How do our struggles prepare us to turn in love to God?
The prophet Jeremiah’s experience is painful. Rejected by the community he loves because he proclaims a message no one wants to hear, Jeremiah is set upon, struck, even thrown in stocks by the temple priest. Even his friends are on the watch for any misstep he might make. But Jeremiah does not lose hope in God who will ultimately vindicate him: the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion, Jeremiah says. it is to the Lord that Jeremiah has entrusted his cause. Jeremiah’s plight is echoed in Psalm 69, where the psalmist acknowledges that he bears insult for the Lord’s sake; he has even become an outcast to his brothers, a stranger to his children. But, like Jeremiah, the psalmist counts on the Lord’s redemption: the Lord hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.
When, in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus prepares the Twelve to go forth, he recognizes that they too will meet opposition. However, his counsel to them is, Fear no one! No one can destroy both soul and body except the God who brought them into existence; if God is conscious of the life of a mere sparrow – not one falls to the ground without the Father’s knowledge – then how much more does God cherish every moment of suffering faced by God’s faithful? The Twelve are to proclaim all that Jesus has whispered to them, aware that God’s love for them is more powerful than anything. They may thus face any hardship, even death, knowing life is on the other side, in eternal redemption.
Sometimes our opposition comes from within. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul assures that community that the grace of God is more than we can possibly measure: the gift is not like the transgression. Sin is our inability to open ourselves to God, to allow God to enter in, but God’s grace is greater than sin, though sometimes our struggles are themselves a vehicle of grace. God calls us to life without end, to love without limits; we, for our part, are to trust in all humility in God’s grace, knowing, like Jeremiah, like the psalmist, like the Twelve, that, as fragile and incomplete human beings, we need God’s grace and great love at every moment of our lives.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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