The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
As a child, I loved the grocery store. My parents would always let me choose a little treat for “behaving.” The countless aisles excited me, and I did whatever I could to convince my parents to say yes to letting me put another item in the cart. It was a fun adventure for me. However, getting lost in the grocery store as a little kid was always one of my biggest fears (I still feel this way at times). We all have been there - one second you are with mom until the next second you realize that mom is gone. Poof! Nowhere to be found. So you stay put. Don’t move. You look around and then proceed to walk in the direction you believe is the right way. My brothers and I would take initiative in looking where we thought Mom may have gone. Despite our efforts, we always ended up having absolutely no clue where she went. We would go up and down, left and right, and pretty soon we were hopeless and broke down. It felt isolating and tiresome.
The memory we all hold of getting lost in the grocery store is in part what Jesus is teaching in his Gospel today. Where do you get your direction? As a little kid, I had no sense of direction. All I knew was to stay close to my parents and follow them. Today, I need to stay close to God and follow Him. I need to be next to God as I walk along this journey of life. I can no longer act like I can find my way through the grocery store of life on my own. I must allow myself to follow, to be led, and to be discipled by Jesus. I need to be dependent on my apprenticeship of Jesus.
God must be our teacher: this is non-negotiable. A blind person cannot lead another blind person, or they both fail. When Jesus is saying “every disciple will be like his teacher,” He means that you will become what you place your life in front of. Are you going to learn from the habits of your friends, or from the apprenticeship of Jesus? Are you going to learn from your comparisons and judgment? Or are you going to rely on the grace of God?
When we place our roots in God, our teacher, we won't fail. We won't grow isolated, and we won't become tiresome. We will be able to see clearly without any logs in our eyes! The logs of addictions, judgment, gossip, and the logs of “fitting in” will be no more. When we place our lives around the one true teacher that exposes us to who we are and whose we are, we will become disciples that bear good fruit -- fruit that maybe people with logs in their eyes will be able to pick.
Jacob Bentzinger resides in Kansas City and has been an editorial and commercial photographer since 2016 and has been shooting for the Church since 2018. He spends most of his time behind a camera or next to a cup of coffee...But not just any coffee — an iced americano. You can find Jacob on Instagram or check out his website.