Bible: Gives wisdom,solutions to problems

	Word to Life  Jeff Hensley

Jesuit Father Hubert Schiffer was a retreat master at Montserrat Jesuit Retreat House on the eastern edge of the Diocese of Fort Worth. He liked to tell a sort of shaggy-dog-style story about counsel given a man riding a donkey.

After many doses of advice, all of it thought wise by those who should have tended their own business, the man ends up carrying the donkey.

Father Schiffer would tell the story when others gave him unsought advice. As a man who had survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, rescuing orphaned Japanese children and caring for them after picking innumerable shards of glass from his own flesh, he was a man to be listened to. He had suffered for Jesus and gone on to perform valorous deeds.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Sunday, July 22, 2007) Genesis 18:1-10a Psalm 15:2-5 Colossians 1:24-28 Luke 10:38-42

If someone were to use today's Scriptures to give specific advice about specific problems, he just might end up making a man carry a donkey. The passages seem to conflict.

Then too a person would surely scratch her head reading about Paul offering the sufferings of his own body "for the lack in the sufferings of Christ" on behalf of the church, and then reading about Jesus saying to Martha that Mary has chosen the better part in sitting and soaking up his teachings rather than serving him as their guest.

Combine these two with the Genesis reading in which Abraham is to be rewarded for his extraordinary service to the three strangers in the desert and the confusion is compounded.

It is impossible to give straightforward advice based on these readings - that is, unless the advice is to listen to God in each situation while holding fast to godly principles and governing one's behavior honorably. Following that piece of advice would put you in the category of the just, which is described in the psalm.

The previous verse to this day's reading asks: "Who will be able to dwell on God's holy mountain?"

	Reflection questions • Have you ever found conflicting advice on a problem when you searched the Scriptures? • How can you use prayer and wise counsel in such situations?

The reply begins with verse two: "He who walks blamelessly and does justice and thinks the truth in his heart . . . and harms not his fellow man."

The Bible isn't a cookbook out of which we can draw perfect, specific solutions to every problem, but it does point us to wisdom and to ways to seek God's solutions to how to act in all situations.

This column is offered in cooperation with the North Texas Catholic of Fort Worth, Texas.