us in medias res. While the wars are raging, while the families are fighting, while the crisis has been going on and on for centuries. Jesus enters people’s lives while he’s walking along the road, while he’s sitting for dinner, while he’s listening to the conflict, while he’s teaching the lesson, and while he’s walking to raise the dead. Jesus comes in the middle of all this messy, juggling, confusing, frightening world, in the middle of it all, and he calls one. He eats with one. He teaches one. He heals one. And then another. And in that way, the whole world.
We don’t have to start from the beginning. And we don’t have to fix it all. We just have to enter in to what is already happening, and keep going. Keep showing up. Let the story grab our attention, and then keep it. As we’re walking. As we’re eating. As we’re listening and teaching and walking some more. We get to start, right here, right now, in the middle of all this action, in the middle of our mess and our imperfections and our failures. We don’t have to be fixed or our “best” or finished in order to save the world. We just get to enter in to the stories that are already happening, enter in, show up, and say, “I’m here. What do you need?” This is how God works. This is how the best stories begin. This is how we save the world.
Thanks be to God.
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