Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 18, 2025: Who can know God's counsel?

Who can know God’s counsel?
 Has it ever been easy to embrace the Lord’s radical vision? 

    It has always been clear that human beings do not and cannot know everything. The Book of Wisdom asks, Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends? If we can’t understand our physical world, how can we possibly begin to understand the nature of divinity or things in heaven? Being bound here on earth keeps us from seeing perfectly, as God sees, for the corruptible body burdens the soul. Likewise, Psalm 90 reminds us that God’s vision is not man’s vision: For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday. And so the psalmist prays, Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart, and thus learn to live our lives for God, letting God’s will be what we strive to accomplish, embracing the Lord’s radical vision. 

    The great crowds traveling with Jesus in Luke’s Gospel must have had an equally difficult time understanding his teachings. Jesus exhorts them, If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. It cannot have been an easy lesson to comprehend, or to swallow; a radically new vision is necessary to see that our love for God must come first, before all else. Any human relationships that encumber us must come second, for they can and will be perfected only through God’s love for us. There is a cost to discipleship; we must calculate the cost, that we might understand what discipleship will mean for us: a love without limits, grounded in Jesus and in his cross, the very revelation of the perfect love of God. No longer can we define our love in terms of our own knowledge; we must open ourselves to God’s wisdom and trust that God’s love will transform us, whatever the cost. 

    Paul understood this. In his Letter to Philemon, Paul expresses his hope that Philemon will treat Onesimus no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a brother. The choice is Philemon’s – Onesimus did flee Philemon’s household, so sending him back there is a risk. If Philemon is to be one with Christ, he too must embrace a radical shift in vision, allowing himself to be transformed by the power of Christ’s love. 

    Can we? 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com