There is a true story about an older man in the village who used to visit the doctor every day for a check-up even though he was in very good health, an obsession you might say. Owing to his daily visits, the doctor got used to seeing him. Then all of a sudden three days went past and the doctor noticed that the older man had not come by. He asked a relative and expressed concerns about his absence. The relative replied: “the reason that the older man has not visited you is because he is sick.”
I sense this simple story, so often sums up my relationship with God. It’s not that I go every day to God, although at times I do, at least lately, but that I avoid going to God when I am sick. In the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus calls Matthew, the tax Collector who has a poor reputation, he tells him to follow him and then sits “at dinner in the house” where it happens that “many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.” The author continues that when “the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he (Jesus) heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick’… for I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mt 9:9-13).
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick… for I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” For me this is the punch line. Somewhere in the deepest part of my being, in those dark corners that have had little access to light, in those inner rooms that have become mouldy due to little airflow, I simply do not believe this and it has takenme 35 or so years to discover this. A part of me simply still believes in a God that loves the pretty, the organised, the perfect, the healthy, the intelligent, the clean, the one that has it all sorted, go it all together, that ticks all the boxes, and adheres to all the commandments, the mistake-free person, the one that has not missed a prayer or a Sunday mass; you know the one that is a few points away from a platinum …
Like that older man, it is precisely in these moments when I am “well enough,” that I FEEL most comfortable to go to God the Physician, the doctor. I FEEL that God is willing to listen because I am a “good boy and a good Christian” as an older priest kept telling me, one that God wants to welcome, love to listen to and answer his prayers.
But when I am sick, messed up, broken, hurt, lost, anxious, scared, sleepless, worried, all over the place, especially confused, lost or full of doubt, and to use the original meaning of the word sin, that is, when I am somewhat or way off-the-mark, then I am simply in agony about going to God, or most times I simply don’t go. And even when I go, my prayer becomes a conversation with my superego, the authority voice in my head, the moral police officer masquerading as “God” and that is a more of a torturous experience rather than prayer.
I wonder why I am like that. Am I alone in this? Are others as broken as me? Am I the only one that thinks like this? Do others experience the same resistance? Do they avoid prayer? What is wrong with me? Why when I am sick, I avoid God and go to every other doctor in the block, whether they are with or without a licence?
I can hear some wise figures say that the problem is with your image of God. “Nehme, do you really believe that God is like this?” I admit that a large part of me still believes in a God as a moral police officer, a divine being who is an absolute perfectionist who likes super clean clothe, super clean inner rooms, that are tidy and in order, and on point. A God who waits for you to tick all the boxes in order to love you, who makes sure that you have enough merit stamps before he welcomes and rewards you!
I dare say that some in the Church who is my mother and whom I love deeply have helped nourish this image of God and fed my parents this image endlessly. My culture of honour and shame, beautiful as it is, in many cases also accentuated this. I mean I used to get told that if you go to Sunday Church without wearing your finest and cleanest clothe God would be upset from you or simply you would not be welcomed or given a dress down. I couldn’t help think that this was the 11th commandment. This is a basic example of what sort of image of God some were operating from (I should say that I know that there are deeper and good reason for this basic instruction from my parent), but I couldn’t help wonder and ask: doesn’t God want us to “come as we are?”
Can I emphasize that I am not blaming anyone or anything, I am simply naming the influences, calling them for what they are, at least from my experience.
So, I ask why has this image of God not been transformed by the Gospel, by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus? Jesus, who came to reveal to us an updated image of God. Jesus who came to “translate God for us.” A God who IS father, mother, healer, forgiver, life-giver, nurturer and lover. Jesus revealed to us a God who:
- became poor for us;
- “wastes” time looking for the lost coin and sheep;
- waits endlessly for the lost men and women to come home and get treatment in his surgery to find deep inner healing;
- risks reputation and stands by the well for the thirsty, even at noon when the heat is at its peak;
- weeps with those who are morning;
- calms the storm of our inner lives;
- feeds our deepest hunger as the bread of life;
- breathes peace into the frightened disciples;
- fills the hungry with good things.
This is a God who heals “all,” the “lame, blind, crippled, those who couldn’t speak, and many others” (Mt 15:30). The God of Jesus Christ is a God who heals “every kind of disease and sickness” (Mt 9:35).
I guess part of me believes this “good news,” and so I ask how and why wouldn’t I want to go every day to this God, especially when I am sick? What is wrong with me? I want to go now as I am, as I write these words. And as I know myself well, when I go I will need to wait until those old images of God pass-by like those dark clouds.
Then I can encounter, in my deeper and truer self, a God who is love, the divine physician, the God who is “helplessly and hopelessly in love with us” (H. McCabe) and find some healing for my wandering and aching heart before I am at it all over again, perhaps repeating that same old cycle. But at least for a moment I would have allowed my heart to be touched by the divine Healer for I am sure that “to heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear” (Stephen Levine).
Burning Hearts 