Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 23, 2020: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

Do we have access to God?

  Humankind has long known that God is ineffable, that is, that God is too great to be expressed or described in words.  Paul recognizes this in his Letter to the Romans:  How inscrutable are God’s judgments and how unsearchable his ways!  We can’t know the mind of the Lord; we can’t plumb the depths of God’s wisdom.  And so, like Paul, we must simply trust, confident in our God who has invested all in Creation – for from him and through him and for him are all things – with faith in God’s plan for us all. 

  And yet… ultimately, Jesus himself is our access to God. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Like the key placed on Eliakim’s shoulder in Isaiah’s story of Shebna, a key that gives access to the king, Jesus opens our way to God through his death and resurrection.  Our role is to collaborate with him, remaining open to the Lord and to the Lord’s revelation as Peter was, even as we are fully aware of the inscrutability of the Lord.  The Christian community was founded on faith, on the disciples’ ability to hear God and to be open to God.  Indeed, faith is the key that opens us to God’s will rather than subjecting us to our own will.  Knowing, as Psalm 138 suggests, that the Lord hears the words of our mouth, we must be open to the intimacy that the Lord reveals, a community or ekklesia gathered together around our belief in Jesus, willing to embrace his inscrutability as we nonetheless seek a covenant relationship with our Lord, our God of kindness and truth.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 28, 2019: Seek and you will find...

Seek and you will find…

What do you hope for when you talk to God?

  Both the Second Book of Chronicles and the prophet Isaiah call the patriarch Abraham a “friend of God.”  So, it is perhaps not surprising that, in the Book of Genesis, Abraham frequently enters into conversation with the Lord, particularly when he is seeking clarification.  And so, when God sends his emissaries to Sodom and Gomorrah to investigate the sin of the people there (specifically, their oppression of the poor), Abraham worries that God’s action against them might sweep away the innocent with the guilty.  Abraham’s persistent questioning of the Lord represents his effort to understand the parameters of divine justice and mercy; his prayer – his dialogue with God – involves attentiveness to God’s will, an awareness of God’s plan that can only be grasped by listening.

  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus similarly teaches his disciples about the nature of prayer: they are to bless the name of God – hallowed be your name – to bless all that God is and does. They are to pray for the kingdom to come, that all might know God’s mercy, and they may ask for forgiveness of their own sins, listening to God’s answer, that proper relationship with the Lord might be restored.  Jesus’ parable of the friend who comes in the night suggests the value of persistence.  Most importantly, we are to be persistent until we understand God’s answer to our prayer:  seek and you will find, Jesus tells the disciples – not that you will necessary find what you want, but that you come to understand what God wants. 

  The process of prayer is meant to take us ever deeper into our awareness of God’s will, that we might come to understand God’s full revelation to us in the death and rising of Jesus.  Paul tells the Colossians that in death, Jesus nailed the law of Moses to the cross; the law, which has been keeping the people from true relationship with God, needed to die in the flesh of Jesus, that we might all enjoy a new relationship – a new conversation, a new dialogue – with the Lord.  When we pray about what God wants, we are opening to that relationship on deeper terms, opening to a closer bond – which is not up to God, but up to us, since it requires change and conversion in us.  God doesn’t need to love us more or to be present to us more; we need to be more aware of God, that we might grown in faith and, ultimately, sing God’s praise in the presence of the angels (Psalm 138) as we appreciate the fathomless depths of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 7, 2019: From now on you will be catching men...

From now on you will be catching men…

What barrier keeps you from doing God’s work?

  The prophet Isaiah’s call to God’s service is pretty spectacular:  Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne with seraphim stationed above.  In awe of this divine vision (of which we only hear a partial description in our reading), Isaiah believes he is doomed, stunned to silence and in fear for his own life because he has seen the face of God:  my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.  Isaiah’s fear is a barrier.  But once one of the seraphim has touched Isaiah’s mouth with an ember, Isaiah is purged of all sin and ready to respond affirmatively to God’s call:  Here I am, send me!  Isaiah could easily sing Psalm 138:  in the presence of the angels I will sing your praises! – he has opened his heart to God’s call.

  Jesus’ call of the first disciples induces similar awe among the fishermen.  In Luke’s Gospel, a miracle – boats so filled with fish that they are in danger of sinking – prompts Simon Peter to fall at the knees of Jesus and say, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.  Jesus recognizes their astonishment but tells them, Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.  Like Isaiah, Peter fears that his sin is a barrier to doing the work of God, but Jesus dismisses his fear, making it possible for the disciples to do what God intends.  St. Paul’s experience is not so different.  In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes himself as one born abnormally, because he persecuted the church of God before being touched by the grace of God.  For Paul, as for Isaiah and for Simon Peter, God makes it possible for Paul to carry out the ministry to which he is called.

  We don’t always respond well to the call of God.  Every time we are required to be kind, to forgive, to love:  each of these is a call, a call we can respond to whenever God removes a barrier we have created.  God’s call is not a once-in-a-lifetime, radical event; it can involve an incremental transformation as God empowers us, daily, hourly, issuing God’s call and the ability to answer it as God removes whatever barrier stands in our way.  But first, we need to train ourselves to recognize God’s call, and to allow God to open the way to our salvation.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 27, 2017: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven...

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven…

Are you open to God’s action in your life?

   In the Book of Isaiah, Shebna, the master of the palace of King Hezekiah of Judah, is dressed down by the Lord for having abused his power, believing himself to be self-sufficient rather than dependent on God:  I will thrust you from your office, the Lord tells him.  Shebna, who was responsible for ensuring access to the King, has failed in his duties, relying on his own hands, and on all the privileges that have been bestowed on him by the King, and now he will have to pay the price:  Eliakim will receive the robe and sash of Shebna:  when Eliakim opens, no one shall shut, the Lord promises.  Eliakim will be a good servant of the Lord because he recognizes his own dependence on God, knows, as Psalm 138 states, that without God, we are nothing:  I will give thanks to you, o Lord, will all my heart, the psalmist sings, and thanks to your name. Both Eliakim and the psalmist are open to God’s action in their life.

   Matthew’s Gospel likewise focuses on a man who will be responsible for ensuring access to God:  the apostle Peter, who recognizes aloud that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And so Jesus confers upon Peter great responsibility:  I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells Peter.  Momentarily grounded in love, Peter is open to love, open to revelation, and thus allows God to reveal who Jesus is, thereby creating access to God for all who will hear him.  St. Paul likewise recognizes his own dependence on God, and his profound grounding in faith, in his recognition of a God whose riches and wisdom and knowledge are immeasurable.  Paul’s Letter to the Romans demonstrates that, while Paul may not understand God, he is open to the salvation God has promised through Jesus, and Paul seeks to ensure access to that salvation for all.

   As modern-day disciples, we too are meant to help others to have access to God.  Evangelization can only happen if we are open to God, if we recognize God’s action in our lives, and if we allow God to work through us.  We are called to be present to others, to use the gifts the Lord has given us, and to let Christ reveal himself through us… so that God’s action may touch their lives as well.

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

Image source:  Wordle

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 7, 2016: Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?

   Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?   

   Is fear stopping you from answering the Lord's call?   

  When the Lord calls him to service, the prophet Isaiah feels unworthy:  Woe is me, I am doomed!  For I am a man of unclean lips… But the seraphim makes it possible for Isaiah to accept the Lord's call by purifying his lips with a burning ember, and Isaiah can now respond wholeheartedly, Here I am, send me!  Thus cleansed of his sin, Isaiah, like the psalmist in Psalm 138, can proclaim God's name, profess his faith, and speak to others of the Lord's kindness and truth, giving witness to all the world in the sight of the angels.

   Like Isaiah, the fisherman Simon does not feel deserving of the Lord's call in Luke's Gospel:  falling at the knees of Jesus, he says, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.  But Jesus knows he is a man of faith, and he articulates Simon Peter's call:  Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.  Paul also recognizes his own prior hesitation at the call to serve:  For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle… Knowing the obstacles he himself has faced, Paul calls the Corinthians also to live faith they first knew in Christ:  hold fast to the word I preached to you.

   It's easy to convince ourselves that we are incapable, ill-suited to serve, a bad choice as an apostle; it's very hard to convince ourselves that the Lord is constantly at work in our lives, purifying our lips and raising us up.  Fear blocks us; doom silences us.  But the Lord touches us and opens us, making speech possible again.   Upon leaving the temple, Isaiah will never speak in the same way again; called by Jesus, Peter will never fish in the same way again; Paul, descending from his horse, will, by the grace of God, know radical conversion. 

   Consider this:  What if we are called to ongoing conversion daily, according to which today simply can't be like yesterday? What if we are called to start each day anew, with an opportunity to make decisions anew?   Each day we wake, and we fear -- but Christ is there to touch our lives, to lead us past our fear, to help us open to the Lord's call, each day, anew.

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

Image source:  Wordle