Centuries later history is repeating itself once again - Go figure

Today at Holy Mass we hear in the first reading noted in the Book of Numbers how after everything the Israelites endured under the yoke of slavery in Egypt and after witnessing with their own two eyes how God miraculously freed them….They put it all out of their mind….Started to complain….And blamed God for their new hardships…Sound familiar?…..”With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!”………This example is repeated over and over again in the Old Testament….As well as on the pages of history in nations and empires across the world and across time - The theme of Exodus and Return…….How does God bring people back when they “dig in”?…When they embrace ideologies that clearly do not work and not only hurt society at large but even the people who espouse these ideologies?…..The answer - Hardship…God gives mankind free will and many times we “screw it up”…..Ultimately we have to choose God - God will never force our hand or our choice……However, when cultures and societies turn from God in radical ways…God does step in….He steps in by allowing hardship to fall upon us….Its through these “dark times” that many will turn back to God….Don’t take my words for it….The pages of the history books show this pattern repeating itself over and over again…..”In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died. Then the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, "Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live." Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived”……Love can not be forced upon a person and God will never force us to love him….However, he loves us so much that he sometimes “lets us sleep in the bed we make”…..Through God’s permissive will, he allows hardship to befall on societies, in the hope that people will “shake out” of whatever haze they are in that keeps them from God…….Again - Sound familiar?…..As we look around today at the state of our culture and society in America - And after reading today’s passage from the Book of Numbers, all I can say is…Buckle up.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him”

I am the father of five children…I tease my kids sometimes and tell them that - “Dads have special powers - We can predict what happens before it happens”…..I say that because I have been “around the block a few times”….I know with certainty how specific behaviors or actions turn out…..But interestingly enough, my children still don’t believe in my “fatherly special powers”…So I tell them...…”The sooner you figure out that Dad loves you and will NEVER tell you anything that will harm you and that what I am telling you will only make your life better - The smoother your life will be!……Sound familiar?….Yet children, at least most children, have to do it “their way”……And then they find out “the hard way”….Sound familiar?….So it is with nations, cultures and at present the American society……We have lived too comfortably for too many years….And in our comfort we have not only forgotten what “got us to the place we are at”….But we have forgotten God…This is nothing new…This pattern has been going on in America for decades….Notice how God is patient…He gives us time to “fix the problem” for ourselves….BUT…..When we don’t - Guess what?…God steps in…..I believe we are in the beginning stages of “God stepping in”….Notice what I just said - “The beginning stages”…..Our people “do not want to hear it” and there is no living person who can “change hearts and minds”…So get the political solution out of your mind…..And because God "gets it"- He will “fix it”….How you may ask?…..He will make us “sleep in the bed we made”….God loves us too much to leave us in the state we are in…Just as he loved the Israelites when they turned from him….Through the “storm” many will turn back to God…Because ultimately that is all that matters…Life boils down to journeying back to God and if we “don’t make it”…We fail and that is a tragedy! - So God being a loving Father will do everything in his power to “change our mind”.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life”

Today in the first reading from Mass, we hear the Jewish people complaining…They simply “do not get it” and “dug in” - Turning their backs on the loving God that just freed them from Egyptian slavery….So what does God do?….Does he turn his back on them?….Does he “write them off?….NO….He “turns up the heat” as we say in New Jersey….He allows the Israelites through His permissive will to live through some hardship - Why? - Because he hates them?…Just the opposite - Because he loves them!…….Still don’t believe me?…..Here is yet another reference in the Old Testament in the Book of Hebrews…”Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?……American society “does not want to hear it”…..So God will step in…..And many will turn back to him as a result…....Rinse - Wash & Repeat - The tragic story of humanity continues from the Old Testament to the present day…..Just as Moses “prayed for the people”….And “made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived”……Centuries later, history is repeating itself once again - Go figure…………..JMJ