Isaiah 40:1-11 / Matthew 18:12-14
We know what a problem is. It is a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome, or something difficult to achieve or accomplish.
But when a person is labelled as a problem, it certainly encompasses all the above traits as well as making the situation much more complex because it is an "animated problem".
So we will come across terms like "problem kid" or "problem worker" or "problem boss".
And there are certainly no straight-forward or clear-cut solutions to these "problems".
The 1st reading has this interesting passage: All flesh is grass and its beauty like the wild flower's. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on them. (The grass is without doubt the people). The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God remains forever.
As we read the Old Testament, it is quite clear to us that the Chosen people of God had incessantly given God problem after problem. They are like a "problem people".
The straight-forward clear-cut solution would be to abandon them and cut them off and choose another group of people.
But if God's ways are not our ways, then God's way of dealing with a problem is certainly not our way either.
Just like in the gospel parable of how ridiculous it seems to leave the 99 obedient sheep in search of the one who strayed.
And it is even more ridiculous for God to become man in Jesus. Yet when it comes to saving the lost, nothing is ridiculous for God.
So when we face "problem people" may we keep in mind that it is never the will of God that one of them should be lost.