Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 307​

Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,

but ears open to obedience you gave me.

Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;

then said I, “Behold I come.”

In his book, Love and Will, the psychologist Rollo May described the essential difference between willingness and willfulness. I have often found that distinction important as I considered the decisions I must make and the attitudes I should take.

Willfulness is full of itself. It has made up its mind about what it wants, and believes it must have its preferences for no other reason than they're preferred. Willfulness believes in itself and sees no higher authority than the self. If willful persons change their mind about something, the new approach may be just as arbitrary and uncompromising as the prior one.

Willingness is open to discussion, compromise, and team playing. It can wait for situations to develop, and solutions to appear. It can step back and let others decide when that seems the better way to go. Willingness knows the time, in the sense of Ecclesiastes 3: "There is a time for everything under heaven." And if it's not sure of the time, it knows the time for decision has not yet come.

Today's readings from First Samuel and the Gospel according to Saint Mark tells stories of several willing persons as they played their parts in Salvation History.

The old judge Eli, blind and weary, might have willfully clung to his privileged position in Shiloh. By anyone's standards he deserved the veneration of the people and the comforts of an easy old age. He had suffered the humiliating death of his treacherous sons, and survived the scandal to retain his coveted position. He was a kindly man; if he judged Samuel's mother too harshly when he found her weeping, he was willing to hear her sorrow and bless her with a prayer.

But the hour had come and the Lord had decided that Eli should step aside and cede his place to a child, the boy Samuel. Even in the middle of the night, as the child pestered him, he realized that God was removing him from office. He might have been physically ready for retirement but we can imagine his disappointment as he handed his position to someone else's child.

The child Samuel also demonstrates a beautiful, willing spirit as he misinterprets the midnight voice. He cannot imagine that God is calling him but he is ready at a moment's notice to serve the old man. He still responds even after Eli has told him twice, "I did not call you." He does not think maybe the old man is getting foolish in his old age, or that he is muttering in his sleep. He wakes the judge a third time before they both realize something important is happening.

The gospel too speaks of people willing to experience the unexpected. First, there is Jesus who immediately heals Peter's mother-in-law; and then there is the woman who shakes off her illness to serve the Lord and his disciples. The crowds, of course, are very willing to bring their sick to the Healer. Finally, we find Jesus obeying the Holy Spirit as he must abandon his mission in Capernaum to announce the Gospel in other places.

With prayer and practice and the companionship of a faithful community, it's not hard to recognize the difference between willfulness and willingness. Even when I am sure my plan is good, sound, and reasonable and must surely correspond to God's will, it is good to discuss it with others. As Saint John said, "Test every spirit." The willful and the willing invariably declare "This is God's will!" but the willing have the assurance of a community and may act in the name of the Church. The willful act on their own, often leaving the Church to pick up the pieces.

We ask the Lord to give us that compliant spirit for our faith assures us our accomplishments must fade and disappear while God's works endure forever.

A voice says, “Proclaim!”

I answer, “What shall I proclaim?”

“All flesh is grass,

and all their loyalty like the flower of the field.b

The grass withers, the flower wilts,

when the breath of the LORD blows upon it.”

“Yes, the people is grass!

The grass withers, the flower wilts,

but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)