Most Harry Potter fans will remember when Harry arrives at Hogwarts and sits in front of the whole school for every first year’s biggest moment – the Sorting Hat. This pointy, talking hat sits atop their heads and determines which of the four houses each student will be sent to, loudly announcing “Ravenclaw” or “Hufflepuff,” or in Harry’s case, “Gryffindor!”
Harry went into this event with much trepidation, muttering under his breath, “Not Slytherin! Not Slytherin!” because he only knew evil people who had belonged to that house. As Dumbledore later explains to Harry, the Sorting Hat takes his preference into account, and decides to place him in Gryffindor.
When I was younger, I thought my life was intricately laid out for me by God. I thought God had a very clear road map printed in permanent ink, and it was my job to decipher it. If I failed at this task, or if I found something on that map to be disagreeable, I was out of luck. While I didn’t necessarily fear that God had bad plans for me in the way that Harry feared being placed in a house full of evil people, I did similarly think the planning of my life was entirely out of my hands.
Today's Gospel tells a different story. There is a striking amount of agency given to Bartimaeus. When he cried out to Jesus, “many rebuked him, telling him to be silent”, but he wouldn’t let them silence him. Jesus did not silence him, and instead invited him to use his voice even more. Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” After Bartimaeus tells Jesus that he wants to be healed and Jesus performs that miracle, Jesus tells him, “Go your way”. Jesus did not instruct Bartimaeus to follow him, and yet, in the next line, we learn that Bartimaeus “followed [Jesus] on the way”.
Jesus gives Bartimaeus the freedom to choose what sort of help he receives, and he also gives him the freedom to choose what to do with his healing. Perhaps Jesus would have been equally happy if Bartimaeus had not followed him, but had instead gone back to his home to spread the news of Jesus’s ministry there. Or perhaps Jesus did mean for Bartimaeus to end up on the road with him and his disciples, but he trusted that by going on his own way first, Bartimaeus would come to follow him on his own terms.
Likewise, I now believe that God gives us freedom to choose the specifics of our lives. While I do believe that we all have innate, differing gifts and personality traits that God desires for us to use (just as the Sorting Hat weighed Harry’s strengths when deciding between Gryffindor or Slytherin), I think there are many paths that we could take that would allow us to utilize those gifts in service of God and God’s people. Among good choices, it is up to us to decide which one we want, and to raise our voice to ask God for the type of help we need to pursue that choice.
At the end of the Harry Potter series (spoiler alert), Harry’s son expresses the same fears that young Harry once had, and Harry reminds him that his preferences matter. The older, wiser Harry also now knows that there were good people who belonged to Slytherin, and that either house would allow his son to do good things.
God takes a similarly expansive view of our lives. I look back on decisions I agonized over, afraid of making a terribly wrong choice, and I realize that either choice could have brought about good. Ultimately, as long as we go our own way in conversation with God, I believe our paths will converge.
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