Memorial of Saint Justin, Martyr
The Book of Tobit is a wonderful short story; it’s worth reading all at once. Today’s excerpt focuses on what happens when we lose our ability to see for ourselves. It’s a tough situation. When I don’t know what’s going on, I’m forced to rely on others for my information. Are they telling me the unbiased truth? Can I believe what they say? What if they tell me something that’s hard to believe, or something that I don’t want to believe is true? Beyond disbelief, do I get angry at the messenger? Do I blame them for the bad news they shared?
We all have weaknesses and limitations. We need others to fill in what we cannot know or understand by ourselves. Whether it’s a doctor, lawyer, priest, electrician, plumber, or mechanic, there are things we need a ‘professional’ to tell us. In today’s environment of societal mistrust, half-truths get used to split people up. If the situation in the gospel happened today, you can bet there would be two stories. One would proclaim that Jesus trapped the evil Pharisees into admitting they were carrying around graven images of the false god Caesar in their pockets, and the other would tell a story of Jesus admonishing them for not paying taxes. The reality is multi-faceted, and it takes a little more work for us to understand. Who do we trust to help us understand the world and our place in it?
Simply put, we must trust God. Anger is the emotion of ‘should.’ There are reasons to be angry at the way the world is, but those reasons are relatively few and often misplaced. God made this world and called it good, but the people in it sin; the effects of that sin get mixed up and put down in layers to make a real mess. Thought we don’t understand why the world is like this, we can trust that God has a reason. God also has a solution for sin in Jesus. He teaches us how to overcome sin and overcome the world. It is not for us to decide how the universe should be ordered. Think that way gets us angry and proud. Instead, we need to humbly pray in the Spirit to discern what is true and what our particular response to a sinful world should be. The frees us from unnecessary anger and helps us see the world as God’s gift of creation, instead of a problem to be solved. It helps us to see people as humans to be loved. Lord, send us your Spirit of discernment.
Chris Nieport