Homily for Wednesday, 16 July 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Readings of the day: Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16; Psalm 94:5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 14-15; Matthew 11:25-27

Who among us admires people who are self-starters; people who are independent; intelligent; wise; perhaps people from humble origins who become wealthy or famous?

To admire or to be such a person is all right, and yet our readings today remind us that even so-called self-starters; the most independent, intelligent, wise people we know, owe their independence; their intelligence; their wisdom to God. Nations that are independent, prosperous, and secure like our own ultimately owe their independence, prosperity, and security to God. Prosperity and security are not, then, an absolute right or an excuse to oppress other nations or to deny their right to the prosperity; the security; the peace and independence we enjoy, as still happens far too often in our world today.

In our first reading today, from the prophet Isaiah, Assyria has made precisely this mistake of believing itself to be invincible; of having divine right to the occupation and military control of neighboring nations, in this case Israel, which had separated from and become enemies with Judah. The Kingdom of Judah has, against Isaiah’s repeated warnings, allied itself with Assyria against Israel in this kind of Biblical civil war. And yet Assyria’s greed for power and autonomy goes too far. Assyria fails to recognize that she is only an instrument of God to punish Judah for trusting in powers other than God; for making alliances with foreign powers like Assyria. And so, as we hear today, God through Isaiah reserves one of the harshest rebukes in the Book of Isaiah for Assyria. Judah, the kingdom of David’s line, will be chastised, but will ultimately survive by God’s grace, Isaiah says.

Much more gently than Isaiah, Jesus also reminds us that all glory; all prosperity; all wisdom; all goodness ultimately come from God. We are instruments of God, no matter how wise; how prosperous; how good we are as individuals or as a nation. How often have we seen how a child trusts in its parents to provide what it needs to survive and to thrive? We are invited to trust in God in the same way as a child trusts in its parents; in those responsible for its care. Only God will never fail those who trust him; will never “abandon his inheritance,” as our Psalm today acknowledges. This is why Jesus prays in thanksgiving in our Gospel today: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.”

Even if we consider ourselves to be independent; intelligent; wise; self-starters, we are invited to childlike trust in God who gives us “everything that is good”; who reveals to us what we need to survive and to thrive. If we trust in God in this way, God will not disappoint us.