Following God can mean rejection: Homily for Friday, August 2, 2024

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Following God can mean rejection

There can be a temptation sometimes to think that if we do the will of God, everything will be perfect. For if we’re doing the will of God, God is always with us and everything will just fall into place for us. But we get two examples today that that isn’t always true.

Just as parents know that sometimes when you’re doing the right thing for your children, it does not lead to immediate good consequences or outcomes, so too Jeremiah and Jesus learn that simply doing the will of the Father does not always mean that people will roll over and say, “Yes, what was I thinking?” That is tremendous.

Jeremiah in the first reading is talking to the people and what he’s saying is if you continue on this path, if you continue to act the way you do, if you continue to do these things, you’re going to find that it ends badly. Not surprising, he’s saying horrible things will happen to Judah.

The prophets, the scribes, and the king and his court, they don’t take that very well. After all, who wants to hear, “Well, your nation will be destroyed,” or “There’ll be great destruction,” or “Things are really horrible and will become even worse.” It’s not the kind of message that fills one with joy and gratitude.

In the first reading, doing the will of God, speaking the words of God does not lead to good things for Jeremiah. In fact, he’s going to be put in prison and kind of left for dead in a cistern and things are not going to go well.

Jesus in today’s gospel has a similar experience. We could almost say that what Jesus hears is just who do you think you are? Who are you to be doing these things? We know who you are, you’re ordinary, we know your relatives, we know your mother and father. Who do you think you are telling us these things and doing these mighty deeds? It reminds me that sometimes we think, “Oh, if only I could have lived in the time of Jesus, seen Jesus in the flesh, seen him, then I would really be able to have deep faith.”

But we see in the gospel that that wasn’t automatic. People rejected Jesus. They didn’t listen to his word. And ultimately, it led to his death on the cross for our salvation. This is why when we’re praying that God’s will be done, we should also pray for God’s grace to do it so that if something is difficult or hard, we will have God’s grace and God’s courage and God’s love to carry it out successfully.

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