A repeated theme in the gospels is riddles. Both people trying to trick Jesus with riddles and Jesus teaching or answering back with riddles. And in this week’s lectionary passage (Mt 22:15-22), Jesus is using a sort of riddle. He says, “Give to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and give to God what belongs to God.” But really, what doesn’t belong to God? In a roundabout way, Jesus is saying—everything belongs to God, so make everything available for God to use.
When we ponder this, we generally think of resources and talents. But have you ever thought that God wants to use your failures? I have seen in my own life, and in the lives of several people close to me, that our failures are among our greatest gifts to others and to God.
Take my friend Brother Martin Gonzales, who died in 2021. During his 60s, after he’d been a monk for decades, he was called into the office of the abbot. This followed an annual Fourth of July celebration where the monks shared a picnic and ball game, and where beer tended to flow. It was also where Martin tended to imbibe to the point of black out. After the picnic on this fateful Fourth of July, his over-drinking could no longer be tolerated. The abbot informed Martin that he was either heading to a residential program for alcohol rehab or leaving the monastery after forty-some years. This news devastated Martin. Not only was he in denial of his drinking, but he was deeply attached to his image. Martin thought entering a treatment program would ruin him—his reputation, his life. For a time, he thought death would be preferable.
But something happened instead. Not only did he love the treatment program—but the path that led out from it was one of sharing himself with others through AA meetings. These—much to his surprise—he adored. Twice-weekly AA groups brought him more meaning and connection than he could have imagined, more than he’d experienced in his years as a monk. The abbot’s confrontation of Martin, and the tremendous temporary suffering it brought him, made way for Martin’s life’s work. Because of this, Martin often said his drinking problem was among the best things that happened to him.
I too have had such experiences: things that happened in my life that were so painful I faltered; I wondered how I’d survive. But they turned out making way for fulfillment, even joy. I think of an abusive marriage in younger adulthood that helped breed in me compassion for people caught in huge, consequential mistakes. I think of the failures of the body, as in chronic illness which I’ve had to some degree since childhood, and how illness makes me especially available to people suffering physically. Many of the ways I am useful to others, in fact, were born out of personal failures.
Give to God what belongs to God. That means everything, not only our wins. It also means our losses and failures—because these can be especially fecund. This does not mean God causedthe losses or failures in order to make us more useful. I don’t believe this. But I do believe the force of love at center of this universe is about redemption. The thing is, we can only really see this in our own lives and experiences. Only Martin could deem his failures as “belonging to God” and useful to God; only I can deem my own failures as “belonging to God” and useful to God. To make such a claim for another person’s pain or failure is insensitive. I was thinking about this as I came upon the following passage in David James Duncan’s new novel. In the passage, a man who has lost his child to a random accident tells a priest (a “padre”):
“…[W]hen the padre comes and says of someone’s lost loved one, ‘It is God’s will,’ this is blasphemy. But when the sufferer says of their lost loved one, ‘It is God’s will,’ this is faith. …[W]hen all eyes turn to the padre to try to understand a loss, it is sometimes the whole truth to say, ‘I don’t know why this terrible thing has happened.’ To say it happened for a reason, unless you truly know the reason, turns you into a heartless parrot trained to caw ‘God loves you’ at every suffering person it sees” (from Sun House, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2023; p.229).
I’m convinced that my failures, like everything else in my life, belong to God. Though the words “God’s will” don’t resonate for me, the word “faith” certainly does.
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