God’s Role is Always to Save
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
by Fr. David M. Knight
View readings for Tuesday, Week 13 Ordinary Time (A1): https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings LECTIONARY no. 378 (Gn 19: 15-29; Ps 26: 2-3, 9-10, 11-12; Mt 8: 23-27) The Responsorial (Psalm 26) invites us to keep conscious always of God’s mercy: “O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.” In Genesis 19: 15-29, did God work a miracle to destroy Sodom or just refrain from working a miracle to prevent an earthquake that was going to happen anyway? (See the footnote in The Catholic Study Bible, 1990.) Regardless, the point of the story is that sin is destructive by nature, and we are only saved from the consequences of sin by listening to God and following his directions. Genesis doesn’t say whether God found in Sodom the “ten righteous ones” of his bargain with Abraham (18:32), but we presume not, since the cities were destroyed, and even Lot’s own family wouldn’t believe his warning but “thought he was joking.” Only Lot, his wife and two daughters were saved, and that only because the angels, “by the Lord’s mercy” dragged them out! But they were saved, and Lot could say, “O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.” God’s role is always to save, but we have to listen to him — and take seriously what he says to us through his word and his ministers. His warnings are no joke; we ignore them at our peril. But even when people do ignore them, the duty of his ministers (our duty as priests by Baptism) is always to be intent on saving people, not on condemning, excluding, driving out or disciplining them. If necessary, we have to “seize them by the hand” and lead them to safety. It is imperative that a minister be able to say always, “O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.” Matthew 8: 23-27 shows us Jesus in this role. Where he is, we are safe, even in a leaky boat manned by a bunch of incompetent sailors in a storm so bad the boat is being “swamped by the waves.” We are safe even if Jesus is asleep! By contrast (we will see in the next story), without Jesus, even if we feel secure as a pig in a pasture, we can still drown! To keep people safe, we must lead them to Jesus and teach them to find security by remaining consciously in his presence. It is a natural (and deeply destructive) mistake to seek security in the “stable world” of law-observance, where disciplined control of our own behavior and of the behavior of those around us gives us a sense of having control over what threatens us. Discipline and order are both good, but they cannot save us. And if we are not vigilant, we can focus on them instead of on personal, conscious, explicit interaction with Jesus. Then we will drown in our own sense of security! If Jesus is sleeping unnoticed in some corner of our lives, we need to wake him up and let him take over. During the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass, we join ourselves to Jesus who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave... and became obedient to the point of death... Therefore God... highly exalted him... so that... every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Union with him is our only real security.
Initiative: Be a priest. Act with Jesus and as Jesus in everything you do.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry