Year A: Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Call of Matthew

Matthew 9: 9-13

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Discussion Questions:

1. “Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” In what ways does this statement of Jesus challenge you personally. Do you struggle with being merciful over being scrupulous?
2. Do you feel superior to anyone? Why is it a spiritual “red flag” to feel superior to others?
3. Have you ever been torn between obedience to the law or a teaching and to what you considered “the loving thing to do”? What were the circumstances? How did you resolve the situation?
4. How has your brokenness been an opening for mercy toward others, or resulted in your growing closer to God? Explain.

Biblical Context

Matthew 9: 9-13
Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

We move now to chapter 9 of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus is in the Galilean area performing many acts of power. Immediately before today’s reading Jesus has not only healed a paralytic but has told the paralytic that his sins are forgiven (Matt 9:2b). The scribes have taken offense. They considered Jesus’ remark blasphemous because only God can forgive sins.

In today’s Gospel Jesus continues to trigger the disapproval and anger of some of the Jewish religious leaders. They do not think that Jesus should spend time with sinners. Of course, Jesus spends time with the leaders, but they do not realize that in doing that Jesus is spending time with sinners.

Our reading starts with a call story. Jesus passes by, sees Matthew, and says, “Follow me.” And Matthew “got up and followed him.” Our response to this story might well be, “Wasn’t it unwise of Matthew to respond so quickly without giving the matter more thought?” As we discussed on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, call stories picture the disciples responding instantly in order to emphasize the wholehearted response necessary for discipleship. The story is teaching that to become a disciple of Jesus Christ a person must make following Jesus his or her top priority.

Next we read that Jesus is at table with many tax collectors and sinners. In the call story we are not told that Matthew himself is a tax collector. That is stated in Matthew 10:3, when we are given the names of the twelve apostles.

“Tax collectors” and “sinners,” the two groups named, are groups who have been marginalized by society. Tax collectors were marginalized because they were suspected of disloyalty and extortion: disloyalty because they were Jews who were collecting taxes from their fellow Jews on behalf of the Roman occupiers; extortion because their own income came from whatever they charged in addition to the tax demanded by the Romans. Sinners, from the Pharisees’ point of view. Were people who were, for one reason or another, unclean: that is. These “sinners” were not as strict about obeying the laws regarding ritual purity as were the Pharisees.

On observing Jesus actually sharing a table with these traitors and with the ritually unclean the Pharisees ask Jesus’ disciples, does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” We can hear the self-righteous and judgmental attitude behind the question. Obviously, the Pharisees feel superior to these marginalized people.

Jesus hears their question, as well as the attitude behind it. In answer, Jesus first quotes a well-known proverb found in Greek writings: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. This is simply common sense. As a spiritual physician Jesus would give his attention to those who need spiritual healing. Next Jesus quotes the Book of the prophet Hosea, in which God says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hos 6:6). With this statement Jesus is telling the Pharisees that their own spiritual perceptions are out of balance. They lack mercy toward their fellow sinners at the same time that they are scrupulous about obeying the law. This is not what God desires.

Jesus concludes with an ironic statement: “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” The word righteous is ironic. Jesus means self-righteous. Jesus came to call everyone, including the Pharisees. However, as long as the Pharisees think of themselves as righteous and only “those other people” as sinners they will not respond to the call.

As Matthew’s Gospel continues, we will see that Matthew emphasizes the growing animosity between Jesus and his critics. This is because Matthew is addressing the question, “If Jesus is the new Moses with authority from God to give a new law, why did the leaders of his own religious tradition want him silenced?” Matthew emphasizes that those religious leaders who wanted to silence Jesus were self-righteous legalists who refused to accept Jesus’ teaching. In today’s story Jesus is teaching that God loves and wants to save sinners.

Learning the Meaning of Mercy

Spiritual Commentary
John Shea

In an article on aging and life review, there was a story about an older man who stood in front of a full-length mirror and beat himself with both his fists, pummeling his face and torso. He did this steadily and unemotionally, without screaming or comment. The nursing staff could not get him to stop, and eventually they had to put him in restraints.

The explanation for this self-flagellating behavior was simple and terrifying. In the process of his life review, the man remembered and fixated on his many mistakes. In his eyes his choices and actions were always wrong, and he could find no forgiveness for what he had done. His judgment on himself was negative, and so he carried out his own punishment. C.S. Lewis once remarked, “The gates of hell are locked from the inside.” This man was in hell, and he had lost the key. He could not release himself from his own prison.

Although this man is an extreme example, many people have faced this same negative examination of conscience, especially in later life. When we look back at the decisions we made and the actions we performed, we are not satisfied. We do not accept our “one and only life.” Rather we feel that we have “blown it.” Add to this the fact that time is running out, and we begin to feel the quiet desperation of a life lived the wrong way.

Our attempts to modify this self-evaluation are unconvincing. We cannot justify what we have done. Although we may fabricate many excuses, none completely exonerates us. We realize the only righteousness we can manage will be bought at the price of self-deception. So, we give up justifying ourselves “before the eyes of others” (see Luke 16:15) and enter the category of “tax collectors and sinners.” What we do not know is that this recognition of failure has turned us into the people whom Jesus seeks out, the people ready to hear about the mercy of God.

We seriously entertain the mercy of God when we come to the place the First Letter of John articulates: “by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:19-20). When our hearts condemn us, we open to God who is greater than our hearts and who has more comprehensive knowledge. This more comprehensive knowledge is sometimes characterized as a steadfast love that sustains the person even though the thoughts and actions of the person are unacceptable. In our negative evaluation of ourselves, we have confused who we are with what we have done.

However, God’s mercy is clear sighted. It reestablishes the person anew in each moment. Although we will have to bear the negative consequences of our past actions, we are not defined by those actions or consequences. The mercy of God reminds us that we are not irredeemable sinners but temporarily lost sons and daughters. We can rest and be renewed in this greater knowledge of God, a mercy that softens our fierce and narrow condemnations.

As consoling as this “greater than our condemning hearts” thought may be, there is another version of the mercy of God. This version does not focus on our sinfulness: evil actions, their consequences, and the rehabilitation of the person. It focuses on our finitude, the choices we have made, and the paths we have taken. In the film classic, Babette’s Feast, Babette makes a magnificent meal for a small, aging religious community. Many of them are reviewing their life choices and wondering if they have chosen rightly.At the table is General Lowenhielm who has never married. The woman whom he loves is also at the table. He offers a toast that begins with a verse from Psalm 85,“Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another” (cf.v. 10: NRSV; v. 11 NAB). Then he continues,

Man in his weakness and shortsightedness believes he must make choices in this life. He trembles at the risk he takes. We do know fear. But no. Our choice is of no importance. There comes a time when our eyes are opened. And we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude. Mercy imposes no conditions. And, lo! Everything we have chosen has been granted to us. And everything we rejected has also been granted. Yes, we get back even what we rejected. For mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another.

Mercy is the realization that our lives are redeemed by ever higher appreciations, ever higher perspectives. Our task is to await mercy with confidence and receive it with gratitude.

Jesus suggests that the scribes and Pharisees go and learn the meaning of mercy. Mercy is not a single act, but the sea in which we swim. It gives hope to both our sinfulness and our finitude.

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle A, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Compassion of Jesus

Matthew 9: 36-10:8

At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.

Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

Discussion Questions: 

1. When was the last time your heart has been moved with pity for others and how did you respond? Is it difficult for you to move from the heart into action? Explain
2. Do see yourself as one of the laborers who has been sent? In what part of your faith journey are you a “laborer in the harvest” of those who feel troubled and abandoned?
3. As a baptized disciple, do you believe that you have been given the authority to heal others as Jesus did? How do you exercise your given “authority” in service to others…or what blocks you from being Christ to others?
4. “Without cost you are to give” Is our personal need for results “the cost” we place on our giving?
5. How does the reality that you cannot solve or permanently change the problem of suffering, prevent you from tending to it with your presence?

Biblical Context

Matthew 9: 36-10:8
Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

Today’s Gospel begins, “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned. Like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew has just told us that Jesus raised the daughter of an official whom everyone believed to be dead (Matt 19:18-26), and healed a woman suffering from hemorrhages (Matt 9:20-22), two blind men (Matt 9:27-31), a mute demoniac (Matt 9:32-34), as well as many others in various towns and villages. There is no end to the people who need Jesus’ good news and healing touch.

On seeing the crowds Jesus tells his disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” The power to bring others to God is a God-given gift. That is why the disciples are told to pray for laborers for the harvest. However, the harvest does not belong to the laborers, but to the master of the harvest, to God. It is “his harvest.”

Jesus then summons “his twelve disciples” and gives them authority to do the very things that he himself is doing. They will have “authority over unclean spirits… and to cure every disease and every illness” (remember Matthew’s constant interest in authority). When we are told the names of the twelve Matthew calls them apostles: “The names of the twelve apostles are these…” This is the only place in Matthew’s Gospel where the twelve are called apostles. In the New Testament “the twelve” and “the apostles” are not synonymous terms. Notice that Peter is named as “first,” and we are told that he is “Simon called Peter.” Matthew is emphasizing Peter’s unique role, a role upon which he will greatly elaborate in chapter 16 (Matt 16:13-20).

When Jesus instructs the disciples he tells them, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” On the feast of the Ascension, when we read Matthew’s great commissioning, we noted that Jesus instructs the eleven disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 2.8:19). That instruction reflects the experience of’ the early church after the resurrection, when the Spirit led the church to understand that covenant love was now open to everyone, even Gentiles (see Acts 10). In todays scene Jesus is giving his disciples their immediate marching orders. They are to serve the lost sheep of Israel.

Jesus instructs the disciples to proclaim just what he himself is proclaiming: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” As part of this announcement of the imminent in-breaking of the kingdom the disciples are to ‘‘Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and drive out demons,” just as Jesus himself is doing. These mighty acts will give authority to the truth of their words about the kingdom.

Though the disciples have authority? they are not to use their authority for personal gain. What they have they have received as a gift and so they must freely give. Authority is never to be used in any way but to give service.

Protesting the Way Things Are

Spiritual Commentary
John Shea

So much begins when the heart cries, “This shouldn’t be!”

“The way this education is being conducted shouldn’t be.”“The way this health care is being delivered shouldn’t be.” “The way this neighborhood lives in fear shouldn’t be.

“The way this city is run shouldn’t be.” “These banking policies shouldn’t be.” “These governmental rules shouldn’t be.” “These church procedures shouldn’t be.”

It took me a long time to value prophetic grievers, the people who felt the underlying pain of situations and gave it a voice. I always felt: “Enough already; let’s get on with it.” Prophetic grieving was the first step, and I was always leery it would be the last step. We would complain and do nothing.

What I valued was the analyst who could size up situations and the strategist who could lay out an action plan and implement it. For me this text begins to move when Jesus delegates and commissions his disciples, turning them into apostles, “ones sent.” I imagine intensive training in driving out unclean spirits and curing diseases. Then when the twelve are named, I am reminded of a classic scene in Howard Hawks’ film, Red River. When the cattle drive is about to begin, the camera focuses on each cowboy who screams out, “Yiha!” Then the drive begins. I see the naming of twelve as focusing on each individual agent, singling him out as a significant player. If they could, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon from Cana, and even Judas Iscariot would leap out of the pages and cry, “Yiha!”

I also appreciated Jesus the strategist. When he advised beginning with the house of Israel and steering clear of Gentiles and Samaritans, I understood him to be working his home turf first. Pilot it in Israel before taking it on the road. Also, concrete instructions about what to do are always important. Proclaim and cure, raise, heal, and drive. All that was needed was to put these commands into bullet points. We have here the beginnings of organizational structure and leadership development.

However, we are also a long way from that bursting heart that energized the training, sending, and action plans. But the truth is the heart has to accompany the analyst and the strategist. It is the movement of the heart that creates the desire for change. The analysis that follows, however expert, will always need to be redone. The strategy that is implemented, however effective, will always need to be complemented and evaluated.

Since all attempts to change the world are long-haul projects of success and failure, the heart that created the desire will also have to sustain the desire. As obstacles multiply and people betray and diseases win out over cures and driven-out demons return to stay, apostles will have to return to the heart with its primordial sigh, “This shouldn’t be!” It begins with a movement of Jesus’ heart when he sees the trouble and abandonment of the crowd. When this movement goes away, the analysis becomes sterile and the strategy unworkable.

The pressing problem may be what the pragmatist takes it to be: we can’t make things work. But the foundational problem may be what the prophet has always suspected. We have become numb. We have anesthetized ourselves to the pain of the world. Our heart no longer moves, and we no longer cry out.

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle A, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twelfth Sunday Ordinary Time

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body.

Matthew 10: 26-33

Jesus said to the Twelve: “Fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So, do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

Discussion Questions:

1. What role does fear play in your life and faith experience?
2. When have you experienced a spiritual truth or a revelation of God’s presence and felt compelled to share it with others? Tell the story.
3. When have you had to persevere in a time of suffering or persecution? How did you respond, did you experience God with you?
4. Do you find it easier to worship Jesus than to follow him? In what ways does discipleship take a back seat to worship in your faith life?

Biblical Context

Mary McGlone

After our 50 days of Easter and two solemnities, today’s Gospel thrusts us into the middle of Jesus’ discourse about mission. The opening line is the most important: “Fear no one.” If this were the Gospel of John, the next step would probably be a discourse on the truth that makes us free. But, Matthew is concerned about more concrete matters.

One dimension of Jesus’ instructions in this passage is the reversal of the “messianic secret” (Matthew 16:20). Instead of warning his disciples to “tell no one,”

Jesus now says there is no such thing as restricted access to the good news. When Jesus told people not to tell anyone what they thought of him or asked them not to publicize the news about a sign he had worked, it was generally because they didn’t fully understand it. They would be likely to proclaim him as their style of messiah or a wonder-worker, not as the messenger of God that he had been sent to be.

When the apostles are sent to proclaim the nearness and coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, they have been commissioned to do the works that Jesus has done. The very fact that Jesus could and did freely share his power demonstrates what kind of a savior he was. He sought the reign of heaven, not the spotlight.

Jesus commissioned the apostles and told them how to travel light and become a part of the communities they were to visit. Then, he immediately warned them about the job: he was sending them out as lambs among the wolves; they would be labeled as minions of the devil. What an introduction to his injunction, “Fear no one.”

Clearly, the disciples’ lack of fear can’t be based on external evidence or on naiveté. Jesus sends them out fully aware of what they are facing. But, even more than that, he makes them fully aware of the content of their message. They are being sent to proclaim what they have heard and to do what they have seen. They are to share what has sparked their hopes and deepened their faith. By giving them his mission, Jesus pushes them into the necessary next step of discipleship. It’s one thing to stand by and admire what Jesus says and does, it’s quite another to say and do the same. But, the reality is that only by taking up the mission can they be disciples. Jesus is not a one-man show. Anybody who wants to watch from the sidelines will never be more than a spectator. Being part of the dynamic of the coming of the reign of heaven requires active participation.

There is a mystery to this dynamic. Jesus preached God’s unconditional love and invited everyone to receive it. The trick is that we can only receive that love by risking everything else, as he said, by losing our life to save it. Apostles will know the love of God and the coming of the kingdom only to the extent that they give themselves to it. In knowing the love of God they will be impelled to share it. When they are dismissed and persecuted, they will understand that as an experience of solidarity with God and of God with them. Like fledgling sparrows learning to fly, they will set off behind their master trusting that the Father of Jesus will care for them as he had for Jesus himself. They will not be afraid.

You are not Alone

Reflection
By Heather Neds

The Gospel we hear today is clear. The truth cannot be hidden from God; everything is revealed in his presence. When you check in with God, nothing is hidden. God knows our deepest secrets and knows our true intentions. God is ready to offer strength, support and even the words to heal our spirits. Acknowledge God and we will be delivered safely into his arms. This is what it means to be a disciple.

Early in Matthew’s account we hear Jesus say: “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12a). Must we suffer hateful stares that stab like daggers? The judgmental whispers behind closed doors? Unkind words, false accusations and the like? Is this the price we pay to get to heaven?

Jesus is no stranger to people watching and waiting for him to misstep. Sitting in wait, ready to tear him down and put him to shame. During much of his public ministry, many of the Sadducees and Pharisees were plotting against him. They tried to twist his words and trap him into blasphemous speech.

The religious leaders created a plan to get rid of him. They arrested him and made up allegations of wrong doing. They ridiculed him for speaking what he believed was the truth. Then beat him until his body was broken and unrecognizable. But they didn’t get the best of Jesus, even as he stood silent, without protest. Those who plotted against Jesus believed they were saving the people from the heresy Jesus spoke. When they tore Jesus down, it inflated their egos. They felt they were right to “put him in his place.”

Though Jesus’ opponents attacked his body and mind, his spirit remained strong. They believed they had power over him. But Jesus didn’t let those who persecuted him have the last word. He knew he needed to persevere so justice could prevail. When Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, Jesus already knew he would come to earth in order to free us from sin. He knew he needed to die so the battle could be won. When he died on the cross, Jesus overcame evil once and for all.

How do you respond when you are given the cold shoulder, passed up for a promotion or even fired? Do you fight back? Throw stones? Where do you turn for help in the battle? How do you persevere? When put to the test, what do you do?

As a disciple, you need to follow Jesus’ example. He knew he was not alone — and neither are you. From the Garden of Gethsemane to his resurrection, God was there with Jesus. He was there in the words Jesus spoke to those who defended him when he was arrested. God was there comforting Jesus as the crown of thorns pierced his skull. Jesus was surrounded by angels, protecting him with each snap of the whip and each painful step he took carrying the cross. And after Jesus died, God let the darkness settle before the light was revealed in the resurrection.

Are you standing in the light? Shouting God’s praise from the rooftop? Do you acknowledge God when you are in the trenches and the whole world seems to be against you? Do you stand in truth with God be your constant help? Do your words and actions reflect your trust that God will not abandon you, that he is with you through it all? This is what it means to be a disciple.

Year A: Thirteenth Sunday Ordinary Time

Prioritizing Love

Matthew 10: 37-42

Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

Discussion Questions:

1. When do you feel pulled between “time for God” and “time for family and other important relationships/responsibilities”? In what ways do you think Jesus would have you think of these as different? How do you think Jesus would have you think of these as the same?
2. In what ways have you found loving another person a “dying to self “? In what ways have you found loving another person a discovery of self?
3. Whom have you welcomed into your home or community in Christ’s name? What were the circumstances, what were the results?
4. From the reflection: “Those who emulate Jesus know that the prophet’s reward is a transformation of self in the process of serving Christ’s little ones, which culminates in the ultimate transformation into God’s love for all eternity.” How does this truth change your understanding of God’s “reward” so often used in scripture?

Biblical Context

Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

We continue to read Jesus’ instructions to his newly named apostles. A disciple must put his or her relationship with Jesus and the Father first; no other relationship, even one with our closest family members, can take priority over our relationship with Jesus.

On occasion people have misinterpreted Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel to mean that one can divest oneself of family responsibility in the name of discipleship. Jesus did not teach his followers to neglect their families. This very subject comes up a little later in Matthew’s Gospel. The Pharisees and scribes are accusing Jesus of breaking the “tradition of the elders” (Matt 15:2). Jesus asks them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said. ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to father or mother. “Any support you might have had from me is dedicated to God, need not honor his father.” You have nullified the word of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matt 15:3-6).

Jesus is simply teaching that nothing can take precedence over fidelity to Jesus, not persecution, not succumbing to fear, and not family ties or family pressure. When one puts Jesus first, others will be loved too, in Jesus’ name.

Just as the disciples may not choose family over Jesus they may not choose self over Jesus. To deny oneself will involve suffering but will end, not in losing self, but in finding self: ” … and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” To find oneself one must be willing to take up the cross: “… and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.

Jesus then goes on to describe the rewards that will belong to those who receive a person because that person is a disciple of Christ. As Matthew’s contemporaries (and we) hear Jesus’ description, they could well picture themselves as both receiving and offering such welcome. Again, Jesus expects hospitality to be extended to all, not just to those of distinction. Many might be more inclined to welcome a prophet or a righteous person who is greatly respected in the community than to welcome a poor or disenfranchised person. However, Jesus promises rewards to any who welcome the least little one simply by giving that person a cup of cold water. Such hospitality to disciples is tantamount to offering the same kindness to Jesus and even to God the Father: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

The disciples must put Jesus first because their mission is identical to the mission that Jesus has received from the Father. In putting Jesus first the disciples will not love others, including family members, less. In fact, they will love them more.

A Prophet’s Reward

Reflection
Sr. Barbara Reid

When Jesus speaks of rewards for receiving a prophet or a righteous person, or for giving a cup of cold water to a disciple, he is not talking about what his followers get for the sacrifices they make. He is describing a kind of domino effect. Anyone who receives his disciples receives Jesus and receives the one who sent him. Both those who are sent on mission and those who receive them are drawn into the circle of divine love.

Those who receive a prophet likewise participate in the prophetic ministry and its rewards. The prophet’s reward is always twofold. Those who are being lifted up and empowered by the prophet’s denunciations of injustice cheer the prophet’s words and deeds. But those persons whose power, privilege, and status are threatened by the prophet’s articulation of God’s dream for righteousness will do all in their power to silence him or her. In some instances, as in the case of Jesus, and of the martyrs, this means that their physical life is taken. But, as Oscar Romero said the day before he died, “If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.” Part of the reward of the prophet is arriving at a selflessness in knowing that God’s word will be proclaimed by other prophets who will follow. Those who emulate Jesus know that the prophet’s reward is a transformation of self in the process of serving Christ’s little ones, which culminates in the ultimate transformation into God’s love for all eternity.

Sr. Barbara Reid, adapted from Abiding Word

Barbara Reid, OP, is professor of New Testament and vice president and academic dean at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. The author of numerous books, she is general editor of the new Wisdom Commentary series (Liturgical Press).

Year A: Fourteenth Sunday Ordinary Time

Matthew 11: 25-30

At that time Jesus said in reply, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

“The way to rest, is to yoke yourself to Jesus. This means to undertake Jesus’ disciplines and learn form him. The rest will be granted through serious discipleship.” – John Shea

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you believe that God reveals God’s self to some and not to others? Explain.
2. What is your understanding of “the rest” that Jesus is offering us?
3. What opens, or gets in the way of your ability to rest in God?
4. What aspect of life weighs you down, makes you lose heart or feel burdened?
5. In what ways have you experienced “the yoke” of Jesus as an easing or sharing of your burdens?

Biblical Context

Sr. Mary McGone CSJ

As Matthew set up his Gospel, the selection we hear today is part of a general presentation of resistance to Jesus’ teaching. Immediately before our opening line, Jesus had reviled the cities that had seen his works but rejected his message. Then with his next breath he said, “I give praise to you, Father … you have revealed [these things] to little ones.” It seems as if his prayer of praise gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ own attitude adjustment, his discernment of how God’s ways were as surprising as rejection was distressing.

However, much Jesus would have wanted the authorities to accept him, that wasn’t happening. Instead, simple folk flocked to him. Jesus clearly believed that if he was preaching God’s word, God’s will must have been hidden in those responses. Jesus’ prayer, spoken out loud in the presence of his disciples, revealed how he saw God working – in, in spite of, or far beyond his own hopes and plans.

Thinking of Jesus’ prayer as revelatory of his relationship with God sheds light on his next statement. Scholars refer to Jesus’ declaration about the complete mutual sharing of power and knowledge between Jesus and the Father as a Johannine thunderbolt in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Nowhere else in the synoptic Gospels does Jesus make any claims like these. But, this may say something very different from John’s presentation of Jesus, something much more in tune with the lower Christology of the first three evangelists.

Jesus introduces his description of his intimacy with God saying, “Such has been your gracious will.” As he says that, he seems to be simultaneously discovering and accepting the will of God. Following that line of thought, when Jesus talks about knowing and being known by the Father, he’s not referring to a settled body of knowledge or something like a divine facial recognition program. He’s talking about the knowing that happens in relationship, the kind of knowing that is growing and ongoing.

Seen in this light, Jesus’ prayer in today’s Gospel presents an early and less painful illustration of the kind of discernment Jesus went through at Gethsemane when he asked to avoid the cup but accepted God’s will (Matthew 26:39, 42, 44). This prayer reveals Jesus as the obedient teacher. His search for God’s will as well as his acceptance of it surely taught the disciples more than any sermon he preached. Or, better said, Jesus allowed his disciples to see how his own process of prayer put flesh on every sermon he preached.

Taking into account the idea that Jesus was discovering the will of God and accepting it with joy, we can interpret the last verses of today’s Gospel in a new light as well. Jesus says: “Take my yoke … learn from me.” What is the yoke Jesus has just shown us? It is the yoke of learning from the Father, the yoke of unmet expectations countered by the discovery of grace in unexpected places.

Jesus says “I am meek and humble of heart.” In the Gospels, the word “meek” appears only here and in Matthew’s beatitudes. According to Daniel Harrington in The Gospel of Matthew, the meek are the anawim of the Hebrew Scriptures, that is the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized, those who had no one on whom to rely other than their God. What the idea of being humble of heart adds to meekness is the element of choice. To be poor is an involuntary condition and everyone is poor in the face of God. Because the heart is the source of volition, being humble of heart indicates a choice to recognize and accept one’s innate poverty.

When Jesus invited his audience to take his yoke and learn from him, he was inviting them to learn from his prayer, from his discernment and from his rejoicing in God’s surprising will. What he implied without saying so explicitly was that to learn from him meant to learn how to discover, accept and do God’s will. Those who can give themselves to God, who can take on Jesus’ yoke and imitate his humility of heart need no longer worry about carrying out their own agenda or being a success or failure. They can rest in the assurance that God’s gracious will is being accomplished even when, or perhaps especially when, they do not see the results. That is, indeed, an easy yoke for which we need do no more than simply thank God.

Experiencing Rest

Reflection by
John Shea

I came home after a five-day road trip, giving twelve talks in three cities. As I took the elevator up to my apartment, I envisioned drink, food, television, and sleep. When the door closed behind me, I heard myself sigh. I put down my bags, took off my coat, and said aloud, “I’ll sit for a moment before I make dinner.” When you live alone, you learn to talk to yourself. It is the best conversation you can get.

I woke two hours later, stumbled into the bedroom, and sprawled on the bed. Eight hours later I took off the clothes I had slept in, showered, made some coffee, sat in a chair, and looked out the window. I had slept, but I still needed-more rest. I knew that if I sat there, which I did, I would revive sometime later in the afternoon.

We all know this scenario of exhaustion. We can work for only so long, even if we push ourselves and fight off sleep. Eventually the body needs rest, and it will have its way. We “fall” asleep. Sleeping is not so much a conscious act as coming to the end of waking consciousness. We have no choice but to be obedient to the body, to the physical rhythms of exertion and rest.

But there is also a weariness that afflicts the mind. This weariness— a labor and a burden—becomes too much for it. Although physical sleep may help the tired mind, its fatigue is not solely caused by the limited energies of the body. Some ways of thinking cut the mind off from its natural source in the soul, depriving it of spiritual energy. Ideas capture the mind, and they whip it night and day, making it work against its better instincts.

Many years ago a young woman came to see me. I had known her as a teenager. She was intelligent and vivacious and had been admitted to one of the top colleges in the country. When she walked in the door, I was shocked. She was unkempt and seemingly exhausted. She had dark semicircles under her eyes. I asked her immediately if she was sleeping enough. She avoided the question and began a long, rambling, and confusing story. I set her up with a psychologist who had her tested. With her permission he told me the results of the testing.

After he had shared the diagnosis, I asked him, “What about the obvious fatigue, the rings under her eyes?” After he had shared the diagnosis, I asked him.

He said, “Oh, as a theologian you should know the answer to that. I didn’t say anything. He continued, “God doesn’t sleep. ‘I don’t get it,” I said. ‘She has to control everything. She can’t trust enough to sleep. If she rests, everything might come tumbling down. Her body is exhausted because her mind is ever vigilant.

Responsible people know their decisions count. They carefully weigh what they do. In fact, controlling the future through planning is a large part of adult waking life. “Trusting things will come out all right” is an abdication of our duty to make things come out all right. This firm emphasis on human freedom and decision making may be true, but from a spiritual point of view it is a half-truth. Life, at the deepest level, is not only a conscious project but an unsolicited gift. If all we are aware of is the demand, it may take us over and turn us into control freaks. As the body flourishes in the rhythms of exertion and rest, so the mind also flourishes when it oscillates between exertion and rest.

Jesus suggests that the mind rests by disengaging from its wise and learned status and by embracing its child status. Its child status is to recognize its relationship to higher realities of which it is a part and on which it can rely. The mind can rest in the soul and the soul (the son or daughter) can rest in God (the Parent). Jesus knows how this happens, and he invites all those who feel labored and burdened with an excessive sense of responsibility and control to put on his easier yoke and pick up his lighter burden.

Spiritual rest is trusting in the life that has been given, realizing that ‘All that matters is to be at one with the living God / to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.” To be a creature is not only to bump into limits and be subjected to death. It also means receiving life at every instant from the Creator and, therefore, to have the “experience of being” as well as the “experience” of doing.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Fifteenth Sunday Ordinary Time

The Parable of the Sower

Matthew 13: 1-23

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

The disciples approached him and said, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He said to them in reply, “Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.” Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: ‘You shall indeed hear but not understand, you shall indeed look but never see. Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.’

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

“Hear then the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil one comes and steals away what was sown in his heart. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Discussion Questions:

1. When do you feel resistant to God’s word? What value do you think there is in examining your resistance?
2. Describe a time when God’s word truly took root in your heart and bore fruit in your life? Tell the story
3. When have you tried to be a witness to your faith to people who are resistant? What behaviors on your part do you think add to people’s resistance? What behaviors diminish people’s resistance?

Biblical Context

Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

Matthew tells us that the parable discourse we are about to hear began on the same day that Jesus declared that everyone who does God’s will is mother, brother and sister to him. According to Matthew, after speaking like that to a group of “insiders,” Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea where a great crowd gathered to hear him.

Although the parable of the sower, seed and soil is quite long, Matthew copies it almost without change from his source in Mark. (Luke condenses it a little and changes more vocabulary than Matthew.) Matthew does make one significant addition. In verses 14-16 he elaborates on the citation of Isaiah 6:9-10, explaining that knowledge of the kingdom of heaven is granted only to some. As Ben Witherington explains in The Gospel of Mark: “The parables give insight to the open-minded but come as a judgment on the obdurate…listening intently is the necessary prerequisite to understanding because no one has this knowledge already within them.”

Aside from the explanation that Jesus himself gives, this Gospel hints much more at what it takes to receive the word of God. The key to the whole story is that the good soil was receptive. We see what that means by looking to the disciples who admitted that Jesus had confused them. “Why do you speak to them in parables?” was a question that really meant “We don’t get it!” That was exactly the attitude they needed for Jesus to be able to break through to them, for the seed of his word to go deep into the interior space they opened with their questions.

Just as the planting and harvesting were ongoing activities, so too the word of God comes again and again, begging a hearing. When it comes to having ears to hear, this Gospel assures us that questions are more fruitful than answers.

You Are a Word

Reflection
Carolyn Wright

There are many ways to preach the word of God. The ordained have the privilege and responsibility to preach formally — the homily — during the communal celebration of the liturgy. But what is it to preach? To preach is to live by the Gospel mandates. To preach is to break open the word of God for and with those whom we encounter. Preaching may take place at a Scripture study or a religious education gathering. Perhaps preaching is encountered at a retreat or while sitting by someone on the back porch discussing the daily readings. Admittedly, this is a broad perspective of preaching and, at its heart, preaching is an act of evangelization.

By virtue of the teaching and formation ministry in which I am involved, I am embedded in the Dominican culture and tradition. Dominican men and women, by vocation, are preachers. Embedded in any culture or tradition for any length of time, a person begins to embody that which surrounds and enfolds him or her. Among qualities of the Dominican charism which find special resonance with me is that of sacra praedicatio — sacred preaching … a sacred word.

The tradition of the sacra praedicatio, put simply, is this: St. Dominic understood that the whole church preached the Gospel when the whole church lived the Gospel. He understood that the word spoken and lived in its fullest is the sacred preaching done by clerics and lay women and men alike. And, even now this is done by lay men and women, by religious and by the ordained.

We hear today in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah that just as rain and snow come down and do not return to the heavens until they water the earth so too the word of God comes forth from God’s mouth and does not return until it is accomplishes the will of God.

In Matthew, Jesus tells the disciples: “Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears because they hear.” We have in this proclamation the acknowledgment of the Word spoken by God — Jesus himself. The Word uttered from God’s mouth lived, forgave, taught, hoped, suffered, died and rose; this Word completely — and for all time — accomplished the will of God. Do we see and hear? Are we blessed?

The word is paradoxically still accomplishing the will of God through the power of the Spirit in each of our lives. For me there is a resonance between this message and my life as sacra praedicatio. I am a word spoken into being by God. We are the words that have come forth from the mouth of God in this day and age. We are the words that will not return to God until we achieve the end for which God sent us.

What is the word of God that you need to speak by your life fully lived? Is it a word of kindness and compassion? Is it a word of redress and challenge? Is it a word of forgiveness and healing? Is it a word of guidance? Sustenance? Nurture? Liberation? Is it the word of love?

We are a word spoken by God. Who we become in this life gives voice to that word. For those who have eyes to see and those who have ears to hear … what word will they hear in their hearts because of our life well-lived in resonance with the Gospel message? How will we each be a sacra praedicatio in this world, in our workplace, in our neighborhood and in our families? How will we as words spoken by God, accomplish the will of God through the action of the Word in, with and through us so that we, too, might water a parched creation?

Year A: Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Parable of the Weeds Among the Wheat

Matthew 13: 24-43

Jesus proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds* all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’ He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet; “I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation [of the world].”

Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned [up] with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.

Discussion Questions:

1. Where have you noticed “wheat and weeds” growing together in the Kingdom? How do you notice this in yourself and in your community?
2. What seeds have others planted in you that have flourished in the Kingdom?
3. In what specific ways have you been yeast for the Kingdom, in your family and community?
4. How does the reality that you are both wheat and weeds, and can never perfect yourself on your own help deepen your relationship with God?

Biblical Context

Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

Today’s part of the parable discourse follows directly on last week’s parable of the farmer’s 25 percent success rate in sowing seed. It appears that Jesus had great sympathy for beleaguered planters whose poor crop yields mirrored the disappointing results of his own efforts to sow God’s word.

We begin with a story in which a farmer had a wicked, wily enemy so committed to his nasty plan that he snuck into the field at night and sowed bad seed. One can imagine the aggravation of the servants when they saw what sprouted where they had worked. Woe to the weeds sullying their soil! But, the master didn’t see the situation the same way they did. The owner, aware that yanking up the weeds would endanger the newly sprouting plants, tells them to keep calm and let nature take its course.

But there seems to be more to the story than simply the protection of sprouts. Somewhere along the line, there is a question of judgment. Why were the servants so sure that the “weeds” should be eliminated? Did they have an excess of enthusiasm that led the owner to see them as a greater danger to the growing wheat than the weeds would be?

The owner might have been thinking that some crops enhance one another like corn, beans and squash, the “three sisters” of pre-Columbian America. To nonexperts, the beans growing up the corn stalk can look like parasites and the squash leaves that guard the soil’s moisture can be perceived as harmful sun blockers. This parable raises the question of what deserves to be called a weed. A way of stating the problem in contemporary language would be to ask when diversity is really lifethreatening and when it is just challenging to a particular vision of how things should be.

When Jesus went on to talk about the mustard seed, farmers would have been quick to get the joke. The mustard seed, proverbially small, did grow into a big bush, but not always one that was desired. The Mishna, a collection of Hebrew oral traditions, warned specifically against planting mustard because the bush was noxious and would take over everything around it. Jesus was not just talking about the prodigious growth of the kingdom of heaven, but also commenting that some people judged it to be more like a plague than a crop.

The image of the yeast has its own dose of humor. Jesus doesn’t tell us exactly how much yeast the woman in question has on hand, but it had to be a substantial amount because she mixed it with 30 to 50 pounds of flour — enough to make bread for a small village. Perhaps that was precisely the point Jesus was making: Some yeast plus a lot of flour and the effort of one hard-working woman make enough to nourish an entire community. The kingdom of heaven can flourish from the most natural processes because creation was designed for it.

Finally, the disciples ask Jesus for an explanation of the parable of the weeds. Again, as in the parable of the sower, he gives them a point-by-point explanation, giving the parable an apocalyptic meaning. On the most basic level the apocalyptic interpretation promises that evil will not win in the end. But, the way good will win does not necessarily reflect human judgment. The disciples are not called to police the kingdom. The Son of Man will send the angels to do the sifting when harvest time comes. The disciples need only sow seeds and mix yeast; with just that effort the kingdom promises to sprout like weeds.

We are a Wheat-Weed reality

Reflection
John Shea

The wife of a man who takes seriously the spiritual life and struggles to become spiritually mature remarked, “My husband went on a prolonged retreat and when he came back, he was loving, considerate, and compassionate. That is, until his mother came to visit.” The indication is he “lost” it. Whatever the combination of inner awareness and outer behavior is, the presence of this man’s mother was enough to seriously disturb that connection. The high of his retreat gave way to the low of old tapes that dragged him along unresolved childhood conflicts.

Of course, he is not alone.

People leave church on Sunday buoyed by the liturgy. They feel centered, and they are confident they can face the tests of the world with steady justice and compassion. The parking lot traffic is their first undoing. Leaning on the horn, they sing a hymn not in the worship book. We all move from moments of realization and centeredness into scattered and fractured behavior. We think we are in charge, able to bring love into the situations of our life. Then we get our buttons pushed. In the Gospel of John, Peter says to Jesus, “I will lay down my life for you” (John 13:37). This is the love that Jesus says is the greatest: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Peter can comprehend and feel that love and envision his fidelity to it.

However, Jesus does not have the same confidence in Peter that Peter has in himself: “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times” (John 13:38). Peter’s inflated sense of his fidelity will not weather the difficulties of the upcoming events. The man who realizes in his head that he will lay down his life for Jesus will not be able to pull it off.

But “the cock crowing” is more than the moment of betrayal. It symbolizes the advent of morning, the moment of illumination. Peter will be chastened, but he will also understand and return to the following of Jesus (see Luke 22:31-32). A part of what he will understand is that we can dream more than we can enact. We can have experiences of intense realizations when we love God and our neighbor, but we can lose those realizations and fail to let them influence our behavior.

In the symbols of the Gospel, wheat and weed grow together. In fact, they are so intertwined that they make an inseparable unit. Wheat grows on the earth when we successfully embody our deeper realizations of love. Weeds grow on the earth when we fail to embody those realizations. We are a wheat-weed reality.

Also, it takes time for a small seed to become a major tree and for leaven to raise the dough into bread. Time is the opportunity for repentance, the chance to change our minds and try again. We are repeat offenders, and so we become “repeat repenters.” This is not a situation that is remedied in this life. We may be confident that eventually the field will be all wheat and the dough will be bread and the tree will be the home of all. But that does not relieve us of the here-and-now struggle.

The struggle is the goal
the path is what we know
all the rest is heaven.

When we fail, we feel humiliated, brought back to the truth that we have not progressed as far as we thought. But these humiliations are their own forms of progress. We learn that the movement from realization to integration, from the inner feeling of love to embodying love, is a never-ending process. We must not become discouraged. There is another way to see it. In a moment of truth we can acknowledge how we have been lost, and we can make amends. Out of our errors and frailty come some of our most profound lessons. In a heartfelt conversation, in a quiet moment when we take stock—even on our deathbed— freedom awaits. The “freedom that awaits” is to simply return to the spiritual project, carrying luminous inner spaces into the darkness of the next moment in which we live.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time

More Parables

Matthew 13: 44-52

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. “Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”

“People are expected to develop spiritually. This means greater understanding of Jesus’ teachings and greater integration of those teachings into creative ethical behavior. People are judged by their use of the gifts they’ve been given” – John Shea

Discussion Questions:

1. When you think of this parable’s metaphor of “selling and buying”, what are some things you a have previously valued or pursued, that in light of new spiritual growth you are now letting go of? (e.g. possessions, attitudes, old beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve you or the kingdom)
2. How do you use both the old and the new to grow in knowledge and faith? What are some examples?
3. When in your life have you taken a chance or put yourself on the line because you discovered a glimpse of the kingdom…the “pearl of great price”? Tell the story, what was the pearl?
4. In what ways do you see yourself embracing the spiritual journey as an ongoing process of finding, selling, buying and reinventing yourself in light of the ongoing revelation of God’s presence? Explain

Biblical Context

Matthew 13: 44-52
Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

In today’s Gospel we read the conclusion of Jesus’ discourse on the kingdom of God, in which he teaches the crowds, and then the disciples, through parables. You may have noticed, as we have been reading Matthew’s Gospel, that Matthew the editor, has arranged his Gospel into narrative sections and then long speeches given by Jesus on a particular topic. This is our third Sunday reading about Jesus’ teachings on the kingdom of God. Scripture scholars suggest that Matthew arranged the inherited oral and written traditions for his Gospel into five main topics in order to reflect the Pentateuch, the five books of the law.

Today we read three more comparisons that Jesus uses to help his disciples understand what he means by “the kingdom of heaven” The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, like a merchant who finds a pearl of great price, and like a net thrown into the sea. The first two stories function as parables, so we will apply our method of parable interpretation to them. In both the story of the buried treasure and the story of the merchant who finds the precious pearl the disciples, to whom Jesus is speaking, are compared to the person who finds the treasure. In each case that person recognizes the value of his find and joyfully sells all he has in order to keep that which is most valuable. Jesus’ disciples must do the same.

The third comparison is quite different from the other two. “The kingdom is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.” At first glance this parable seems to be addressing the fact that the coming of the kingdom is gradual, so that evil is not immediately abolished: the net catches fish of every kind, both good and bad. Later the good will be saved and the bad discarded. The parable is teaching the disciples to be patient with me process. Good will prevail in the end.

However, an allegorical interpretation of the parable also appears in the Gospel and is attributed to Jesus. As was true with the allegorical interpretation of the parable of the weeds and wheat, the subject changes from patience with the process of the coming of the kingdom to judgment. Apocalyptic imagery is used to teach that we are each accountable for our actions. The end for those who do good and those who do evil is not same. Jesus asks his disciples if they have understood all these things, and they say, “Yes.” This scene is typical of Matthew’s Gospel. Mark, on the other hand, emphasizes the disciples’ inability to under- stand. Jesus then tells the disciples that “every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” Here Matthew describes what he himself has done in writing his Gospel. Over and over we have seen Matthew demonstrate that Jesus has fulfilled the words of the prophets by quoting Old Testament passages. For the last three Sundays we have seen Matthew attribute to Jesus allegorical sermons that grew up in the early church. Matthew uses both the old (the Old Testament) and the new (church sermons) to interpret and teach the significance of Jesus’ ministry to his Jewish contemporaries.

In doing this Matthew is fulfilling the role of a “scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven.” After the age of prophecy ended (soon after the Babylonian exile) the scribes took over the function of prophets. The Jews believed that God was in charge of history and that God’s hidden purposes would be revealed. Both in order to interpret events and to apply the law to new settings, the scribes scoured the law and the prophets to find words that, although reinterpreted, could help them explain God’s will and God’s ways to God’s people. The word was understood to be a living word that always remained pertinent. Matthew, the scribe, is himself taking from his storehouse both the old and the new to help his fellow Jews understand Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom.

Riddles, Questions, and the Long Reach

Reflection
Kathy Coffey

What is the pearl of great price, the treasure in the field, the fish worth keeping? We all know the right answer: God. To get at the real answer, we might ask ourselves, “What’s most important? What do I want so badly it aches?”

The parent might respond with the name of a child, the lover thinks of the beloved, the artist or craftsperson of the next project, the businessperson of a promotion, the naturalist of stream and meadow.

Here’s the catch: what if the right answer and the real answer are one and the same? Isn’t God big enough to encompass it all? If our loves and longings spring from the deepest, best self, then they are part and parcel of the God-spark, Christ within.

The God-planted joy in it all gives permanence. So, if the beloved dies, the children eventually leave home, the career derails, the meadow becomes a parking lot, or the project ends, something vital remains. Through the enduring happiness, memory, or sense of completion, God leaves a lasting mark.

Jesus’ genius is communicating these subtle, hard-to-define truths in symbols, not laws or abstractions. The symbol is elastic enough to hold polarities and concrete enough for the youngest to grasp, at least a bit. It sounds like a riddle: what do pearls, fields, and fish have in common? They all get us thinking, questioning, reaching for God whose hidden presence hovers tantalizingly close. Without God, we have nothing. Having God, we have everything. Maybe we’re never without.

Kathy Coffey

Kathy Coffey is an award-winning writer, mother of four, and speaker who gives workshops and retreats nationally and internationally. Her most recent book is “When the Saints Came Marching”

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle A, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.

Year A: Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

They all ate and were satisfied.

Matthew 14: 13-21

When Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” [Jesus] said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over, twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.

Discussion Questions:

1. What do you think about Jesus empowering the disciples in this reading? Do you relate to this in your own experience of “bringing Jesus what you have to give” and trusting in the Spirit for rest?
2. Who are the hungry in your community? For what do they hunger? Is Jesus asking you to “feed them yourselves”?
3. Have you ever felt that Jesus asked you to do something, but you were unable to do it? What were the circumstances? What was the outcome?
4. During these COVID times and our more limited access to the physical eucharist, how are you receiving the spiritual nourishment you need to respond to the needs of others? Explain

Biblical Context

Matthew 14: 13-21
Margaret Nutting Ralph

Between last Sunday’s Gospel and this Sunday’s Gospel two things have occurred: Jesus has returned to his hometown in Nazareth only to be rejected (see Matt 13:54- 58), and Herod has killed John the Baptist. Matthew is keeping his readers informed of the growing antagonism against Jesus as a way of foreshadowing Jesus’ coming crucifixion.

On hearing that John the Baptist has been killed Jesus goes out by himself in a boat to have some time alone. He needs it. However, the crowd needs Jesus. They follow Jesus so that when he returns to shore, they are waiting for him. Instead of putting his own needs first and heading back out in the boat Jesus responds to the crowd’s needs: His “heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.”

In contrast to Jesus, when the disciples see the crowd in need they feel helpless. Instead of trying to respond to the crowd’s needs the disciples suggest to Jesus that the people be sent away: “This, is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus does not want to send the crowd away. He tells the disciples to feed them: “…give them some food yourselves.” The disciples claim that this is impossible: “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”

The story that, follows is often called “the multiplication of the loaves.” This title centers our attention on a miracle. However, when Gospel authors want to center our attention on a miracle, which they often do, they use the form called miracle story. In a miracle story the author describes the problem that needs to be solved, gives a description of Jesus acting to solve the problem, and ends by telling us how those who witness Jesus’ act of power respond with awe. The story we read today lacks the form of a miracle story. The text describes Jesus’ actions, but it refrains from stating that Jesus multiplied the loaves. In addition, there is no description of a reaction from the crowd or from the apostles that draws our attention to an act of power by Jesus. Since this story does not have the form of a miracle story, we are invited to look for some other lesson that Matthew is teaching us by the way he tells the story.

Jesus has told the disciples to feed the crowd themselves, but they feel powerless to do it. Jesus takes the little food the disciples have, five loaves and two fishes, “… and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.” Here Matthew is describing Jesus doing and saying just what he will do and say at the last supper: “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, ‘Take and eat; this is my body ” (Matt 2.6:26)* that this bread, blessed and broken, is Christ’s own body and is spiritual nourishment for Jesus’ followers. Eating this bread gives Jesus’ disciples the nourishment, the strength they need to carry out their mission. That is why Matthew pictures Jesus giving the bread to the disciples to distribute rather than distributing it himself. Jesus had told the disciples to feed the crowd themselves. Now Jesus is making it possible for them to follow his instructions.

After all have eaten there are twelve full baskets left: over. Twelve is a symbolic number. It reminds us of the twelve tribes and the twelve Apostles, and represents the whole church. Matthew is not just telling us a story in which Jesus makes it possible for his disciples to feed the hungry. Matthew is teaching his contemporaries and us that through Christ’s eucharistic presence we receive the spiritual nourishment we need to respond to the needs of others. We, too, can and should feed the hungry.

Maximizing Assets

Spiritual Commentary
John Shea

As the faculty of an educational institution, we were working in accord with standard organizational wisdom. Through surveys and interviews, we had done a needs analysis of a prospective student population. We figured out what they wanted.

Then we designed a program to meet those needs. It was an impressive projection, meeting the requirements of accrediting agencies and embodying sound pedagogical principles.

Then a few of the designers paused and puzzled, “Who is going to run this program?” We had created a program that was needed, but we did not have the personnel to pull it off. We looked around the table at ourselves. That was all we had, and it was not enough.

Someone suggested we hire new faculty. We should “go and buy” some good people. But that would require money we didn’t have. The program, as they say, never came to fruition.

As I look back at that experience, I see that we began with needs and then discovered that we could not meet them. In fact, the more we explored the needs and what type of programming was required, the more helpless we began to feel.

This way of thinking that leads to inaction is analogous to how the disciples construe the situation in this Gospel episode. Beginning with need is beginning with what we lack. People have needs that cannot be met in the present situation with the present resources. So, they have to “go and buy” what they need from some outside resource before it is too late. When we work this way, we are conscious of what we do not have and what other people do have. In the Gospel story, the disciples think the crowds do not have food and the markets in the village do have food. The strategy is to get the crowds to the markets—before they close.

Jesus, the teacher of the kingdom of heaven, redirects the attention of the disciples to what they have. He tells them the crowds do not have to go away. They should feed the people. However, in their minds they do not have enough. They are locked into the enormity of need and paucity of resource. They have “five loaves and two fish.” But they characterize it as, “We have nothing here but . . . ” meaning it is not enough.

But for Jesus a crucial shift has gone on. They have moved from the preoccupation with lack to the awareness of assets. They now know what they have. They are no longer looking outside themselves for an answer. They have turned their gaze within. This is the first step in learning about spiritual resources. Going and buying may work in the physical world, but what works in the spiritual world is standing still and becoming aware. Knowing what you have is the first step of spiritual transformation.

Jesus asks that they bring him what they have. Then he performs the second step in the process of spiritual transformation. He gives thanks for what they have. This is an enormous step. They move from seeing it as too little and cursing it to seeing it as a gift and becoming grateful. The third step is to give away the gift to people (the disciples) who in turn give it away to others.

No one takes and holds; everyone receives and gives. The result is participation in divine abundance, an experience that is completely satisfying for it is the fulfillment of the created potential of people. This is a process of wholeness and completion, an experience that begins with the sacredness of seven and ends with the sacredness of twelve. This process will bring to satisfaction as many individual people as are present.

What is this story trying to tell us?

The way to proceed is to be leery of the mind’s tendency to focus on lack and to continuously think going and buying from others is the solution. We should know what we have, give thanks for it as God’s gift, and give it to others who in turn will give it to others. This process of self-knowledge, gratitude, and communal love produces not only satisfaction but abundance. But does it?

I don’t know.

The bean counter in me wants a physical miracle and not a spiritual lesson. I want God in Jesus to make abundant food whenever people are hungry. But there are problems with physically multiplying loaves and fishes. A man once told me he was no longer a Christian because if Jesus could produce food for hungry people and only did it once, he did not want anything to do with him. He should have done it many times and left the recipe for his followers.

But I wonder: when people of faith find themselves in the desert, as many today do, how should they proceed? I wonder what would have happened at the educational planning meeting if we had looked around the table and asked what we had rather than what we did not have. I wonder what would have happened if we became grateful to God for having what our practical minds construed as too little. And I wonder what would have happened if we ceased to look at prospective students as consumers of educational goods but as the first receivers of what they would learn to give away. I wonder what would have happened if we had let the spiritual “in” on our physical and social plans.

Year A: Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Walking on the Water

Matthew 14: 22-33

After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening, he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how [strong] the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

Discussion Questions:

1. One would think that our cumulative experiences of God’s presence in our lives would finally cast out fear. Where do you experience moments of doubt or fear even though you’ve known God’s presence before? Explain
2. Can you think of a time when your faith in Jesus enabled you to do something you would otherwise have been afraid to do? Tell the story.
3. In your experience, where is God’s presence most visible to you? (Outside of the Mass)
4. How are you doing with recognizing and accepting explicit and subtle invitations to step out of your comfort zone in faith? Can you share an example?

Biblical Context

Matthew 14: 22-33
Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

Doesn’t it seem a little harsh that Jesus would call Peter out as “you of little faith” when the other disciples did nothing more than hang on for dear life in their stormbattered boat? The interchange between Jesus and Peter is unique to Matthew and offers a meditation on Peter’s discipleship.

When Jesus first called Peter and his brother, he told them to follow him to become fishers of men. Now in this incident, there’s a carefully recorded dialogue. At the sound of inchoate cries from frightened fishermen, Jesus calls out, “Take courage! It is I, do not be afraid!” “Take courage” is the same thing Jesus said to the paralytic when he told him his sins were forgiven and to the woman who touched his cloak for healing (Matthew 9:2; 9-22). It really means “Rejoice.”

Why rejoice? Because Jesus says “It is I.” No student of Scripture can fail to recognize that phrase as an echo of the many “I am” statements we hear in John. (The Greek wording is exactly the same.) On one hand, Jesus is assuring them that he’s not a phantom. On another level, he is telling them that he, the Jesus they just left on shore, is the one who is there.

At an even deeper level, coming close to calling himself by the proper name of God, he declares that he is there for them.

Those layers of meaning give context to Peter’s reply, “If it is you, command me to come.” It doesn’t seem probable that Peter is saying “Prove this is no fantasy.” For that, he could have simply said, “Pinch me.” No, Peter was entering into a realm more mysterious than ghostly appearances. The simplest and most challenging interpretation is that Peter was saying, “Let me come to you and be like you.” If so, that was a moment of blinding faith. Peter understood momentarily, that discipleship means walking like the Master, no matter how impossible it seems.

What sank Peter was his doubt, although the translation “wavering” probably offers a more appropriate explanation. A rather visual definition of the Greek word for doubt, distazo, says that it means to stand in two ways. Peter got caught between noticing the strength of the wind and the power of Jesus’ invitation. The wind and waves took their toll, but only until he called out for help.

A wonderful thing about this incident is that it’s not a success story. It’s a salvation narrative. This story speaks of the courage necessary for discipleship. It’s okay to be frightened in a storm. It’s downright heroic to risk stepping out of the boat and into the raging waters. Most of all, when self-confidence has dangerously overstepped its limits, the ability to call for and receive help is the real sign of faith.

The soggy Peter who got back in the boat was both humbled and empowered. He had learned, not for the last time, the truth that God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

If we use today’s readings as a guide to discernment about our times, we may decide to choose Peter as our patron of audacious attempts. Today’s tempests include the lack or loss of faith in our families and society as well as the intolerable violence and injustice that plague our world. We can hide from them or heed the voice that whispers or shouts, “Take courage! Rejoice!” Elijah allowed himself to be drawn from hiding in the cave, and Peter leapt into the depths that only Jesus could help him navigate.

The world needs witnesses willing to risk trying to walk like the Master, people whose way of living entices others to faith, people who continue in the struggle to proclaim the validity of Gospel values in spite of countervailing winds. We surely won’t triumph with every attempt, but this is about salvation, not success.

The Light that Rocks the Boat

Reflection
By Doug Langner

Have you ever been to the movies during the day when, for hours, there is darkness all around you. Yet, once the movie is over and you’ve finally adjusted to the dark and the light emanating from the screen, you walk out of the theater only to be assaulted by blinding daylight. It is utterly confusing, your eyes hurt, you may want to close them or even return to the dark theater.

Today’s readings remind us that these mysteries are not meant solely to be enjoyed in the dark. Instead, the meaning behind those actions are to be brought out of the darkness and into the light so we might live more fully in the world around us.

The story of Elijah tells of the prophet’s struggle with strong winds and crushing rocks, all while trying to discern God’s still small voice. These challenging forces of nature serve as powerful metaphors for the confusion that happens in life. To really hear the voice of God, as did Elijah, one must be attuned to God and engage deeply with the suffering of others, especially the most vulnerable.

Today’s Gospel reveals a timid Peter inside a boat needing to be rescued by Jesus. In those times when we are unsure and most fragile, we all reflect a bit of Peter, reluctant to step out in the water of uncertainty, afraid to place full trust in God. Those are times when it is more comfortable to live our lives in the darkness, perhaps even within the confines of our churches. Many times, we are called to step out of our own comfort zone. In doing so, we are often led to unexpected moments of conversion.

The image of the boat which carried Peter brings to mind a modern-day gesture. With the wave of refugees coming in droves to Germany, Cardinal Rainer Woelki decided that he had to visit the beaches where people were risking their lives, encountering unpredictable seas — all with the hope they would find calmer shores and safer homes. On one of those beaches, he found a seven-meter long boat that had been used by some refugees. Deciding to bring it to the cathedral in Cologne, he celebrated the Eucharist on the front steps of that church using this boat as the altar. Though his intent was likely to offer a visual connection to the suffering refugees and the Jubilee Year of Mercy, certain segments of the political and religious world came down hard on his liturgical gesture. He was criticized for daring to bring a political issue literally into the church.

Often the walls of our churches are used as a barrier to shield ourselves from the very real atrocities around us. At other times, that shield disengages us from seeing or responding to the human dignity denied to many in our world. Consider the most foundational of faith issues, ones basic to the tenants of Christianity, such as welcoming the stranger or speaking out for those who have been marginalized. How can one reveal true discipleship when the temptation is often to stay in the dark or avoid the unknown waters of conflict?

The readings today are meant to shake us up, to generate a level of discomfort. We are always being drawn into uncharted territories, places where the still small voice can only be heard if we quiet and align our hearts to God. Like Jesus, we are all meant to work for the empowerment of the marginalized. As ministers to and with others, will we choose darkness or will we revel in the light that heals, transforms and casts out all fear?

Year A: Twentieth Sunday Ordinary Time

The Canaanite Woman’s Faith.

Matthew 15: 21-28

Then Jesus went from that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

Discussion Questions:

1. When have you had an experience that caused you to revise what you believed God was asking of you? Explain what happened.
2. “Great faith is the persistent creativity to bring about the good” What is it that helps or inhibits you in having “great faith”? Is your faith creative?
3. What do you see Jesus teaching us about discipleship in this reading?
4. Do you feel any, responsibility to welcome immigrants, outsiders or newcomers to your community? Explain.

Biblical Context

Matthew 15: 21-28
Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

Our Lectionary readings now move forward to the middle of chapter 15. Once again, we have skipped over Jesus’ ongoing controversies with the Pharisees. After being criticized by the Pharisees because his disciples do not wash their hands before eating? Jesus teaches the crowd that it is what comes out of a person that defiles that person: “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness blasphemy. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile” (Matt 15:19). On hearing that the Pharisees have taken offense at his teaching, Jesus calls them “blind guides” (Matt 15:14a) and tells his disciples to leave them alone.

Now Jesus moves on to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman, that is, a woman who is not Jewish, asks Jesus to heal her daughter. Matthew tells us that “Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.” The woman has presented Jesus with a dilemma. As we already know, Jesus has instructed his disciples not to “go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt lQ:5b-6). If Jesus responds to this woman, he will be acting contrary to his own instructions.

The disciples, perhaps because of Jesus’ previous instructions, feel no responsibility to help the woman. They tell Jesus, “Send her away for she keeps calling out after us.” The disciples are acting just as they did when the crowd was hungry. They wanted to send the crowd away too. On that occasion Jesus told the disciples to feed the crowd, not to send them a way. Now Jesus seems to be torn between his two instructions.

Rather than sending the woman away Jesus is honest about his dilemma. Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus is repeating his understanding of his own mission, the mission that he shared with his disciples. But the woman persists. She does him homage, calls him “Lord,” and humbly asks for help- Jesus obviously does not want to reject the woman because he continues to engage her in conversation. Nor does he want to act contrary to his own idea of his mission. Using an expression of the time, Jesus explains to the woman that it would not be right to give to her what belongs to others: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.

Something about Jesus’ tone must have invited the woman to persevere. She responds, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” This quick rejoinder rings true to Jesus. Many of the house of Israel do not have faith, in him. Yet here is a foreigner who does have faith in Jesus and who asks for a healing, not for herself, but for her daughter. Jesus grants the woman her request: “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

It seems that Jesus found the woman’s need and faith so strong that his encounter with her caused him to broaden his own idea of what he was called to do. This story foreshadows the commissioning of Jesus’ disciples to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). It also emphasizes that the primary component in any healing is faith. We do not know that the daughter is even present, but her mother’s faith is so strong that “the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour.”

Doing What it Takes

Reflection
John Shea

I once did a workshop on theological reflection at Mill Hill outside London. At one point the group decided to work with this story from St. Matthew. The discussion was wide ranging. People shared many ideas about how to interpret this story and how to apply it to contemporary situations, especially to issues about women in the Church.

There was a quiet, older woman who did not participate very much. But she was very attentive and seemed avidly interested. Finally, after everyone else had their say, she quietly contributed, “It’s her daughter. She wants her daughter better, and she’ll do what it takes.”

It rang true.

The character of the Canaanite woman changes throughout the story. She is noisy and assertive, then pleading and compliant, then clever and confrontative. Her consistency does not lie in her attitudes and behaviors. She is unified by her mission. She has a demon-afflicted child, and if this Jewish Messiah can help, he is going to. Little things—such as ethnic diversity and hatred—will not stand in the way.

Jesus characterizes this woman as having great faith. We often think of faith as belief in God. “Great” faith is often construed as believing in God even in situations of suffering. In suffering situations there is the temptation to feel we have been abandoned by God. Great faith asserts God is present even when obvious signs of that presence are missing. Holy people always acknowledge and pray to God.

However, this is not the great faith of the Canaanite woman. Her faith is that she is a tiger. There is a situation that needs healing, and she is the single-minded servant of that possibility. If she has to twist the arm of a Jewish Messiah and remind him that although there may be many ethnic groups and religions there is only one God, then so be it.

I once saw a contemporary mother tell her son about her commitment to ridding him of the particular demon that had taken up residence in his attitudes. “I want you to know I am never going to stop. You think you can sulk and avoid me, and I will go away. I am never going away. I want you to know that. And you can never run far enough to get away from me. This stuff is going to change.” If you heard her voice, the tone and timbre, you would know that you had encountered an absolute, an unshakeable presence in a world of swaying reeds.

However, faith is not only a relentless commitment to the betterment of people and situations. It is also the creative ability to find a way to that betterment. The thing about creativity is that it does not have a preset agenda. It has an ultimate mission, but it does not have a canonized strategy. Creativity does not know what it is up against. It does know that there will be resistance, but it does not know the exact nature of that resistance. So, it is ready, alert, poised, marshaled for whatever it takes. Does it take argument? Then there will be argument. Does it take obeisance? Then there will be obeisance. Does it take confrontation? Then there will be confrontation. Of course, there are limits. The end does not justify the means. But the point is: the full range of human creativity is exercised in pursuit of healing.

When we understand great faith as the persistent creativity to bring about the good, the ranks of the saints swell with a different crowd of people. There is a research doctor with his eyeball glued to the microscope, a community organizer in the back of the hall urging voices not used to talking, a teacher finding a way into a closed mind, a banker figuring out how to get a loan to a woman on the edge of qualification, a salesperson dedicated to the customer, etc. In fact, great faith belongs to all of us when we remind each other of the deeper truth of who weare, and compassion flows from us into situations where it is deeply needed.

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle A, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

You are Peter, and to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven

Matthew 16: 13-30

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so, I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Discussion Questions: 

1. How would you personally answer Jesus if he asked you, “Who do you say that I am?” We all know the theological answer, but are you making new spiritual connections to the reality of who Jesus is for you? How does this happen for you? Explain
2. What authority does church teaching have in your life? Why does church teaching have this authority?
3. What authority do you have in other people’s lives? Do you use this authority as a way of letting others experience God’s love for them? Explain
4. Do you see yourself and your life as a “rock” that Jesus can build his church on? In what ways do we (you) hold keys to the kingdom?

Biblical Context

Matthew 16: 13-30
Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

Matthew picks up this account from Mark and embellishes it, whereas Luke, actually condenses the original. Although Luke drops the detail that it all happened in Caesarea Philippi, that seemed important to Matthew and Mark. They probably emphasized the location because it was known as the area of a temple to the shepherd-god Pan, and its name connected it with imperial power. Caesarea Philippi had a long history of development and had been named for successive emperors and kings. Even before there is any conversation, the setting itself hints at questions of rulers and kingdoms. There seems to be no other reason for mentioning the geography.

As the scene opens, Jesus takes the initiative and asks a loaded question: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Instead of simply saying “What do people think of me?” he used the cryptic designation “Son of Man.” That was the only title he tended to use for himself and he used it with three distinct shades of meaning: as a reference to himself, as the present Son of Man who ate and drank with others and could assume the authority to act as Lord of the Sabbath; as his self-designation as the one who would be betrayed and handed over; and as an apocalyptic reference to the Son of man known from the Hebrew Scriptures who would be revealed in glory. The term thus describes Jesus’ self-concept as the man who shared life with others, who would suffer immensely, and to whom God promised a glorious future. In a sense, asking the question by using “Son of Man” vocabulary gave the disciples a mysterious hint about what he thought of himself even as he asked to hear other perspectives.

It sounds as if all the disciples who were present got in on round one of the answer session. “Some say John the Baptist.” That had already been published as Herod’s frightened or superstitious explanation of Jesus’ mighty works and popularity (Matthew 14:2). Following that reference, the disciples went a bit further afield and mentioned that some people identified Jesus with their favorite prophets from of old. Surprisingly, they all seem to just take it in stride and make no comment about the fact that each attempt to describe Jesus identified him with someone who had already died. Could they not imagine that God might send a fresh prophet into their moment of history?

Having heard what the religious rumor mill was turning out, Jesus turned the spotlight on his friends. Peter took the role of spokesman and proclaimed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

What we can assume is that even if Peter might not have had the most orthodox theological or dogmatic propositions in mind, his words connoted a commitment. Speaking for the group, he declared that they believed God was speaking through Jesus in quite an extraordinary way. In fact, they were betting their lives on it. For them, Jesus was the Christ, God’s anointed, the one who was speaking God’s will and word in that moment.

To the title “Christ,” Peter added “the Son of the living God.” That reiterated what the disciples had said on the boat after Jesus came to them and calmed the storm. Then, they said it gratefully in relation to his mastery of the forces of nature. Now, in a moment of tranquility when they were invited to make a deeper assessment of what they believed, they assented to Peter’s proclamation.

Just as Peter spoke for the group, Jesus’ reply to him was directed to them all. Jesus pointed out that what they believed about him was not the result of their intelligence or any incontrovertible evidence; it was the fruit of grace. That grace was what made Jesus confident that Peter and the group could be the living stones from which to construct a community that would become his church.

Getting it Right

Reflection
John Shea

With regard to the spiritual dimension of life, getting it right is not an ego accomplishment of which we can be proud. Nor does it mean “mission accomplished” and we can now move on to other things. Rather it means we have momentarily allowed the Spirit to have influence. But this is a beginning, not an ending. Getting it right initiates a process.

Peter’s confession that “gets it right” does not solve the riddle of Jesus’ identity. It opens him to the essential mystery that unites Jesus and himself, an essential mystery that now beckons him further. Therefore, another phrase for “getting it right” might be “in over your head. Or, put in another more enigmatic way, “getting it right” lays a firm foundation for a life of “getting it wrong.

The disciples in the Gospels are eloquent testimony to the rhythms of getting it right and getting it wrong. Jesus compliments them and criticizes them in equal measure. In this story he names Peter the rock upon which he will build his Church. In the next episode Peter will be called Satan and told to get back into Jesus’ following (Matt 16:21-23). ‘Getting it right,” having a spiritual insight, begins a process that requires ongoing correction and adjustment. We know the bedrock truth of what we have perceived, but we do not know the full scope of what we have said or all of its implications.

Spiritual teachers often make a distinction between realization and integration. Realization is “getting it right.” We grasp, for a moment, the necessity of Jesus’ death on the cross or the meaning of grace or our grounding in eternal life. A man who had a powerful religious experience exclaimed, “So that’s what it is!” When he was asked, “What?” he said, “God, that’s what God is!” He had always heard about God, but he had no idea what the word referred to. This religious experience filled the word with meaning. He realized the truth of a theological concept he had inherited.

He got it. But what will he do with it? How will he integrate the God realization into his life?

Strange to say, the sage advice is to ponder and not to rush. Jesus does not want Peter and the disciples talking to others about the Messiah because they will get it wrong. They do not know the full reach of their initial insight. They have inherited ideas about the Messiah and the Son of God. What they see in Jesus challenges those ideas. But it will take time before they are completely rejected or modified. They need to understand more fully before they act.

I think this is true for most of us. Spiritual insight seldom comes with a clear path of action attached. We need to ponder, to take more inner time to comprehend and see implications. Any rush to action might be premature. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, a year of bold action is usually followed by a year of apology. In spiritual teaching, action is ripe fruit that falls from the tree. We have to wait for the harvest. When we fully realize our initial spiritual insight, we will see paths of integration. When the appropriate actions flow, “getting it right” turns into “getting it complete.” The problem is we cannot envision the action ahead of time. We can give broad categories like compassion, love, justice, mercy, etc. But this does not disclose the concrete way these values will be enacted. But, if my experience is any indicator, when it happens, it will come as a surprise. Denise Levertov, the poet once described the fig tree that Jesus cursed (Matt 21:18-22) as telling the disciples that they were withholding “gifts unimaginable.” We know we are in the full reaches of “getting it right” when gifts unimaginable are flowing from us.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twenty-Second Sunday Ordinary Time

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself

Matthew 16: 21-27

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you consider how and when your “human ways” of thinking are not in line with God’s? How is it possible for us to be more in touch with an alternate way of thinking, more in touch with the divine?
2. Is suffering in your life something you grudgingly endure or actually lean into, as a path toward transformation and resurrection? How do you take up your cross to follow Jesus? Explain
3. Jesus tries to help us understand that following him, looks like loss but is really gain. When have you experienced a loss that led to discovering yourself in a deeper relationship with God?
4. Have you ever personally or professionally stood against unjust power in support of Gospel values, ethically following Jesus? If so, what happened?

Biblical Context

Matthew 16: 21-27
Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

Though we don’t hear the first four words as a part of the Gospel passage this Sunday, Matthew 16:21 begins “From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem” (emphasis added). Those first four words were important to Matthew because they signaled a turning point in his Gospel. Things were getting more intense, and Jesus was going to concentrate his teaching ministry on those closest to him, trying to lead them to understand him more profoundly, and thus, strengthen their faith in God. Today’s Gospel presents the first of Jesus’ three specific predictions about the suffering and death he was to undergo. While those three differ in the details, they all end with the promise that he will be raised “on the third day.”

Between the time in the desert when the tempter offered Jesus three ways to betray his vocation and this announcement of the passion, we have a few hints about how Jesus grew in understanding what his faithfulness would cost him. Earlier, he had warned his disciples that they would be persecuted (Matthew 10). He encouraged them to become as simple as doves and shrewd as serpents. Most of all, he taught them that the powers of evil might be able to kill the body, but that they have no power over the soul. In the language of the day that meant that the powers of this world can injure and even destroy the body (soma), the physical, ever-changing, perishable dimension of the human person. But the psyche or “soul,” the real self where conscience, decision and relationships reside, is beyond the power of evil.

Jesus told his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, to the confrontation between the kingdom of his Father and kingdoms of this world. To avoid that confrontation would have amounted to a passive approval of the rule of the religious and civil authorities who were so threatened by him that they were determined to eliminate him. Refusal to face them down would have affirmed the superiority of their power. Jesus had to face them to be true to himself. He had to risk his body to save his soul.

Peter’s response to Jesus’ plan seemed to make very good sense: “God forbid!” Peter was operating on the level of safety rather than salvation. Unwittingly, he echoed the desert tempter whose every suggestion attempted to sway Jesus from being true to his vocation. Jesus replied with the harsh retort: “Get behind me!” Peter the “rock” was putting himself in Jesus’ path as a stumbling block, and Jesus will not fall for it.

There’s no collegiality here, no room for debate. Jesus has discerned the necessary path, and his disciples can only choose whether or not to follow him as he carries it through. Will they get behind him? Are they committed to follow him? If so, they will have to do it in his style, leaving behind their visions of a mythic messiah who would overpower the world on its own terms. If they were planning on a victory that reflected the values of their society, Jesus was offering something entirely different, something far more costly and far more rewarding.

The incident we witness here between Jesus and his disciples gives plot, characters and script to what John’s Gospel says so succinctly with the proclamation: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). The first issue in Matthew’s scene is truth, most specifically, Jesus being true to himself, to his Father and his vocation. Jesus presents and represents truth and all its depth in stark contrast to the mendacity and superficiality of his adversaries. Jesus invites his disciples to follow him in the way of truth which means to be willing to risk their own lives rather than lose their reason for living.

This is a turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. Immediately after Peter spoke for the disciples and acknowledged Jesus as Messiah, Jesus began to intensify his teaching about what was implied in following him. As always, his primary way of teaching was through his behavior. His words simply explained what he was doing.

We come to the liturgy to hear this Gospel, not as a scene from the past, but as a challenge to decide whether or not we are willing to follow Christ on the way to Jerusalem today and be ready for all that will demand of us.

Finding and Losing Life

Spiritual Commentary
John Shea

It is a sad but predictable fact that those who stand up get knocked down. Whistle blowers are a prime example. A cop reports that other cops are abusing suspects. He is shunned and punished in very clever—and often violent—ways. A woman reports accounting abuses in a large corporation, her boss thanks her and comments on her courage. Within a week she is downsized for no apparent reason. A priest reports another priest for sexual abuse. The bishop tells him it will be taken care of. Instead, he is taken care of and sent to a remote assignment. Criticism and cover-up go together, and part of the cover- up is to eliminate the criticism.

Jesus was a fierce critic. He pointed out the thoroughgoing hypocrisy of religious leadership. They were taken up with their own importance, loving the trappings of their position rather than its substance (see Matt 23:1-31): They loved money, elaborate robes, the first places at table, salutations in the marketplace, and being called teacher. Image was everything. They polished the outside of the cup and were concerned about weighing the mint and the herb. They kept people from the knowledge that would help them, laid burdens on them, and watched them falter. Jesus saw clearly the organizational abuse and, prophet them falter. Jesus saw clearly the organizational abuse and, prophet that he was, he blew the whistle.

Therefore, Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death was not a supernatural vision of the future. It was rooted in the amply documented tendency of those in power to eliminate those who question it. Today also those who stand against organizations, governments, and institutions—and call into question their unethical practices—know that reprisal is their fate. The rhetoric may be that criticism is welcomed. But the reality is that anyone who questions the status quo will be treated harshly by those benefiting from the status quo. Often this comes down to being attacked with the very practices they are criticizing. If they are pointing to financial abuse, they will be stripped of work and money. If they are pointing to physical abuse, they will be beaten. When leadership does not know what to do, it does what it knows best. What it knows best is punishing dissent and covering up.

Why do people do it then? There are as many reasons as there are people and groups who have walked this lonely path of confrontation. Some say, “I just couldn’t let it go on” or “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do something” or “ This was once a great company [or church or organization or government) and it means something to me.” The reason given in the Gospel is that the deeper life of God depends on it. There is a deeper life of God in us, and this life is nurtured by expressing it in the face of the myriad situations we encounter. If this life is silenced, especially if it is silenced because we are afraid that its expression will mean we will lose our surface life, then this most valuable life is lost. The paradox is that by our silence we have gained some significant footing in the world, but we have lost our soul. As in the Esau and Jacob story (Gen 25:29-34), we have sold our birthright for a pot of stew. In Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons (London: William Heinemann, 1960), Thomas More sees that the man who has perjured himself is wearing a chain of office for Wales. It is his reward for lying. Thomas More says to him, “Richard, it does not profit a man to lose his soul for the whole world, but for Wales?’

It is difficult to grasp how spiritually momentous not speaking out is. Ordinary consciousness thinks it is an ethical option. After all, it is not something we are doing. It is something we are not doing. At best, it is a sin of omission. Some may think it is important to confront what is happening. If it is “their thing,” fine. Others may have different business to conduct. In A Man for All Seasons, Thomas Moore also says, “Our natural path lies in escaping.” This is a piece of advice well worth heeding.

However, the Gospels are not that blasé. They think our soul is at stake. So they encourage freely shouldering the cross. “The Cross” is merely what happens to those who persist in righteousness in an unrighteous world. Every time “the Cross” happens, and it happens daily, a double revelation unfolds. Divine love in some finite human person shines forth and human resistance in some hardened persons is seen for what it is. “The Cross” is the symbol of the standoff between divine love and human recalcitrance.

This dangerous possibility of discipleship so terrifies us that we immediately plead for a reprieve. Jesus must take us aside as he took aside Peter. He must explain to us once again how this is necessary, how this is a “must.” Given who God is and who we are, it cannot be any other way. And it is only a seeming terror, for this is the path of finding the deeper life that sustains us. But Jesus the teacher must continue and slowly get us back into his following. He must tell us about the word we cannot hear, the word at the end that was lost because our hearts were pounding at suffering and death, the mysterious word: resurrection.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

If your brother listens to you, you have won him over.

Matthew 18: 15-20

Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.* If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Discussion Questions:

1. Have you ever had a “faith based” sit down over some offense and tried to reconcile the relationship. What happened? Were you able to reconcile or did it escalate?
2. For you, does reconciliation have to mean someone is proven right in the situation? Or, are you able to reconcile with people when reaching agreement is impossible? What’s your experience here? 
3. Do you view your freedom to forgive others as gift from God, or is it a necessary burden you carry as a Christian? Have you experienced transformation by forgiving another? Tell the story
4. The last line of the passage seems to reveal God’s intense drive for relationship, for us to be together so God can be among us. Where you struggle with keeping “God’s restorative love and relationships whole” as the primary focus of your interactions with others?

Biblical Context

Matthew 18: 15-20
Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

The Lectionary cycle skips over a good amount of Matthew’s Gospel between last week and today. When we approach today’s Gospel it helps to see it in its context.

The section beginning at Chapter 18 opens with disciples asking Jesus who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. They were certainly not expecting him to put a little child in the middle of their debate circle, making her or him the center of attention. Perhaps it was the child’s amazement at being singled out by the area’s most famous adult that made Jesus say that anyone who wants to understand the kingdom has to be ready to be just that surprised. From there, Jesus went on to warn the disciples never to lead one of the innocents into sin. He added that they should detach themselves completely from causes of sin — even if it required an amputation! (Matthew 18:8-9). Then, in a quick turn-around, he went on to say that, if one in the community started to drift, they should do everything possible to seek and bring him or her back, just like a shepherd would search for a lost lamb.

Having broached the topic of community, he talked about how to settle the problems that would inevitably arise among them. With this, Jesus touches back into the idea of prophecy, but he’s brought it directly home to the little group closest to him and to one another.

Jesus wasn’t simply presenting a problem-solving technique, although it is a good methodology even before we understand its theology. For step one, Jesus starts out by setting the stage like this: “If your brother sins against you. . .” The situation is clear, one person in the community feels injured and thinks that the other has done something wrong. A lot of people in that situation will start out by complaining, not to the person with whom they have a grievance, but with anybody they think will listen and agree with them.

The approach Jesus counsels feels much riskier because it requires honest dialogue and avoids amassing a team of supporters who will have been swayed by one side of the story. Following Jesus’ methodology, the more serious the grievance, the more the injured party will be acting like a good shepherd trying to bring back one who is deviating from promoting the common good.

Step Two: If an honest attempt to dialogue comes to an impasse, the person who has taken on the role of shepherd needs to engage companions to help in the process. Now, the two or three who go together must remember that their goal is to win over the other, to restore the community.

Step Three: If the efforts of a few are unsuccessful, the case needs to be brought to the community as a whole. Remembering the goal is crucial in this process. The aim is always to restore the offender to integrity in the community. Throughout the process, all the participants will be called upon to examine their own integrity and commitment to the common good. Thus, in Jesus’ methodology, seeking the lost becomes an intense exercise in deepening communal bonds.

Finally, Jesus says that if the community cannot bring someone back into union, they are to treat that one as “a Gentile or a tax collector.” Note that he didn’t say to treat the person as an adversary, but rather as one who has not yet received the message of the kingdom.

That understanding gives a context to Jesus’ final saying. Who are the two or three of whom he speaks? They are the ones who are seeking the common good. The risen Christ promises that they never need do that alone.

Bound to Forgive

Reflection
Sr. Verna Holyhead SGS

We all have the responsibility for the pastoral care that requires us to deal with one another’s sinfulness, especially when this threatens the cohesion of the community of disciples. The offering of forgiveness to a sister or brother is one of the painful ways that we take up our cross and follow Jesus, whether in Matthew’s first-century community or in today’s church. Jesus tells his disciples how this painful, but healing process of forgiveness is to be conducted. The authority of “binding and loosing” that was given to Peter to exercise in a particular way (Matt 16:19) is here extended to the whole church because it is not only the leaders who must accept responsibility for reconciliation within the community. The model that Jesus presents to the disciples is one of “gospel subsidiarity” not a pyramid model. Subsidiarity means that we do not do something at a higher level when it can be done at a lower, in contrast to starting at the top of the pyramid with the highest authority. So the first approach in reconciliation is to be between the offended and the offender. It is the former who is to seek out the latter, in courage and loving humility and with no intention of a judgmental confrontation, hard as this may be. For Matthew’s Jewish Christians, this would be no surprising advice if they remembered the Torah tradition about reproving someone with love and loving one’s neighbor as oneself (Lev 19:17-18).

Paul echoes the gospel concern for love and respect in the community when he writes that the only debt that we should owe one another is “the debt of mutual love” (Jerusalem Bible). We are all debtors to Christ because of the inexhaustible love of God that he has shown us by dying for us, even when we are sinners. How can we, therefore, withhold love from anyone else?

In a lighter and different genre, the temptation and folly of repaying evil with evil is spoken by another Jew in the closing scene of the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Dismayed at the prospect of their immediate banishment from their village, one of the villager’s shouts: “We should defend ourselves an ‘eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!” The wise old Tevye replies with kindly and sad irony: “That’s very good. And the whole world will be blind and toothless.

Sr. Verna Holyhead SGS (Sisters of The Good Samaritan) 1933-2011, was a teacher of scripture and engaged in biblical and liturgical ministry, which found expression in writing books, retreat-giving and in the leadership of pilgrimages to Israel.

Year A: Twenty-Fourth Sunday Ordinary Time

I say to you, forgive not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Matthew 18: 21-35

Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.

Discussion Questions:

1. As Christians we are supposed to freely give what we freely received. In what specific ways does God’s forgiveness of you, enable your forgiveness of others?
2. “Generally, we live our lives based on one of two identities: either, “the forgiveness of God” or “one who has been wronged” Which of these do you identify with more, or where do you find yourself on this spectrum?
3. In what concrete ways are you working at self-forgiveness? Do you believe this is an important part of forgiving others? Explain
4. Is there anyone in your life right now that you are withholding forgiveness from? What prevents you from giving them what you hope to receive from God?

Biblical Context

Matthew 18: 21-35
Sr Mary McGlone CSJ

Today’s Gospel takes us into the humorous heart of Jesus the storyteller and teacher. The fact that the incident opens with a question from Peter gives us advance notice that we’re about to hear the most sincere and blundering of disciples open the door for Jesus to launch into another of his stories that stick.

Picking up from last week, Jesus is teaching his disciples about the community’s responsibility for seeking and reconciling the lost. Perhaps Peter was hoping to help his teacher with a set-up question: “How often must I forgive?” Then, to give Jesus ample room to congratulate him for his perception and generosity, he asks, “Seven times?” Seven wasn’t just a number he pulled out of his headdress. Seven was Peter’s way of demonstrating uncommon generosity. Offering to forgive seven times was like saying, “I’ll put up with anything if that’s what you suggest.” Jesus doubles down on him and replies, “Not just seven, my friend, but seventy-seven … forever and ever, Amen!” (That’s a free interpretation of Jesus’ exaggerated number of seventy-seven.)

Peter’s numbers game offered Jesus the take-off point for a story about how things get worked out in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus invites his hearers to imagine such a fantastic world of affluence that Bill Gates would feel like a country store clerk amid this crowd of characters. When it came to describing the sums of money involved, hyperbole was the name of the game. Our translation has turned the original 10,000 talents into “a huge amount.” Just to get a sense of what “huge” means, we start with the fact that a talent was the weight a soldier could carry on his back, something between 75 and 100 pounds. Jesus doesn’t specify if these talents were silver or gold, but people got the idea. Now how many talents were owed? The word translated as “huge” is 10,000, which wasn’t meant to be literal, it was simply the highest number calculable in those days. We would probably say “a gazillion.” Now, the audience was really getting the picture. If the debtor, “Mr. D,” had shown up ready to pay, he would have arrived accompanied by a parade of a gazillion servants, each weighed down by someone else’s wealth. (Whose wealth it really was is a question for the ethicists.)

It goes without saying that Mr. D had no way to pay it off. Even so, he made a show of asking for just a little more time. The master, endowed with a heart even bigger than his fortune, wrote off the loan. So far, the parable has set up a world in which the forgiveness of such an immense fortune makes it look as if anything is possible. It’s jubilee time! But, just as the audience pictured the relieved debtor dancing down the road to home, Jesus began narrating the second act of the drama.

Now those who had seen or heard what had happened to Mr. D are watching to see what he does next. How is he going to celebrate his good fortune? He hunted down one of his own debtors. This fellow owed him 100 denarii, the equivalent of 100 days wages — a pretty significant amount to somebody who didn’t have hordes of money hidden at home, but a full 600,000 times less than Mr. D had owed the master.

Happy face erased, Mr. D grabs the guy by the neck. As if he had been listening in while Mr. D performed before the master, the guy steals Mr. D’s lines, but his pitiful plea for compassion has no effect on its original author. Mr. D wants nothing more than his money. Proving that he has no idea of what mercy is, he sends the unfortunate fellow to prison.

In the end, Mr. D gets what’s coming to him, or perhaps better said, Mr. D ends up in the world he has created. He was offered an alternative, but he wouldn’t pay 100 denarii for a world of mercy.

Peter asked Jesus how many times community members were expected to forgive one another. Jesus told them a tall tale that asked them what kind of world they wanted to create and what it was worth to them. The person who counts the number of times they will pardon another is not forgiving but keeping score.

Bestowing the Future

Reflection
John Shea

As difficult as it is to forgive an offender, forgiving one’s self may be more strenuous. There can be so many mental blocks to overcome and we may hear condescending, negative voices from past pains.

A classic example is the adult-child placing an aging parent into a nursing home. If the parent dies alone, the adult-child might be riddled with guilt. Since the parent is now deceased, the adult-child cannot ask for forgiveness. Healing may require counseling. But, the journey to healing from shock, through depression, through anger, to love and eventual forgiveness surely can be glimpsed in Psalm 103, “The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion. He pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills. He redeems your life from destruction, crowns you with kindness and compassion.”

Forgiving can be challenging. The ability to forgive and love is definitely arduous. But, being “crowned with kindness and compassion” makes forgiveness and love possible.

The dynamics of forgiveness are so particular to each situation and so woven into the psychology of the people involved that any generalization can be refuted by a specific instance. But still, the path the Matthean Jesus maps out is powerful and provocative. I believe it is supposed to convince Christians who think deeply about their life.

But does it?

The spiritual wisdom can be stated: “We all live by the forgiveness of God and if we do not forgive one another in turn, this divine forgiveness is withdrawn.”

Is it persuasive? How can we understand it as a reflection of common Christian experience? What inner work do we have to do to make this spiritual wisdom our own?

We must realize we are all living through the power of divine forgiveness. This perception is difficult because we do not clearly see our entrenched sinfulness. We are too mediocre to owe a huge amount. There are some people—murderers, rapists, etc.—who are in bondage to sin and cannot extricate themselves. But most of us see our indebtedness in more manageable amounts. “Have patience with me, and I will pay you” is not last-ditch desperation but a decent proposal.

Therefore, to realize how essential divine forgiveness is, we must realize our sinfulness. That is why Luther exhorted people to sin boldly. It is the forerunner to the realization of grace. However, this theological strategy of convicting people of sin in order to open them to divine forgiveness has been strongly criticized.

Another approach, and one that resonates with me, is to realize how sinful experiences claim us. The experiences of both being sinned against and sinning are seldom over and done with. They continue to extend their influence long after the actual offense has ended. The “huge amount” may be their power to dominate us and bring our future under their control. Negative experiences infiltrate our mind and heart and constrict our freedom. They become the bondage and prison the servants in the story experience, a bondage and a prison from which they cannot free themselves.

Therefore, the focus of forgiveness shifts. It is not primarily overlooking past sinfulness or, in the metaphor of the story, canceling past debt. Rather “forgiveness” is an intense giving of life and energy into the freedom of a person on the edge of newness. This giving must be intense because the weight of negative experiences of the past is great. In fact, this weight is so overwhelming it reduces us to pleading.

The pleading is an admission of our helplessness. It opens us, and we receive what we ask for. We are given time. However, the time is not to repay the past. It is to break the hold of our mistakes and find a new future. This type of time is not the “march of time,” the mindless tomorrows that inevitably come. This is the advent of the new, the arrival of possibility into an impossible situation. This is how God gives time, not endless minutes but endless opportunities.

It is here, in the freshness of a new life we did not create, that our consciousness must rest. We must not bolt out of our prison and go on with life exactly as before— without understanding or appreciation.

We must allow what has happened to form and influence us. If we do not deeply grasp both the bondage to our mistakes and the unmerited forgiveness, we will not persist in the freedom and the future we have been given.

The open future we walk into is not the result of anything we did. So, we cannot claim it. The usual way we differentiate ourselves from others is not operative. It is not our merit that has forced the forgive- ness, or even our potential for more service that has made forgiveness a reasonable choice. We might try to attribute the forgiveness to dumb luck. We got the king on a good day. But the depth of what we have experienced will finally penetrate. A future, free from the consequences of our mistakes, was bestowed upon us.

The implications of this graceful experience come into view when we meet our former self in another. We gradually realize our situation is the situation. Everyone is tied to their past failures until a future is bestowed upon them. These failures may be small, but they hamper freedom. They imprison people. Since we were given a way out, we know the way out. Only now we are on the other side. Our hope is to remember clearly the conditions of our liberation. If we forget them, we will return to bondage. This will happen long before we are reported to the king. It happens the moment we put our hands around the throat of our debtor. We are once again sold into the slavery of revenge, retaliation, and reprisal.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twenty-Fifth Sunday Ordinary Time

Workers in the Vineyard

Mathew 20:1-16

“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ So, they went off. (And) he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o’clock, he found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So, when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the land owner, saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat. He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? (Or) am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Discussion Questions:

1. What is your initial reaction to this story? Has your reaction to this passage changed as you have grown spiritually? Explain
2. What does this story say about how you (we) tend to judge things and the way justice and judgment actually work in the Kingdom of Heaven? (The Kingdom of Heaven being a reality you can experience in this life… not the same thing as Heaven)
3. If you could somehow extract yourself from identifying with who’s right or wrong, first or last, what’s fair or unfair, or that you deserve anything at all, how might that change the way you work in the “vineyard of life”, what might you be doing differently?
4. When you think of your relationship with God do you thinking in terms of your earning God’s favor, or do you think in terms of God taking the initiative and loving you first? What about your early upbringing resulted in your thinking as you do?

Biblical Context

Mathew 20:1-16
Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

Did it ever occur to you that the vineyard owner in this parable could have saved a lot of hard feelings had he simply paid the longest-working laborers first? After 12 hours of toil, they probably wouldn’t have hung around to see what the others were going to get paid. But then Jesus wouldn’t have had a maddening story. So, we should probably ask what he wanted to teach us.

This parable followed on Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man who wanted to gain eternal life but couldn’t bring himself to give away his wealth in order to do so. One wonders if that sad man ever figured out that the only way to the kingdom of heaven was to care at least as much about others as he did about himself (Matthew 19:16-30).

Right after the incident with that man, Jesus told this story about how things are in the kingdom of heaven and how God can be compared to a wealthy landowner. The setup leads us to two questions: “What kind of a landowner is God, and who would be happy to work in his vineyard?”

The landowner Jesus depicts is persistent. He himself goes out at dawn to find people who need the work he has to offer. He returns to the labor market four more times. It seems, as if, the primary focus of his day is on finding workers: he goes looking before and after breakfast, before and after lunch, and finally just before supper time. Finding his workers seemed to be more important than eating! By early afternoon, any observer would have been catching on to the fact that this master had a great deal more interest in employing the people than in the amount of work they could accomplish.

The owner who kept going out must have understood that, with each successive trip, he was apt to find less and less desirable workers. His dawn-hires were probably the men who appeared to be the strongest, the ones who got up extra early and could well have been hired by others, if not by him. As the day wore on, the workers still waiting were the consistently unchosen. Perhaps, they had been from market to market hoping to be found, but to no avail. Everything points to the fact that for this master, the workers mattered more than the work.

That leads to the second question. Who wants to be in this master’s employ? The early birds had no complaints at the moment of their hire. The situation was uninspiringly normal. They went to the labor market that day and got a job right away “for the usual daily wage.” Unlike the late-hires, they didn’t have to endure hours of worry speculating where they should go next, wondering whether or not they would get a job — if not today, perhaps tomorrow? Each time the owner returned to the market, the people he encountered were a little more anxious, and therefore, a little more grateful when he hired them. Those who had waited the longest were surely the most thrilled at finally being chosen. Conversely, as people stood in the pay line, with each group that received the same wage there was growing disillusionment and discontent at the back of the line.

The parable doesn’t canonize any of the workers, although it surely suggests that some ended up far more grateful to the owner and far more willing to work for him again. What’s the parable really about? Just what Isaiah said, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are God’s ways above ours.” We all hope for justice. The question is from whose perspective do we understand it?

Reflection

Matthew 20: 1-16
John Shea

In some corporations comparing salaries is forbidden. Usually the reasons for this prohibition are not spelled out. But the company, always eager to help, gives workers a comeback in case a fellow worker might indiscreetly ask, “By the way, what do you make?” The loyal employee is to respond, “That’s for me, the boss, and the tax collector to know.”

Comparing salaries is considered volatile activity. Chances are it will lead to charges of unfairness, a sense of being discriminated against, a decline in employee morale, and, as the Gospel indicates, an epidemic of grumbling. Even if the employer comes clean and discloses the reason is good enough when we sense someone got away with something and we did not.

That is why this parable of the workers in the vineyard is arguably the most disliked parable of the Gospels. Its unfairness is so overwhelming it edges out that other egregious Gospel conundrum: a welcome and feast for the son who squandered the inheritance (Luke 15:11-32). Although the argument of the owner of the vineyard is beyond refutation “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?”), it makes no headway against our outrage. We instinctively feel a mistake has been made. There is a deep sense of unfairness when the last are paid the same as the first. And we, who are always quick to feel offended, identify with the weary, heat-beaten first laborers.

This feeling of unfairness springs from a well-constructed mental tape. Its basic message is: “If someone gets what I am getting but hasn’t put in as much work as I have, I am being cheated. Is there any other way to see this? Most of us have this tape running continually. This makes us, in the language of the parable, grumble-ready.

The truth of this tape seems obvious because it confirms our fundamental stance. We are the center of the universe, and we evaluate everything that happens from the point of view of our own comparative well-being. If it protects or promotes us, we praise it. If it makes us vulnerable or demotes us, we, not to put too fine of an edge on it, piss and moan. “You have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” Outrageous! But if the story knows our egocentricity, it also allows another possibility. It suggests seeing things from God’s point of view. But this is a real stretch. In fact, it is difficult to even entertain this possibility because our egocentric point of view is so entrenched. When we move outside of it, we are in such a strange world that we immediately reject it. But let’s venture out of our identification with the first-hired laborers and try to see it as the landowner (God, the Lord of the Vineyard) sees it.

From the Lord of the Vineyard’s point of view, what really matters is not what you get but that you work in the vineyard. The real problem is idleness in the marketplace. You do not know or comprehend that a larger reality permeates your physical, mental, and social life and calls you to join with it in harvesting a new human reality. Therefore, you stand around waiting. But this Lord of the Vineyard will have none of it. The owner visits the marketplace often and sends everyone off to the vineyard. The owner is shameless in the diversity of the ways the calls are sent to people. What is paramount is the work.

Once in the vineyard you are in the owner’s domain, and the rules change because of who the owner is and what the owner is about. The work itself is the reward. The joy is in the contribution, in the ecstasy of joining with the Lord of the Vineyard in the creation of the world. Remember, you are now in a consciousness called the kingdom of heaven and not in a consciousness that could be called “Comparative Status” or “Fear of Not Getting What You Deserve.” You do not need to worry and look out for yourself for the One for whom you work knows what you need and is only too willing to supply it (Matt 6:8, 32-33).

You begin to value the full heat of the day because, as Gerard Manly Hopkins intimated, you “burnish in use”. You no longer live in the envious world of comparison but in the abundant world of God’s goodness. In this world God’s goodness gives you a good eye. This eye connects your soul to the expansive world of Divine Spirit. The soul, in turn, works and flows like liquid light, each effort a response to grace, each effort releasing grace.

The Lord of the Vineyard has no choice. God has to give you all that God has. Which, of course, is one day’s wages.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twenty-Sixth Sunday Ordinary Time

The Parable of the Two Sons

Matthew 21: 28-32

“What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, “Yes, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?” They answered, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him.

Discussion Questions:

1. As you reflect on your life, do you identify with either of the brothers in today’s parable? Explain
2. When you contrast your intentions with your actions, in what ways do you see yourself saying “no” to God?
3. How do you determine whether you are, or are not doing God’s will?
4. Is it possible that your mind is so made up about things, that you miss the presence of divine activity and fail to do God’s will? What could be done about this?

Biblical Context

Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

As we follow Matthew’s Gospel, the Lectionary skips over Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and moves us directly into his final teachings. We are now in the final section of the Gospel, so we can imagine the teachings we will be hearing from now until the end of the year as taking place during Holy Week.

Jesus tells today’s parable immediately after a debate with the chief priests and elders. When they challenged his authority, Jesus asked them to make a public statement about their opinion of John the Baptist. When they refused to be trapped into telling the truth, Jesus refused to answer their questions about himself. He told this parable instead.

Jesus addressed the parable to the very folks who had avoided his question about John. This time they got caught in his trap; they listened to the parable and ended up with no decent escape from his final question. A parable of a man with two sons started them off in familiar territory — that plotline had begun with Adam and went through Abraham and Isaac and on through their own experience. It could have even resonated with the comparison of John and Jesus. But, Jesus took the idea and developed it in his own style, making the turning point the punch that would expose the real situation of his audience.

If we interpret the parable in its cultural context it is more complex than it appears at first glance.

Culturally, the first son was a rude rebel. In a society where saving face was highly valued, the son who said “I will not,” wounded his father’s dignity and shattered his family’s reputation. He effectively put himself outside the family circle. In contrast, the second son honored the father, even to the point of addressing him as “lord.” Any observer would have seen that son as exceeding the ideal of filial respect.

Then comes the twist. The deferential son had only a veneer of respect for his father. He might keep things pleasant in the house, but the family business would fall apart under his do-nothing lifestyle. The insolent son actually demonstrated more family commitment than his hypocritical brother. Far from perfect, he was the one who repented. (The word translated as “changed his mind” is translated as repent in other passages and comes from the same root as metanoia.)

With this parable, Jesus pointed out the distinction between what might be called orthodoxy and orthopraxis, between saying the right thing and doing the right thing. His implication was that saying the right thing, following the rubrics, can become nothing more than a façade, leaving a people who look good but accomplish nothing for God. In contrast, doing the right thing will lead to understanding what is right and being able to say it as well.

What is your opinion?

Reflection
By Ted Wolgamot

In today’s Gospel, Jesus states the very question posed in this article’s title. Amazingly enough, he seems to want feedback! Jesus wants to know, not just what the leaders of the temple thought back then, but what you and I think right now.

So, what is your opinion? What do you think of this story that he proceeds to tell about the two sons who are sent out to work in a vineyard?

Here’s my opinion: You and I are both of these sons. At times we’re people who say all the right things, follow all the right rules, profess a belief in all the most important ideas about God and church, and present ourselves as upstanding citizens for all to see. At other times, we change our minds and find ourselves slipping into behaviors that imply a denial of all that we profess to believe. In other words, we’re the “Yes, sir” people who then “did not go” in today’s Gospel.

Sometimes. At other times, we’re the people who resist what we know to be the right thing to do. We’re the “I will not” person of today’s Gospel who “afterwards changed his mind and went.”

So, we’re a mix. Sometimes we say one thing and do another. Other times, we refuse to do the right thing, but then repent and seek forgiveness.

Here’s another opinion of mine: Where you and I stumble the most is precisely in the area that Jesus keeps emphasizing over and over — our attitudes and behaviors toward the very people Jesus claims will be first in the kingdom of God — the people the Jewish leaders at that time considered unclean; the people they believed should be avoided at all costs, ignored, dismissed from the temple, and viewed as impure.

Two millennia later from the time in which this Gospel was written, these very same people are the ones we still tend to designate to be “impure”: the homeless, the mentally ill, the imprisoned, the immigrants.

And yet, these are precisely the ones Jesus embraced; the ones he allowed to wash his feet with their tears and dry them with their hair; the ones he told us would be first in the kingdom of God.

How can this be? Why would Jesus choose them?

Most of us, after all, would have the opinion that we’re the hard-working ones; we’re the ones who have demonstrated will power and obedience and strength of character — and all those other qualities that make for good citizens and loyal churchgoers.

Perhaps the opinion of St. Paul in the beautiful and poignant reading from Philippians we hear today will suggest a response to this statement: “Have in you the same attitude that is in Christ Jesus … who … emptied himself taking the form of a slave.”

All the people listed in the Gospel by Jesus as being first are those who are powerless, “emptied” people. They are people who have been brought to their knees by terrible hardship even to the point of being forced to “take the form of a slave.”

But, here’s the surprise: What little they do have in their lives is the very thing Jesus is most looking for — room for God. They now have the space for the Spirit to become operative so that true transformation can take place.

This was the opinion of Jesus: The people most pre-disposed to radical change in their lives were those who had nothing to lose, people who were not just hungry, but starving for liberation and transformation.

So, in the end, my opinion is still the same as that of Paul: “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus … who … emptied himself taking the form of a slave.”

What is your opinion?

Year A: Twenty-Seventh Sunday Ordinary Time

The Parable of The Tenants

Matthew 21:33-43

Jesus said to the people: “Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again, he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’? Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

Discussion Questions:

1. Using the vineyard metaphor, where do you feel you are being a good steward of the vineyard in your life, where are you experiencing new invitations for producing good fruit?
2. How much does scarcity and fear of “not having enough” play a role in living the faith you profess? Explain
3. Relating to the “God of all people” means including all people? Where do you struggle most with including others as people of the same God?
4. The call to conversion is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. Where do you feel the Spirit may be calling you to deeper conversion in your life right now?

Biblical Context

Matthew 21:33-43
Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

Today’s parable follows immediately after the parable of the two sons that we read last week. Jesus continues to call to conversion both the elders, who interpreted the law, and the chief priests, who, as heads of priestly families, offered sacrifice in the temple and instructed the people. These religious leaders have questioned Jesus’ authority for acting as he does. Jesus has told them that prostitutes and tax collectors, stereotypical “sinners” in the eyes of the chief priests and elders, are entering the kingdom ahead of them.

In today’s Gospel we see the same pattern that we saw in last Sunday’s reading: Jesus tells a parable, invites his listeners to pass judgment on the characters, and then applies the lesson of the story directly to his resistant audience. A landowner sends his servants to gather the fruits of his vineyard. Instead of treating the servants with respect, the tenants abuse them. When the landowner sends his own son, they murder him.

After telling this gruesome story Jesus asks the chief priests and elders, “What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answer, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” In passing judgment on the characters in the story the chief priests and elders have unwittingly passed judgment on themselves. These religious leaders are like the tenants. They have responsibility to care for God’s people. Instead of welcoming Jesus, whom God has sent, they are rejecting him, even planning to kill him. Jesus tells them, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”

When we hear this story after Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, as Matthew’s primarily Jewish audience was hearing it, the meaning is even more evident. A vineyard, in Old Testament imagery, is a symbol for the house of Israel, as we will see in today’s reading from Isaiah. The tenant farmers are those whom God has entrusted to watch over the vineyard, the religious leaders of each generation. The servants who were sent to reap the harvest but who were abused by the tenant farmers are the prophets who called the people to fidelity. The son of the vineyard owner who is killed for his inheritance is Jesus.

By including this parable in his Gospel, Matthew is confronting the Jewish leaders of his own day who have refused to accept Jesus. The “people” to whom the kingdom will be given refers to the Christian community, made up of both Jews and Gentiles. It is ironic that the tenants, the religious leaders, kill the son of the vineyard owner in order to “acquire his inheritance.” The “son” whom they kill, Jesus, came to share the inheritance with them.

In the story, because the tenants abuse the servants and kill the son of the vineyard owner, they deserve a “wretched death.” Notice that Jesus tells the chief priests and elders this story, not to condemn them, but to call them to conversion. Jesus’ enemies are still being invited to the kingdom. However, in order to accept Jesus’ invitation, they must first repent.

Wanting it All

Reflection
John Shea

Excluding is a well-documented human habit. On every level of our being we push things away. It seems the right thing to do. It is a purifying process. If we have thoughts that disturb us, we do our best not to think them. If there are people who are undesirable, we make sure they are not welcomed into our homes, schools, clubs, and churches. We clear a space where we think we can breathe pure air.

Rigorous reasoning accompanies our hard work of exclusion. These reasons are impeccable, acceptable to our friends. In fact, they are acceptable to all clearthinking people because they are based on unalterable facts. They reflect “the way the world is.” The inner and outer processes of excluding and reasoning make us feel safer, saner, more in charge, and more ourselves.

Zealous exclusions provide us with a well-defined identity. We not only know our boundaries, we guard them. We count ourselves among the elite, the chosen, the elect. Every time we see the mob, we recoil into our superior status. We know who we are by knowing who we are not.

But there are those who say exclusions can get out of hand. When they become a way of life, they narrow us down. We “circle the wagons,” but we may circle them too tightly. In our desire not to be infringed upon, we may be pushing away the very thing, person, situation, feeling, thought, and experience we need. A friend of mine is fond of saying, “We avoid with a passion the very thing that will save us.

Jesus’ name means “he will save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21). In classical theology sin is considered to be a process of separation from God and from other people. In doing this, they also separate themselves from their own souls. This exclusionary process results in a false and isolated sense of themselves. Sin-defined people are, as St. Augustine and Martin Luther pointed out, “incurvatus a se,” wrapped up in themselves.

Therefore, to save people from their sins is to bring them out of separation into communion, to connect them with God, neighbor, and self. This is the offer of Jesus to the religious leadership of his day. His liberating consciousness and inclusive behavior are what they need. Jesus is asking them to relate to the God of all people by including all people. He is asking them to join the party, but they cannot tolerate so motley a collection of characters. They choose to remain in their isolation. They are better at shunning than welcoming. But why?

Although philosophy, psychology, and sociology have explored exclusionary processes at great length, the story of the murderous tenants suggests a simple reason. They only share this simple reason among themselves, telling it to each other in order to take energy from it. This is the reason beneath the reasons, the dark desire lurking behind the rational explanations: “come, let us kill him and get his inheritance”.

They want the inheritance. They want it all. They want it all for themselves. They do not want to be accountable to God or other people. Their isolation has turned them greedy. They grab for everything they can get. For them, “including” only means there will not be enough for me—enough righteousness, enough money, enough prestige, enough land, enough everything. They live in a world of scarcity, and they are making sure that “they get theirs.” When more are included, they instinctively feel that they will have less. They exclude because they want it all.

Wanting it all is a crazy desire, born of isolation and fear. Its social face is acquisition and greed. Its psychological face is accusation and defensiveness. Its theological face is the preaching of a God I own rather than a God who owns me. But the real God has gone elsewhere.

We do not own the vineyard; we work in it. When we want it all, we inherit nothing.

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle A, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twenty-Eighth Sunday Ordinary Time

The Parable of the Wedding Feast

Matthew 22:1-14

Jesus again in reply spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. When the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you believe that everyone is invited to the kingdom? What do you think constitutes a refusal of the invitation? Explain.
2. In what ways do you “show up”… to observe your faith, (the wedding) but not participate in it (the banquet)? Are there invitations you might be missing?
3. The Kingdom of Heaven is a state of consciousness and action. What new conscious action has your faith–practice been leading you toward recently? (acts of justice, service, compassion or mercy)
4. How can we grow in our ability and desire to recognize and respond to the invitations that are all around us?

Biblical Context

Matthew 22:1-14
Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

Jesus continues to call the chief priests and elders to conversion by telling them a story in which guests who are invited to a wedding feast refuse to come. The king sends his servants out a second time to invite guests to the feast. Some ignore the invitation, but others “laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.” In response the king “destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” Once more the king sends out his servants to gather “all they found, bad and good alike.” When the king comes to greet his guests, he notices one who is not dressed properly. He says, “My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?” The guest doesn’t say a word. He is completely unresponsive. That guest is thrown out “where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

The chief priests and elders are compared to the invited guests who not only neglected to come to the banquet when all was ready but abused and even killed the one sent to extend the invitation. Jesus is once again warning these religious leaders that in rejecting him they are also rejecting an invitation to the kingdom of God.

By the time Matthew includes this parable in his Gospel (AD 85) Jesus has been killed, Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Romans (AD 70), and Gentiles have been invited into the kingdom. All of these events have helped shape the parable in its present form. Matthew is most probably referring to the destruction of Jerusalem when he says that the king was enraged and burned the city. The invitation to the banquet is now open to everyone, including Gentiles: “… invite to the feast whomever you find.”

Many people, when reading the parable of the wedding feast, make an unconscious mistake in interpretation that can lead to serious error. Instead of interpreting the story as a parable, as we have done, they interpret the story as an allegory and assume that the king stands for God. They then have the image of a God who kills and destroys, who throws people out where there is “wailing and grinding of teeth,” rather than a God who saves. The basis of this mistake is a misunderstanding of literary form. Many parables, if interpreted as allegories, lead to similar mistakes. This parable is teaching the chief priests and elders that they must respond to Jesus and his invitation if they want to enter the kingdom. It is not addressing the question, “What is God like?”

As Jesus concludes his parable, he emphasizes the necessity of a proper response to the invitation to the kingdom by describing the king’s interaction with the guest who is not dressed properly. The king doesn’t throw him out immediately. Rather, he calls him “friend,’ and asks why he is not properly dressed. The guest does not respond in any way: “But he was reduced to silence.” The failure to dress properly functions as a symbol for the failure to respond properly. The fact that everyone is invited does not mean that everyone will enter the kingdom of God. The chief priests and elders are invited, but they will not enter the kingdom. A proper response is necessary, and they will not respond. Instead, as we will read next week, they will continue to plot how to trap Jesus.

Marrying The Son

Reflection
John Shea

‘Marrying the son” is a symbol for the Christian adventure of spiritual development. The Church carries the mystery of Jesus Christ. When one enters the Church through baptism, one enters into the mystery of Jesus Christ. But to enter into the mystery is not the same as marrying it, as being in full communion with it.

In the baptismal rite for children, the parents of the child are asked if they understand “the responsibility of training him (her) in the practice of the faith … to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor”; the godparents are questioned about their readiness “to help the parents … in their duty” Thus entry into the Church implies growing into the teachings of Christ. The often timid “yes” of godparents is an indication that this growth process might not be central to their experience. After the ceremony they might be at a loss about what their “yes” entails. As important as baptism is, even adult baptism, it is only a first step.

This same emphasis on spiritual development can be approached from the idea of inherited faith. Within Christian religious traditions faith is presented as the gift of someone else. It comes from past generations, going all the way back to the apostles and Christ. It is given to each new generation in codified forms: Scripture, creeds, liturgies, dogmas, spiritual practices, etc. But, if the maxim “faith seeks understandis correct, the gift comes wrapped, and it must be opened by each ” new Christian.” This act of reception—seeking understanding—entails mindfulness, a struggle to understand and live what this faith is all about. Faith may belong to the community and the tradition, but it is always appropriated or ignored by individuals. Matthew points this out with his usual blunt options of destruction and salvation.

Hearing may be a beginning, but just hearing is a fatal end. Hearing must be followed by understanding, and understanding must lead to action. As Jesus states in John’s Gospel: “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them” (John 13:17)

Where does this leave us? What does this mean for people who call themselves Christian? Is the Church a two-tier system: those who take the teaching seriously and struggle with it and those who hear the words and glaze over? And if so, can these two types of Christians be institutionalized so clergy and religious are the serious ones and laity the mere hearers? Or does the division cut across all the organizational groups? There are clergy, religious, and laity who take it seriously and clergy, religious, and laity who do not let it into their conventional minds and their predictable behaviors. Church analysis has often separated sheep and goats, the serious and the lax, the seekers and the sitters, the good and the fallen away, the cognoscendi (the well informed) and the ignorant, etc.

However, I believe that the imperative of Christian revelation to “marry the son” should not lead to a division of people but to a respect for timing. People go deeper into their inherited faith at different times. Some are attracted in their youth, some in the middle years, still others in old age. Some come looking for succor after failure; some come in gratitude after success. Many come after death has knocked on their door and taken someone who ate at their table.

It is too facile to say that eventually all will put on the wedding garment. But it is too cynical to say that some certainly will not. We are all Christians, but the timetables of our lives are quite distinct and individual. If home is a place that when you have to go there they have to take you in, the Christian community is a place that when you are ready for more you are always welcomed.

For me, the open invitation in the story is more crucial pastorally than the wedding garment. I am sure Matthew, great lover of dual out-comes that he is, would not agree. All are invited, good and bad alike. But good and bad are not final states; they are temporary designations. Once inside, you might come to learn that the Son finds you desirable. Even though you did not come with a wedding garment, the groom has one for you. He has chosen it with great love.

A story that began as a judgment against the leadership of Israel ends as a cautionary tale to Christians. Just belonging to the Church is not enough. Hearing the call is a first step, but it is not the final condition. Each Christian is chosen as a bride for Christ, chosen to have intercourse with the revelation of God and be filled by God’s grace. That means going beyond silent attendance. Hearing the call is easy; marrying the son is difficult.

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle A, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Twenty-Ninth Sunday Ordinary Time

Paying Taxes to the Emperor

Matthew 22: 15-21

Then the Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap him in speech.They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription? They replied, “Caesar’s.” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” When they heard this they were amazed, and leaving him they went away.

Discussion Questions:

1. What could belong to us that does not already belong to God?
2. In what ways have you given to God what belongs to God? In what ways have you failed to give to God what belongs to God?
3. Who are the “Caesars” that we attach ourselves to and do we sometimes give to them what we should give to God?
4. Where do you struggle most in balancing priorities of who/what has a rightful claim on your time and devotion?

Biblical Context

Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

In the past few weeks, we’ve heard Jesus narrate parables that called friends and enemies to conversion. That’s another way of saying that he told parables that angered his opposition. Today’s Gospel opens with the explanation that Jesus’ enemies were forging new alliances in their campaign to undo him. This is the first time we hear about the Herodians — a group that doesn’t need any more description than their name indicates; they aligned themselves with the brutal ruler, Herod Antipas. The disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians, a very odd coalition, plan a verbal trap for Jesus.

The oil of insincerity oozes through the scene as they open their ambush with praise for Jesus as a truthful teacher who doesn’t pander to anyone. (This is not the only time that Jesus is in the awkward position of having hypocrites or demons praise him for who he really is.) The loquacious speakers finally get to their point and ask about the legitimacy of collaborating with the Romans by paying taxes. Lest anyone wonder what Jesus really thought about his questioners and their creative dilemma, he immediately addresses them as hypocrites, and makes it clear to everyone listening that their intent is only to test him. They have no interest in looking for an answer and no personal investment in the question.

Disingenuous as they may be, their question is legitimate. If Jesus tells people to refuse to pay taxes, he’s siding with rebels and perhaps calling down more wrath than the case warrants. On the other hand, paying taxes could be read as a sign of accepting and thereby legitimizing the rule of the pagan Romans. This is probably the first description of a church/state conflict in Christian history.

When Jesus asks to see a coin, the first thing we notice is that his questioners have Roman money, thereby collaborating with the system at least to the extent that they carry something that bears the sort of graven image forbidden by strict Jews. The injunction against images was a stringent application of the commandment in Exodus: “You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth” (20:4). While the application of that commandment forbad any sort of depiction of human beings or creatures, its intent was to forbid idolatry, the worship of or consecration to any person, creature or thing other than God.

When Jesus asked whose image was on the coin, the group’s ability to produce one pointed out that they carried Roman money that featured an image of Caesar, the inscription on which called Caesar Augustus a divinity. Jesus didn’t comment on the coin’s idolatrous implications but neutralized the dichotomy, rising above it with a typically enigmatic response.

While our translation says “repay” to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, others say “give” or “render.” Whichever translation one uses, the answer is a riddle. The first part is fairly simple: With some prayer and discernment, we can determine what belongs to Caesar. There may be some debate about government’s legitimate rights, but at some point, there will be a limit to what the government can demand of citizens. We can be genuinely dedicated to the nation and the common good without falling into the idolatry of blind obedience. But when it comes to giving to God what belongs to God, what falls outside of that category?

Balancing God and Caesar

Reflection
By Sr. Mary McGlone

The money of the United States bears the official national motto: “In God We Trust.” It’s a curious and sometimes contentious part of our history. Apparently, the motto first appeared on coins during the Civil War, a not so subtle assertion that God was on the side of the Union. During the height of the Cold War, when the atheistic Soviet Union was our most frightening enemy, Congress passed laws making the phrase the official motto of the United States and ordering that it should be printed on all U.S. paper currency.

When the motto and its exhibition have been challenged in court, the decisions have ruled that it does not favor the establishment of religion and therefore is not unconstitutional. A 2004 Court of Appeals ruling said that references to God on money or in the Pledge of Allegiance “have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content.” On the other extreme, President Teddy Roosevelt called references to God on coins sacrilegious. God and country, church and state, the debate has confounded Christians since the time of Jesus.

In today’s Gospel, we see the start of a strange alliance between Pharisees and Herodians, groups whose only commonality seemed to be their opposition to Jesus. In one sense, they might be taken as the representatives of strict religion and the folks who could drop all scruples and self-servingly support the local dynasty. When this odd combo of church and state factions questioned Jesus about the legitimacy of paying taxes, they thought they had come up with the perfect dilemma. If Jesus said, “pay,” he implicitly acknowledged the legitimacy of the Roman occupation, pagan rule over God’s people. On the other hand, those people remembered that less than 30 years before this happened, a man called Judas the Galilean had been executed for starting a revolution based on refusing to pay taxes. His sons met the same fate in the year 47 CE. Tax resistance was dangerous in those days.

Jesus was never one to be bested in political theater. Just when they thought they had him on the hook, he reeled them in. It was time for show and tell. He asked for a coin. Whose picture was on it? The coin they carried displayed not only an image of Tiberius Caesar but also a written declaration that he was the son of the divine Augustus. The other side of the coin had the words pontifex maximus declaring that Caesar was the most-high priest. The very sight of such a coin would rankle strongly religious or nationalistic Jews. For the Gospel writers, the memory of the coin was the height of irony.

Then Jesus responded to their interrogation. When they admitted that the coin bore an image of Caesar, he handed them a riddle: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

Jesus’ response would satisfy no purist. The righteous religious would see him as promoting capitulation to the pagans. The Herodians, the “if you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em” crowd, would realize they had just been given a very tenuous pass. The underlying question is what could belong to Caesar that does not already belong to God? Jesus left it to each age to discern how to interpret that for their own times.

The Gospel gives us Jesus’ response to groups that were out to trap him. What about folks who are sincere in wondering when supporting Caesar stops being legitimate? When must we be conscientious objectors? There are a few details in the story that offer clues to the riddle. First of all, any practicing Jew who heard Jesus say something about what belongs to God would have heard echoes of prayers like Psalm 24 which begins, “The earth is the Lord’s and all it holds, the world and those who dwell in it.”

The second hint comes through the part of the story that Jesus didn’t emphasize. The coin the questioners were carrying was blasphemous to religious Jews. It symbolized all the institutions that tend to divinize themselves as the ultimate in importance or authority. The inscription on the coin could be compared to the statement, “My country, right or wrong,” or any other declaration of absolute allegiance to anything on the Earth. That inscription and attitude cross the line giving to Caesar what belongs to God. Seen in that light, an answer to the riddle begins to appear. Caesar, the common good, society, can all make legitimate claims on us. We are responsible to create societies which serve the good of all. That’s what we owe to Caesar.

If the God in whom we trust is the God of Jesus, what we owe to God is a blank check.

Year A: Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Greatest Commandment

Matthew 22: 34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law] tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, “you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Discussion Questions:

1. Were you at one stage of your life a legalist? Have you outgrown being a legalist? What do you think a faithful Christian’s attitude should be toward civil law? Toward church law? Explain.
2. Are you open to new ideas and new insights, or do you initially resist them? What about your upbringing accounts for your response?
3. Do you think God has a “preferential option for the poor”? Do you think Christians are required to have a “preferential option for the poor”? Explain.
4. In what specific ways do you “love yourself well”? How does this deepen your love of God and neighbor?

Biblical Context

Mary McGlone

This passage from Matthew is set in the midst of various controversies that Jesus encounters with both Sadducees and Pharisees. One of the Pharisees, “a scholar of the law,” tested Jesus by first ironically addressing him as teacher and then asking, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” While set in the context of a test, it is obvious from other writings that this was a concern among the Jewish community of Jesus’ day. The possibility of not being able to follow through completely on all of the 613 Torah commandments led the community to prioritize some over others. Choosing certain commandments over others led to controversy among scholars of the law. Jesus responds not so much by choosing one commandment over the others, but rather by explicating the underlying principles that govern the carrying out of all commandments.

Jesus combines two commandments from the Torah, stating that the second is like the first. The first, from Deuteronomy, is an integral part of the Shema (6:4-9), the daily prayer and primary confession of the Jewish community. It calls for love of God with one’s whole being — heart, soul and mind. Jesus calls this the first and greatest commandment. Then he adds a second, saying it is like the first. Quoting Leviticus 19:18, Jesus states, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love of neighbor in Leviticus is explicated in a very practical, real and just manner. Key to love of neighbor is right relationship, the Jewish understanding of justice. Others in Jesus’ day had also linked these two commandments. Jesus not only approves of this linkage but affirms that these linked commandments are at the core of all his teachings.

For Matthew’s Jesus love of God and neighbor as self are the interpretive key to what the “kingdom of heaven” is like. The final sentence of today’s passage clearly expounds what is essential in living in fidelity to God’s will and purpose: “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” The law and the prophets are synonyms for all of God’s revealed word. Jesus is saying that these two commandments are the lens, criteria and basis for carrying out all the other commandments.

Matthew’s Jesus also expands Jewish understanding of the neighbor. In Leviticus 19 neighbor is understood to be only a fellow Israelite. However, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Jesus clearly states that God desires us to love enemies and to pray for those who persecute you (5:43-44). In other words, the care and concern for the neighbor is thoroughly inclusive and expansive. It includes the entire human family: the loved one and the enemy. It demands not just general concern for the other but very specific demands of attunement to the needs of the other and the obligations to meet those needs. These two passages specify the obligation to feed, clothe, visit and care for the other no matter the circumstances.

These commandments are the core of our living in fidelity to God and to one another, especially our fellow Christians. Jesus’ directives form the core of Christian living and unite in a very profound manner all those who have committed themselves to Christian discipleship. As we commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, let us strive for that unity Jesus prayed for his disciples in John 17, “that they may all be one.”

How Do I Love Me?

Reflection
By Carolyn A. Wright

How do I love me? Let me count the ways. That’s right, you heard me: “How do I love me.”

Our world is fraught with fear, isolation, injustice and violence. What might be at root? Certainly, unbridled ego and arrogance, unrestrained anger and resentment, untethered pain and desperation play crucial roles in the escalation of the destruction of civility, acceptance and promise.

In the Gospel, we hear again the greatest of commandments: “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. … Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love your neighbor as yourself. How do you love you? How do I love me? What is at root? I wonder.

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians provides assurance that their faith is solid, real, dynamic and gives witness to the resurrected Son of God. In faith, they received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit. In doing so, the word sounds forth from their lips in every place. It is interesting to note that the verb Paul uses is exēcheō. According to Earl J. Richard, author of the biblical commentary for First and Second Thessalonians (Sacra Pagina Series), this verb occurs only here in this Scripture. Richard also points out this usage of the verb exēcheō, “seek[s] no further specificity than that of a sound emanating in all directions from a source.” Paul affirms the witness of the Thessalonians — lives lived in joy serving God. Can we say the same? Does the word sound forth, emanate in all directions from our lips? Am I — are you — truly a person of faith serving God? Do I receive and do I embody this gift? How do I love me; perhaps by receiving God’s gift of faith?

The Exodus reading provides assurance to the people of Israel that God is their hope. If those outside of the community are oppressed or harmed, God hears their cry. If the marginalized of the community — the widow, orphan, the poorest and most vulnerable — are wronged, God hears their cry. God responds to everyone with an allencompassing compassion which lifts and heals, which is our hope. Thus, Exodus affirms the witness of a God of compassion, a God who is our hope. Do we truly hope in God alone? Do I receive and do I embody this gift? How do I love me; perhaps by receiving God’s gift of hope?

Finally, the Gospel provides assurance to the Matthean community that God is their love. They are given the commands: Love the Lord, your God. Love your neighbor as yourself. But, what is the source of that love? It is the love of God which sounds forth to our hearts and mind. It is a love which transforms our selfish and self-centered ways of being and moves us to love anew our God, others and ourselves. Thus, the Gospel affirms the witness of a God of love. Do we truly love? Do I receive and embody this gift? How do I love me; perhaps by receiving God’s gift of love?

I wonder. If I accept and embody the gifts of faith, hope and love — God’s free offering to all humanity — might I begin to truly understand what it means to love me? Might I accept God’s virtue of love to quell my unbridled ego and arrogance? Receive God’s virtue of faith to temper my unrestrained anger and resentment?

Assent to God’s virtue of hope to heal my pain and desperation and in turn, make a turn in my daily living to civility, acceptance and promise.

I wonder, what is at root? If we accept and embody the gifts of faith, hope and love, might we turn together toward the One who offers us the true root of our being — the one True Vine?

Year A: Thirty-First Sunday Ordinary Time

They preach but they do not practice.

Matthew 23: 1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Discussion Questions:

1. As a faithful disciple of Jesus, what do think you should do when you see church authority being abused? What about as a faithful citizen when seeing civil authority abused?
2. How have you personally reacted to the abuse of legitimate authority? Were you able to react in a way that neither dismisses legitimate authority nor allows legitimate authority to mislead you? Explain
3. In Gospels Jesus is critical of the mind set of; “polishing the outside of the cup”, of loving ceremony and show but neglecting the hard work of inner change” Where do you struggle most with inner change?

Biblical Context

Matthew 23: 1-12
Sr Mary McGlone CSJ

When Jesus talked about morality, he didn’t mince words. One word that could summarize his teaching on the moral life might be “integrity.” As we search the Gospels, we have to look hard to find Jesus talking much about sexuality. When he met sinners of any ilk, he offered them forgiveness and told them to change their ways. He rarely quoted the law except to comment on its deeper meaning. (See the Sermon on the Mount) But what really seemed to get to Jesus going was hypocrisy, especially on the part of people with power or position. We might say that he critiqued them unmercifully, except that his prophetic critique was another expression of the mercy that called them to conversion. As is to be expected, the authorities he lambasted were the ones who became his bitterest enemies. Nobody likes to be unmasked as a phony.

We need to interpret the selection we hear today from Matthew in the light of its circumstances. At this point in the story we’re hearing about a growing life and death conflict. Jesus had silenced his opposition — at least in public. They resorted to plotting in private, a decision that exposed them as the fearful bullies they were.

The problem that set Jesus off on this tirade was that the scribes and Pharisees were saying the right things for the wrong purpose. They had legitimate authority, but they used it destructively. They wielded the letter of the law like a hatchet that severed the simple people’s hope for righteousness and cut their sense of being close to a loving God. In Jesus’ eyes, that took away all the legitimacy of their leadership. It didn’t destroy the teaching they quoted, only their authority to represent it.

It’s easy to imagine that Jesus’ tirade had been building up for a long time. He had watched as the self-proclaimed orthodox orated, caring far more about their precision and eloquence than about the needs of those whom they addressed. He had seen them parade in their oh-so-obvious religious garb, focusing public attention on their fine facade, while their hearts were hidden — perhaps even from themselves. They might have spoken God’s word accurately, but they perverted it in their attitudes and actions.

Jesus expressed his own theology clearly. “Call no one on earth your Father, you have but one Father in heaven.” And what was God, his Father, like? As the representative, the revelation of God’s greatness, Jesus taught “the greatest among you must be your servant.” Jesus did not call himself God, but he taught that greatness expresses itself in humble service, a lifestyle he modeled.

When he preached and even more when he interacted with people, Jesus presented a model of God like that found in Isaiah 49 where God is described as even more loving than a nursing mother. In verse 16, God says: “See, on the palms of my hands I have engraved you.” That engraving was the mark of slaves whose master’s name was tattooed or scarred onto their hands.

That shows how far God goes in dedication to humanity. The God Jesus reveals is great enough to be able to give everything. Anyone who wants to be God-like must start with integrity and humble service.

The Rightful use of Power

Reflection
By Ted Wolgamot

“I believe the root of all evil is the abuse of power.” This statement by writer Patricia Cornwell is strongly reflected in today’s Gospel.

Power, and how it is abused, is a primary scriptural story line found in nearly every biblical account from the garden of Eden to the Egyptian pharaohs and the Israelite kings, continuing with the infamous Pontius Pilate, and ending only with the sweeping condemnation found in the Book of Revelation.

The stories of power, and its misuse, are legion and reach into every dimension of life including the workplace, politics, church, marriage, relationships and even parenting.

In today’s Gospel, the misuse of power is central to Jesus’ teaching where he speaks forcefully about the good use of power as compared to its opposite.

Good power, Jesus passionately argues, embraces a selfless, benevolent dimension. It involves the sharing of burdens, not the imposition of millstones around the necks of others.

Admittedly, this argument of Jesus requires a substantial upgrade in human consciousness. The opposite is reveling in our vanity and greed, seeking vengeance and domination, desperately advancing ourselves to suppress others.

Notice, for example, the contrast that Jesus emphasizes between the bad use of power and the good: “Do whatever the scribes and Pharisees teach you … but do not do what they do.” Why? “For they preach but they do not practice. … All their works are performed to be seen.”

In contrast to this misuse of power, Jesus offers an opposing truth: “The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

This teaching represents the heart of the ethics that must belong to the new faith community that Jesus is founding — as it must be in our faith community now some 2,000 years old. Regarding the rightful use of power, four major themes are implied in Jesus’ teaching:

Walk the walk. Don’t just talk the talk. Central to this teaching is the connection that must exist between word and deed. We are what we do, not what we say.
Your use of power is always directed to love towards others. The law of love involves not preaching or teaching, so much as doing. Action is what makes the difference.
Piety is an internal affair of the heart. It is not about impressing people or looking for ways to be honored and glorified.
We are all called to a life of holiness, not only those in leadership positions. It is not just the “job” of priests, ministers, religious leaders to be holy. The call from Jesus to live a new kind of life extends to everyone.

The good use of power involves developing a new kind of language, a new set of words: The greatest will be servants and those who exalt themselves will be humbled. This is the kind of language that Jesus promotes in today’s Gospel — the language that protects children, the poor, the hungry, the dismissed, the irrelevant, the “less-thans.” It’s the kind of language that moves us as a people from violence to nonviolence, from imperial power to relational power, from domination to transformation.

The ultimate result of this kind of language will then become a primary way of living lives of kindness. And, as Mark Twain reminds us: “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

Optional reflection: use both, either, or the second one as a closing prayer.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Were I to leave this earth today, and were you to ask me for a final word about what our Ideal is, I would have to say, certain that it would be understood in its deepest sense: “Be a family.”

Are some among you suffering from spiritual or moral trials? Be understanding to them, as a mother would, and even more. Enlighten them through your words and through your example. Do not allow them to lack the warmth of a family, but rather increase it.

Are any among you in physical pain? May they be our preferred brothers and sisters. Suffer with them. Try to understand their pain completely. Share with them the fruits of your apostolic activities so that they know that, more than anyone else, they have contributed to them.

Are any among you approaching their final moments of life? Imagine you are in their place, and do for them what you would want done for yourself, until their very last breath.

Are any of you rejoicing because of a success, or for any other reason? Rejoice with them, that their consolation may not fade and their hearts not close, so that their joy may belong to everyone.

Are some moving to another place? Do not let them leave without filling their hearts with a single inheritance: the sense of a family, so that they may take it with them wherever they go.

Never place any kind of activity, whether spiritual or apostolic, before the spirit of being a family with the brothers or sisters with whom you are living.

Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings
Chiara Lubich (1920–2008), an internationally known religious leader and writer, was the founder of the Focolare, a movement that includes people of all ages, races, and vocations who promote unity, reconciliation, and the spirit of love.

Year A: Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!

Matthew 25 1-13

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. Since the bridegroom was long delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise ones replied, ‘No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.’ While they went off to buy it, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him. Then the door was locked. Afterwards the other virgins came and said, ‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us!’ But he said in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Discussion Questions:

1. How does this parable apply to your life specifically? Have you experienced being spiritually prepared or unprepared when Christ has come into your life? When has this happened for you? Explain
2. If you were living your life to be “always ready” for the coming of the Lord, what new things would you be doing that you are not doing now?
3. Why do you think the bridegroom does not recognize the foolish Virgins? Do you think there’s a relationship here between our ability to recognize Christ and the Christ recognizing us?
4. One aspect of this passage is about waking up to the inner consciousness and outer action of Jesus. In what new ways might this be happening in you?

Biblical Context

Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

Whereas our first reading praised Wisdom and those who seek her, Jesus tells a tale contrasting the foolish and the wise — obviously inviting us to consider who is who, then and now. Here the group is evenly divided with five wise and five foolish virgins – that’s a better scorecard than we got in Matthew 22:14 where we heard that many were called but only a few chosen.

Jesus told this story, but except for the obscure detail about the wise virgins having extra oil on hand, he didn’t really explain what makes one wise or foolish. To understand that, we need to go back to what he said in Matthew 7:24-26: “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock … And everyone who listens … but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand.”

The difference between foolishness and wisdom is that the wise hear the word and put it into practice. That was not a new revelation; Jesus was drawing on his tradition when he said it. Proverbs 13:9 tells us: “The light of the just gives joy, but the lamp of the wicked goes out.” The idea is that the wicked or foolish create nothing worthwhile in their lives. As all creation is moving toward union with God, they have played no part in the drama of advancing toward that end. The little light they had simply fades away.

When we interpret this parable in the context of other parts of Matthew’s Gospel, we get the idea that the wise virgins’ oil of preparedness came from rocksolid habits of putting Jesus’ words into practice.

In his 2017 homily for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Francis could have been commenting on this parable when he said: “Let us ask ourselves if we are parlor Christians, who love to chat about how things are going in the Church and the world, or apostles on the go, who confess Jesus with their lives because they hold him in their hearts.”

The parables that come toward the end of Matthew’s Gospel are all calling us to look at our heart. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins asks us about our commitment for the long haul. Are we like the five who went to the house with just enough oil to check out what was happening? They were there for the entertainment, like people who knew about the bride and groom but who didn’t have a significant attachment to them or the celebration. In contrast, the wise young women had been saving up for this occasion. They went early and planned to stay late. The wise ones had been practicing for this party. Nothing could dampen their enthusiasm. If the groom was late, that didn’t matter; they knew he would come.

In both their waking and their dreaming, they were ready.

Lighting Your Own Lamp

Reflection
John Shea

When they asked Gandhi what his message was, he said, “My life is my message”.

St. Francis of Assisi is reputed to have said, “Preach the Gospel. Use words if necessary.”

The last words of the Buddha to his followers were, “Be a light unto yourself.”

Martin Luther cautioned, “You are going to die alone. You had better believe alone.”

Angelus Silesius asked, “What good if Gabriel hails the Virgin and does not hail me?’

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him” (GT 108).

There is a brief but hard-hitting story:

A man knocks on a door. The voice from inside says, “Who is it?” The man says, “It is your countryman.” The voice behind the door says, “There is no one here.”

The man wanders for a year, returns to the door, and knocks a second time. The voice from inside says, “Who is it?” The man says, “It is your brother.” The voice behind the door says, “There is no one here.”

The man wanders for a year, returns to the door, and knocks a third time. The voice from inside says, “Who is it?” The man says, “It is you.” The door opens.

How does Christ know us? He knows us when he looks into our face and sees himself.

There is a delicate balance in the following of Jesus. On the one hand, Jesus is the Lord and Master and remains so. Although his disciples may do greater things than he has, as the Gospel of John (14:12) predicts, they will do them in communion with his Spirit. No one will take the place of Jesus, and at the end of time it will be he who judges the living and the dead. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ is the fullness in which everything else will either fit or be cast aside. Quite simply, as the Book of Revelation says, Jesus is the “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (22:13).

Yet worshiping Jesus from afar with extravagant praise and petition is inappropriate. You cannot ride on his coattails. You must receive Christ into your self as a person would receive bread, put it into the mouth, and swallow it. Then Christ will be within you, building you up from the inside. Or you must receive Christ so thoroughly that he will awaken you to your identity as a child of God. Then as a child of God you would be on God’s mission and the divine pleasure would flow through you. This integration of Christ into your life means transformation. When it is occurring, you will understand Paul’s cry: “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

This balance is difficult to maintain. We simultaneously say, “There is only one Lord and Master” and “You are another Christ.” But the parable of the ten virgins is very clear about where a prevalent danger lies. We know everything about him except the one thing necessary (see Luke 10:42): we are called to be him. But if we take into ourselves his truth so that it becomes our truth, then the door opens.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Parable of the Talents

Matthew 25: 14-30

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one—to each according to his ability. Then he went away. Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them and made another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.

“After a long time, the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, ‘Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’ Then the one who had received two talents also came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two talents. See, I have made two more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’ Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.’ His master said to him in reply, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So, you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter? Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return? Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten. For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Discussion Questions:

1. What are some “talents” or things of great value that God has entrusted you with in your life?
2. What role does “fear” play in your image of God and the use of your freedom to choose separation from or union with God?
3. As you reflect on your life, in what areas have you shared or multiplied the spiritual gifts you’ve received from God?
4. There’s an old saying that goes “the God you pray to, is the God you become”. Or as the Buddha put it “what you focus on becomes your reality.” Do you pray to a harsh judge, or a forgiving father?

Biblical Context

Matthew 25: 14-30
Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

All three readings this week ask us what we are doing with the time of our life. The worthy woman is a model of God’s faithful ones who go about doing good in every circumstance. Paul addresses a community anxious for predictions and tells them not to worry about the end but rather about the way they were living day to day. If they live as children of the light, they have nothing to worry about. With that preparation, we come to Jesus’ parable of the talents. Here we have the question of what we do with the time and circumstances of our lives, but also very directly the question of why we do what we do and what it has to do with God.

The situation Jesus sets up is imaginable in spite of its fantastic dimensions. The people listening to Jesus could envision a wealthy businessman who had a plethora of servants. Some servants would typically be left in charge of the household, etc. Some others would be well prepared and able to carry on the master’s work. The latter were the specially chosen ones, the ones who had a knack for the master’s business.

When the master was going somewhere, he gave his servants charge of everything. In this case, he handed over a good portion of his fortune to the specialists in his business so that they could continue his work. Nobody should feel too sorry for the servant who received the least — what he got was in the realm of a million dollars. What he did was not unimaginable under the circumstances. Where there were no banks one could keep money safe by hiding it; a secret burial place was very secure. The factor which made all the difference was that he didn’t like his master enough to care about what he did for him.

The trouble was that the servant didn’t do what the master wanted. The master himself could have buried the money or even put it in the bank! It was as if the master had given this servant seeds to use while he was gone and the servant put them carefully in a cupboard, saying that he was keeping them safe from floods, droughts or a plague of locusts.

The master handed his fortune over to his servants so that they could keep his business going. Those who did so not only increased the master’s fortune, but they became more like him as they did his work, as they carried forth his mission. When the master returned, he didn’t look at the amounts and rejoice more for a return of five talents than for the return of two. To both of those servants he said, “Come, share your master’s joy,” which was another way of saying, “Come to my feast!”

The whole truth came out when the servant who had received a mere $1,000,000 reported in. Before he ever spoke of what he did, he told the master what he thought of him: “You are demanding, you harvest what you did not plant, you go for everything you can get. So, I decided to have nothing to do with your projects. Look, I return to you exactly what you gave me, nothing more nothing less.” In effect that servant was saying, “I want nothing to do with your endeavors.” While the story says that the master ordered that he be thrown out, that was no more than the logical conclusion of a process the servant himself had set in motion. He had already chosen to exclude himself from the master’s business. If he wouldn’t take part in the master’s plan, it was impossible for him to share the master’s joy.

Today’s readings remind us that everything we have is a gift from God given so that we may know God’s joy. Each of us must then decide what to make of the time of our lives.

Fearing God

Spiritual Commentary
John Shea

The Gospel of Matthew is filled with dire consequences. If people do not respond to Jesus and his teachings correctly, they are in for a considerable mount of trouble. They can be tied hand and foot and cast outside into exterior darkness where they weep and gnash their teeth. They can be handed over to torturers until their entire debt is paid, a debt they will never be able to pay. Finally, they can fry in eternal fire.

Certainly, these images fuel our fantasies of hell. All people know physical pain and, from the pain we know, we can imagine what the pain must be like in chronic situations, chronic to the extreme of eternal. Also, all people know social rejection and, from the exclusion we know, we can imagine the loneliness of being completely ostracized. Flannery O’Connor once said she created grotesque caricatures to catch the attention of the blind and deaf. She might have learned from Matthew. A lake of everlasting fire definitely makes you sit up and take notice.

Of course, these catastrophes happen to people in the stories. But for those reading the stories they are meant as salutary warnings. If self-interest motivates you at all, you should avoid the behaviors that lead to these terrible punishments. Although this is the manifest objective of the story, I suspect it has the latent function of paralyzing people with fear.

Instead of being galvanized to imitate the first two servants, we find ourselves quaking and wondering if we have dug the hole deep enough to bury the single talent we have. The startling end of the narrative exacerbates the one-talent timidity that lurks in every person. When the image of God as a demanding master “who gathers but did not scatter and reaps but did not sow” is taken seriously, it plays into too much psychological and social “hardness.” We know this type of master: the boss or banker from hell.

There are many ways to approach the psychological and spiritual state of fearing God. Some say that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9- 10); fear of the Lord is the ‘”beginning of wisdom” but not the end. Fearing God gets God on the radar screen. Once there—and we explore the transcendent more and more—we realize that the “Almighty” is a Father and the terror of divine immensity and power gives way to the deeper revelation of love.

Others point out the contradictions in the Gospels between gentleness and violence. Matthew uses Isaiah to describe Jesus as one who ‘will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick” (Matt 12:20; cf. Isa 42:3). If a candle was almost out, Jesus would not snuff it. If a reed was so badly damaged it was almost separated, Jesus would not deliver the final blow and break it. Jesus never contributed to death, even when death was imminent. He always gave life. Is this the same Son of God who told stories of divine violent retributions? If we have to choose between the punishing God who, like it or not, generates fear and the gentle God who encourages love, roll the dice and choose love. Still others see the images of punishment and destruction as writ-large pictures of human freedom. They are not the result of literal actions of a separate Divine Being. They are imaginative portraits of the blessings and burdens of human freedom. If people respond to the divine invitation, all goes well, even better than expected. If people do not respond, all goes badly, even worse than expected. The slogan is: ‘Avoid God as creator: meet God as judge.”

But these pictures of punishments should not be seen as fulminating threats from a personal Divine Being. Rather the pictures of loss are simple predictions. As the Bible stresses repeatedly in anthropomorphic images, God is faithful to God’s self. There is a nature to spiritual reality. It works according to certain patterns, sequences, and operations.

What we really fear, however, may not be the demands and harshness of inevitable spiritual dynamics. What we may really fear is the edge of our own freedom.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Year A: Thirty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King

Matthew 25: 31-46

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you believe the way you treat others is the way you treat Christ? How does this affect your actions?
2. In this passage Matthew’s criteria of judgment is our ability to recognize the Lord in the dire circumstances of others, the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned and the stranger. How does this make you feel?
3. Do you struggle with the human (quid-pro-quo) tendency to only give to those who give back, lend to those who can repay and do good to those who do good to you? Explain
4. The Christian ideal is for our ethics and our spirituality to form a unified whole. In what ways are you experiencing or not experiencing this in caring for the least of your brothers?

Biblical Context

Matthew 25: 31-46
Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ

The description of the last judgment begins with the triumphant Son of Man coming in glory. It’s a scene filled with references to apocalyptic images from the Hebrew Scriptures and first-century politics. This is the glorious Christ, surrounded by angelic agents of resurrection and judgment.

The parable is the crown of Jesus’ reversal stories; contemporary scholars suggest that it does not say what most people generally think it does. When the triumphant Son of Man identifies with the lowliest of his brethren, we have learned to think of them as the poor of the world. But based on how Matthew has used the terms for the lowly and brethren, most commentators suggest that they are not the poor in general; they are the Christian missionaries, the new family of Jesus, who go out representing him. This does not disparage service of the poor it simply says that Jesus was not referring to the generic poor of the world in this parable. He was talking about his missionary disciples, the lowly ones who evangelized in his name.

A second dimension of the parable that we often fail to note is that the historical Jesus spoke of the glorious Son of Man just before he entered into his own passion, the time when he would appear in public at his weakest and most rejected. Except when we read the Gospel of John, the images of Christ in glory and Jesus who suffered in weakness and rejection seem to be polar opposites. But the parable actually weaves them together, indicating that the Son of Man will appear before humanity in hunger and thirst, imprisoned, naked and weak. He appears this way both in his historical passion and death and through those brothers and sisters who carried on his mission. Therefore, the judgment of the nations rests on whether they accept and love a God who does not mirror the powers of the world but comes among them as a suffering servant.

Pope Pius XI established this feast in 1925 as an antidote to secularism and the church’s loss of power and prestige in Europe. At a time when the Vatican had very little tolerance for democracies and freedom of religion, Pius wrote the encyclical Quas Primas which established the feast. Pius explained his hope that the fruits of the feast would give royal honors to our Lord and that “Men will doubtless be reminded that the Church [was] founded by Christ as a perfect society” (QP 31). There is evangelical irony and a sign of the work of the Spirit in the fact that the readings for the feast of Christ the King of the Universe all depict Jesus in his weakness, yet the feast itself was established in protest to the church’s loss of power and prestige.

Today, our celebration of Christ our King invites us to consider what we believe about where we and the universe are ultimately headed. Do we consider the difference the resurrection makes?

Loving the Powerless

Reflection
By Pat Marrin

The Solemnity of Christ the King concludes the liturgical year with the assertion that, despite the ominous end-of-time imagery featured in the preceding weeks, God is the ultimate power in the universe.

But what does God’s power look like? If Jesus represents God’s kingship, then divine power is both mysterious and paradoxical. Earthly power is the capacity to force others by threat or violence to do what you want. Kings are the image of power, dominating their subjects and their adversaries.

The title of “king” applied to Jesus is ironic in that, throughout his earthly life, he never claimed political or physical power other than the power of words. He was a preacher, teacher, storyteller. He sought out powerless people, often the victims of power — the poor, sick and social outcasts. In his confrontation with the power structures of his own time, he did not resist, but surrendered himself to violent abuse and an unjust death. The evangelists depict his death as a kind of parody of kingship. Jesus is cloaked in purple, crowned with thorns, enthroned on a cross between two thieves, mocked as the “King of the Jews.” His crucifixion is a sign of contradiction that turns upside down any notion of power and control.

It is a fact of history that the emerging institutional church found two of Jesus’ radical witnesses — pacifism and voluntary poverty — too difficult to sustain in practical terms. By the third century, the official church was on its way to becoming one of the wealthiest and most dominant powers in the West.

Spiritualizing Jesus as a king is one way to distinguish his power from earthly power. But we should not miss the witness of his life as radically poor and powerless as his way of revealing that God shares these characteristics. As absolute Love, God does not force the divine will. God does not threaten transgressors to get them to obey. God does not withhold forgiveness to shame sinners. God does not prevent us from making mistakes or hold our failures over us when we seek to repent.

The power Jesus practiced was self-emptying love and unlimited mercy. He mirrored perfectly his Abba in this, for God is the source of unconditional love, a never-ending offering of divine life to sinners. This is God’s very nature, and God has no other name than Mercy.

What does this love and mercy look like in Jesus’ disciples in today’s world? Today’s readings offers two views. First, in Ezekiel, God is presented as a compassionate shepherd. Jesus found this image a perfect description of God. Shepherds were, in fact, the lowliest of peasants, hired to wander with the flocks in search of pasture. Jesus’ parable of the good shepherd is less about power than vulnerability and extravagant love. His shepherd leaves the whole flock to find a single lost sheep. His shepherd will offer his life for the sheep. What sensible person would do either?

In Matthew, Jesus tells us where to find him. The Lord of the Universe has disappeared among the hungry, thirsty, naked, lost, sick, imprisoned, alien and persecuted of this world. Our King is hiding in the least of our brothers and sisters. The one power he exhibits is to move our hearts to compassion. His very poverty invites us to exercise the power we share with God as his image and likeness — the power to love. This is the essence of our royal priesthood, the power to sacrifice ourselves for others. This is how we honor and imitate our King.