14th Sunday after Pentecost 11 September 2022 Reconciliation
When God created the human race He intended only blessings and good things to happen to us.
Had we never sinned this would have been the case - straightforward happiness with no sickness or sorrow, no death, or anything unpleasant, truly Heaven on earth.
Tragically we did sin, through Adam, and our own sin as well.
That sin has broken the bond between us and God, but not forever, as God Himself has been trying ever since to restore it; and we take our part in that process too.
It is difficult to heal the break because sin has done so much damage.
But God has made a massive contribution to the process in coming Himself to take on human nature and share our difficulties. The word was made flesh.
This has done much to heal the breach and opens up the possibility of even more happiness than we had before the Fall. O happy fault!
All of these factors are still in play. God still intends what He started way back then.
It is complicated because the response we make to His will has been very poor, speaking generally. And this makes it much harder for God's plans to take effect.
It is hard to rescue someone if they are pushing you away.
The Gospel today - about the lilies in the field – (Mt 6,24-33) is appealing to us to let God go about His work, without impeding Him.
Our Lord is saying the birds and the plants have more sense than we have on this score. They do not resist God's bounty.
If we obeyed God without hesitation our happiness would come back quickly, the bond between God and us would be restored, and we would have a much happier world than it is now.
We have all this within reach, but the effect of sin already committed makes things look harder than they are. Sin makes the division and impedes the reconciliation.
Sin clouds our minds and weakens our wills. It is sin that makes us hesitant to give God all our attention. We are ill at ease with Him, not wanting to face Him directly.
We can at least identify the problem if we cannot fix it in one day.
We can work our way towards God by each prayer we make, each sacrament we receive, each good work we do.
We will be edging closer to giving Him the first place which is fitting, and where our attention needs to be.
We can still be greatly blessed ourselves, even if others resist.
But of course we want others to know about this, the people we pray for, our own families, the general run of humanity.
We are all called to link with God, obey Him, trust Him, walk in his ways. This is the kingdom of God among us.
Also we will come to a clearer sense of the need to avoid sin, which does so much damage and prevents the good from taking hold.
It is beyond us to save the whole world but we can help to save that part of it around us, and for the rest we hope and pray.
It can be done and must be done; there is no other refuge than to bring ourselves before the Saviour and let Him act on us. Reunited with God we come to the state God always had intended for us – eternal blessing.
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