The Stewardship of God's Grace

Paul begins today’s first reading, Eph. 3: 2-12,  with the statement: “Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit…”  Each of us, also, has been given “the stewardship of God’s grace” for others’ benefit, not for our own.  Earlier in this same letter,  Chapter 1, verses 1-11, Paul says to us: “In Christ…[you] were…chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory.” We “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,…the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession,to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1: 1-11).

Do I realize that I am not my own, that I belong to God? Do I realize that today God has a purpose for me or am I so intent on the goals I have set for myself that this underlying, foundational goal set by God is lost to me?  Does “this is what I am going to do today, in this meeting, in this encounter,” shut me out of waiting upon the Lord, allowing the Lord to show me His glory in “what I am going to do today, in this meeting, in this encounter”? Am I do noisy that I do not hear God at work?  If God’s grace is given to me for other people’s benefit, in what way do I allow “God’s grace” to reveal itself without my interference in  how that will happen in the events, the relationships, the opportunities given to me today to experience the “inheritance toward redemption”  (Ephesians 1: 11-14)that God wants to show me?

In Utmost for His Highest, the spiritual writer for today’s meditation, Oct. 22, challenges me with the words: “…abandon yourself to Him in total surrender….abandon your own reasoning and arguing” and then God will witness “to what He has done.” “The Spirit of God,” this spiritual author states, “witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else….We are inclined,” he says, “to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason[ing].”

All I can say is “Lord, have mercy!”

God delights in clemency

In today’s first reading, Micah 7: 14-15, 18-20, our God is described as One “who removes guilt,” “pardons sins,” “delights…in clemency,” has “compassion on us,” treads our guilt underfoot, “casts into the depths of the sea all our sins,” and shows His “faithfulness” and “grace.”

Wow, what a God in contrast to the gods of the nations that surrounded Israel—gods who were anything but merciful, compassionate and forgiving.  Over repeated transgressions of the covenant, God remains faithful to the Chosen People, forming them into a “close-knit family,” who can, then, open its doors freely to neighbors and outsiders,” (Stuhlmueller, Carroll, O.P., Biblical Meditations for Ordinary Time—Weeks 10-22, Paulist Press, NY, 1984, p. 124) without losing its identify as God’s people and being prepared for Jesus’ message of inclusiveness; namely that all people  “who do the Father’s will are brother and sister and mother to Me” (Mt. 12: 50).

How firmly am I rooted in my faith and my faith community?  How open am I to those whose beliefs  differ from mine? How inclusive am I of others who, like myself, hopefully, are doing the will of the Father, when to what God is calling them differs from to what God is calling me?  Do I, like God, view people through the lens of compassion, pardon, clemency and ways to make God’s compassion a reality?  Do I view the world through the lens  of God’s faithfulness and grace? Or is my view narrowed by prejudice, exclusivity, shame and guilt, the letter of the law, no matter what?