Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Reflecting on James 3:16-4:3
Ah, desire. We know what that feels like. And it’s captured beautifully in the third chapter of the letter to James. Jealousy, selfish ambition, covetousness, envy…who hasn’t suffered these disordered desires? Envy, the book of Genesis makes clear, is the Original Sin. Cain was so envious of his brother Abel’s favorable offering to God that he murdered him! We get no explanation for WHY Abel’s sacrifice was found acceptable. Still, we can certainly hear today’s Wisdom passage in Cain’s murderous act: The wicked say: Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us.
Our first parents suffered envy so terribly that they willingly ate the forbidden fruit—probably imagined as a pomegranate, by the way, not the apple we often see in religious art—because they believed the Tempter’s Lie that it would make them like gods. They didn’t realize that they already lived like gods. Now, (the author of Genesis believed), we can all thank them as we wrestle with those relentless weeds in our gardens.
But here’s the good news, for you younger readers. It gets SO MUCH BETTER with age. As we get older, many of the envies that tormented us when we were young are long gone. Life has sorted itself out, and, at least in my observance, elderly people are not still pining for their teenage heartthrob. At least I HOPE not!
But here’s where it gets really good. The Jewish faith believes that the heart is where we make our choices. We can CHOOSE against envy by CHOOSING not to want what the advertisers so passionately NEED us to want. This is a good thing to remember as we enter these pre-Christmas months.
How has desire made you unwise? How has wisdom calmed the desire for more?
(Thank you, Alice Camille, for these great questions from God’s Word is Alive) Kathy McGovern ©2024
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