A Reflection for Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Bizarre Time
“It’s I who deal death and provides life.” (Deuteronomy 32:39)
Yikes. No mincing words here. In today’s Psalm, God is in charge. Clearly. (Charles Bronson, be careful.) The primary reading is similarly blunt about God’s plans for the people of Nineveh: “I’ll forged filth upon you, disgrace you and put you to shame.”
What to make of this? This shouldn’t be the God I grew up with. I realize it was different for many who grew up before Vatican II, when a healthy (and sometimes not so healthy) fear of God was instilled within the young. Growing up within the Eighties, I used to be not too far faraway from the Jesus of “Godspell” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.” I received a button saying “God doesn’t make junk.” If I had been asked, “Do you fear God?” my reply would have been a half-hearted, “I suppose?”
But as I even have gotten older, and I even have begun to attempt to pass the religion on to my very own children, I see the importance of two facts. God loves us. That can’t be denied. But God also expects something of us. As we tell the scholars in our seventh grade confirmation class, “fear of the Lord” (or “right reverence”) is one among the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Whether it is God who’s in control of life or death, then so long as we respect that fact, we are able to let go and truly follow him.
It’s, nonetheless, not one we are likely to dwell on a complete lot. It’s comprehensible; for too long, the church dwelled on it an excessive amount of. And it’s not at all times easy to persuade young people particularly that they’re each loved and that they’re sinners who must answer to God. This can be a tricky balancing act.
But balance we must, especially as we mature in the religion. And today’s responsorial Psalm (which gains much more power with repetition) is the bracing reminder we want. It’s God who “deals death and offers life.” He wants our love and our right respect.
And are available to think about it, perhaps these words (again, with repetition) can have a relaxing effect. Whether it is God who’s in control of life or death, then so long as we respect that fact, we are able to let go and truly follow him.
We are usually not in charge. God is. Sometimes we want these facts to be stated plainly.
