OXYGEN

06 Mar

The ‘Gambler’

Here’s a humorous anecdote from the Internet. On a recent weekend in Atlantic City, a woman won a bucketful of quarters at a slot machine. Before dinner she wanted to stash away the quarters in her hotel room. “I’ll be right back,” she told her husband and she carried the coin-laden bucket to the lift. As she was about to walk into the lift she noticed two men already aboard. Both were black. One of them was big… a very intimidating figure.

The woman froze. Her first thought was: “These two are going to rob me”. Her next thought was: “Don’t be a bigot; they look like nice gentlemen.” She stood and stared at the two men. She felt anxious, ashamed. She hoped they didn’t read her mind, but knew they surely did. With a mighty effort of will, she picked up one foot and stepped forward and followed with the other foot and was in the lift.

Avoiding eye-contact, she turned around stiffly and faced the lift doors as they closed. A second passed and then another second, and then another. The lift didn’t move. Panic consumed her. “My God, I’m trapped and about to be robbed!” Then one of the men said, “Hit the floor.” Instinct told her: Do what they tell you. The bucket of quarters flew upwards as she threw out her arms and collapsed on the lift carpet. A shower of coins rained down on her. “Take my money and spare me,” she prayed. More seconds passed. She heard one of the men say, “Ma’am, if you’ll tell us what floor you’re going to, we’ll push the button.”

The one who said it had a little trouble getting the words out. He was trying to hold in a laugh. She lifted her head and looked up at the two men. They reached down to help her up. Confused, she struggled to her feet. “When I told my man here to hit the floor,” said the average-sized one, “I meant that he should hit the lift button for our floor. I didn’t mean for you to hit the floor, ma’am.” He spoke genially. It was obvious he was having a hard time not laughing.

She thought: My God, what a spectacle I’ve made of myself. She wanted to blurt out an apology, but words failed her. She didn’t know what to say.

The three of them gathered up the strewn quarters and refilled her bucket. When the lift arrived at her floor they insisted on walking with her to her room as she seemed a little unsteady on her feet. As she slipped into her room she could hear them roaring with laughter while they walked back to the lift.

The next morning flowers were delivered to the woman’s room – a dozen rose. Attached to EACH rose was a crisp hundred dollar bill. The card said: “Thank you for the best laugh we’ve had in years.” It was signed, Eddie Murphy, Michael Jordan.

- What thoughts, feelings, occurred to you while you went through the story?
- What do you think is the ‘moral’ of the story?

- taken from “Persons Are Gifts”, by Hedwig Lewis, SJ
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Exodus 32:7-14

The Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Go down now, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have apostasised. They have been quick to leave the way I marked out for them; they have made themselves a calf of molten metal and have worshipped it and offered it sacrifice. “Here is your God, Israel,” they have cried ‘who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” I can see how headstrong these people are! Leave me now, my wrath shall blaze out against them and devour them; of you, however, I will make a great nation.’

But Moses pleaded with the Lord his God. ‘Lord,’ he said ‘why should your wrath blaze out against this people of yours whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with arm outstretched and might hand? Why let the Egyptians say, “Ah, it was in treachery that he brought them out, to do them to death in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth?” Leave your burning wrath; relent and do not bring this disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, your servants to whom by your own self you swore and made this promise: I will make your offspring as many as the stars of heaven, and all this land which I promised I will give to your descendants, and it shall be their heritage for ever.’ So the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he threatened.
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John 5:31-47

Jesus said to the Jews:

‘Were I to testify on my own behalf.
my testimony would not be valid;
but there is another witness who can speak on my behalf,
and I know that his testimony is valid.
You sent messengers to John,
and he gave his testimony to the truth:
not that I depend on human testimony;
no, it is for your salvation that I speak of this.

John was a lamp alight and shining
and for a time you were content to enjoy the light that he gave.
But my testimony is greater than John’s:
the works that my Father has given me to carry out,
these same works of mine
testify that the Father has sent me.
Besides, the Father who sent me
bears witness to me himself.
You have never heard his voice,
you have never seen his shape,
and his word finds no home in you
because you do not believe
in the one he has sent.

‘You study the scriptures,
believing that in them you have eternal life’
now these same scriptures testify to me
and yet you refuse to come to me for life!
As for human approval, this means nothing to me.
Besides, I know you too well:
you have no love of God in you.
I have come in the name of my Father
and you refuse to accept me;
if someone else comes in his own name
you will accept him.

‘How can you believe,
since you look to one another for approval
and are not concerned
with the approval that comes from the one God?
Do not imagine that I am going to accuse you before the Father:
you place your hopes in Moses,
and Moses will be your accuser.
If you really believed him
you would believe me too,
since it was I that he was writing about;
but if you refuse to believe what he wrote,
how can you believe what I say?’
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Leave me now, my wrath shall blaze out against them and devour them

Anger is an emotion that all of us have felt at one time or another. Some of us are afraid of this anger, because when we are consumed with anger, we tend to lash out at whatever is hurting us or nearby. God too experienced anger, and in a fit of anger, He nearly destroyed His people Israel, were it not for Moses who stopped Him. God may have been full of anger, but God is also full of self-control and, listening to Moses’ rational explanation, he relented.

Jesus tried the same thing with the Pharisees who were angry with Him. He tried to appeal to their sense of logic and reason, and He tried to help them to see that their anger towards Him was irrational. However, the Pharisees were not as full of self-control as God was, and they let their emotions blind them from seeing the truth.

Despite Jesus’ experience, we know that appealing to a person’s reason is one of the better ways of helping a person to see the truth. Using reason to counter the irrationality that comes from emotional blindness is appealing to the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of truth. The next time you get angry, try to listen to reason, for only reason can counter the irrationality that stems from blind anger.

(Today’s reflection by Daniel Tay)
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Prayer: Dear Lord, we pray that we might have the self-control as You had when You relented on the disaster You had threatened to bring down on Your people Israel.

Thanksgiving: We give thanks to the Lord for those who help us to listen to reason.

Upcoming Readings:
Fri, 07 Mar – Wisdom 2:1a, 12-22; John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30; Memorial for Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs
Sat, 08 Mar – Jeremiah 1:18-20; John 7:40-53
Sun, 09 Mar – Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45; Fifth Sunday of Lent
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