PARISH NEWS

Too big for our boots

If we allow them the events and issues on our nightly news leave us dismayed and despondent, hopeless, even angry and frustrated. We might see our society degenerating as violence,  harshness and plain idiocy hold sway. Pronouncements and policies fly in the face of our understanding of how things should be.

We know what is best, but what can we do? How can we make things right? How can we force evil people to see the way we see? How can we destroy their influence in our society? How can we exterminate them?

This Sundays readings counsel us to settle down, chill out, to have patience, don’t stress, have confidence in God. He has it all well in hand.

Matthew’s gospel (Matt 13:24-27) about the darnel and the weeds is a caution to us not to get too big for our boots. God is master of this universe, not us. All occurs in his time, not ours. He is arbiter of good and evil; he is judge of all. We must be wary of “playing God” ourselves. Of arrogantly assuming it is all up to us, that only we have the answers, that we are the masters.

Wisdom (Wis 12:13,16-19) exhorts us to tolerance and respect for others. All of us are subject to God’s judgement and boundlessly loving mercy. Rather than cutting ourselves off from the human race because of the evil within it, Christians are to be a “leaven”, tolerantly immersed and involved with the world. Amid the apparent collapse of Christian society, we patiently persevere, making our world just that bit more loving, peaceful and just.

Quietly confident and alert for little signs of God’s Kingdom we then experience, instead of despair, wonder and joy at the work of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26-27) through events and circumstances and people we could never anticipate.

Deacon Mark Kelly