God-Thinking

God-Thinking
September 22, 2024    25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B
by Dcn. Bob Bonomi

Have you ever experienced a time in your life where you were trying to focus on something or get something done but kept getting interrupted or side-tracked?  Of course you have.  We all have.  Whether it is a mother with small children who’s trying to get work done but has to stop and tend to some need of her child, or the teacher in the classroom that struggles with the different personalities and learning styles of their students, or the employee that gets pulled away from doing their job in order to attend another boring meeting, we’ve all been there. And it can be even more frustrating when we sense the urgency of what needs to be done but we can’t convey that urgency to others.

I see that in the opening of today’s Gospel.  Jesus knows that his time is running out, and he needs to impress upon his disciples the urgency of his mission and to prepare them for what’s coming.  He’s trying to avoid interruptions by traveling with them privately as he teaches them – and they just don’t get it.  And he knows it.

If there is a common theme between all of today’s readings, it might be the emphasis on “right-thinking”.  And all three readings point out our conflict between God-Thinking and Man-Thinking.

Our brief reading from the Book of Wisdom, while emphasizing what the wicked want to do to the just one, unfortunately misses the context of the verses leading up to and immediately following it – namely, that the wicked are only thinking within an earthly context. Chapter 2 opens with “For, not thinking rightly, they said among themselves: “Brief and troubled is our lifetime; there is no remedy for our dying, nor is anyone known to have come back from Hades…“

They use that earthly rationale as justification for the evil they were going to do to the just one, a prophetic message concerning Jesus.

The chapter ends with: “These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the hidden counsels of God; neither did they count on a recompense for holiness nor discern the innocent souls’ reward.  For God formed us to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made us…”

It's the difference between Man-thinking and God-thinking.

James, too, emphasizes the struggles we cause ourselves through our earthly passions and desires without understanding that true wisdom and its fruits – the rewards – which come with it are not earthly, but spiritual. But since we do not seek Wisdom from God first, we allow the conflicts we face to come from within us, from those same passions, since they are not oriented rightly toward God.  

We are still at war today with those same conflicts – and not just externally with world conflicts or our own struggle for survival.  We place ourselves in conflict with ourselves and those around us when we want what we don’t have, and it often disturbs us when others have something – health, wealth, power – that we don’t.  We’re frustrated when we think we’re doing everything right and we still don’t get what we think we deserve.  

Even when we ask that God take away the trials we face, to intervene and take our side in our daily conflicts – we usually do so from a self-centered viewpoint.  We can’t help it.  We are raised and indoctrinated by society to seek “the good life” here on earth, and like the Jews of Jesus’ day, we think that any evil that befalls us, any time our prayers appear to go unanswered, it’s because we’ve done something wrong or we aren’t trying hard enough.  Again, Man-thinking, not God-thinking.

Finally, we hear Jesus tell his disciples, for the second time, that he is going to be murdered in a very short time, but it won’t be the end of his mission – their mission.  The Kingdom of God is coming, and it won’t be like anything they thought it would be.  But they are so busy with Man-Thinking they did not understand.  They just didn’t get it.  

Who can blame them?  Jewish beliefs of the time always talked about the coming of an earthly Messiah and the glory and majesty of God’s Kingdom and its earthly rewards.  The death of Jesus would be contradictory to what they’ve been taught to believe.  After all, if he was the Messiah, and the Savior had to be one who wielded great power and authority, right?  And as his chosen ones, they would share in that power and authority.  No wonder they were arguing about who would be in charge of what.  

Jesus is blunt.  He tells them that in order to be in charge they would have to be servants, and the one who would be the greatest would have to be the servant of all the rest.
 
We might say that he was trying to “bring the disciples down to earth”.  Actually, he was trying to raise them up to a greater awareness of God-Thinking, and break them of their earthly thoughts.

To reinforce that awareness, he takes a small child and places it in the middle of the group.  Now in Jewish society, a child was definitely not a sign of authority.  But Jesus used the child not only as a sign of humble servitude, but by putting his arms around the child, Jesus emphasized God’s love for them.

That is God’s message to us as well.  In the midst of the conflicts of our lives, we are called to be Children of God.  That doesn’t mean that the conflict will leave us, only that our response to it should be to entrust it to God Himself.  

It is hard to see the big picture from God’s perspective.  We often can’t understand His will for us, or we don’t want to.  And how often do we just ignore something that we don’t understand?

Our challenge today is the same one that faced the disciples – learning to think as God.  Scriptures tell us that we cannot completely know the Mind of God, but we can always pray for that Wisdom, as St. James points out, which comes from above – from God.  And despite the distractions and demands of our earthly life, with God’s help we can work to accept His Will in our lives, which through His Love is meant to orient us toward heaven.  And after all, isn’t it a heavenly kingdom that we should be seeking, not an earthly one?