LITURGY AND LIFE

By Tom Saretsky

God is the judge who will always be on our side

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 1, 2012

Wisdom 1: 13-15; 2: 23-24
Psalm 30
2 Corinthians 8: 7, 9, 13-15
Matthew 5: 21–43
 
By whom would you rather be judged when you get to heaven — yourself, your parents, or God? If it was me, I would choose God. I’ll take God any day, even though I would be pretty good to myself, and I know my parents would give me a good recommendation too. Why would I choose God instead of the absolute assurance of being admitted to heaven by myself or my parents? Simply because God sees a much bigger picture than I do or my parents do. God sees the whole and complete picture of my life, and as God is my father, she is also my mother. It’s a win-win situation.

As much as we want to complicate God with the facts of any given situation, God isn’t concerned with the facts. God is a God who says, “You are my child, and despite what you do or what you have done, you are still my child. I’m not interested in all the wrongs you’ve done in life, the mistakes you made, the failures you experienced or the sins you’ve committed. You are my child!” We as a society seem to be more concerned with the sins we commit and wrongs we do — as well as the wrongs others do — as opposed to the good we do. 

How many times do we condemn ourselves with the facts, whether we’ve committed this sin or that sin, did this or didn’t do that, making it appear that our human existence is based on the wrongs we’ve done. Perhaps this is the “devil’s envy that brought death into the world,” as the Book of Wisdom states. By concentrating on this, we remain in a state of death: “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living.” God is not complicated by the wrongs we do. God is a God of life who understands that we are in need of a Saviour to liberate us from what we continually declare as our fault, our most grievous fault. 

In the Gospel for this 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we are given a glimpse of the liberating actions of the Saviour. A woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for more than 12 years seeks the healing powers of Jesus. She follows him through the crowd and declares, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” The woman grasps Jesus’ cloak and immediately is healed. Jesus, sensing power has been released from him, turns and looks around, searching for the person who touched him. This action in itself signifies that God looks for us. God pursues us even though the crowd is pressing in. God will never give up on us.

As parents, are you concerned about your children stumbling as they learn to walk? Would you ever give up on them if they did? Or do you continue to beckon them forward? When children are yelling, “Mommy and Daddy,” as they stumble forward, the prize for all parents is being able to wrap them up in our arms. That doesn’t change when they become teenagers or when they become adults. Their struggles and their stumbles at these ages are much bigger, and take on a completely different complexion. But their struggles don’t make us love them any less. They are still learning to walk through life, and we will still look for them and search them out as the “crowd” of peer pressures, lifestyles, choices, and even their sinfulness press in on us.

Unfortunately, our society isn’t overly forgiving. Things get complicated by focusing on the name of the sin, the regularity of the sin, the level of sin, the type of sin and then the strict penance or punishment that can follow. When the bleeding woman falls at Jesus’ feet and tells him the whole story, Jesus says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well: go in peace and be healed of your disease.” And later when he finds Jairus’ daughter in bed, he says to her, “Talitha kum,” which means, “Little girl, get up.” 

Jesus is issuing these words to all of us. He invites us to get up. Jesus’ words are words of healing, because Jesus is not complicated. He does not punish or judge us for the wrongs we do. His words are words of invitation, welcoming, mercy, gentleness, forgiveness and healing. Our sins, our struggles and our stumbles will never be barriers to the kingdom. In fact, they are the keys to the kingdom that God will use to “turn our mourning into dancing.”

Saretsky and his wife Norma have two children, Nathan and Jenna. He is a teacher and chaplain at Bishop James Mahoney high school in Saskatoon.