When I was looking at the First Reading, I was struck by the person of Abraham and his great act of faith. Abraham was asked to leave everything, his family and country. God, of course, made some great promises to him, but even so, Abraham had to say “Yes” for anything to happen. What would have happened if Abraham would have said no? His “yes” made him the father of all nations. His “no” would have changed the story of salvation history.
In today’s Liturgy, I want to focus on the power of Sacred Scripture. In fact, while I was reading the Gospel today, I was wondering what it would have been like to be there and watch the Word of God quote the word of God. Jesus, the Word of God, could have easily made up His own scripture because whatever He speaks is scripture. However, He does not, He quotes Scripture in His combat with the devil. Really quite a fascinating idea. Why does the Word of God need to quote Scripture to defeat the devil? And why is this that we know about this event? Jesus was alone in the desert right after He was baptized, before He called His disciples, so no one could have related this story to His followers. No one that is, except for Jesus. So why did the Word of God use Scripture to defeat the ancient serpent and why did He tell His disciples about this experience?
“Judge this case for me.” I was asked by God to do something hard, something that was going to cause me to be humbled. The person I was asked to do it for was someone I felt hurt by and, in all honesty, would rather lash out at them than help them. It wasn’t sinful what God asked, just hard to submit my pride. I was angered at the suggestion that I should help. What was my problem? What I came up with is I am still trying to serve two masters - my pride and God. I have to let my pride, my desire to control, die so that I can once again trust more fully in God.
“Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” I want us to really sit in this phrase. What feelings does this phrase bring up? I find that I feel quite hardened to the idea. I find it a hard balance between “God loves you as you are, where you are” and “be perfect as your heavenly Father.” Another question I have is, why should we be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect? It seems like a command from Jesus, yet we know it is impossible to fulfill this. We therefore have a choice. We could shut down and think He couldn’t mean that. Seriously, why would we compare ourselves to God? We want to look good, how is this possible if we take this Scripture seriously? It feels like you are the lowest student in the class and the teacher says why can’t you be like the smartest. Or even better, you are a crippled athlete bound to a wheel chair and for you it is an amazing feat to get out of bed and manage the smallest physical things, then someone says to you that you need to be like that world class athlete. How would that not be depressing? I suspect that it would be depressing. However, if the person really knew you and knew what you were actually capable of, that you are not merely a crippled athlete and that you could rise to the greatness and that it was undignified to sit in the wheelchair and not achieve your potential, then they would encourage you. Any good coach would do this.
