Winners Can Wait

July 20: Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time:

Wisdom 12:13,16-19; Psalm 86:5-6,9-10,15-16; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43

Thoughts to help us surrender to Jesus expressing himself through us in ministry.

“Your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.” Wisdom 12:16

The strong are free to forgive. Those assured of victory can wait.

Sinners don’t threaten Jesus. They can neither destroy nor diminish his victory. All he wants is to forgive them.

God created us to love like God: freely. Christ’s victory is not measured by how many choose that; he won by restoring our freedom to choose or reject it. He overcame sin, not by abolishing it, but by making it avoidable and forgivable. Now every human has the option to choose to be like God. Humans created to be free have been made free—or freed to become free—in spite of sin and error in the world. That is Christ’s victory. It is complete, regardless of the numbers.

Christians minister to freedom. We have power to forgive and power to love, but no power to destroy. Destroying sinners destroys freedom. Destroying freedom repudiates the purpose of creation. So we spread truth and love among the mixture of wheat and weeds, leaving everyone free to choose.

Error restricts freedom. So does prohibiting error. Truth makes people free, not ignorance of error.

At the end, there will be nothing left but people who are what they have chosen to be: the victory of a God who creates us to be like himself—free—for better or worse.

PRAY: “Lord, you empower my choices. Guide me.”

PRACTICE: Give freely what you have freely received.