OBJECT LESSONS

Quality time with our Father

God doesn’t need our help to build his kingdom.  But he gives us a role in it, anyway, so much does he desire interaction.

The same way a dad fixing the car in his garage doesn’t need the help of his 8-year-old son. The kid hands him three wrong tools for every right one. But that’s okay. Dad doesn’t get angry. Or impatient. Because he wants his son to share this time with him, be a part of what he’s doing. Just for the love of it.

The child, when he’s grown, still won’t know how to fix his own car when it’s busted. He’ll have to call dad for help. No matter. The two of them in the garage, way back when, wasn’t about the kid becoming a great mechanic. It was about being in on it. His dad’s life.

And there was something about it, that interaction, in a dimly-lighted garage where the awkwardly-strewn car parts resembled a big, dirty jigsaw puzzle. And the smells, the unforgettable smells:  of oil and gasoline, primer and paint, and, sometimes, of burgers and fries calling to our lunch-time hunger from a grease-stained bag in the front seat of that old, red ’75 Mercury Cougar.

I don’t know what Ford did wrong on that car, but its hood was always up; like a sick person’s tongue sticking out at the doctor: ahhhh.  But neither dad nor I seemed to mind the frequent breakdowns. Because again there was something about that interaction, the two of us playing car surgeons. I never felt … what? Something.

Finished for the day and headed inside, I’d look him over closely. And if I didn’t have as much grimy car gunk on me as he did, I’d quickly run a palm along a dirty car part and smear myself over in his image. Looking like him now, having shared in his repairs, I never felt …

“Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” I had opened up my pocket Bible to a random page, as I often do for inspiration, and this Gospel passage found me. It linked my early life with the Word, who I am now as a priest, and who we all are as Catholics called to service.

Because Jesus makes his apostles over in his own image, by giving them his mission until he comes again. They were to go out and offer his forgiveness and thereby his salvation to all believers. 

But why leave it to that bunch? They abandoned him on the cross. Denied him. Failed to clearly understand his mission. Why didn’t Jesus just save humanity by his perfect self?
 Because maybe it was never really about the apostle’s talent or competence for the job.  Maybe it was just about being in on it – their Father’s life; something about that interaction.
By baptism, the Spirit is given to us like it was given to the apostles in John 20. We, too, then, are sent out with it to continue the Lord’s saving work until he comes again. And we, too, will often do a sorry job of it, human and fallible as we are.  But our Father won’t get angry, won’t get impatient. He only desires we do what we can, for the love of it. So that after the work of fixing a broken world is done, our role in his work might make us say: I never felt …

Closer. That’s it; closer.

I have my own wheels now, a Chevy pickup, and I noticed recently my left blinker wouldn’t work. Busy days ahead, I muse: I should just let the mechanic up the street fix it. But instead, I think I’ll call up my dad. Have him come down with his tool box. Make a day of it. Maybe go out for greasy burgers and fries.

Father Marc Powell is a priest of the Archdiocese of Seattle and
the assistant editor of The Catholic Northwest Progress.
He may be contacted at editor@seattlearch.org