STRUGGLE AND NOT STUMBLE

We are in the Twenty-sixty Sunday of ordinary time. The first reading of today taken from Ezek 18:25-28 speaks of injustice or unjust treatment that the people of Israel claimed to be done by YHWH towards them. God asks them through the prophet to introspect and see who is doing injustice; YHWH or people of Israel. Attributing God as partial in dealing and unjust in act are very relevant today. The human pain, suffering and death of beloved ones would make the people think of God as such as these. In the first reading, people are facing the similar situation but in a different way. They are asking God; why the person who is faithful to Him for years and years is punished or not granted eternal life because s/he has gone astray for a little while or at the end of life and on the other hand a person who has done deeds against God and His people is granted salvation because s/he is repented and accepted God’s ways just before the end of his/her life? The people of Israel see this as unjust from the part of God. This is what many people ask today; why God gives suffering, pain and death to a person/family that is devoted to Him dearly? Is it not injustice from God toward that person/family?

In the first reading of last sunday we heard God saying that His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts (Is 55:8). Our human calculations, comparative judgments and imaginative paradoxes make us see God as unjust because they are time bound and based on formulated principles. God is beyond time and space. He is omnipotent and has omnipresence. It is the will of Him that all should be saved (Jn 6:39). Salvation doesn’t consist in number of days we are faithful to Him. Salvation consists in number of ways through which we have shown our fidelity to God. In the Gospel (Mt 21:28-32) the first son denies his father’s request to go to field but at last changes his mind and goes to the field, whereas the second son accepts his father’s request but doesn’t go to field. Our faith in God is not mere acceptance of His supremacy over us, it consists in living. Jesus said, it is “not everyone who calls me Lord will enter God’s kingdom. The only people who will enter are those who do what my Father in heaven wants” (Mt 7:21). To accept Jesus is to live His teaching. A person who confess’ to believe in Jesus at the end of his/her life is obliging to follow His teaching, but the proximity of his death does not give way for that but s/he has hope. Nevertheless a person who goes astray or falls away from God after confessing his/her faith in Jesus for years shows hopelessness. It means that his faith has remained passive. Faith in Jesus calls for active, s/he has to follow Jesus’s teaching each day and each time. S/he has daily fidelity. Yes, it is a struggle, but it is worth. It is better to struggle with hope than to stumble and fall away.

It is good to lose some things in life so that we may embrace remaining things as precious. We lose to gain. “Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it” (Mt 10:39). The pain, suffering and death may give signs of hopelessness. They are complex things to comprehend. Through the ages many have tried to answer these puzzles but none of them have succeeded in giving satisfactory answer. It is a constant struggle that we need to endure. Let us struggle with this reality. We may not succeed in answering these puzzles but it is good to struggle with these incomprehensible reality that to fall away, because it is mystery. Let us struggle and not stumble. Let our faith in Jesus be active and not passive.