Knowing our blessings

Today's gospel (Luke 11: 29-32) could be seen as another difficult passage but below the surface it is all illumination. We hear the pain of Jesus who has preached to the people the good news of the coming of the Kingdom and has found them indifferent. They have heard something greater than the Queen of Sheba when she came to listen to Solomon. They have been given greater reason to embrace repentance than the people of Nineveh who repented when Jonah preached to them. Jesus draws on these iconic moments in the history of the people of Israel, and in so doing he holds up a mirror to His listeners who were so fond of claiming their lineage but not so fond of emulating it.

Where are we in this gospel passage? Is there something we share in common with “this wicked generation” that Jesus preaches to? Unlike them, perhaps we have to consider what blessings we have received and (like them) not embraced with a full and generous heart. We should not do this as an exercise in self-hatred but rather as an exercise in self-knowledge. As we journey towards God, we grow not only in knowledge of Him but in knowledge of ourselves, and that self-knowledge becomes less of a burden or an obstacle to union with Him.

What those blessings are is known to each individual alone. There are many moments of grace in the heart of each of us. God works with us all where we are, tracking our steps like a shepherd in pursuit of his wandering flock, or to use the image of Frances Thompson once more, like the hound of heaven,

with unhurrying chase

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy.

To know a person's desires is to know them in their very depths. It is, then, an extraordinary grace that Jesus has revealed to us the depths of His longing for us. Do we think enough on this visitation?

The people of Jesus’ generation wanted a sign, but had they stopped for a moment to question this obsession, they would have realised that God spoke to them, and had long been speaking to them, through the holy scriptures, through the circumstances of their everyday lives, and in their prayers. Sometimes we can be like them when we tend towards forms of religion that are subtly self aggrandizing - because we think they can assure us of our virtue - and in which we are all too readily like the people in this gospel scene who place show above sincerity. In contrast, grace is always a path of gentle, self-effacing and attentive love. 

Our prime duties lie daily in listening to wisdom (like the Queen of Sheba) and embracing repentance (like the people of Nineveh). Then, we can know our blessings better, and try to return some semblance of love to the One who has first loved us.