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Sustained by God’s Deliberate Act

Writer's picture: Immersed in ChristImmersed in Christ

by Fr. David M. Knight


July 24, 2024

Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time  

Saint Charbel Makhloūf, Priest  

Lectionary 397   

Jer 1:1, 4-10/Mt 13:1-9  

 

For us to “sing of your salvation,” we first have to experience it very vividly in ourselves. It isn’t just God’s work in general, or God’s work outside of us, that we praise; it is God bringing us to life right now. Willing us to be. Choosing us. And sending us. 

 

God goes right to the root of this awareness in Jeremiah 1:1-10. He is telling Jeremiah that his experience of “salvation” begins in his awareness of existence itself. If God had not “formed him in the womb” with the intimate personal knowledge and love inherent in “breathing” him into existence, then instead of Jeremiah there would be pure nothingness. There is absolutely nothing in any of us (or in anything created) that can explain the fact we exist except the fact that God wants us to, and is continuing to want that right now. Only his deliberate act of continuing to say “Beeeeee...” can explain, sustain, maintain or retain us in existence. We are the ongoing effect of an ongoing cause. If God turns off the electricity, we simply disappear. Think about it. 

 

So why does God choose to be giving us existence? He must have a reason. It must be for a purpose. God must think it is a good idea. In fact, God must be excited about it. It is against God’s nature to do anything except with what we would call his “whole heart and soul.” God is All and acts as All in all he does. God doesn’t dabble. If he is saying, “Be!” it is with excitement. 

 

What is he excited about? He is saying to each one of us what he said to Jeremiah, but according to the particular way each one of us can do it: 

 

Before you were born, I dedicated you; a prophet to the nations I appointed you. 

 

God explicitly consecrated us by solemn anointing at Baptism to continue to mission of Jesus as Prophet, Priest and King. This is an article of our faith. For us, “salvation” includes “ministry.” 

 

In Matthew 13:1-9 Jesus warns us not to be naïve in our expectations or discouraged by results. Our job is to sow, not to make grow. The “seed” of Christ’s own words cannot grow if it is sown on hearts hardened by conformity to the culture (the “beaten path”), or in unreflective minds (shallow soil) or among divided desires (the “thorns”). Good seed plus bad soil equals “barren.” 

 

Farmers know this, so they prepare the soil. They break it open with a plow, fertilize and weed the fields. In the same way, ministers need to “break through” cultural resistance, “pollenize” the seeds of God’s word by insights and experiences shared in discussion groups, and empower resistance to cultural conditioning, peer pressure and other temptations by community support.  

 

Initiative: Be realistic in ministry, as you would in farming, business or politics. 

 

 

Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry




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