The Plea of a Concerned Parent

Reflections on Mark 9:7

This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!

It happened quickly.  First, her husband of 63 years passed from cancer of the everything and then her children took over.  I mean took over.  It had been years since all five of them talked, let alone worked on a project together.  And what was the project that brought them together … MOM.  With the death of their father, who was going to take care of her?  There were going to be decisions that needed to be made and by God, none of them wanted to be left out that. 

Five siblings, five opinions, but the one thing they all agreed on was that mother couldn’t make it alone by herself in the house she had shared for 53 years with her husband, Ed.  She was going to have to move somewhere where she would not be alone.  She couldn’t live with Vicky, her eldest, because Vicky has a job that requires sixty-plus hours per week, including a Saturday every now and then.  Not to mention the 3 grandchildren that she sits for on Sundays. Jen can’t take her, because she lives on the other side of the country, too far from the rest of the family.  Mike is out because he has his new younger wife and her three teenage daughters to think about and that would be too much to ask of of them.  Kevin is flat out irresponsible, has been his whole life.  Nice guy, but no help.  Sue, the baby at age 43, is willing to take mom in.  She is recently divorced and economically strapped, but willing.  If she takes mother however, the rest will have to supplement her income to make it work, including financing an addition to her home so mom can have a bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor.  The others suggested she sell her home and move in with mom.  But Sue isn’t willing to give up the home she fought to keep in the divorce or to move her twelve year-old son to a new, less accomplished, school district.

photo by Chalmers Butterfield

So Marilyn sits quietly in her living room, next to an empty chair that was Ed’s, as her kids discuss her future in the kitchen.  They think that she is napping.  She has been known from time to time to sleep in her chair, but she is not napping and she hears almost every word.  She hears Jen argue for an assisted living facility and already has several in mind.  Mike and Kevin seem to agree.  Kevin always agrees with Mike, so that is no surprise.  Vicky would like to see her mom with Sue, but is worried about her own retirement and cannot commit to indefinite financial support.  Sue of course has made her pitch and has dug her heels in when Mike suggested, yet again, that this would be so simple if she would just move two towns over and live here in mom’s house.  Kevin wants Mom and Dad’s 1994 silver Ford Taurus and that turns the conversation to who gets what, since it seems a forgone conclusion that mother will have to move.

Marilyn can’t help but tear up as she listens without comment from the living room.  She knows that her children love her and she is so grateful that they are all here, but not one of them has asked her what she wants, what plans she has made, and she has made plans.

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Jesus had plans.  He had his sights set on Jerusalem.  As the gospel writers tell it, he knew what awaited him there and he tried to share what he knew with his disciples.  But they would have none of it.  Peter even went so far as to pull Jesus aside and rebuked him.  No doubt the disciples had been talking on the side, plotting and predicting great things for the Jesus they had left their homes and families for and those great things did not include arrest and suffering and death.  They refused to listen to what Jesus was trying to tell them.

Then one day Jesus went on a hike with Peter, James and John.  They climbed a high mountain for a little quiet time, a chance to get away, but when they reached the peak they were not alone.  First, Jesus transfigured before them, framed in light and dressed in clothes dazzling white.  Then Moses and Elijah showed up and engaged Jesus in a conversation as the mouths of the disciples dropped to the ground.  That is when Peter took over.  He started to organize.  “James you go to Home Depot.  John you get the others.  I will lay out camp with three dwellings, one for Moses, one for Elijah and one for Jesus.”  And Peter knew he was right.  Jesus wasn’t going to Jerusalem to die.  He was going to Jerusalem to shake things up, with Moses and Elijah by his side.

But before Peter could hand the credit card to James, a cloud overshadowed them.  A strange combination of darkness and light swirled around them and the voice of God could be heard as if being spoken not in front or behind them, but all around them … as if God where cupping the faces of the disciples with God’s own hands in an effort to get their attention.  “This is my Son, my Beloved; listen to him!” 

“Listen to him!” the plea of a concerned parent and the command of an omnipotent God. 

How often do we make our plans and set them in motion without listening to the divine whisperings of the Holy Spirit longing to get our attention?  How often do we stumble into a future that is not meant to be, like bulls in the proverbial china shop, leaving hurt feelings and broken promises in our wake, making messes that damage and stain us and those around us?  How often do our actions serve as a rebuke of God and the life that God has called us to?  How often do we refuse to listen because we are afraid of what we will hear?  How often do we think that we know better?

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Marilyn has a plan.  She and Ed had finalized it in those last weeks of his life, but no one has bothered to ask.  As her children go on and on in the kitchen, she sits in her chair and wonders how she will ever get their attention and if, in the end, it will matter.