Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 15, 2024: The Son of Man must suffer greatly...

The Son of Man must suffer greatly…

Why did Jesus have to suffer? 

    When the disciples learn, in Mark’s Gospel, that Jesus will have to suffer greatly and be killed, they are astounded; Peter even begins to rebuke him. But Jesus rebukes Peter in turn, and clearly speaks of the inevitability of the cross as part of God’s other-centered plan for salvation. As the Christ, Jesus did not come to save the Jewish people from Roman power or to restore self-governance; Jesus came so that he can rise and bring his disciples from death to life. In so doing, Jesus will be fulfilling the words of the Servant Song in Isaiah: I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard. As a prophet, Jesus has already suffered a great deal for proclaiming God’s Word, yet he also gives his disciples reason to hope: whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Like the Suffering Servant, the disciples must open their ears, that they might hear, knowing that, as Psalm 116 assures us, God will incline his ear to their voice in supplication, ever there to uphold their right. Jesus needs the disciples to embrace this very different version of how salvation comes, and to participate in it, taking up their own cross and following him. 

  

    What might that cross look like? Like Jesus’ cross, it must be other-centered, grounded in faith and enriched by works: What good is it if someone says he has faith but does not have works? The Letter of James reminds us that any works we might do can reveal our faith, if they flow from that faith. Our works are not a ticket to heaven, but faith must somehow be lived out, and the visible manifestation of faith is works. If such works require suffering for the sake of other, so be it, for we too know that the Lord God is our help; we have but to call upon his name, that we might participate in salvation, taking up our own cross and following him. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 17, 2023: How often must I forgive?

How often must I forgive?

What role does forgiveness play in your life? 

   Everyone is in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. In the Book of Sirach, those who hold onto wrath and anger, like those who are vengeful, must learn to forgive one another, so that they might in turn be forgiven by God: Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord? Sirach asks. If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins? The only relief from sin is the Lord, kind and merciful, as Psalm 103 reminds us, God, who forgives our sins. To repent is to allow God to forgive us, thereby erasing the barrier that stands between us and God, but this can only happen when we acknowledge our need for forgiveness and allow the Lord to separate us as far from sin as possible: as far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us, the psalmist says. Only in this way can harmony be restored. 

    Even the disciples struggled with forgiveness. Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times? Peter asks Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. In response, Jesus shares yet another parable about the kingdom of heaven, in which a servant humbly requests that the king be patient until the servant can pay him back, at which point the king is moved with compassion and forgives him the loan. However, the servant has no real appreciation for the immensity of the debt the king forgives him, and shows no like compassion whatsoever to those who owe him money, demanding instead, pay back what you owe. He is not slow to anger; far from it: he seizes the man who owes him a much smaller amount, and starts to choke him! The servant is unable to forgive as his master had forgiven him. Clearly, the servant has much to learn about the forgiveness of God and the forgiveness of man. 

    For, as Paul tells the Romans, none of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. We are baptized into the Body of Christ and are therefore members of a larger community, one in which forgiveness and mercy are essential to peace and harmony. We belong to the Lord as we live and as we die. By entering into union with Christ, we accept the forgiveness he effected through his dying and rising, paying the debt incurred by our sin. Through Christ, we know the mercy of God and can be reconciled to him. It is a challenge to allow ourselves to be forgiven, that we might then be forgiving in turn, thus healing the brokenness of our relationships and, ultimately, our world. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 11, 2022: I have been mercifully treated...

I have been mercifully treated…

How does God manifest his love for us? 

    When, in the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel create and worship a molten calf, God is justifiably displeased, and proposes letting his wrath blaze up against them to consume them. But Moses reminds the Lord of the relationship they have established: the malfeasants, Moses says, are your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand. It is God’s mercy alone that will keep them together as a people, and so God relents in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people. In the end, God’s mercy wins out over God’s wrath. David asks for no less in Psalm 51, the Miserere: Have mercy on me, o God, in your goodness. David recognizes the depth of his sin against God in the murder of Uriah; David knows how far he has fallen, and asks that the closeness of relationship between himself and the Lord might be restored: Cast me not out from your presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me. 

    Jesus similarly stresses the mercy of God in the parables he shares with the scribes and Pharisees in Luke’s Gospel. God desires that all should dwell in his love, and so God goes after the lost sheep until he finds it, whereas the scribes and Pharisees have written off sinners as unworthy of mercy. The parable of the woman who loses a coin reminds them that any one sinner that is lost diminishes the community, and their repentance is thus cause for rejoicing. The scribes and Pharisees believe they understand God’s love, but they are not ready to extend that love to all, unlike God, whose love, as seen in the parable of the prodigal son, knows no boundaries. The father in the parable is filled with love and compassion for the son who returns home after having sinned against heaven; his love is equally strong for the older son who becomes angry at his father’s mercy toward his brother. In every case, conversion is necessary; we must know that all are God’s children; to focus on the “otherness” of our brother is to make it impossible for us to know and fully appreciate the profound depth of God’s love for every single person, sinners included. 

    Perhaps no one was more aware of God’s mercy than Paul who, in his First Letter to Timothy, claims to have been foremost among sinners, having been a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant. But it is precisely his sin, born of ignorance, that causes God’s mercy to flow forth: for that reason, I was mercifully treated, Paul says. If God can show mercy towards Paul, then surely all have access to that mercy; mercy is, after all, what Christ came to proclaim. His love for Paul has transformed Paul, strengthening him and giving him every reason to share the good news of God’s mercy, the most perfect manifestation of his love for us that exists. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 12, 2021: Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it...

Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it…

How difficult it is to see all that God has made possible!

    The suffering servant of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks does not refuse the call of God; indeed, he is ready to accept any and all abuse – I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard, he says – provided that he remains able to hear what the Lord is saying: the Lord God opens my ear that I may hear. The servant is open to God, seeks to work in concert with God’s will, and is true to what God says through him, trusting that, no matter the abuse with which he is confronted, the Lord God will be his help. God is also the help of the psalmist in Psalm 116: I love the Lord because he has heard my voice in supplication. Like the suffering servant, the psalmist is very aware of all that God has made possible in his life, and is grateful for it.

   In Mark’s Gospel, the disciples have a more difficult time opening their ears that they may hear. When Jesus explains that, as the Christ, he must suffer greatly, be rejected and be killed, Peter will have none of it: Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke him. But Jesus knows who he is, knows the truth of what is coming, and so he speaks that truth to the disciples, whether they want to hear it or not. They do not yet see all that God has made possible: You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do, Jesus tells Peter. Jesus’ code of conduct is clear: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. God’s call is for us to discover who we are and what we are capable of, but our expectations rarely meet God’s reality; what God has made possible by creating us is an ongoing discovery. James challenges his audience to show him the faith they have: faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. James wants them to show him, in other words, that their faith is alive in them; he wants to see clearly that they have been changed for the better by the death and resurrection of Jesus. We cannot earn faith, but once we accept it, we have to do something with it or our faith is dead. 

   God’s love for us is eternal; our love for him exists so that we can remain open to God’s word and to God’s gifts, gifts that are given for the sake of the world. Jesus challenges us to commit our lives completely to the service of other, even if that faith means accepting the sacrifice of self and the embracing of the cross of Christ. For this, ultimately, is what God has made possible; we have but to open to it. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 13, 2020: Forgive your neighbor's injustice...

Forgive your neighbor’s injustice…

Why is it so difficult to show mercy to another?

  The Book of Sirach is full of wisdom sayings, maxims that were intended to help the people of Israel espouse right conduct and build community in the context of a faithful relationship with God.  And so it is not surprising to find advice on dealing with anger and sin:  when we enter into relationship with the Lord, can we live in a state of anger?  Is anger not precisely the contradiction of the love we are called to?  Sirach preaches mercy instead:  Forgive your neighbor’s injustice, he says, and do not refuse mercy to another like yourself.  And if we should sin, we are called to stand before God and request that he forgive us as well.  Psalm 103 assures us that our God is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion, precisely because God desires relationship with us.  God’s capacity for forgiveness exceeds our own; indeed, it is limitless.

  Jesus will expound upon the limitless mercy of God in his parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew’s Gospel.  Although the man’s master forgives him his entire debt because the servant begged him to, that same servant shows no mercy to those who are in debt to him:  he mercilessly has his fellow servant put in prison until he pays back his debt.  To truly experience the mercy of God, Jesus is saying, we must know our own need for that mercy – we must be able to embrace our own brokenness in order to show compassion to our neighbor.  Such recognition of our own need for mercy is essential to a shared life in community; it is a recognition of our own need for change, an awareness that Christ died to pay the debt for all humankind, for all time.  What good is Christ’s sacrifice if it does not inspire mercy and compassion from our hearts?  If we are baptized into a life in Christ, if we live for the Lord, as Paul tells the Romans, then we need to be ever conscious of how we are connected to the Body to which we belong, for our identity flows from that Body.

  What kind of community are we creating if we cannot forgive?  How can we create a place of mercy in our heart where God can be celebrated if we are unable to show mercy to another?  How can there be mercy for us if there is no mercy for our neighbor?  We all stand in a similar place of brokenness, before God and before one another.  The Lord asks us to recognize the limitations of our neighbors and to be mindful of the unity he espouses, building community and relationship through the forgiveness and mercy he modeled for all.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com