I remember someone blaming their parents for “letting” them get into trouble by doing something they knew to be wrong. The first reading seems to do the same thing, saying, in a sense, “all our mistakes are God’s fault, because he could have stopped us but didn’t.” Here the prophet seems to imply that if God were more “heavy handed” we wouldn’t be in such difficulties. That kind of thinking eliminates the idea of “free will” and “personal responsibility!
God loves us and gives us free will because he loves us and wants us to choose to love him in return. To remove free will, we would all become robots, unable to love. A people devoid of love is not the kind of people God wants.
I once had someone ask me to “tell them what to do” because they didn’t want to have to think. We have Sacred Scripture. We have the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We have the Church’s magisterium. The problem is if we don’t like something we want to throw everything out. The problem isn’t God, but us.
We start off the new liturgical year (B) with a reading from the Gospel of Mark. The reading is appropriate for the Advent season as we prepare to celebrate the first coming of Jesus and as we await his second coming. “Jesus said to his disciples: “Be watchful! Be alert!” Boring! Boring! Boring! Boring! After waiting, watching, and being alert for a short while our attention quickly wanes.
When I was studying preaching, we were told to keep the homily short and to one point. The reason is because the average attention span of an adult is only 8.5 seconds. Any wonder why people start reading the bulletin instead of listening to the preacher?
Are we truly a people expecting Jesus’ return? If so, are we acting like it?
Countenance of God 