Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 22, 2020: You shall love the Lord, your God, and your neighbor as yourself...

You shall love the Lord, your God, and your neighbor as yourself…

What does right relationship look like?

   When, in the Book of Exodus, God establishes his covenant with the people, God mandates social laws that prescribe the compassionate care of those less fortunate.  Widows, orphans, resident aliens, the poor:  all of these live in a state of utter dependence, and the compassion the people should extend to them has its origin in God himself.  If your neighbor cries out to me, I will hear him, for I am compassionate, God tells the people.  The people must live in right relationship with other – with neighbors and alien residents alike – in order to live in right relationship with God.  Moreover, to be in right relationship with God makes life extraordinary because it means that God is involved in our lives, supports us, and blesses us, as Psalm 18 recognizes: I love you, O Lord, my strength, O Lord, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.  We are to embrace our absolute dependence on God and, in it, our absolute love for God, our foundation in all things, a love that flows out from us to other.

   That love for God and for other is at the center of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, who challenge him in Matthew’s Gospel to identify the greatest commandment.  His response is the Shema Yisrael:  You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  No aspect of our self is excused from relationship with God; we are to love with the whole of our being.  And that absolute love for God is the context for loving our neighbor as ourselves thanks to that love that overflows abundantly to other.  The Thessalonians were, in this sense, a model for all believers; their embrace of the kingdom, their acceptance of God’s perfect love, allowed them to give witness to that love.  From them the word of the Lord sounded forth as a joyful witness to the blessings to be found in right relationship with God and with other.  May we give similar witness to the power of that love in our lives and the joy it brings to be in right relationship with the Lord.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 26, 2014: You shall love...

You shall love...

Whom do you love?

Concern for others has long been a tenet of social justice, even before the term social justice came into existence.  In our reading from Exodus this Sunday, Moses is charged with bringing the Law to the people of Israel, a Law that spells out what their interactions with others should look like.  Concern for aliens, widows, and children is paramount:  If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry… The same holds true for their treatment of all of their neighbors:  they are to live as if others in this world matter, because they matter in the eyes of God, the Lord tells Moses.  And your relationship with Other has everything to do with your relationship with God.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus condenses four entire chapters of Exodus into two fundamental commandments that ultimately say the very same thing:  You shall love the Lord, your God… and your neighbor as yourself.  These two laws define all the rest:  God demands that we love God and other, both.  If you love God with all that you are, you can’t help but love your neighbor as well.  If you don’t extend love to your neighbor, then you probably don’t love God entirely.  Yes, we should exclaim, as the psalmist does in Psalm 18, I love you, o Lord, my strength, but we must also open our hearts to those around us, our neighbors … all of our neighbors. 

The Thessalonians understood this message:  their love for God is so utterly grounded in their love for Other that it is recognized everywhere they travel to proclaim the word:  they themselves openly declare, Paul says, what sort of reception we had among you.  The Thessalonians are living the love Christ brings; they have opened their hearts, and their lives, and that openness is proclaimed throughout the region. Isn’t this precisely what we as Christians are meant to do?  To open our own hearts so that we might transform the existence of those around us by bringing the love – and the Word – of God to bear upon others’ lives, and hearts?

Whom do you love enough to transform with the love God has for you?

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 19, 2014: I have called you by your name...

I have called you by your name...

What defines your relationship to God?

In our reading this Sunday from Isaiah, God has allowed a foreign king, Cyrus, to play a role in saving Israel.  The image is a powerful one:  God grasps Cyrus’s right hand, empowering the human king with new authority to accomplish God’s goals.  This gesture radically alters the Israelites’ understanding of their own relationship with God:  I am the Lord; there is no other.  It is a clear statement of monotheism:  our God is the God, the only God, a fact celebrated in Psalm 96:  For all the gods of the nations are things of nought; hence the people are called to Give the Lord glory and honor.

By Jesus’s time, monotheism has taken firm hold, but what it means to be in relationship with that one God is still subject to definition.  In their attempt to trap Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees in fact trap themselves.  Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?, they ask, providing the coin Jesus asks for and thus demonstrating they are guilty of the idolatry associated with carrying Caesar’s image.  Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar is Jesus’s way of saying, don’t get caught up with trivialities like coins; give Caesar his coins and give God your heart!  That is the mark of true relationship:  not that we quibble about arcane rules, but that we concern ourselves with grace, with God’s dwelling among us, paying close attention to our covenant relationship first and foremost.  All human politics are insignificant in comparison. 

That grace – God dwelling with us – is the very same that Paul wishes on the Thessalonians.  We can live under foreign domination – Cyrus, Caesar, whomever – so long as we allow the peace that comes from that indwelling of God to permeate us, so long as we open ourselves to the faith, hope, and love that will bear good fruit.  If God – the one God, Lord over all, rules our lives and governs our existence, then we will know the grace and peace of a strong relationship with the Lord, who calls us by name, every single day.

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 12, 2014: Behold, I have prepared my banquet...

Behold, I have prepared my banquet...

Have you RSVP’d to the eternal banquet yet?

Feasts pervade our readings for this Sunday, as we ponder the question:  what does it take to have a seat at God’s eternal banquet for us in heaven?   To start with, Matthew’s gospel presents yet another parable designed to disconcert the Pharisees:  Jesus tells the story of the king’s banquet, to which those who were invited were not fit to come, at which point said king opens his invitation to the entire community, bad and good alike.  It’s not enough just to show up, though:  the man who arrives without the appropriate wedding garment – the man who has not worked for right relationship with God – is cast out; he is not spiritually ready for salvation.  To wear the wedding garment is thus to demonstrate you have taken up the work of God, opening your heart to allow his love to flow through your life. 

Writing to the Philippians, Paul gives concrete witness to the love he has allowed to flow through him.  He has known abundance as well as want:  I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry.  What is that secret?  That, no matter the circumstances, God is there for him, so long as righteousness – right relationship with God – remains his goal.  Open to that relationship, Paul can anticipate the (to his mind, imminent) abundance of the end time without concern for the feasts or famine of his current circumstances:  My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

The prophet Isaiah’s description of this wonderful repast includes rich food and choice wines, a state of abundance where no one will want for anything.  Even the fear of death has been removed, for God will destroy death forever.  Psalm 23 extends this imagery to suggest God’s ultimate fulfillment of the covenant:  God as Shepherd provides ample food, water, and protection for his flock; then, the psalmist anticipates an abundant victory banquet reminiscent of Isaiah:  my cup overflows.  Thus may the psalmist know God’s goodness and kindness – when he has remained in right relationship to God, faithful to covenant. 

Are you ready to open your heart to right relationship with God?  Answering ‘yes’ to this question is tantamount to an RSVP in the affirmative:  let your love flow through me, o Lord, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come!

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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