Oh, There You Are

Two Sundays ago, I walked into Mass completely unaware that I was scheduled to lector. I was barely through the door when I was greeted with, “Oh, there you are!”

There I was, indeed. There was just one problem: I had absolutely no idea why anyone was looking for me. When I realized I was supposed to be reading the Word to the faithful, I said NO. More than once.

I was unprepared. I hadn't looked at the readings beforehand. I hadn't mentally shifted from walking into Mass as a woman carrying all the things women carry into church on Sunday morning to walking into the procession and standing at the ambo to proclaim the Word of God.

And what I was carrying in my mind and heart felt (and currently feel) enormous. So enormous that I was on the phone with my husband in the parking lot prior to walking in just to piece my heart and mind together enough to go into worship.

“No” seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

But a sweet deacon candidate at our parish so very gently disagreed. There was no pressure or spectacle. He simply reminded me with his kind demeanor that I had already said yes to serving in this ministry. Then he led me where I needed to go and, before the procession began, I felt a hand on my shoulder as he audibly prayed over me. I don't know that I will ever forget that moment.

Was it huge in the grand scheme of things? No.

Will anyone remember who lectored that Sunday? Again, no.

But it felt like one of those quiet moments in which God says:

You already said yes. Now it is time to live like you meant it.

And apparently God has a sense of humor, because this Sunday I walked into Mass and was again greeted at the door with: “Oh, there you are!”

This time I laughed because I assumed someone was teasing me. They weren't.

Someone was needed to fill in. I looked toward my priest, who was standing in the background with a smile on his face. So, for the second Sunday in a row, there I was. And somewhere between those two Sundays, the readings began weaving themselves together for me.

The first Sunday I proclaimed the second reading from Romans:

“I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart.”—Romans 9:2

Paul is speaking about his own people; people he loves desperately and longs to see reconciled to Christ. His anguish is so profound that he says he would sacrifice even himself if it could somehow bring them to salvation. I have thought about those words quite a bit because that sounds a lot like the prayer of a mother.

There is a particular kind of prayer born when a mother realizes that, no matter how fiercely she loves her children, there are places in their lives she cannot enter, circumstances she cannot control, and burdens she cannot carry for them. Mothers learn this eventually; some learn sooner than others. As a special needs parent, I learned this quickly, but I get refreshers here and there as life tumbles on.

When our children are little, so much of their world can be repaired with our hands. We feed them. Carry them. Bandage them. Advocate for them. Teach them. Redirect them. Buckle them into car seats and tuck them into beds. And then they grow.

Eventually we discover there are places our hands cannot reach, so the hands that once fixed everything learn another posture: They fold. And we pray.

Sometimes we pray with “great sorrow and constant anguish.” Perhaps that is why Paul's words affected me differently standing at the ambo as a mother than they ever had simply reading them on a page. Paul loves his people enough to ache for their salvation, but he also understands something every intercessor eventually has to learn: He is not their Savior. Christ is.

That distinction requires enormous humility. And the rest of that Sunday's readings seemed determined to make the point. Elijah encounters the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. But God isn't in any of them.

Then comes the tiny whispering sound. God does not need spectacle to prove that He is God. He does not need noise or a platform. He does not need to make Himself appear impressive. And neither should we.

Some religious expressions can become very loud while somehow making God very small. It talks about Him constantly while quietly positioning the speaker at the center. But the Christian life is not a performance. The ambo is not a stage. The altar is not a platform for personality.

Faithfulness is not measured by how impressive we appear while practicing it. Holiness often looks ordinary. Sometimes it looks like praying for something your entire life without ever seeing the answer. That may be the hardest kind of faith as we like results - instant gratification. We like testimonies with tidy endings. We like prayers that can eventually be turned into stories about how God came through exactly as we hoped. But some of the prayers we pray, especially the prayers we pray over our children, may bear fruit we never see on this side of Heaven.

Faith must be humble enough to allow for that. It must be willing to say:

God, I believe You are working even when I cannot see what You are doing.

Which brings me to this Sunday. This time I proclaimed the first reading:

“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”—Isaiah 56:7

And then Psalm 67:

O God, let all the nations praise you!

Isaiah is looking toward something enormous: the gathering of those who had once been considered outsiders into the family of God. And then the Gospel gives us one of my favorite kinds of biblical characters:

a mother who will not go away.

I recognize her. The Canaanite woman comes to Jesus because her daughter is suffering. She cries out to Him.

And Jesus is silent.

Still, she follows.

The disciples have had enough of her persistence. They want her sent away.

Still, she stays.

She comes closer.

She kneels.

She asks again.

“Lord, help me.”

Three words. No eloquent speech. No performance of holiness. No carefully constructed prayer. Just a mother who knows that her child needs something she cannot give her.

Lord, help me.

And she will not go away.

Oh, there is something about that woman I understand down to my bones.

There are many ways a person can be asked to disappear without anyone actually using the word. There are rooms where her presence becomes highly inconvenient; tables where there suddenly doesn't seem to be a place for her; relationships where distance is easier than reconciliation; attempts made to edit her out.

There are moments when speaking truth makes other people uncomfortable enough that her silence would be much more convenient.

And still,

a mother will not go away.

Despite messages of don't make trouble, don't make anyone uncomfortable, forgive quickly, keep the peace, and certainly don't take up too much space.

But the Canaanite woman makes me reconsider what Christian humility actually looks like. Because she is humble. And she absolutely refuses to disappear. Both, and.

Humility is not disappearing.

Humility is knowing exactly who I am in relation to God.

It means I don't have to win every argument.

I don't have to control anyone else's choices.

I don't have to defend myself in every room.

I can surrender outcomes.

I can kneel.

And I can still remain.

The Canaanite woman doesn't demand that the disciples understand her. She doesn't expend her energy convincing them she deserves to be there.

She keeps her attention on Jesus.

Christian perseverance is not:

You will acknowledge me.

It is not:

You will regret excluding me.

It is not:

I will prove you wrong.

That isn't the kind of persistence I want.

The persistence I want says:

The door may close, and I will survive. I will not go away. Not from the people God has entrusted to my prayers.

The Canaanite woman's persistence was never ultimately about demanding her rightful place in a human circle. It was about refusing to leave Christ. She knew she wasn't the Savior. But she knew Who was.

That is the posture of a praying mother.

We stand somewhere between Paul and this persistent Canaanite woman.

We carry “great sorrow and constant anguish” for people we love.

We cry out when our children need what we cannot give them.

We keep asking when Heaven seems silent.

We advocate.

We intercede.

We make enough noise to annoy the disciples.

And then we kneel.

Because faith requires humility:

The humility to believe God loves them more than I do.

The humility to keep praying when I don't see results.

The humility to trust that some seeds planted in tears may bloom beyond my lifetime. The humility to recognize that God's greatest work may be happening quietly in whispers rather than earthquakes.

Surrender does not require erasure. Jesus' words to this unnamed mother matter so much:

“O woman, great is your faith.”

Not, O woman, you were agreeable.

Not, O woman, you knew when to leave.

Not, O woman, you made everyone comfortable.

Great is your faith.

She stayed. She asked again. She refused to confuse humility with disappearing. And so will I.

Which makes me think again about those words I heard walking through the church doors two Sundays in a row:

“Oh, there you are.”

There is something tender about that phrase to me now. After enough experiences of feeling displaced, there is something healing about walking into the Church and hearing: Oh, there you are. We were expecting you. There is a place for you here. Come proclaim the Word.

Maybe I thought I was simply being summoned to the ambo; God was reminding me of something much bigger:

Oh, there you are.

Still here.

Still praying.

Still learning.

Still speaking when I am called to speak.

Still becoming quiet enough to hear the whisper.

Still surrendering the people I love into hands far more capable than mine.

Still discovering that saying yes to God is rarely one dramatic moment.

It is a thousand little yeses afterward.

Heaven will one day reveal the fruit of prayers I thought went unanswered.

Until then, I will keep showing up. I will keep bringing the names of the people I love before Jesus. I will keep folding the hands that can no longer fix everything.

Lord, help them.

Lord, help me.

And when I walk through the doors God opens for me, I hope I always have the humility to remember that I do not need to be the loudest person in the room.

I just need to be faithful enough to be there when He calls my name.

Oh, there you are.