{"id":14923,"date":"2024-10-20T00:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T23:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=14923"},"modified":"2024-12-21T11:43:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T11:43:46","slug":"29th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=14923","title":{"rendered":"29th Sunday in Ordinary Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hellfire and brimstone have widely been discarded from the preacher\u2019s toolbox, and rightly so. The image of a short-tempered, easily upset and punishing God of a not-so-distant past has been replaced with one much closer to the Gospels\u2019 merciful Father, taking great care of us, his people. We\u2019ve got used to such a cosy, heart-warming vision, so much so that the words opening today\u2019s first reading must come as a shock; indeed, they did so for me: \u201cThe Lord has been pleased to crush his servant with suffering.\u201d<\/em> I found the word pleased<\/em> in this context so strange that I had to check if the English translation had been a bit too frivolous in this case. Not really. The new translation coming into force in about a month is even more disturbing: \u201cIt was the will of the Lord<\/strong> to crush him with pain.\u201d<\/em> Some people dismiss the idea of a merciful God of Christianity as irreconcilable with the grim reality of suffering and pain present in the world. But to say that \u201cthe Lord has been pleased to crush his servant with suffering\u201d<\/em> makes any positive argument for the Christian vision of God impossible. Or does it?<\/p>\n

Traditionally, let\u2019s start by painting the background. In the ancient Semitic mindset, God was the primal cause of everything. For example, in the story of the Exodus – the Israelites escaping the slavery of Egypt – Pharaoh\u2019s hard stance against it was presented in a mind-boggling way as by God saying: \u201cI will harden Pharaoh\u2019s heart, and he will pursue them so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army.\u201d (Exodus 14:4)<\/em> For us, used to individual freedoms, it might look like a double whammy: God caused Pharaoh\u2019s stubbornness and then punished him for it and in the process let God show off his greatness. We can find many similar instances in the Bible, including the New Testament: \u201cThe creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.\u201d (Romans 8:20-21)<\/em> Only when the biblical Semitic mindset collided with the Greek philosophical one in the Christian communities of the first few centuries did a more structured, logical (in a philosophical sense) way of thinking emerge, and we call it theology. To put it simplistically, it allows us to translate the storytelling form of the Bible into science-adjacent philosophical terms. Catholic theology sees God\u2019s will in two distinctively different but complementary ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ordaining will of God is also known as the “active” will of God, i.e., God’s plan for the whole of creation as well as each individual. […] The permissive will of God refers to that which God allows to happen. For example, God allows sinful behaviour even though He does not desire it. Why does God allow sin? God truly loves us, and love necessarily implies freedom. God lovingly allows us to freely choose or reject His will for our lives. When man rejects God’s will, he freely sins. God permits such sin, as a consequence of the freedom He gave man, but He would never ordain such sin.\u201d<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back to the contentious opening line: \u201cThe Lord has been pleased to crush his servant with suffering.\u201d<\/em> Today\u2019s first reading is only a short excerpt from a chapter-long passage known as the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh (we read it in full at Good Friday\u2019s Liturgy). In its context, God isn\u2019t pleased with the suffering, like some sadistic torturer, but with its outcome, hinted at in the closing line of today\u2019s first reading: \u201cBy his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself.\u201d<\/em> In other words, the brutal actions inflicted on the first reading\u2019s character by his opponents (the permissive will of God<\/em>) repurposed by him led to a redemptive outcome that pleased God, \u201cwho desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.\u201d (1 Timothy 2:4)<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the Christian faith’s main strengths has been its ability to repurpose the inevitable existential suffering (in the broadest sense) into an instrument of growth in various human qualities, such as resilience, strength, compassion, and so on. Over the last few decades, most modern Western societies have been on the journey of eschewing Christianity with its allegedly restrictive moral code and allegedly unhealthy fascination with pain and death, as illustrated by the crucifix. One of the practical consequences of rejecting suffering as absolutely evil was the development of the so-called stress-free parenting, widely adopted as the mainstream approach to upbringing. A couple of generations later, \u201cyoung people are now more likely to experience a common mental disorder (CMD) than any other age group \u2013 a complete reversal compared to two decades ago when they were least likely to.\u201d<\/em><\/a> Besides many individual reasons and causes that must not be diminished, we must ask how they could have developed coping mechanisms, resilience, and problem-solving skills in a cotton-wool, bubble-wrap, stress-free environment. Like swimming, these things cannot be learned theoretically.<\/p>\n

Whether we like it or not, suffering in many forms is an inevitable part of everyone\u2019s everyday life. It\u2019s just a fact. Of course, we should do our utmost to avoid causing anyone unnecessary harm; we must try to alleviate suffering whenever it\u2019s possible. But we must also accept its presence as an opportunity to show charitable love to those in need or add meaning to our troubles. Suffering remains a challenging mystery. But, as Christians, we believe \u201cthat all things work together for good for those who love God.\u201d (Romans 8:28)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hellfire and brimstone have widely been discarded from the preacher\u2019s toolbox, and rightly so. The image of a short-tempered, easily upset and punishing God of a not-so-distant past has been replaced with one much closer to the Gospels\u2019 merciful Father, taking great care of us, his people. We\u2019ve got used to such a cosy, heart-warming vision, so much so that the words opening today\u2019s first reading must come as a shock; indeed, they did so for me: \u201cThe Lord has been pleased to crush his servant with suffering.\u201d I found the word pleased in this context so strange that I had to check if the English translation had been a bit too frivolous in this case. Not really. The new translation coming into force in about a month is even more disturbing: \u201cIt was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.\u201d Some people dismiss the idea of a merciful God of Christianity as irreconcilable with the grim reality of suffering and pain present in the world. But to say that \u201cthe Lord has been pleased to crush his servant with suffering\u201d makes any positive argument for the Christian vision of God impossible. Or does it? Traditionally, let\u2019s start by painting the background. In the ancient Semitic mindset, God was the primal cause of everything. For example, in the story of the Exodus – the Israelites escaping the slavery of Egypt – Pharaoh\u2019s hard stance against it was presented in a mind-boggling way as by God saying: \u201cI will harden Pharaoh\u2019s heart, and he will pursue them so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army.\u201d (Exodus 14:4) For us, used to individual freedoms, it might look like a double whammy: God caused Pharaoh\u2019s stubbornness and then punished him for it and in the process let God show off his greatness. We can find many similar instances in the Bible, including the New Testament: \u201cThe creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.\u201d (Romans 8:20-21) Only when the biblical Semitic mindset collided with the Greek philosophical one in the Christian communities of the first few centuries did a more structured, logical (in a philosophical sense) way of thinking emerge, and we call it theology. To put it simplistically, it allows us to translate the storytelling form of the Bible into science-adjacent philosophical terms. Catholic theology sees God\u2019s will in two distinctively different but complementary ways. \u201cThe ordaining will of God is also known as the “active” will of God, i.e., God’s plan for the whole of creation as well as each individual. […] The permissive will of God refers to that which God allows to happen. For example, God allows sinful behaviour even though He does not desire it. Why does God allow sin? God truly loves us, and love necessarily implies freedom. God lovingly allows us to freely choose or reject His will for our lives. When man rejects God’s will, he freely sins. God permits such sin, as a consequence of the freedom He gave man, but He would never ordain such sin.\u201d Let\u2019s go back to the contentious opening line: \u201cThe Lord has been pleased to crush his servant with suffering.\u201d Today\u2019s first reading is only a short excerpt from a chapter-long passage known as the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh (we read it in full at Good Friday\u2019s Liturgy). In its context, God isn\u2019t pleased with the suffering, like some sadistic torturer, but with its outcome, hinted at in the closing line of today\u2019s first reading: \u201cBy his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself.\u201d In other words, the brutal actions inflicted on the first reading\u2019s character by his opponents (the permissive will of God) repurposed by him led to a redemptive outcome that pleased God, \u201cwho desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.\u201d (1 Timothy 2:4) One of the Christian faith’s main strengths has been its ability to repurpose the inevitable existential suffering (in the broadest sense) into an instrument of growth in various human qualities, such as resilience, strength, compassion, and so on. Over the last few decades, most modern Western societies have been on the journey of eschewing Christianity with its allegedly restrictive moral code and allegedly unhealthy fascination with pain and death, as illustrated by the crucifix. One of the practical consequences of rejecting suffering as absolutely evil was the development of the so-called stress-free parenting, widely adopted as the mainstream approach to upbringing. A couple of generations later, \u201cyoung people are now more likely to experience a common mental disorder (CMD) than any other age group \u2013 a complete reversal compared to two decades ago when they were least likely to.\u201d Besides many individual reasons and causes that must not be diminished, we must ask how they could have developed coping mechanisms, resilience, and problem-solving skills in a cotton-wool, bubble-wrap, stress-free environment. Like swimming, these things cannot be learned theoretically. Whether we like it or not, suffering in many forms is an inevitable part of everyone\u2019s everyday life. It\u2019s just a fact. Of course, we should do our utmost to avoid causing anyone unnecessary harm; we must try to alleviate suffering whenever it\u2019s possible. But we must also accept its presence as an opportunity to show charitable love to those in need or add meaning to our troubles. Suffering remains a challenging mystery. But, as Christians, we believe \u201cthat all things work together for good for those who love God.\u201d (Romans 8:28)  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/posts-headers-green.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14923"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14968,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14923\/revisions\/14968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}