Homily Tenth Sunday Year B The will of God
Homily Tenth Sunday Year B
Reading 1: Even though one knows the will of God, we
may not act on his will. That is the message of our first reading. It is the
message of human beings’ relationship with God from the beginning.
Though God poured his love on Adam and Eve and shared
his very life with them, they refused to embrace his will in their life. They
knew the prohibition not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This
was merely a reminder of their dependence upon God: creature to Creator.
They knew his will. But knowing his will is not the
question. The need is to respond by choosing to be obedient to his will, even
though we don’t always understand. This choice is based on the realization of
what God has done for us and why he has blessed us. He has loved us beyond measure. Our response
is love, not disobedience.
It is not easy to embrace fully the will of God. There
is the reality of spiritual warfare and human opposition. In this case, it was the Devil who was
jealous of the relationship between God and these two creatures. By his choice he had separated himself from
the love of God. Now, these creatures, lower than him, a fallen angel, are
blessed by God. The temptation is to separate them from God by sowing doubt and
questions. They were told by Satan, to eat of the tree is to become equal to
God, knowing good and evil. Their love for God was not stronger than their love
for themselves. Maybe God was keeping something from them. So they succumb. As
a result they came to know good and evil. They were ashamed of their nakedness
and realized they lost their intimate relationship with God. He was no longer
friend but judge to them. They hid themselves.
God knows what has happened and responds but with
justice and mercy. Because of their sin their life would become difficult and
hard; their relationship with each other and other creatures, once peaceful would
be at odds. Since they no longer shared his divine life, they could not be in
his presence. That was the justice. The mercy was the promise that God would
send a Savior to defeat Satan and to restore human beings to right relationship
once more with God.
Reading 2: The promises of God and doing his will
sustained Paul after his conversion. He believed in the promises of God, namely
the resurrection of the body and life with God forever in glory.
Even though he underwent many sufferings and trials
during his faithful ministry proclaiming the message of salvation to others, he
never lost sight of the goal. “For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a
tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made
with hands, eternal in heaven.” He chose
the will of God over and over.
Are the promises and will of God that motivating for
us in our daily difficulties and trials? Or do we succumb to the temptations
that seek to distract us from our true goal, eternal life with God?
Gospel: In doing the will of the Father in his
ministry as the promised Messiah, Jesus was beset with many oppositions by
family, friends and the religious leaders.
They accused him of being crazy or of being in league with the devil.
They sought to discredit the signs and wonders he was working for the good of
others.
Jesus sees these as distractions and darts from the
evil one. One of the ways he ministered God’s love was to free those bound by
the power of Satan either through obsession, oppression or possession.
Obviously the Evil One doesn’t want to be defeated.
But the message of Jesus to the efforts of Satan is to
embrace the will of God, no matter what. This he identifies and underscores at
the end of today’s passage. “Who is my
mother and my brothers? Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister
and mother.”
Like Jesus we are called to act in the power of the
Spirit proclaiming the truth of God’s love and we are called to do the will of
the Father. Jesus lived this even to the extent of embracing the cross for our
salvation. We are called to embrace the daily crosses in our lives, instead of
listening to the temptation of the Evil One to reject the cross.
The fire of God’s love has been poured into our
hearts. The Evil one seeks to extinguish this fire as he tried to do in the
life of Jesus. This fire will never be extinguished as long as we fuel it by
embracing the will of God. And if it is dampened by sin, repentance fans the
dying embers into a roaring fire.
Remain in the Father’s love by choosing to do his will
no matter the cost.
About the Author
0 comments