26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ps 128 begins: “O blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in His ways.”
This ‘fear of the Lord’ is proclaimed requently in the Scriptures, especially in
the Old Testament, and it has nothing to do with terror or fright. Fear of the
Lord is a profound reverence, and encompassing grace of regard for our God,
in a word, a love for God which marks the life of one who ‘walks in His ways’
a believer - us - fearers and walkers.

In the reading from Numbers Joshua had a problem with this fear. Of the 70
men designated to assist Moses 2 men, Eldad and Medad, received the Spirit
apart from the others, outside the camp. Joshua, a good man, wanted to
control what God did and in that, he lacked an understanding of Fear of the
Lord, the reverence for God’s ways. Moses set him right “...would that they
all had received this gift.” So Joshua learned something about his own
relationship with God - one does not control God rather one surrenders in
faith and trust and this is true fear, genuine reverence and regard for God,
most positive and most life-giving.
Peter had a similar experience when he tried to correct Jesus. Jesus had
spoken of His suffering, of being killed and then rising so Peter took Him
aside, rebuked Him,

“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall happen to You!”

Jesus’ response was immediate and strong,

“Get behind Me, Satan! You are
an obstacle to Me. You are thinking not as God does but as human beings
do.” In today’s Gospel John had a similar issue about someone driving out
demons in Jesus’ name.
Hopefully, our lives are graced with this Fear of the Lord and we try to walk
in His ways - this is the ideal, of course. For most of us, if not all, the ideal
escapes us not all the time but surely now and then. We cannot actively
control God, like pulling the strings on a puppet; we may try but it is futile.
We might say,

“Jump, God!” God will never reply,

“How high?”

However, we can control God in a rather passive way - in a way that is
sometimes subtle and sometimes not. We hear the Word of the Lord in each

Mass, perhaps we spend time reading that Word on our own and we can
control what we hear - in one ear and out the other. We can water down the
Word and make it convenient or easy or less demanding. We can find excuses
to ignore it; we can be very creative, very complacent, very “unfearful” and
in reality, having poor regard for God who is being treated cheaply.
In the Book of Proverbs we read,

“The beginning of wisdom is Fear of the
Lord and so when we choose a lesser degree of fidelity to our vocation, of
honesty in our dealings, a lesser degree of truth, charity, chastity,
forgiveness, courtesy then these personal choices are not of wisdom rather
of foolishness. This foolishness, the opposite of wisdom limits the work of
God in us, limits His grace - it is a kind of refusal of God’s love. We are
saying,

“God, come no farther!”

At the end of today’s Gospel Jesus proposes a radical way - if your hand
causes you to sin, cut it off - same with your foot - if your eye, pluck it out -
of course, this is hyperbole, never to be taken literally. However, as Jesus’
word, it is not to be ignored. Jesus speaks of fighting temptation and
sometimes it takes great effort. Temptations can be very enticing, very
blinding; the Lord is telling us, in no uncertain terms, make every effort to
render temptation powerless. Jesus Himself did this in the desert when Satan
tempted Him. Recall that Jesus fought him off with the Sacred Word of
Scripture.
“O blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in His ways.”A call to us to
seek sincerely the grace of the Fear of the Lord, this deep, profound
reverence which is wisdom and flee from foolishness, the foolishness of
walking in our own way. If, for whatever reason, we choose our own way, a
question arises: “Where will that way lead?”