I've Come to do Your Will

Jan 24: Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales

Jan 24, 2023

Religion gets a bad rap for always telling people what to do. Full of rules and laws and things. Today’s readings tend to contradict that view.

Reading 1

Heb 10:1-10

Brothers and sisters: Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of them, it can never make perfect those who come to worship by the same sacrifices that they offer continually each year. Otherwise, would not the sacrifices have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, once cleansed, would no longer have had any consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is only a yearly remembrance of sins, for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins. For this reason, when he came into the world, he said:

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, As is written of me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do your will, O God.

First he says, Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in. These are offered according to the law. Then he says, Behold, I come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By this "will," we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Children love rules. They want to know exactly what they are and are not allowed to do. But if you ever try to lay down a complete list of household rules, you’ll find it’s impossible; they’ll always find some edge-case you hadn’t thought of. This is even more true when it comes to adults and society. No law is ever going to be complete. It’s impossible to cover every imaginable situation, every possible exception.1

So you get Pharisees and scribes trying to split hairs about this commandment or that. How exactly do you sacrifice and when? Is it okay to heal the sick on a Sunday? And so on.

Jesus blows through all that. He offers himself as a sacrifice. He does God’s will, not only for our sins to be forgiven, but to give us an example to follow. It may be hard to discern at times, but co-operating with God’s will should always be our goal, not following the law.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 40:2 and 4ab, 7-8a, 10, 11

R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, "Behold I come."
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
Your justice I kept not hid within my heart;
your faithfulness and your salvation I have spoken of;
I have made no secret of your kindness and your truth
in the vast assembly.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.

This is the Psalm the author of Hebrews referred to above. As you can see, even in King David’s time,2 focusing on specific forms of sacrifice or oblation instead of God was already a problem. Open your ears to God!

Alleluia

Mt 11:25

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Children are more open to hearing God’s word, because they’re used to listening and obeying anyway. Yet God doesn’t fill them with rules, but with love.

Gospel

Mk 3:31-35

The mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house. Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him. A crowd seated around him told him, "Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you."

But he said to them in reply, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

Quick note about “brothers” — the Greek word here does, indeed, mean what we think it does, “another son of both of your parents.” But the Hebrew word ’āh is more inclusive, i.e. nephews, cousins, and half-brothers. And it’s reasonable to assume Mark is using the word broadly, as later he mentions “Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married,”3 and we know Philip was Herod’s half-brother.

So no, protestants, this passage doesn’t prove that Mary’s not a virgin. Sorry, better luck next time.

And once again, Jesus blows that familial discussion out of the water anyway, saying that doing the will of God is what makes you His brother or sister. And notice he doesn’t say “the law.” God is much bigger than any law, even the law of Moses.