Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Spirit Helps Us Speak Creative Words of Energy and Life

By

The Spirit Helps Us Speak Creative Words of Energy and Life

Matthew tells us: Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him so that he could both talk and see. All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”  Matthew 12: 22-24

 

Demonic activity robbed the man of sight and speech. And Jesus,

whom the Apostle John calls the Word, restored speech to him.

 

In Genesis, God’s first words, Let there be light create beauty

and life. And Satan’s deceitful words cause sadness and strife.

Our words, too, can be creative, bringing energy and inspiration,

or destructive, bringing discouragement, defeat, and misery:

word-swords which cut down, millstones which grind down.

 

The Apostle James writes, Consider what a great forest is set on fire

by a small spark.  The tongue also can set the whole course of one’s life on fire.

Fire! I’ve seen people lose precious friendships and relationships

through angry words and emails. I have done so myself.

 

So how do we use our words to bring light, energy, and life,

not darkness and heaviness? We must pray for the promise

in Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit

in you.” “The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon

you, and you will be changed into a different person,” Samuel

promises Saul. ‘And God changed Saul’s heart.” Just like that.

 

The Spirit comes when we are hungry, and we ask for him,

Jesus says, and he changes our minds, emotions, and spirit. For

He is, as the prophet Isaiah writes, the Spirit of wisdom,

of understanding and knowledge. His fruits are love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control. A new personality.

 

We can accelerate our experience of the Spirit through the ancient

practice of breath prayers as we go about our errands, housework,

gardening, and walks. Exhale: “Lord, I confess my anger and faithless

stress.” Inhale, “Come Holy Spirit of peace.” Exhale, “Lord,

I give you my turbulence.” Inhale, “Come, Holy Spirit of wisdom.”

 

Use simple practices to control your words. I’ve started using a

count-up timer when I am feeling critical and naggy in family life,

waiting seven minutes before I speak, which, then, I often don’t.

I now take 24 hours before responding to stressful emails.

 

The Spirit may graciously fill us in response to our prayers

faster than we imagine. God blessed Aaron’s staff in the Book

of Numbers; it budded, blossomed, and bore fruit overnight.

Come, Holy Spirit, fire of energy and love, change us. Amen.

Jesus Promises Us Rest (and an Easy Yoke!)

By

He was the cleverest human who ever lived, a master of

humour, and of literary devices such as paradox, as when he

offers the weary and burdened, rest. Rest–by bearing his yoke.

 

Bearing the yoke of Jesus means developing the habit of checking

in with him before we speak, act or commit ourselves. For he

always has a surprisingly better, more efficient way of doing things

and will show us all the things that simply do not need to be done.

 

Jesus promises us rest if we learn gentleness and humility

from him. As we never fully master a language, gardening

or writing, we, the naturally fiery, cranky, worn-out and

hot-tempered, will keep learning gentleness all our lives. “Oops,

I’ve slipped again. I will arise and go to Jesus. Jesus, please

help me for the next minute.” Desperate arrow prayers!

 

Jesus is too kind to demand massive behaviour modification

to layer onto the burdens he promises us deliverance from—many

self-imposed, stemming from our pride and desire to impress.

 

He promises us the Spirit, a helper, a seed, and living water within us,

whose fruit is gentleness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

faithfulness and self-control, as the Apostle Paul writes.

 

We acquire the Spirit’s power to change, firstly, by asking for it.

Jesus says that as a good father wouldn’t deny his hungry child

food, his Father will not refuse us the Spirit when we ask.

Does praying for God’s spirit work? Yes, it does. Will he come?

He will. But it takes daily prayer, for we leak.

 

Secondly, we must prioritise praying for the Spirit.

The apostles were given the greatest, biggest commission:

To preach to all nations. And Jesus recommended their first

move: To remain exactly where they were until they were “clothed

with power from on high.” So perhaps we, under Jesus’s easy yoke,

should also remain where we are, not taking on any new great things

for ourselves, for God, or for the world, until we have been clothed

with the Spirit’s power which makes difficult things easy and light.

 

As we quieten down and progressively pray to be filled with God’s Spirit,

and God answers our prayers as He promised, our personality changes.

We become ever gentler. May it be so. Come, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Believing Is Seeing (Miracles): “According to Your Faith, Let It Be Done to You.”

By

Matthew records, As Jesus walked on, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”

He asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”

“Yes, Lord,” they replied.

Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith, let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. 

 

According to your faith, let it be done to you, is among Jesus’

most life-changing, startling, almost terrifying statements.

 

The sightless eyes of the two men could not physically

see Jesus any more than our sighted eyes can. But they sensed

his kindness and his power.  They prayed a simple, potent prayer,

“the Jesus Prayer:” Jesus, have mercy on us. And they were healed.

 

Faith is to see God as He is, the prodigal father, running

to hug you when you return repentant, ashamed, and weary.

It is to ask him for mercy. Faith is to see the Lord Jesus who

calls us his friends, stand beside you, power radiating from him.

Faith is knowing that, on request, the Spirit comes to you.

Faith is to ask these three to lay their healing hands on the

neurons of your burnt-out, agitated, distracted, looping mind,

and to heal your overwrought emotions, which can swerve into anger.

Because of the goodness and mercy of God, you know this

healing has, of course, started, right now, because

you prayed, and you can go on your way, whistling.

 

Faith is to refuse to worry, or to fear but to put our problems

into the hands of Christ, who changed the molecular structure

of bread and fish, multiplying them a thousand-fold. Faith is to

know his power extends over the nitty-gritty of our lives, “for there

is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence

over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine.” ”

 

As we pray with faith, seeing Jesus, we are often given

the very thing we ask for. The transcript of our prayers

becomes the transcript of our lives, as Mark Batterson says.

 

BUT. We live in an already, not-yet kingdom. Not every prayer

will be answered affirmatively. We are not the best writers

of the thriller of our lives. Our plot would have us ascend

the ladder of success, fame, wealth, and being praised which has

no ends, and brings only more striving, disappointment, and exhaustion.

But though Christ can sovereignly multiply the fruits of our labours,

following is not about success, wealth or fame. It is about

learning to love God, and to love people. And God’s Noes

and Not-yets develop our strength and character as surely

as his Yeses do, and through it all, through it all,

his love envelops us, and, on request, we can sip his joy.

 

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations, they are here.

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or  

Amazon Music or Audible. And I would be very  grateful for reviews and ratings!!

And, of course, I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

 

Jesus Knows the Best Way to Do What You Are Best At

By


So Matthew records: Then Jesus got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.  The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” Matthew 8: 23-27.

So Jesus, a charismatic carpenter, keeps teaching Peter, a fisherman,

a man of the sea, the same lesson, again and again. That he, Jesus,

knew the absolute best way to do everything. Including–fishing.

 

When Peter had laboured all night and caught nothing, Jesus

tells him to cast his nets on the right side and they were

unable to haul in the bountiful catch. Jesus walked on the

waters of a lake, and calmed sea-storms which raged while

he slept in the boat. He showed off his mastery over their

profession, showing that the very cleverest thing they could do,

always, was to check in with him for his guidance and direction.

 

When we feel hard-pressed and incompetent, we desperately ask Jesus

for help. And he can graciously add a one before our zeroes.

However, when we feel competent, educated, experienced, or gifted,

it’s even more crucial to not rely on these limited gifts, but to ask Jesus

to take the wheel, to show us the best way to do things and to bless

them. Then he can add zeroes after our one talent, transforming it

into something with exponential blessing for us and for the world.

 

Avoid the folly of doing anything without checking in

with Jesus. Keep asking: “Jesus, do I need to be doing this

at all?” And: “Please, show me the best way to do it.”

 

In the most successful thing I’ve ever done, co-founding

a small business which has wholly supported our family

for the last thirteen years, I’ve had to rely on God’s guidance

because I had lacked the training, education, skills, or temperament

for it. And God added a 1 before my zeroes, and blessed it.

 

Conversely, I have been relatively unsuccessful in the one thing

I had the education, training, some talent and a deep love for–

that is, writing–because I have done it in my own strength, often without

even thinking of asking God for guidance or direction. And without

surrender. But since God is still writing the story of my life, it’s not too

late to train myself to ask God for guidance, and blessing on my writing.

 

God gives us gifts of good genes, education, opportunity or resources.

But everything we have is God’s, and things can change in a moment.

So the safest thing we can do is to surrender everything we have to God, and

to continually ask him how to do things his way, so He can supernaturally,

exponentially touch, bless and multiply the work of our hands.

 

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations, they are here.

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or  

Amazon Music or Audible. And I would be very  grateful for reviews and ratings!!

Happy Are the Merciful for They Shall Be Shown Mercy

By

Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy,

Jesus says, articulating a law which underlies the physical universe

—and human life. What you sow you reap.

 

I know some gentle merciful ones, and indeed, they are blessed,

beloved, in demand. The kindness they sow, the thoughtfulness

comes back to them with compound interest.

Their lives are relatively free from the interpersonal conflicts

and enmities which mar so many lives.

 

The natural law of sowing and reaping: What you plant in

the soil of your life, after a brief or lengthy period of dormancy,

inevitably flows back to you,  thorns and nettles, or apples

and cherries. Life returns sunshine for goodness sown

and darkness and trouble for darkness and trouble sown.

 

(Of course, the merciful are not immune from suffering,

in this fallen, cracked world–human greed polluting our

environment, and our very cells, and greedy people swindling us.

Besides, there are demonic “principalities and powers,

spiritual forces of evil” contending for the soul and shalom

of good people such as Job, or many faithful Christians today.)

 

But, in the main, those who go through life lightly,

making allowances for human weakness, being kind

in reviews, in tipping, in how they secretly judge others,

and what they say to or about them, meet with somewhat

the same gentleness as they go through life. And mercy

is what we need, we frazzled, frail, forgetful creatures,

whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is weak, who

can so easily give way to unkindness and impulsively say

and do things we regret. We need mercy as we pilgrim

through life, and so we must rigorously train ourselves

to dish it out: Mercy, mercy, mercy.

 

Blessed are the merciful, Jesus says, using the word makarios,

Or happy. What is the opposite of being happy or blessed?

It is to be unhappy, to live with the hatred or curses of others

because of one’s dishonest or cruel actions. Being unmerciful, and

misusing power is an addictive dark pleasure which corrupts

the heart, soul, mind, and body, creating molecules of cortisol

and adrenaline in our brains and body, changing their very chemistry.

Those who step out of God’s protection with cruelty

and unmercifulness inevitably find thorns, thistles

and stumbling blocks on their path through life.

 

However, sowing and reaping, the merciful finding mercy,

while the unmerciful find misery is a terrifying message

for us who have not always been merciful, I among them.

So we, who have been unmerciful in speech, in writing,

in our actions, must repent and ask God for forgiveness.

And He will forgive. For in the Supreme Court of God,

who is the righteous judge of all the world, Jesus Christ,

who is love, voluntarily bore the punishment, the sentence,

that the just laws of the universe, of sowing and reaping,

demand that we suffer. He bore the penalty for our

eviscerating words, our meanness, our stinginess.

And in what theologians call the divine exchange, because

he bore the punishment, streams of mercy can flow to us,

streams of good ideas, comfort, the certainty of God’s love,

the certainty of being his beloved child. And the more we cling

to Jesus by faith, reading, meditating on, and almost eating

his life-changing words, the more we experience change

in the deep structure of our characters, not just in what we do,

but in who we are, in the secret places of the heart.

 

So go through life with as much kindness as you can

while being as wise as a serpent and as blameless as a dove.

Repent of past unmercifulness, and decide once again to follow

Jesus, to dwell in Jesus, hide yourself in Jesus, and to be merciful.

And the love of God, and the abundance of his household

Will flow into you and through you to the world that God so loves.

 

Becoming merciful will mean a massive change in the deep structure

Of our hearts and our characters. It is partly a decision.

However, changing who we are needs the Spirit of Jesus in us,

changing us. It needs Jesus himself within us, changing us. So come,

Lord Jesus. We welcome you in. Change us.

Holy Spirit, please come. Change us.

Veni Sancte Spiritus.

Amen.

 

This is a meditation on Matthew, Chapter 5

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or  

Amazon Music

or Audible.

And I would be grateful for reviews and ratings!!

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

7 The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

6 Each Individual’s Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Thank you 🙂

 

 

The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

By

Noli me tangere by Jacopo di Cione

 

The dawn after the worst day,

Mary Magdalene and her friend Mary had seen

Jesus, whom they deeply loved—

A radiant, beautiful, strong young man

Tortured, mocked, and judicially murdered.

But as they visit the tomb, they encounter Jesus,

Very much alive. Chairete, he says, Rejoice.

And then, the very first sentence the risen Christ,

Speaks to those who love him–Do not be afraid,

Me Phobeisthe.

 

     Do not be afraid. Why?

Because the impossible has happened,

And a dead man has returned to life

(And was later seen by at least 516 people).

The risen Jesus is no longer confined by

The dictates of space and time.

Like oxygen, he is with me

In every room I enter, and with you,

An invisible, but real friend.

I am never alone.

Wisdom and strength is always available

If I slow down and request them.

 

Do not be afraid, because the resurrected Jesus

Breathed on his disciples, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,”

As he breathes on us today.

Jesus observed that justas even evil parents,

Do not give a snake to a child asking for fish,

Or a scorpion to a child requesting an egg,

His Father will not refuse His Holy Spirit

To those who ask for it.

And it is the power of the Holy Spirit

Which helps us change

Our hearts, our characters, and our lives.

 

Do not be afraid,

Because the resurrection of Jesus

That explosion of seismic power

Has burst the boundaries of what is possible.

God’s miracle-making power is now available to us

Our world is now a whole lot more magical.

 

The Apostle Paul writes that the surpassingly

Great power for us who believe,

The hyperballon megathos tes dunameos,

The dynamite power of God available to us on request

Is the same as the power which raised Jesus from the dead.

And so we have the Holy Spirit’s help for the issues of our lives.

Nothing God wants us to do will be impossible to us.

 

And so, we need no longer be enslaved by addictions,

Dependencies and our own bad habits. We can break

An addiction to chocolate or sugar or caffeine

(All of which I have eventually done!).

We can get out of the confining rooms

Of bad habits and our personal “can’t does”

Sometimes just like that,

With an act of will empowered by the Spirit.

The risen Jesus gives us the key to key to freedom.

“I once was dead, but now am alive,

And I hold the keys,” Jesus tells John

In the Book of Revelation. The keys of his Kingdom,

In which he wants us to live peacefully

As we would under his real-life kingly eye.

 

We can find freedom from indulging a bad temper.

And by turning our eyes on Jesus, as the old hymn says,

And an arrow prayer for his help,

We can channel our cranky, negative energy

Into prayerful intense focus on how best to live

Our one wild and precious life.

We can progressively find freedom from tormenting

Emotions or thoughts which waste our time and distract us:

Emotions of jealousy, unforgiveness, worry, anger or fretting.

 

God’s explosive, dynamite power can invade our lives

And progressively change them,

Through prayer, through the power of the Holy Spirit,

And, also, through our own willpower and determination.

(And God also works through counselling,

And talking to wise, trusted, friends.)

 

To get God’s endless energy and boundless strength

(as Eugene Peterson puts it) to saturate our little lives,

We need to slow down,

So that we remember to pray, and

Ask for God’s guidance and blessing

Over each thing we do in course of our days.

As we begin to master this habit,

Our days will look different.

Our lives will look different.

 

Everything in our lives gets better by practice:

Running, or writing, or good housekeeping or prayer.

So, start transforming your life by prayer.

Start small. Ask for God’s wisdom

Before you embark on the activities of your day:

Sessions of housework and decluttering,

Exercise, gardening, meeting friends, emails,

Social media, business or leading things.

 

God, how do I do these things well?

Can I do them better, in a more efficient

Or maybe a kinder way?

Does this even need to be said, or done?

God, who will guide us, likes nothing to be wasted,

Including our time, the most irreplaceable thing in our lives.

You’ll be amazed at the efficient and wise suggestions

The Spirit has, on how to do things

You’ve often done far, far better.

And as we increasingly experience God’s guidance and

Mini-miracles, our faith increases.

 

Practice praying on your walks,

As you do your housework or gardening,

As you drift off to sleep.

Practice praying deep into your life,

And over it, in ever-widening circles.

 

Anything in our lives that we do not

Bathe in prayer is something we believe

We don’t need God’s help to accomplish.

And that is foolish.

So I am training myself to convert

My thoughts into prayer,

To pray through the preoccupations,

Which scurry through my mind,

Writing, work, finances, health, travel plans

The things I want to see happen in my children’s lives

And, also, to pray for my friends and, sometimes, even my enemies.

 

We skitter like water striders on the surface of life.

But if we slowed down, the Spirit would whisper to us

The words which sustain the weary.

Oh, what grace we often forfeit,

Oh, what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry,

Everything to God in prayer.

 

Prayer is like pouring this immense flood of light and power

Into the little petri dish of our problems.

When we do it, God’s power can change our circumstances

Sooner than we ever imagined.

As we practice bathing our lives in prayer,

We ourselves change,

Our lives slowly change,

And our faith increases.

Oh God of resurrection,

Come with your dynamite power into our lives.

We put our old dreams and our new ones into your hands.

Bring them to life. Make them glow.

Come like a mighty burst of spring into our lives

Bringing apparently dead relationships, dreams,

The things we once loved,

And all our dormant potential to radiant life.

We put our lives into your hands.

Make them beautiful.

Come Lord Jesus.

Amen.

 

This is a meditation on Matthew 28.

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or  

Amazon Music

or Audible

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

7 The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

6 Each Individual’s Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Thank you 🙂

 

 

 

 

When Christians Behave Badly: Seedlings and Saplings in God’s Kingdom

By

massive_oak_tree

A friend of mine had once been deeply humiliated by a fellow Christian, a soulful worship leader. She told me the story, then burst into tears, saying, “I don’t even know if she’s a Christian. I cannot bear to watch her lead worship.” My friend left that church.

I often think that when I am shockingly treated by another Christian: “I don’t even know if they are Christians. Perhaps they were Christians. Perhaps they are living on fumes.” And sometimes that is the safest assumption—that the person was a Christian, and has now settled for church position, or power, or prominence, or, perhaps, in Jesus’ language “the cares and worries of the world and the delight in riches” have choked the fragile, beautiful seed of new life in them.

Or sometimes, when I encounter decidedly non-Christian behaviour in Christians, I think of circles of discipleship. Jesus had an innermost circle of people he chose for purity of heart, passion, strength of character: Peter, James and John. Then there were the twelve, the seventy-two, the five hundred, the five thousand plus women and children for whom he multiplied the loaves and fishes; the crowds who followed him on Palm Sunday. All following Jesus, but with varying levels of intensity and commitment. Perhaps the people whose behaviour is unlike Jesus’s have strayed to an outer circle of discipleship, as I myself sometimes do. That’s one way of looking at it!

* * *

In Matthew 13, Jesus talks about the mysterious Kingdom of Heaven, which is here, right now, in which it is possible to live, today, in full communion with the Father, walking step by step with the Son, and experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

 Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed provides another way of understanding Christians who behave badly. The Kingdom of God in the micro-world of our lives, and the macro-world of the world is “like a mustard tree, which though is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

And so it is with each individual Christian—we are seedlings and saplings in the Kingdom before we become mighty trees.

Perhaps the Christians whose behaviour puzzles me (as undoubtedly mine sometimes puzzles others) are still saplings, new or distracted in the ways of following Christ. Perhaps the Lord will send them water and sun and good soil, and they will one day grow so astoundingly that what they become bears no resemblance to what they were. And perhaps Jesus shall do the same for me!

* * *

Judging others is a soul-sapping, soul-stunting distraction. I know this because I so often have to rein in and retrieve my falcon -thoughts when they go critically swooping around someone else.

Jesus gives us a way to deal with our natural tendencies to judge. When we find ourselves judging others, we are to immediately check to see if we are guilty of the very same thing that we are judging our brother for, or a closely related thing. For if Freud was right, the traits we most hate in others are those we secretly see and suppress within ourselves.

So Jesus suggests that when we see the bossy Christian, the manipulative Christian, or the over-ambitious Christian, instead of gnashing our teeth at them, we should examine our own souls, remember the times we have used the short cuts of manipulation rather than the slow road of prayer. Have sought the drug of fame or success instead of the new wine of Jesus. And so instead of descending into the bottomless black hole of judgement, we grow, we change! Our judgement of our brother proves a spur for us to grow ourselves.

We pray for our enemies, or those who irritate us. We do dare not assume that they are not in the Kingdom at all. Rather we realise that they may be just saplings in the kingdom as we ourselves might well be in the eternal eyes of him who judges wisely, and we pray that, one day, because of the sunshine of grace, both they and we will become mighty trees, and the birds of the air will come and nest in all our branches.

 

How to Evade a Trap. A Short Guide to Wisdom  

By

Pharisees with Jesus

 Jesus was a truly extraordinary human being. I keep learning from him as I read through the Gospel of Matthew.

 Sometimes I am put on the spot, and asked a question, with hostile intent, by people who do not wish me well, and who, I sense, will use my words against me–people who are wolves in Tolkein’s terms, or “a brood of vipers” in Jesus’s colourful phrase in Matthew 12.

 I often get stressed and answer truthfully, hoping innocence will be protection against evil. And it sometimes is–but sometimes evil proves stronger. In the short run, at least. Good Friday teaches us that.

* * *

  In the Gospels, repeatedly, people try to trap Jesus with his words. Try to make him incriminate himself by what he says. Try to make him say things they can use against him. Interestingly, they never succeeded. He never said a single thing they could use against him in a court of law. The charges which finally led to his execution were fabricated!

He deals with each trap they lay for him differently, but most often, he sidesteps them with the agility of a ballet-dancer.

He is asked “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” (Matt 12:38)

Me, I might have got stressed, and tried to heal someone to disarm them, or provided a miracle in my conceit! Or panicked, and denied my ability to do a miracle. The former response—which would have been a presumptuous showing off– would have been ignored by my enemies. The latter would have been quoted against me.

Jesus, however, refuses to show off, and provide them the sign they desire.

A valid response to hostile questioning: Refuse to answer any questions you do not wish to answer. Refuse to do things your enemies ask you to do which you yourself do not wish to. Slow down enough to know what you really want to do.

Jesus says, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12 39-40).

He answers to their request for a sign so cryptically that they do not dare to question him further for fear of having their own ignorance exposed. And that was the end of that.

* * *

 I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as wise as a serpent, and as innocent as a dove, Jesus says. (Matt. 10:16).

What protection might a lamb, surrounded by a pack of wolves, have?

Its own innocence and goodness. The wisdom Christ exhorts it to have. And the eyes of the shepherd that are upon it.

And what should one do if one finds oneself surrounded by wolves, whose words are disingenuous, and  cannot be trusted; who lay traps for your feet; who question you with hostile intent, and will use your words against you?

Be wise as a serpent. If possible, avoid them. Avoid getting into conversation with them. Be careful when it’s unavoidable. A mentor once told me that 90 percent of wisdom is saying as little as possible. Do so. Avoid exacerbating their envy by showing off!

When asked a point-blank question, remember that one can refuse to answer.

Or can give an opaque parallel answer like Jesus does. When asked to do a miracle, talk about Jonah and the belly of a whale, and people will be so befuddled by this that they will not press you further.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise;  (Emily Dickinson)

Listen to your intuition. When surrounded by those you have reason to believe are hostile, slow down. Be quick to listen, slow to speak. Turn on your supernatural radar. Get real quiet and listen to another voice too, the lover of your soul.

Answer slowly and deliberately and with wisdom. Words will be given you, Jesus promises. “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” (Luke 12 11-12). “For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict,” (Luke 21:15).

Slow down enough to hear his words.