Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.
In this western world, we tend to think that if anything is to get better, we have to do it ourselves, or that it depends on us. Where is God in this?
Up to God or up to us?
When we encounter a problem, the hardest part of it as a person of faith can be trusting in God. We really want to kind of come up with the solution ourselves, decide this is the right thing to do, do it, and then hope that everything works out well because of our decision.
If there is a challenge, I think, in the faith, in the Western world, it is that we think that everything really depends on us, even though we know better. If there’s a problem with poverty, well, we’ve got to do something about it. We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to come up with the solution.
But the stance of a person of faith is the other way around. What is it that God wants us to do? How is it that God wants to solve this problem? And in what ways can we be attentive to what God longs to do among us?
Such is the dilemma of the first reading. They want to be like everyone else. Now, it’s interesting because before they got into the Promised Land, before they crossed over the Jordan and into the Promised Land, that is exactly what God warned them against. You’re going to want to be like everybody else.
And it was for that reason that God said to them things like, don’t marry foreigners because you’re going to want to be like everybody else. That’s not going to help you in your living out the covenant that I am making with you.
How often is it that we kind of want to just fit in? You know, there was a period of time where that was probably not such a bad thing. There was the time of the immigrants and we wanted to be Americans. And the sisters worked very hard to give us the opportunities that we needed to have that part in our life.
Catholic schools, orphanages, hospitals, those were tremendous success stories because of the generous work largely of religious women, although also of religious men. And it was good. Until it wasn’t. See, we have become good.
If you look at the demographics for Catholics, we’re among the wealthiest in the country. We’re among the most educated in the country. There’s all kinds of good news about Catholics. We have arrived. But what of our faith? What of the practice of our faith?
Have we become like the people in the first reading who said, if we could only have a king and be like everyone else, everything would be fine. And Samuel is trying to say, look, you don’t understand what you’re asking for. The king is going to take your sons. He’s going to take your daughters. He’s going to take your property. He’s going to do all kinds of things because he’s the king.
And yes, he’s going to lead you into battle, and he’s going to guide and so forth. But that doesn’t mean that everything is going to be wonderful. I think if there is an invitation that God wants us to exercise in this new year, it is recognizing where it is do we wish to find the presence of God. And then to say to ourselves, where actually is God? What is it that God wants me to do? How is it that God wants me to live? Can I trust in the Lord to figure out what it means to be a disciple of Jesus?
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