Sweet hope

You have filled your people with sweet hope,
by prompting them to repent…
Wisdom 12: 19 

 It sometimes feels as if our world is overwhelmed with violence, with war, with poverty, and oppression and there is nothing we can do.

We sometimes want instant solutions that make things right overnight. We are like the servants in today’s parable of the wheat and weeds (Matthew 13: 24-30) who want to get rid of the weeds – once and for all.

But God works differently, slowly, quietly, in subtle ways. God works like leaven.

As José Pagola comments, in Following in the Footsteps of Jesus:

 The kingdom of God comes about like the leaven that a woman “hides” in the dough so that the whole mass gets fertilized. That’s how God acts. He does not come from the outside to impose his power like the emperor of Rome, but to transform human life from within in a silent and hidden manner.

This is the way God acts: he does not impose, but transforms; does not dominate, but attracts. Thus, those who work with him in his project must act like leaven by bringing in his truth, his justice and his love in a humble way, but with transforming power.

We are called to be the leaven in the dough, helping God’s love become present in our world.

In this way, we can become grains of God’s hope in a world that so needs to see God working among us, planting hope and prompting us to repent of all that keeps this from happening.