Response to Goodness

The behaviour of the people featured in the texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary today is difficult to understand. The prophet Isaiah presents the suffering servant who is responding to his intimate relationship with the Divine by presenting the Covenant between God and the people in the form of one who moves faithfully in an unpretentious manner teaching about the delight in which God relates to His people. This apparently non threatening response draws the ire of members of his community who attempt to discredit and ridicule him. The psalmist draws confidence in the ever Present to accompany him in the mission to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. The goodness of the Lord is presented to our eyes by the many gestures and actions of people who show respect, delight, hospitality, faithfulness, devotion, passion and more as they live aware of a dignity in others which is not tied to station or profession but to an understanding that in a marvellous mysterious way we are tied together in a Body and in a relationship with the Divine which as the Gospel of John shows today is sometimes difficult to understand or place in the boundaries of everyday experience. There are breakthroughs of light and action which point to Transcendence. We respond, as Mary, on our knees with senses overwhelmed. We respond as Judas, in fear and confusion desperately resisting and denying the movement in our Spirit toward the unknown where the trust of the psalmist is required. The truth of the relationship with the Goodness is that it is life as Lazarus shows. It is Life from the Divine which we understand is not under our control and it that absence of control we struggle in anger and aggression.