Getting the Right Message

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Perchik from "Fiddler on the Roof"

    Sometimes you can get the wrong message from a story.  In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” which I just mentioned two weeks ago, there is a scene where a student, Perchik, from the university in Kyiv, is teaching Tevye’s daughters how to read from Biblical stories.  One day he says, “Now after Jacob had worked for Laban for seven years, do you know what happened?  Laban fooled him and gave him his ugly daughter, Leah.  So to marry Rachel, Jacob was forced to work another seven years.  So you see, children, the Bible clearly teaches us you can never trust an employer.”  Not perhaps the message God tries to convey through the account of the patriarch Jacob in the Book of Genesis.
    I feel like the first reading and Gospel passage that we heard today can also be misinterpreted if we don’t approach it well.  From the first reading we might think that we just have to do the right thing and keep the right action up in order to win, as the Israelites win whenever Moses’ hands are raised.  From the Gospel we might think that if we pester God enough by asking him again and again, like the widow from the parable, then God will give us whatever we want.  But I don’t think either of those are what God wants to communicate to us.
    Because the first approach is basically magic.  Magic seeks to control the physical and/or spiritual world by our own efforts.  If I say the right words or do the right things, certain actions have to follow, as if they’re in causal relationship like adding baking soda to vinegar.  I can manipulate the results if I do the prescribed actions.  Magic is an offense against the first commandment, because we seek to take control rather than let God be in control.  
    The second approach is arrogance and pride.  If we ask God for something and we don’t get it, clearly God must have a different plan.  To presume that we know better than God is the ancient vice of price, seeking to elevate us over and against God, rather than submitting to His will and Divine Providence.  God is not a parent that we, like a toddler, can wear down if we just keep pestering Him, so that we eventually get what we want.

    Instead, the message, or at least a message, that God wants to communicate is a phrase my spiritual director says to me almost every time we meet: patient perseverance.  In our relationship with God, we need to approach God with confidence that He hears our prayers, even if they’re not answered immediately, and as long as they are truly what God wants.  St. Monica had to pray around 30 years before her son, Augustine, received the Sacrament of Holy Baptism from St. Ambrose.  God certainly wanted St. Augustine to become an adopted son of God in Jesus Christ and a member of the Church and have original sin washed away, but Monica had to persevere in asking God for that gift.  St. Augustine also had to be open to that gift, as conversion requires the free response to God’s grace that is given for conversion.
    We put forward our best work according to what we believe is God’s will.  We ask God to bless our work, whether it be an earthly or a spiritual endeavor.  But then we have to wait for God to grant it, all the while asking for it to happen, if it is God’s will.  It’s like the distiller who puts together what he thinks is a good mash bill, based upon what he thinks people want to drink.  He ferments the grains with the yeast, purifies the distillate to remove any harmful impurities, then puts it in a barrel to age in a good location in the rick house.  He waits for years, maybe four, eight, ten, twelve, or even twenty or twenty-three, praying that his hard work pays off and produces a tasty bourbon that people will enjoy.  But there is a certain freedom in patience, commending the endeavor to God’s providence.
    All too often, though we don’t begin by asking for God’s input as to whether we should even start something.  I know in my own life I can struggle because I have something I want to do, and I don’t ask God if it’s part of His plans, and then sometimes get frustrated when it turns out they’re not part of His plans, and I don’t find the success I wanted.  Before we begin any action, especially any new undertaking, we should ask God if this is part of His will.
    If we sense that God wants something to happen, that’s when we patiently persevere.  We continue to pray to God to give success to the work of our hands, to paraphrase Psalm 90.  And we wait until God answers that prayer in some way, shape, or form.  We don’t meddle, as if somehow our work can outdo the plan of God.  We don’t act like a toddler and keep asking, “Can I have it?  Please?  Please?  Please?  Please?”, hoping to wear God down.  We patiently, persistently bring our request before the throne of grace and lay it before the feet of God for Him to decide how and when to grant our prayers.  And we do it as a child who trusts his or her father.      Don’t misunderstand the readings we had today, as Perchik did with the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel.  Don’t pretend that we are in control and God has to do what we want if we just say the right words or do the right thing.  Let God be God, submit to His will and Divine Providence, and trust that what needs to happen will happen, according to the plan of our loving Father.