Letting Go of Your Expectations

Today's Readings

So the second reading today is a rare moment when St. Paul says something which I believe whole-heartedly and often feel is not widely held in the Christian community today:

the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants,
not to those who only adhere to the law
but to those who follow the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of all of us, as it is written,
I have made you father of many nations.

St. Paul is talking about bringing in the Gentiles, but I think it is a good reminder of things like, say, the Syrian refugee crisis.  And also to the theology classes struggling mightily before Spring Break with the idea that just because someone has once heard of Christianity, they are therefore damned because they didn't drop everything to pick up this new religion.  The high school students recognize this for the ridiculous unfairness that it is.  Or rather would be.

But the promises of God are not only for the people who follow His Law.  Not only for the people who adhere to the catechism and the precepts of an organized faith.  But the people true of heart.

I know it's not proper Catholic doctrine, but if you want a more thorough and elegant argument for it, I make a stab at that somewhere in the back catalogue of this blog.  Also, there are people who do it better than me out there.  Welcome to the Internet, where someone has always said it better, smarter, or at least more entertainingly than you have.

The better lesson for those in the faith, however, might be the way the Old Testament reading interacts with the gospel.  We see the promise given to David about his lineage producing the messiah and stretching on forever, similar to Abraham's promise.  And then we see Joseph (of the line of David, right?) see that promise fulfilled in a way he would never have seen coming.  Never have expected.  Never have chosen (certainly not in a vacuum with other options on the menu).

And he accepted them.  Joseph was able to take the curveball thrown his world view, his likely interpretation of a key scripture passage, his plans for his life and marriage, his sense of reality and unreality...and assimilate them into his life.  Do what God asked of him, even though it had to be nothing like Joseph ever would have thought God would ask of him.

Oh, how hard we take it when our worldviews and expectations fall about our feet...

Accept the will of God when it is not simply hard but contrary to what you thought it would be.  Now that is faith indeed.