Sounds Scary!
Wow! Today’s readings are intense!!! After reading today’s sacred scripture one might want to run for the hills – far away from this angry, wrathful God they speak of. A God who Jephthah offered his daughter up to as a burnt offering (Jgs 11:29-39a)– yikes! Or how about the God in today’s Gospel – the one who told the attendees to bind the hands and feet of the inappropriately dressed wedding guest and cast him into the darkness where there will be “wailing and grinding of teeth.” (Mt 22:1-14) – oh my!!! Then wait it gets better (or scarier). In today’s Responsorial Psalm we repeat “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.” (PS 40:5-7, 7-8a, 8b-9, 10).
Is this the same “will” that Jephthah and the wedding guest tried to participate in? Didn’t turn out so good for them… However, what if Jephthah didn’t make that bargain with God? What if he simply asked that God deliver the children of Israel from the Ammonites and he didn’t promise as a burnt offering “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites…”? After all, “Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you [God] sought not” (today’s Psalm) What if the wedding guest was clothed in Christ? Would the story have turned out differently? Of course it would have! God certainly didn’t need Jephthah’s bargain to save the children of Israel and we are all invited to be clothed in Christ!
Instead of going into a deeper analysis of today’s scripture I felt it would be helpful to go in a bit of different direction, a more practical one. Taking from today’s readings we can see that we are called to do God’s will; however, we can never really know the will of God. Also, we can see that we need to wear proper attire when we enter the Kingdom of Heaven – i.e. we need to be clothed in Christ.
So what holds us back from wearing Christ and what causes us to make bargains with God instead of doing his will – as if there is anything we could ever offer him that could make him more complete. Only our praise, our love and our offering of ourselves to him could possible serve to truly please him, this may be a bargain that makes him happy my friends. Remember, he desires that all men (and women) come to the truth, he desires our praise and he has plans to prosper us and to give us a future.
Harmful Emotions
It’s harmful emotions that hold us captive and separate us from the glory God has for his children. After all, how can we praise God when we are bound up in anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, depression and so the list goes? Fear will cause us to promise God just about anything (whether God asks it of us or not), anger separates us from love, resentment will not allow us to forgive, grief will not allow us to feel loved, anxiety clouds our vision of our true self, hate does not allow us to see our brother and our sister in their truth and depression blocks the healing tonic of God. Additionally, modern science has now linked emotions to physical disease – something those of us in the holistic field have known for decades.
So what can we do when we are consumed with such emotions and yet we desire to be close to God? What do we do when we cannot find a way out? The first step is to realize that it is not God who is whispering the thoughts in your mind that lead to such emotions, remember there is a thief among us who wants to steal our joy. Then secondly, we need to surrender the pain at the foot of the cross and let Jesus carry it – he is much better equipped to do so. Christ came so that we could live, so that we could live fully and it is he who desires to take our pain from us. As we find freedom from painful emotions we put on the garments of Christ. These garments call us to praise God eternally and no bargain with God is necessary for his love and protection when we are properly clothed.
Over the years as a Naturopath I have worked with patients experiencing a variety of ailments – ranging from physical, emotional to spiritual ills (it’s pretty much all spiritual my friends…) – seeking natural remedies for relief. However, if remedies (natural or prescription) were the “fix” so to speak, then we would not need a savior. We would not need Jesus because life would be good, we would be healthy, happy and whole all on our own. The natural remedies that God gave us, or the drugs that man has made, can only serve to be a complement to the true physician – God himself. With this in mind I invite you to use your hurts as a vehicle to Christ, let him transform them into joy, become clothed in him as you transcend the pain.
Look at the pain square in the eye, remembering the good God has for you. Give the pain to Christ, lay it at his cross and allow him to take the pain away as he desires. Ask Jesus to fill you up with his healing love so that you become free to praise God eternally. The pain will lift in perfect order as God ordains – in his perfect timing. The journey through the pain will then become sacred, a sacred journey you share with God, a journey where you experience what God alone has for you – a journey that ends in heaven, where you are clothed in Christ. This, my friends, is doing God’s will. Healing the world one person at a time – beginning with you.
Breath of Christ
Breath in : I
Breath out: love
Breath in: you
Breath out: Jesus!
LIVE Healthy, LIVE Happy, LIVE Wholly, LIVE!!!
