Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 20, 2016: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord...

  Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord…  

  What might our praise sound like as Jesus makes his final entry into Jerusalem?  

   On Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion, we are called to recognize many of the facets of Jesus' identity:  he is at once suffering servant and king, obedient son and Lord, human and divine.  Jesus, as human, fulfills the description of the suffering servant offered by the prophet Isaiah; God has made it possible for him to stand in the face of controversy, steady, his face set like flint, so hard it gives off sparks, ready to suffer at the hands of those who believe they are doing God's will.  On the cross, Jesus will pray Psalm 22, which we should not be too quick to judge as pure lament.  In fact, although the psalm records the poet's distress -- My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? -- in fact, it moves from there to a place of praise for the help God has offered him.  It is as if Jesus is saying, human, I may be completely vulnerable, but so long as God is with me, I will praise my Father and give glory to him!

   The Gospel passage from Luke, read as we conclude the procession with our palms, echoes such praise as Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem on a colt:  Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, the people cry.  They express obeissance, honoring Jesus by spreading their cloaks -- an essential and intimate possession -- on the road he passes over.  Even the stones will cry out, Jesus tells the indignant Pharisees, should they attempt to silence the crowds.  The inevitability of praise shines through our reading from Philippians as well, an early Christian hymn in which Jesus, humble and obedient, is exulted by God, who bestows upon Jesus the name that is above every name:  Jesus Christ is Lord, divine.

   Holy Week gives us the opportunity to contemplate all of these images of Jesus Christ: servant and king, son and Lord, human and divine.  As we move into the sacred space of Triduum, may we each and every one embrace these deep paradoxes of our faith, that we might advance in our knowledge of the salvation that only a Lord who was at once human and divine could operate on our behalf, and join in our confession that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord!

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

Image source:  Wordle

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 28, 2014: Is it my way that is unfair?

Is it my way that is unfair?

Maybe it’s a question of attitude!

You say, ‘The Lord’s way is not fair!’  The prophet Ezekiel is called to share this message with the people of Israel, who are already in exile because they failed to remain faithful to the covenant.  Even there, in their self-centeredness, they are turning away from virtue, which leads to a kind of death – death from community, death to love – where they should be working to maintain that community at all costs, preserving its own life as they preserve their own.  They should, in other words, follow the advice of Psalm 25, praying: Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths… For it is only when our hearts are open to God’s way and to God’s truth that we can truly appreciate God’s justice and kindness, and emulate those qualities in our own lives.

Likewise, in our reading from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus challenges the chief priests and elders with a parable that puts into question their attitude toward righteousness.  Like the son who says he will go to work in the vineyard but does not, Jesus suggests, the priests follow external laws but are not converted within; what they need is repentance, a turning back to God that demonstrates true knowledge of God’s love.  Right relationship means living in the presence of God on God’s terms, from a position of humility.  God’s love is expanding infinitely within us; the only way to stand before it is to be open and submissive, the humble servant who seeks to know God’s will, not imposing our own.  As Paul tells the Philippians, God needs to be the source of our unity, a source of love – the love revealed in Christ – to which we dedicate ourselves, humbly:  complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart…  If our attitude is entirely self-focused, then our hearts will fail to be open, and relationships will be catastrophic.  But if we are other-centered, as Paul recommends, looking out for the needs of those around us, we will find every encouragement in Jesus Christ, seeing as God sees, knowing God’s ways are indeed fair and, even more important, life-giving and just.  It’s a much healthier attitude to cultivate, no?

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 14, 2014: Death on a cross...

Death on a cross...

Imagine the reaction of the first followers to Jesus's choice to die crucified, nailed to a wooden cross, stripped of his garments – the ultimate humiliation... yet, ultimately, salvation.  From this ostensible place of death and defeat, a place of humility chosen by Jesus, the Son of God, comes the most remarkable healing transformation in the history of the earth:  the redemption of humankind from sin.

This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Most Holy Cross, a feast that acknowledges this profound paradox of our faith.  In our first reading from Numbers, Moses raises the saraph serpent on the pole, and those who eagerly turn back to God as they gaze upon it (Psalm 78) are healed from their suffering. This sign was a prefiguration of the final act of the human Jesus, willing to suffer, lifted on the Cross, defeating both sin and death, and gaining everlasting life for those who eagerly turn to him.  As Jesus tells Nicodemus in John’s Gospel, Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.  To believe in the victory of the Cross is to know that God’s love has no bounds, no limits; Jesus is the revelation of the fullness of God’s love.

As Paul explains to the Philippians, Jesus’s humility was necessary; his obedience to a plan greater than he might humanly want came from a place of love.  He first emptied himself in the Incarnation, taking on the likeness of man, and as a man, he died, nailed to a cross.  Yet from that place of ultimate vulnerability and annihilation, God exalted Jesus, so that the cross, a sign of debasement, might become an everlasting symbol of the glory that is God’s, and the salvation that is ours.

We, too, must choose.  To choose the Cross is to choose life, to choose Love, to choose God.  Will you choose the Cross, today?

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