10th Sunday after Pentecost 18.8.19 Knowing our
place
The fallen angels were expelled from Heaven for not knowing
their place before Almighty God.
They thought they were equal or better than God but then
found they could not stand before Him.
Each of us faces the same choice: will I acknowledge God's
importance, worship and obey Him; or will I assert myself against Him?
We have just enough intelligence to be dangerous. We have
God-like qualities, but in much smaller quantities than He has them. So we can
solve problems, create things, invent things. Mankind has achieved much in
terms of buildings, technology, medicine, transport.
And sometimes we are morally good, in terms of compassion
for suffering, helping those in need, rejecting evil in various forms.
But anything we can do God can do better. We should never
let our achievements go to our head, as though we did it by ourselves.
This, however, is what people are inclined to do, in every
age.
From Adam and Eve thinking they could be like God; to the
Tower of Babel where men sought to raise a monument for their own glory; to
those who would kill God’s own Son to steal his inheritance (Mt 21,38). All
this is human rebellion against God, a futile assertion of human rights against
divine.
The Pharisee of today’s Gospel suffers from this problem. He
talks to God as a near-equal, as though his goodness is something God should be
grateful for.
The Publican gives us the way forward. He acknowledges his
sin, and asks only for mercy.
When we fit in with the true order of things, all will go
well.
All the trouble in the world can be traced to sin, and all
the sin in the world stems from a lack of humility before God, a lack of
understanding our true position before Him.
He wants us to share in His creative power, to exercise our
free wills in union with His own will
But this must always be, for our part, from a subservient
position.
We never dare to tell God what He should be doing; we merely
ask that He do certain things, but always deferring to His greater wisdom and
goodness.
If we do this long enough we come to grow in love for Him.
It is not just that we obey Him, as though grudgingly, but we come to rejoice
in our relationship with Him.
We see in God the fulness of all that is good and loveable;
all that is beautiful.
As we love His works on earth we come to love Him who made
those works.
Our own creativity and ingenuity will be more likely to come
to the fore if we are in right relationship with God.
Our intellects and wills have been damaged by sin. Coming
back to God through repentance will repair a lot of the damage that has been
done.
We will think more clearly and love more strongly. We will
have all our priorities in the right balance.
Most of all we will have the right understanding of
ourselves as standing before God.
We will be humble, grateful, respectful of others, on all
points seeking to advance God's view of the world.
This will make us ready for Heaven and more useful on earth.
We cannot get by without God, or in opposition to Him. It is
His universe and we are in it only by His generosity.
Instead, every knee must bow before Him and every tongue
confess (Ph 2,10-11). The humble shall be exalted.
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