January 19, 2012
2nd Thursday of Ordinary Time
1 Sam 18: 6-9; 19: 1-7; Mk 3: 7-12
There’s God’s plan . . . and then there’s our plan. Are we going to conform our plan to God’s, or are we going to spend our time kicking against the goad? Often, our efforts to push through our own plan end up hurting our cause in the long run rather than helping it.
In our first reading we heard about Saul’s plan. His plan was to be number one and remain number one. David was a threat to that plan, so he decided to kill him. God’s plan was to make David king. All the time that David fought on Saul’s side, Saul’s army was successful in it’s struggle with the Philistines. His attempts to kill David alienated his best warrior and weakened his army.
We are often afraid of God’s plan; we lack trust. That’s why we try to force through our plan. We don’t want to relinquish any power; we don’t want to risk any suffering. But the key is our refrain from the Responsorial Psalm today: “In God I trust; I shall not fear.”
Saul feared that if David became king he would kill Saul and all his progeny so there would be no rival claimants to the throne. But in fact, the two times that David had it in his power to kill Saul -- when he was in the cave relieving nature, and when David snuck into his camp at night in the desert of Ziph -- those two times he did not kill him, and refused to do any harm to God’s anointed. In addition, David and Jonathan were best friends. David would never have brought any harm to him. In fact, they had made an agreement. In chapter 23 of 1st Samuel Jonathan tells David, “Have no fear, my father Saul shall not lay a hand to you. You shall be king of Israel and I will be second to you.” And it continues, “They made a joint agreement before the Lord in Horesh.” Also, once David did become king he searched out Jonathan’s one son, Meribbaal, and made sure he always ate at the king’s table with David’s own sons.
As it turned out, Saul lost his own life and the lives of three of his sons, including his beloved Jonathan, on Mt. Gilboa while fighting against the Philistines. If David and his men would have still been part of his army, that never would have happened.
Now let’s back up to the time of Moses. There was God’s plan and then there was Pharaoh's plan. Pharaoh tried to weaken the Israelites. He made them produce the same amount of bricks but made them gather their own straw. He attempts to weaken them just made them stronger. He tried to reduce their numbers by forcing the male babies to be killed, but it just made them more prolific. And in the process, he unwittingly caused the future deliverer to be raised by his own daughter. When Moses finally did get to the point of petitioning Pharaoh to let his people go, Pharaoh’s resistance led to the death of his first-born son, the devastation of his country, the plundering of the jewelry and other precious articles of his people, and the annihilation of his army in the Red Sea. He would have been much better off if he would have incorporated the Israelites into his own nation. They would have made him stronger against his enemies.
Now let’s fast-forward to the time of Jesus’s birth. There was Herod’s plan and then there was God’s plan. Herod tried to thwart God’s plan by having all the infant boys in Bethlehem killed. His insecurity and suspicious nature eventually led him to also kill one of his wives and three of his sons. Any suspected rival to his throne had to be done away with. But Jesus was no threat to his kingdom. Jesus’ kingship was other-worldly, not of this world. If Herod would have welcomed Jesus into his kingdom, he would have died a happy, peaceful man -- not a paranoid butcher.
Finally, let’s skip to the time of WWII. There was Hitler’s plan and then there was God’s plan. Hitler set out to expunge the Jewish race. What he ended up accomplishing, though, was a brain-drain of his own country. All the brilliant scientists, like Einstein and others who were able, emigrated to America and other countries. If he would have left the Jews alone, Germany would have invented the atomic bomb first and Hitler would have succeeded in his plan of conquering the world.
So? The moral of the story? Makes God’s plan our plan.
