On Doing the Will of God
(Gen 3:8-15; Ps 130; 2 Cor 4:13-5:1; Mk 3:20-35)
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The story of the fall of our first parents in the first reading brings to mind the following anecdote: a woman told her husband she was going window-shopping and promised him she would not buy anything. She returned with an expensive dress. He was of course very upset and asked her why she did not keep her promise. She told him when she saw that dress in the window, it was so beautiful she could not resist the temptation. When he asked her why she didn’t do like Jesus in the scriptures and say, “Get behind me, Satan,” she replied she tried that and he told her it looked even better from behind, so she bought it!
The message from Jesus in the gospel today is to resist temptation, reverse the sin of our first parents, and do the will of God.
Jesus is clear on the importance of this message. To be even closer to him then his own family, we need only consistently do his will and the will of the Father. But that raises a question – just what is the will of God for us?
We can tease out from the readings today many ways that we can do the Father’s will. A first would be to have faith and believe in Jesus, God our Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. We are to live a pattern of faith that leads to hope (“in his word I hope” is what the psalm tells us), and hope leads to love that will reflect the steadfast love of God.
The psalm response speaks of our God as steadfast in love. Surely to do God’s will is to share in loving as God loves. Jesus taught us five different levels of love: we are to love God with our whole being, love all others, love ourselves, love others as Jesus has loved us, and above all, we are to love our enemies.
We love God with our whole being best by gathering for the Sunday Eucharist to worship God, and every time we pray. We love others by forgiving them, trusting them, affirming and blessing them and truly caring for them. We are to love ourselves by accepting ourselves as we are, accepting compliments, and forgiving ourselves our past mistakes. And we are love others as Jesus loved us, by being willing to sacrifice our own interests at times for the good of others, especially our children, and for the common good. And we love our enemies best by forgiving them from the heart. That is best done by sharing our feelings with them and letting them go, instead of fight, flight or freeze. Surely, all of this is to do God’s will.
The first reading suggests to do God’s will is to reverse the actions of Adam and Eve (stubborn self-will and disobedience) by our humble obedience to the will of God. Psalm 130 reminds us, with God there is great power to redeem and there is forgiveness for us, so to come to God to receive that forgiveness is surely God’s will as well. Actually, not to do so is to resist the Holy Spirit who is the agent of forgiveness, and that bars us from receiving forgiveness, which is why Jesus would say those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness.
Psalm 130 also suggests to do God’s will is to enter into a more contemplative kind of prayer – to wait for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning. I would suggest Lectio Divina as an excellent way of doing God’s will – reading God’s word (Lectio), meditating on it (Meditatio), praying with it (Oratio) and above all, spending time just being present to the power of that word (Contemplatio).
Finally, Stanley and Pauline’s anniversary of marriage we celebrated with them yesterday suggests that making and being faithful to a life-time commitment is another way of doing God’s will. Their commitment right here in this church 40 years ago elevated their relationship to a sacrament that becomes an icon, image or reflection of the Trinitarian love of God in our lives. They have lived out all these ways of doing God’s will, faithfully and humbly, for forty years. For that, and for them, we are truly grateful.
Stanley and Pauline Hood anniversary
The Eucharist has sustained them in their marriage for forty years, and will continue to do so, even this morning. May it also sustain us and empower us to likewise do God’s will in our lives through faith, humble obedience, genuine love, receiving forgiveness, commitment and contemplation.
May our lives also reverse the sin of our first parents and become icons of God’s trinitarian love here on earth.
We should have love and forgiveness from our hearts to be able to forgive others and to love one another . This is what God wants us to do in return by loving our neighbours like we love ourselves. This means we have to try to let go of our past and forgive our mistakes and the sins that we committed over and over again. There are some people who have difficult times forgiving the person that hurt them for many years and even people cannot forgive their family members. They have all these problems, anger, resentments, emotions, stubborn, selfish and pain bottled up inside. Yes these issues will be dealing with you, if you do not know how to deal with them. You mentioned it in the 12 step program and other homilies. We have to learn how to forgive ourselves and receive healing from God when we go through reconciliation and do repentance. Then , we will also love ourselves and accept who we are and what kind of person we have become. We will be able to love one another and love God back in order to deepen our faith. Amen Amen
We will also go out help other people who are in need and needs our support. This is also doing the will of God and never be intimidated by Satan and evil spirits to gain power and fame . Thanks for the heart warming messages and homilies and the couple celebrating their 40 years wedding anniversary . Lovely and Beautiful . Bishop Sylvain Lavoie . Take care of yourself and blessings!