Reflection - Epiphany 5
Last of all, as to someone untimely born, Christ appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am… 1 Corinthians 15:8-10
I’m not a natural gardener – the colour of my thumb hovers closer to the dark end of the visible spectrum. However, I was disheartened to see one plant which I had been nurturing back to health missing all its leaves one morning! My dismay turned instantly to blaming some wandering possum as I removed the plant and placed it inside for some desperately needed plant triage.
It wasn’t until a couple of days later and a closer inspection that I discovered the culprits. Five incredibly fat and beautifully camouflaged caterpillars had been gorging themselves. With disgust I pulled them off the plant and threw them outside onto the concrete path – thinking they’d be a juicy morsel for some lucky birds.
Later in the day my husband commented that he’d observed one remaining survivor almost at the garden edge, looking ready for an assault on the herb garden. He removed it back onto the concrete. To his astonishment, he noticed later that it was once more poised at the garden’s edge – this time heading for the budding rocket seedlings.
At that point, I said that it deserved to be left alone, and we wondered out loud what kind of butterfly it might eventually become – a very large and peppery looking one I thought - if it managed to get to the rocket!
And after all, a caterpillar’s got to do what a caterpillar must do!
“I am what I am”, says Paul in our reading from Corinthians this week. But not in a self-congratulatory, ‘that’s what nature intended’ kind of way. As someone who deserved to be condemned as a persecutor of the people following Jesus Christ, Paul likens himself to the lowest of the low – ‘someone untimely born’ (how I initially felt about those caterpillars). And yet, through the grace and love of God, Christ appeared to him and Paul marvels at his transformation by this appearance of grace into an apostle! A proclaimer of the good news of Christ.
God’s baptismal promise and gift to us all is a life that is graced and transformed by Christ’s presence and companionship. Whether that is like the lightning bolt of Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus or the very slow realization of something different about ourselves as we journey along life’s road growing in Christ’s presence.
It may help to be like the very hungry and tenacious caterpillar in my garden – ask and you shall receive!
Blessings
Ceri
