For Good Reason

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071525.cfm

We often have to remind ourselves that God's ways are so high above our ways. So when we are tempted to put our faulty human motives in the actions of Jesus, we should probably take a moment to pause.

It is easy for us to read Jesus' harsh words of warning to the towns on the north end of the Sea of Galilee and hear condemnation and retribution. But Jesus does two things that tell us a bit about what He is really up to. The first is that He uses Scripture to issue his warning. All of scripture, as St. Paul puts it: "is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness." Jesus is using the story of Sodom as a teaching tool for correction.

The second thing He does is He speaks to the future. This means there is time for course correction. It also means that the time of judgement is not now, and as St. John tells us in his Gospel: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn* the world, but that the world might be saved through him." We always have to remember Jesus' ultimate purpose, goal and intention - to save the world.

Sometimes in our life, things don't go well and we might wonder if we are being 'punished' or even if God does not care about us any more. When we encounter these things that is when it is most critical for us to remember that God is good and desires our saving. He desires it so much that He sent His only Son to die so that it might happen. Jesus wanted Chorazin to learn something in the midst of this chastisement. We must open ourselves to what God might be telling us or teaching us in the midst of our difficulty. Not that God makes the difficulty, but He may allow it and desire that we will learn, learn that He is good, that He desires our saving more than any other thing.