Here is My Beloved
An Indian brave came upon an eagle's egg which had somehow fallen unbroken from an eagle's nest. Unable to find the nest, the brave put the egg in the nest of a prairie chicken where it was hatched by the brooding mother hen. The fledging eagle, with its proverbial strong eyes, saw the world for the first time. Looking at the other prairie chickens, he did what they did. He crawled and scratched the earth, pecked here and there for stray grains and husks, now and then rising in a flutter a few feet above the earth and then descending again. He accepted and imitated the daily routine of the earthbound prairie chickens. And he spent most of his life this way.Then one day an eagle flew over the brood of prairie chickens. The now aging eagle, who still thought he was a prairie chicken, looked up in awed admiration as the great bird soared through the skies. "What is that?" he gasped in astonishment. One of the old prairie chickens replied, "I have seen one before. That is the eagle, the proudest, strongest, and the most magnificent of all the birds. But don't you ever dream that you could be like that. You're like the rest of us and we are all prairie chickens." And so shackled by this belief, the eagle lived and died thinking he was a prairie chicken.Today the Scriptures call us to reflect on our identity as God's beloved. In the story of Jesus' baptism in the Jordon we see also our own calling by God to be one with Christ by dying in the waters of baptism to rise with him to new life. We are called "BELOVED" in our baptism.Perhaps it is because we virtually experience baptism vicariously that we struggle with our identity as "BELOVED." Who of us, baptized as an infant, experiences the power of the Sacrament as do those in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. But the reality is not changed because of a lack of awareness: WE ARE BELOVED. If we ignore that reality, then we are like that eagle in the story, pathetically shackled throughout his existence to be something less than he is destined to be. We could enter this fate in two ways: as an individual and as a member of a community.As an individual we can fall into the trap of believing that we are not worthy to soar like an eagle. The fallacy here is that we consider as earned what is actually a freely given gift flowing from God's unconditional love. Perhaps we are mistakenly supported by the prayer we offer before receiving the Eucharist: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, say only the word and I shall be healed." The intention of that prayer is to emphasize the giftedness of the Eucharist; it is not intended to deny our self worth. The Roman Centurion whom we paraphrase in that prayer recognized who he was in the presence of the great healer. That's the attitude that prayer should evoke in us.Jesus died and rose to bring us to a new way of life so that we would no longer have to "crawl and scratch at the earth, pecking here and there for stray grains and husks"! On the contrary, through our baptism he invites us here to feast at an abundant banquet, not because we earned it, but rather simply because he loves us, warts and all!Secondly, we can deceive ourselves into believing that we are prairie chickens by accepting society's worldview. There are those who would tell us that what we have here in this world is of lasting value: that what is earthbound--wealth, power, position--is as far we can aspire, that the best we can hope for is to "now and then rise and flutter a few feet above the earth and the descend again." There are voices among us that would propose that we can aspire no higher: "Don't you ever dream that you could be like that. You're like the rest of us and we are prairie chickens.” These voices invite us to be shackled to this belief.But there is another voice, beckoning us, that calls us "BELOVED!" That is the voice of our God who invites us through baptism to die to self so that we might rise to a new life. That invitation flows from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: the model of the self-giving we are called to. In this Eucharist we remember his sacrifice that reconciled our broken human nature to our God's unconditional love. In this Eucharist we again glimpse the promise of what we can be by recommiting ourselves to the promises of baptism. By rejecting self-interest and becoming, as a community of faith, the very living body of Christ in our world, we reaffirm our worth in the eyes of God and acknowledge that we are indeed "BELOVED." In this Eucharist we hear again the words of Isaiah spoken of all of us as the body of Christ in the world:"Here is my beloved whom I uphold,
my chosen with whom I am well pleased. I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have formed you, and set you as... a light for the nations, To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness."These words proclaimed in today's celebration confirm for us that through baptism we are call not to be shackled by the belief that we are mere prairie chickens, but rather by God's gracious favor we are invited to soar like an eagle.I researched the source of this story which is oft quoted. The best I can do is cite the source most users of the story on the Internet offer: Larry Tomczak, Last Days Magazine, 1989, pp. 23-24. However, I am relatively certain that I did not find the story there when I prepared the original of this homily in 1994.
