Doing the Father’s will rather
than our own
John 5: 19-20, 30
Jesus answered
and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his
own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do
also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself
does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed.
“I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I
hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will
of the one who sent me.”
We Indians get
a bad rap for our tradition of “arranged marriages.” Do you know what that is? It’s where your parents pick your future
spouse. The great Indian liberator,
Mahatma Gandhi, married his wife when both he and she were only 13 years
old. We in the West would find that
appalling – maybe even mild child abuse – but the Gandhi’s stayed married all
their life, until the assassination. But
what recommends this custom is that your parents are better judges of who will
make a good spouse for you than you are.
The 60% divorce rate here in the U.S. certainly makes you wonder why we
choose spouses so poorly. Of course, I
avoided all that trouble by becoming a priest: so I could marry all of
YOU! Lucky you. Who’s the best person to help you pick your
life-partner?
This is what’s
really going on in the gospel today: Jesus accepts his “arranged
marriage.” Jesus says unequivocally: “I
do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” And what exactly was the will of Jesus’
Father? The Father didn’t just want his
Son to save a bunch of people so Holy Trinity would have some company in
heaven. Rather, the Father sent the Son
to earth to seek a spouse, a spouse that the Father had hand-picked for him and
had been preparing for him throughout the whole Old Testament, namely, the
Jewish people. God sent the Son not only
to be a Savior but to be a Spouse. Now,
Jesus words, “I do not seek my own will,” make a lot more sense, doesn’t
it? It’s like he’s saying, “Hey, this
ain’t the dame I would have taken to the dance!” Like Mahatma Gandhi, however, Jesus accepts
his father’s pick for his life-partner, and Jesus and his spouse (the Church)
stay married forever.
Do you know the
only people who are really opposed to arranged marriage? It’s people who don’t have any children! Why?
Well, as soon as you have children you instantly understand two
indisputable facts: (1) how much you want what’s best for your children, and
(2) how much your children have no clue what’s best for them! It’s like that movie, “My Big Fat Greek
Wedding.” At the end the groom’s parents
give the couple a new house as a gift.
Of course, the house is right next door to theirs. It wasn’t an arranged marriage, but it was
close. Now, I’m not advocating arranged
marriages (well, sort of), but I am urging us to include others in our
decision-making, especially our parents, and above all, our heavenly
Father. We must learn to say with Jesus,
"I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me." Because you see, in the end, if you want to
be married forever, it will be with a Spouse that you won’t get to pick, but
will be chosen for you, namely, Jesus.
That’s the only way to get to The Big Dance.
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