20250220 THE WAYS OF GOD ARE DIFFERENT FROM OURS
20 February 2025, Thursday, 6th Week in Ordinary Time
First reading | Genesis 9:1-13 |
The sign of the Covenant
God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Be the terror and the dread of all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven, of everything that crawls on the ground and all the fish of the sea; they are handed over to you. Every living and crawling thing shall provide food for you, no less than the foliage of plants. I give you everything, with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it. I will demand an account of your life-blood. I will demand an account from every beast and from man. I will demand an account of every man’s life from his fellow men.
‘He who sheds man’s blood
shall have his blood shed by man,
for in the image of God
man was made.
‘As for you, be fruitful, multiply, teem over the earth and be lord of it.’
God spoke to Noah and his sons, ‘See, I establish my Covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; also with every living creature to be found with you, birds, cattle and every wild beast with you: everything that came out of the ark, everything that lives on the earth. I establish my Covenant with you: no thing of flesh shall be swept away again by the waters of the flood. There shall be no flood to destroy the earth again.’
God said, ‘Here is the sign of the Covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all generations: I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth.’
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 101(102):16-21,29,22-23 |
The Lord looked down from heaven to the earth.
The nations shall fear the name of the Lord
and all the earth’s kings your glory,
when the Lord shall build up Zion again
and appear in all his glory.
Then he will turn to the prayers of the helpless;
he will not despise their prayers.
The Lord looked down from heaven to the earth.
Let this be written for ages to come
that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord;
for the Lord leaned down from his sanctuary on high.
He looked down from heaven to the earth
that he might hear the groans of the prisoners
and free those condemned to die.
The Lord looked down from heaven to the earth.
The sons of your servants shall dwell untroubled
and their race shall endure before you
that the name of the Lord may be proclaimed in Zion
and his praise in the heart of Jerusalem,
when peoples and kingdoms are gathered together
to pay their homage to the Lord.
The Lord looked down from heaven to the earth.
Gospel Acclamation | James1:18 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
By his own choice the Father made us his children
by the message of the truth,
so that we should be a sort of first-fruits
of all that he created.
Alleluia!
Or: | cf.Jn6:63,68 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life;
you have the message of eternal life.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Mark 8:27-33 |
The way you think is not God's way, but man's
Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ And they told him. ‘John the Baptist,’ they said ‘others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he asked ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.’ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’
THE WAYS OF GOD ARE DIFFERENT FROM OURS
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [GEN 9:1-13; MK 8:27-33]
Yesterday, the gospel spoke about the healing of the blind man. Today, it challenges us in the way we expect God to redeem us from our sins. The truth is that we are just as blind as Peter and the disciples in our understanding of the ways of God in this world. We do not have the vision of Christ and hence lack the heart of God. That is why most of us are quite negative and short-sighted in the face of evil, suffering and injustice in our lives. Indeed, in the face of sin and evil, what comes immediately to our mind is to obliterate that evil. And so if we have a problem with pests, we kill them; and when we have problems with dogs, we kill them too. Such an attitude also prevails when we deal with difficult people in our lives: when someone stands in our way of getting what we want, or is a challenge to live with, we seek to remove that person from our lives. Indeed, that is how most people react to evil or inconveniences in their lives. We adopt an apocalyptic mentality of solving problems by destruction. That was perhaps the original idea of the author of Genesis when he spoke about the flood that destroyed almost the whole of creation.
But in today’s scripture readings, the plan of God is different. The author must have come to realize that God had no intention of destroying this world, but to save it. This is brought out clearly in the story of Noah, when God promised that He would not wipe out creation from the earth anymore. Does not God seem unfair and unjust? In the gospel too, St Peter could not believe his ears when Jesus prophesied that He had to die an ignominious death. He was in total disbelief, especially when he had just confessed Him as the Christ. How could God allow His anointed to suffer such an injustice? But Jesus’ reprimand of Peter when he remonstrated with Him aptly sums up today’s message, “the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.” Indeed, Peter by thinking in this manner became the adversary of Jesus as well. He sided with the devil and hence Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan!”
The truth remains that we cannot see life and justice in God’s ways but only ours. The problem with us is that we fail to recognize that the justice and mercy of God is separated by a hair’s breadth. The way we see justice and mercy is so different from the way of God. Our understanding of justice is tainted by selfishness and self-preservation. It is, in the final analysis, self-love and self-interest, and we call it justice. But truly, we are not actually concerned with justice because true justice would require a complete restoration of harmony and equilibrium in the world and among humankind. We define justice in terms of protecting our rights and our interests, but ironically without respect for the interests of the other. So justice, in our understanding, is nothing else but to preserve our own happiness and not the happiness of all.
In contrast, the scripture readings bring out the true meaning of justice, which is integrated with love and mercy. Firstly, when man sinned, God did not take revenge on humankind. Instead, God was patient and He continued to give the grace of repentance to man. Indeed, where sin increases, His grace abounds all the more. He did not destroy His sinful creation completely. If He did, it was in order to rebuild a new creation. And the point is that even in the chaotic and sinful situation of man, God’s grace abounds. For His grace was present in Noah and his family. They were the remnants of the faithful ones of God. God sent the flood to purify the people and creation, but never to destroy, since He is the life-giver. He continued to give hope to creation by commanding Noah to take a representative number of animals with him to the ark so that He could preserve them. Yes, God did not lose complete hope in man. Noah symbolizes the power of goodness over evil when evil seems to overwhelm creation. The grace of God is all-powerful; certainly more powerful than evil. Indeed, God’s Covenant with Noah and the whole of creation is but a sign of God’s faithful love even when we are unfaithful. The rainbow is a sign that even in the darkest hours of our lives, God is still present. His grace is always with us and He will not withdraw life from us.
Secondly, God shows Himself to be patient and tolerant with us. In spite of the new creation symbolized by Noah and the flood, this new creation would not be as it was in the beginning. Man remains imperfect in his relationship with other creatures and even with his fellow human beings. As Genesis tells us, man is no longer at peace with the creatures. Man has become the “terror and dread of all the wild beasts” and creatures. No longer are animals man’s companions but they have become objects for his use. As a result, animals and human beings have become adversaries. Not only does man eat the flesh of creatures but he also takes the life of man! Truly, every minute that we are alive is a sign of God’s graciousness that He is giving us a chance to repent of our evil deeds and walk in the path of truth and wisdom. Alas, for those who take His patience and grace for granted, because we never know when the “flood” of tragedies will come to overwhelm us.
Thirdly, the power of life over death is further underscored when God commanded human beings, evil and self-centred as they were, that they were not to take any flesh with blood in it since blood symbolizes life. In other words, the author wants to tell us that God values life, even the life of evil people, over death. For this reason, if a man takes the life of another man, God demands accountability, as He said, “He who sheds man’s blood shall have his bloodshed by man, for in the image of God man was made.” Of course, this is no excuse for capital punishment or for advocating revenge. Rather, the intention of the warning is to deter man from killing each other and to emphasize that life is so precious that one should never take another human’s life.
In the plan of God, Jesus’ blood and death was necessary to overcome the evil and selfishness in the world. Only love unto death can overcome the sinful situation of the world. For God’s love is known only in the sacrifice of one who is innocent and blameless. Of course, death does not have the last word but life. God dies so that we might live! So Jesus the Son of God was put to death so that we might be raised with Him. Hence, not even death, less still, evil, could overcome goodness and life. It is Jesus’ love for us unto death, His baptism of blood that would purify the world and bring the grace and life of God to man. Only love can overcome death in all its forms, spiritual and physical.
Today, we are still given the same grace at baptism and the Eucharist. Through these two sacraments, the grace and love of God is mediated to us. In baptism, like Noah, we need the flood or the waters to purify us, especially our thoughts, to be in union with God. And in the blood of Jesus, which is the Eucharist, we join Jesus in dying to self and living the life of grace. Yes, through the grace of baptism and the Eucharist, God’s overwhelming and faithful love for us will see us through in all our struggles. As we continue to purify and die to ourselves, we will eventually conquer sin and death. In this way, we will face the evils of the world with confidence and never fall into despair. We will also learn tolerance and acceptance of others. Most of all, we would not only be concerned about saving ourselves but to save even our enemies. For true love, which is the love of God, would not be contented with saving oneself from sin, but would even propel one to risk one’s own life to save others, just as Christ Jesus did. Of course, only through our union with Him, can we think the way God thinks and not the way man thinks.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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