Where Are You Tabernacled?
I never knew his name. I only called him “Father.” We all did, of course – the 14 of us from college on a mission trip to Appalachia during our senior year.
We came to an old river town along the Kanawha River outside Charleston, a town that had seen better days when coal was king and there was plentiful challenging work to be had.
We found ourselves that Spring of ‘96 in the hidden “hollers” of the county, repairing ramshackle homes and visiting with the often-lonely and impoverished residents. With us throughout the week was the local Catholic priest, a gentle older man who wore the robe of a Franciscan and called every person we encountered by name.
What struck me then – long before I even thought of priesthood as a calling for myself – was the way in which this man was truly another Christ to others.
When people were hungry, he invited them into his little rectory kitchen and made them a meal or opened his cupboard to them. If they needed a little money to pay a bill, he pulled some cash from the pockets of his robe. If they were grieving or troubled, he sat down beside them and listened. Really listened.
I watched a man love his flock – and never once did he distinguish whether they were Catholic or not. Worthy or not.
He simply tabernacled among his people in this little forgotten corner of south-central West Virginia.
It’s really such a great word, isn’t it? Tabernacled.
It’s a better translation of the question the disciples asked Jesus in today’s Gospel: “Where are you staying?”
They weren’t asking his address. They didn’t care if it was 455 Jerusalem Boulevard or 33 Cana Drive. They were asking a deeper, more important question than simply his physical location. They were asking where he wanted to truly dwell among the people – like the Ark of the Covenant “tented” among the Israelites on the journey through the desert.
Where are you tabernacled?
And as God would – Christ offers a beautiful response in return, one meant to challenge and transform; one that leads the heart of the follower deeper into the gift of self-sacrifice and surrender. Jesus said: “Come and see.”
It would have been easy for the Lord to say: we will go and heal the sick; raise the dead; give sight to the blind.
But telling it ahead of time doesn’t open the heart to trust. Stating what will happen before it happens doesn’t create a living relationship based on mutual love and respect. Instead, it allows someone to read the last line of a great novel without understanding how we got there.
Love invites the heart to surrender completely.
And make no mistake: that is exactly what Jesus wants from each of us.
The more I walk this walk of discipleship, the more I realize this truth: Christ doesn’t want us to play it safe. He doesn’t want us to know the answers or the complete plan ahead of time. He is not a Google Map directions provider.
And it isn’t that He is playing mind-games; there is no twisted or sadistic motive to what God is doing, although many often think that to be the case.
He only wants to mold us into the image of the Father’s original plan for us: a reflection of His Heart.
A heart willing to tent itself among the lonely, the forgotten, the sick and the suffering.
A heart tabernacled among the lost; the imperfect; the sinners seeking healing and true freedom.
A heart that ends up looking a lot like a Cross atop Calvary’s hill.
That’s the shape of love God wants from our hearts – it’s the “come and see” invitation that he invites each of us to accept. It is never forced. But what an incredible adventure it is should we choose to accept it.
Therein lies the paradox of it all, too: in choosing to surrender and trust and follow the Crucified One – and in our willingness to enter the mess of other’s brokenness and loving them in that space – we end up coming to know our genuine selves; we end up being set free.
In the boldness of tabernacling among others who hurt and suffer, we find the deepest, realest Truth that our Lord has been within us and transforming us every step of the journey. We end up reflecting the heart of the Rabbi-Messiah.
Isn’t that the goal of this life’s journey? The call of our Baptism?
And if so, then why wouldn’t we become like Apostle Andrew in this Gospel account of seeking Love? This unknown fisherman who had such an encounter with mercy and grace that he couldn’t keep it for himself. He didn’t want to.
The love he accepted spilled forth – and so he invited others.
I find it such a humble, beautiful moment, too, that Andrew drew his own brother to the Lord, the brother that would become the Rock, the first Pope, the one invited into the inner-circle of Jesus’ closest disciples.
All the while, Andrew remained on the outskirts.
He never once complained or showed jealousy (that we know of); he never went to Jesus and balked: “Hey, Rabbi, I was the first to come to you, you know, and now I am nearly forgotten while my brother walks on water and sees you transfigured. What about me, Lord?”
That was not the Andrew way. Why? Because all that mattered was that God’s Love transformed him in such a way that he never again made life all about Andrew. It was, instead, about leading others to know the same Love that set him free. A love that gave him a servant’s heart. A love centered on laying down one’s life for one’s friends.
It’s the life we are all called to live, no exceptions.
We are called to tabernacle among those we’d often rather not deal with and the ones we’d rather not offer grace to. We are to tent our hearts in a space where forgiveness can find a home and then be willing to offer it to those who have hurt us.
It won’t be easy.
True discipleship never is. Look how it ended for Andrew … for his brother Peter …
We must return to the Father bearing the marks of His Son – the marks that say: “I did ask where you were staying, and I did come to see.”
May we never be afraid to embrace that call …
For we never know how our lives may become the living Gospel another person may end up reading: just as I once did in the “pages” of a crucified heart belonging to a Franciscan priest along the impoverished banks of a Charleston river.