God is good

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B (14 October 2018)

Wisdom 7:7-11

Hebrews 4:12-13

Mark 10:17-30

"No one is good but God alone."

The rich young man, whom we meet in Sunday's gospel reading, prided himself on his goodness. He was the essence of respectability; a perfectionist for going to church (in our terms), attending prayer services and observing the commandments. He was assertive enough to come forward and to ask Christ a fundamental question: "Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus begins his reply thus: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone." Have we ever thought of and reflected on this statement? Or do we gloss over it every time? Only God is good. God is goodness itself. We can only participate in this goodness of God. God is the source and inspiration of all goodness. (There is no hate in God. There is no anger or punishing attitude in God. There is no "badness" in God.)

If God is only goodness, then He can only give us good things. He is always good, He always gives us good things, He is always concerned about us. Perhaps we are the ones who see some things as bad, or unnecessary. But God can use all things for our good. Whatever happens has a message for us, if only we allow God to give us a new set of eyes. Sometimes we don't see the meaning of our life at a particular moment, and that is the time we need a lot of patience. Darkness and meaninglessness too are for our good. 

God is an expert in even using peoples' sin for good, but those who refuse to see their dark side He cannot use! As we see in the gospels, Jesus himself is never upset at sinners. He's only upset with people who don't think they're sinners.

David wants to build Yahweh a house to prove to Yahweh that he's a good boy. Through Prophet Nathan, Yahweh says to David, "I don't want you to build me a house. I will build you a house. I will give you rest from all your enemies. I will make you great. I preserve your offspring until eternity." This is the goodness of our God, who makes us good. His goodness transforms us. In fact, for David, this was the moment of great conversion. We all start by thinking we are going to do something for God, and as we move on in our lives (especially by the end of our lives) we know God has done it all for us. This is the willingness we need to have. God will do it for us! Everything is grace!

Therefore we can say with conviction: God does not love you because you are good, but you are good because God loves you. In other words, God does not love you if or when you change, but God loves you so that you may change.

But a better statement would be the following, my favourite one (thanks to Fr Richard Rohr OFM): God does not love you because you are good. God loves you because God is good.