Last week, I wrote about how, being human, I have a tendency to turn flowers into plans that stunt growth. Either that, or I tend to expect weeds to be ugly, and when they aren’t, I let them choke growth. This week’s readings have more to say about these tendencies and how God responds to them. The readings also concerning the weeds I didn’t plant or allow to takeover and yet they still pop up in the fields and gardens of life.
I invite you also to join me in this prayer: Lord, I surrender the weeds within me to Your gardening. Thank You for your patience with me. Help me to extend this patience to the people and experiences in my life and to discern how to be just and merciful as You are just and merciful. Amen.
I read the first two readings and thought it would probably be good for me to read and reread them and internalize their expressions of faith and praise. Maybe if I read them enough, their words would feel more like they could be my own. However, where is my mind is right now, it can embrace them as true but my heart hesitates to do the same, even as I recognize the justice of praising God even when the praise feels inauthentic coming from me. The third reading seems to present the ideal response to faith in another way that I’m discouraged by not living up to.
The Good News for me this week is the Gospel’s affirmation of my feeling that I can’t live up to the ideals of the first two readings. I’m not meant live up to the ideals on my own strength. The ideals aren’t even about doing the right things on my own or even thinking the right things or understanding difficult situations or concepts on my own. Jesus speaks to his Father in Matthew Chapter 11, saying, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you [italics mine] have revealed them to little ones” (25-26). Once I revisited this verse, it helped me see in a new light two verses from the third reading. They say:
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. Consequently, brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
Romans 8:11-12
I don’t give life to myself. The Spirit “that raised Christ from the dead” and “dwells in me” will give life to [my] mortal body” (Rom. 8:11).
I tend to think of the mind as more closely related to the Spirit than to the “mortal body” or “flesh,” and to sinful actions, what Romans calls “the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8: 13). I don’t think I’m alone in having this dualistic perspective.
However, the reality is that what the mind does is as much the result of brain activity as anything else the body does, whether consciously or unconsciously. And the brain is part of the mortal body. It isn’t necessarily more spiritual than anything else the body does. To say this is not to say that the body is inherently opposed to the Spirit. Rather, the body, which includes the workings of the mind, is healed by the Spirit of the effects of sin. The Spirit restores to each person—each body, mind, spirit combination— to his or her unique way of reflecting God’s image each, provided that the person invites the Spirit in by joining him or herself to His Body.
Because of the doctrine of the Trinity and because of Scriptures that characterize followers of Christ as members of His body, I understand the Spirit’s body in three ways: as the body of Jesus, the body of an individual believer, and as the community of believers. I unite myself to him and become this body, inviting the Spirit to work in my life whenever I trust in these realities and when my life reflects this trust. It reflects this trust when I share the joys and the burdens of Jesus and others, and I find the humility and courage to accept the offers of Jesus and others to share my joys and burdens.
It’s this communion, not being able to handle or understand everything on my own that gives life. I make this statement not to minimize the acquisition of knowledge and expertise or the pursuit of moral and ethical behavior but to reiterate that no knowledge increases or decreases a person’s value from God’s perspective. An article by Guy Consolmagno and Christopher M. Graney inspires me to offer this reminder. It also provides thought-provoking analysis of the justifications humans throughout history have used for thinking and behaving otherwise.
Lord, don’t let me forget your unconditional love for me and for everyone else, indeed for all of Your creation. Don’t let me forget that Your wisdom and understanding is greater than human wisdom and understanding. Also don’t let me forget that though Your wisdom and understanding are greater than human understanding and wisdom, You have given me places and people I can go to for wisdom and support. Thank You for giving life to all of me and to all of Your creation. Amen.
Works cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 9 July 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.
Fortunately, I suppose, unlike Jeremiah, I don’t currently “hear the whisperings of many saying . . . “Let us denounce [her] (Jer. 20:10, The New American Bible, 2001 Edition). But at times, I’ve perceived myself as surrounded by such “whisperings.” (Jer. 20:10). Was I more hurt because I felt someone was rejecting me, or because I thought that person was rejecting God? I suspect that more often than not, the answer was the former. “[Z]eal for [God’s] house” doesn’t “consum[e] me” as I assume it did Jeremiah, though Jeremiah isn’t the name given for the narrator of this week’s psalm (Ps. 69:10).
Jeremiah’s emotional response, his anger, is understandable. But in contrast with what Jeremiah seems to request of God, I don’t want God to “take vengeance” on anyone, or to witness anyone taking vengeance on anyone else (Jer. 20:12). After all, the Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines vengeance as “the return of an injury for an injury, in punishment or retribution” I want to see wrongs made right. In the many situations where what’s lost cannot be recovered, I want to see efforts made to prevent the same harm from happening again. I don’t want to see “the return of an injury for an injury in punishment or retribution.”
And even if I had an experience that changed my mind and my heart about vengeance, it wouldn’t bring back what I’d lost. Also, I have a hard time believing that a God whose very nature is a self-emptying love that we humans struggle to imitate would want to take vengeance on people who hurt me. Why? Because God is the source of their lives as well as mine, God wants to remove anything that might distance them from himself. Now that removal might be painful and difficult for a person to go through, just like breaking oneself of a bad habit or putting distance between oneself and toxic people might be extremely hard to do. Still, I wouldn’t think of actions such as these as vengeance. I would consider them lifesaving in the long run. On the other hand, in the long run, the rejection of such life-saving actions would be its own punishment.
It helps me to put the Old Testament passage into perspective if I consider that the words are attributed to Jeremiah. They aren’t attributed to the voice of God. I believe that God speaks to us through the Scriptures, but so do the other people in them. Not everything in the Bible is God’s will because the people whose stories the Bible hands on to us are subject to rash judgment and limited understanding just like we are. I believe Jeremiah is not excluded from these human weaknesses, and that’s why he asks God to let him witness God taking vengeance on the people who persecute him. He’s likely in grave danger, and he wants to get out of it. I would want the same “rescu[e],” were I in his situation (Jer. 20:13). Perhaps the only way he can imagine God alleviating his suffering is for God to take vengeance on the people causing it.
Despite whatever ways Jeremiah’s spiritual vision may be limited, he’s ahead of me in the faith department because he can say, ” . . . Praise the Lord,/for he has rescued the life of the poor/ from the power of the wicked (Jer. 20: 13)!
This declaration is, more often than I would like, difficult to make my own. I hear too often of those with trusting natures being defrauded of their savings by strangers. The world over, the rich get richer while the poor face food insecurity or even famine, and some leaders sacrifice truth and countless lives on the altar of holding onto and increasing their power.
Does “the LORD [hear] the poor,” as the psalm says (Psalm 69:34)? Undoubtedly, but Jesus died not only so that his brothers and sisters could have eternal life through Him but also so that they could have a clearer understanding of their own dignity and live for more than themselves, becoming conduits of His justice and mercy (qualities that are intertwined with each other) generation after generation. It is receiving and sharing these gifts of Christ’s sacrifice that give eternal life to a soul even though a body can be killed. This receiving and sharing also allows Paul to declare, “For if by the transgression of the one, many died, how much more did the grace of God in the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many” (Rom. 5:15).
Lord, I often struggle to share Paul’s faith in the gifts you have given me and anyone open to them. And yet, “I do believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24, The New American Bible Revised Edition). Help me to remember that “[e]ven all the hairs on [my] head are counted (Matt 10:30, The New American Bible, 2001, Edition). Everyone’s are. Nothing happens without [our] Father’s knowledge. Even though so much that happens is unpleasant or unjust, the final victory is not doesn’t belong to these events. Guide me as to how to make this truth tangible for myself and for others. Help me and others to be conduits for more of what you are offering us. Amen.
Works cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 25 June 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.
The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Sitting with the Sacred 