Harvest, Covenant, and the Holy Spirit - Pentecost Sunday

Harvest, Covenant and the Holy Spirit – Pentecost Sunday

Sometimes we are not sure what we celebrate on certain holidays.  If you asked Americans what we celebrate on Memorial Day, Independence Day, or Labor Day you might get some very interesting answers, none of which have anything to do with the actual holiday involved.  Consider the animated classic “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!”  The Peanuts gang gathers to create a Christmas play, but there is no direction.  Everyone is off doing their own activity, and Charlie Brown gets exasperated and shouts, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”  Linus steps forward and recites the birth of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, and suddenly the entire scene shifts.  The focus has returned:  the children help Charlie Brown to decorate his tree, and they all come together in a grand finale to sing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” 

The feast of Pentecost is one in which many Catholics would struggle to explain to others, let alone themselves.  And yet it is one of the most important feasts of the Church year, the only one to have an octave celebration along with Christmas and Easter.  Some may know that the name means fifty days after Easter, and a few others could say that the Holy Spirit came to the disciples fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus – and no doubt all of these things are true.  But like so many other matters in our faith, there is much more to this feast.

Originally, the feast of Pentecost began as a harvest festival, a day of joy and thanksgiving for the first fruits of the fields that came fifty days after the celebration of Passover in Judaism.  The first fruits of the fields were offered to God as a thanksgiving sacrifice for God providing for the people of Israel in their material and spiritual needs.  The feast was originally called the Feast of Weeks, placing it seven full weeks after the feast of Passover.

Over time, the feast became an anniversary.  The covenant had been offered and ratified by the Jewish people fifty days after the Passover from Egypt.  Hence, Pentecost naturally became the anniversary of the covenant just two hundred years before the birth of Jesus.  Like Passover, Pentecost was a pilgrimage festival where Jews who lived outside Palestine would travel to Jerusalem for the feast in order to offer the first fruits of the harvest as a thanksgiving offering for the anniversary of the covenant.  In this way, the original meaning of the feast was retained and kept alongside the new meaning.

In the account of the first Christian Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, we can see the concept of the harvest and covenant in the coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples.  After receiving the Spirit, the disciples begin to speak in various tongues so that people from all regions understood what they were saying.  Three thousand people accepted the Good News on that very day – the first fruits of the harvest after Jesus’ Passover sacrifice of himself on the Cross.  At the same time, the gift of the Spirit is one that had been promised to the disciples by Jesus, and here we see the fulfillment of that promise, indicating a new covenant has been established by God with all people of the world, not just with the people of Israel. 

The celebration of Pentecost is not merely remembering an act of the past, but an act that is continually reenacted in our midst.  Recall that at the Easter Vigil we received new members into the Church through the rites of initiation.  Pentecost is the final journey for our new Christians, completing the time of mystagogy in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.  Pentecost is intimately connected to Easter, just as Pentecost had been connected to Passover in the Jewish tradition.  The Spirit of God is continually at work in the Church, constantly calling us to conversion and calling others to bring new life to the Church by their initiation into the Mystical Body. 

Let us ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit to animate us so that we might bring forth a harvest of souls to the new covenant of Christ who renews us in the Paschal Mystery.  “Let us pray in the Spirit who dwells within us.  Father of light, from whom every good gift comes, send your Spirit into our lives with the power of a mighty wind, and by the flame of your wisdom open the horizons of our minds.  Loosen our tongues to sing your praise in words beyond the power of speech, for without your Spirit man could never raise his voice in words of peace or announce the truth that Jesus is Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.  Amen.”

The Sheep of His Flock - 4th Sunday of Easter Year C

The Sheep of His Flock – 4^th Sunday of Easter Year C

It has become fashionable nowadays to speak of “adult faith” as opposed to a less developed understanding of the faith that we may have had earlier in our lives.  Properly understood, there is nothing wrong in speaking of an adult faith in the sense of growing more deeply in a relationship with the Triune God and the Church.  However, there can be a tendency to overlook or become repulsed by passages in scripture that refer to disciples as children of God or as sheep.  Do those appellations not contradict the whole notion of adult faith that we seek in our lives?

In today’s Gospel text we find Jesus making reference to his followers as sheep.  This passage is an extension of Jesus’ earlier teaching on him being the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.  Hence, there is a great deal of consolation for the follower of Jesus that we be considered sheep in this sense, for we have a great protector in the Lord Jesus.  What is more, Jesus asserts that he is one with the Father, meaning that our protector is not merely another fallible human being, but is in actuality God himself.  There can be no greater assurance for the believer than to know that God is our protector in the person of Jesus the Lord.

At the same time we cannot forget the fact that Jesus is not just the good shepherd, but is also the Lamb of God.  John the Baptist announces this fact in the beginning of John’s gospel, a fact that comes to full realization in John’s presentation of Jesus’ crucifixion.  In the passion narrative of John, the evangelist has Jesus’ crucifixion coincide with the slaughter of the lambs in the Temple for the Passover celebration.  Jesus, then, as the Lamb of God, replaces the original Passover Lamb.  Whereas the Passover Lamb was sacrificed in order to protect the Israelites from the angel of death, now Jesus the Lamb of God is sacrificed so that all might be protected from the death of sin. 

To be called a sheep by the Lord Jesus, then, is the greatest honor a Christian can receive, for it means that we have been called to share in the ministry and work of the Lord Jesus in his work of redemption.  We are tempted to think that our adult faith qualifies us to be shepherds of the flock of Jesus, but Jesus tells us that in order to be a shepherd we must first be a lamb, i.e. we must die to ourselves and to offer ourselves for the sake of others, even to the point of death.  Just as Jesus the Good Shepherd was called by the Father to be the Lamb of God and die for others, so too we must be sheep and rejoice in being so, for we are called to the ministry of Jesus the Lord.

This ministry involves rejection, just as it did in the life of Jesus on earth.  The first reading recounts the ministry of Paul and Barnabas, who faced ridicule and rejection, but notice that Acts states that they were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.  Very often we see Christians bewailing the opposition the Church faces in proclaiming the Gospel in our age.  Complaint against such opposition has become a cottage industry in itself, and yet it is utterly contrary to the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.  We encounter these readings in the Easter season, for in Easter we find our joy and raison d’etre.  The joy of Easter pushes aside the darkness of Good Friday, for as St. Augustine said, “We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.”

In being a sheep of Jesus’ flock we know that the Lamb who is in the center of the throne in the vision of Revelation will shepherd us.  If we have been a sheep, then at some point we will have washed our garments in the blood of the lamb, for it is the vocation of every sheep at some point to suffer death so that another living thing may continue to live.  So it is with us, just as it was for the Lord Jesus, who came to be an example to us in fulfilling our human vocation.  We can then rejoice in anticipation of being part of the great multitude that worships the Lamb day and night, for the joy we experience now will be fully realized in heavenly glory.

As we seek to be faithful sheep of the Lord Jesus, we come together in the midst of this Easter season to pray for the grace we need to persevere in fulfilling our human vocation.  “Let us pray to God our helper in time of distress.  God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, though your people walk in the valley of darkness, no evil should they fear; for they follow in faith the call of the shepherd whom you have sent for their hope and strength.  Attune our minds to the sound of his voice, lead our steps in the path he has shown, that we may know the strength of his outstretched arm and enjoy the light of your presence forever.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

 

Mercy and Peace - 2nd Sunday of Easter Year C

Mercy and Peace – 2^nd Sunday of Easter Year C

When we hear and read the Gospels we often find ourselves thinking critically about the disciples in many passages.  How could Peter, who had seen the Lord Jesus in transfigured glory, deny his master three times?  How could all the disciples run away and abandon Jesus to die alone on the cross?  And in today’s Gospel reading, how could Thomas refuse to believe in the risen Jesus after hearing the testimony of so many?  We might be cured of this temptation when we realize that the Gospel writers intended for us to see ourselves as the disciples in the story, i.e. that all of us in one way or another deny Jesus, abandon him, and doubt His identity and resurrection. 

Consequently, it is appropriate that the Church asks us to reflect on the themes of mercy and peace in the Sunday after Easter, for it is precisely these gifts of the Lord Jesus that we need so desperately.  In appearing to the fragile disciples, Jesus imparts to them His peace in the sending forth of the Holy Spirit.  Then he commands them to forgive the sins of the people, thereby connecting the idea of peace with mercy.  It is indeed true that once we have experienced the mercy of God that a sense of peace comes upon us, but more is at stake than the subjective feeling of peace in such moments.  The Lord Jesus has much more to teach us in this episode.

The acts of denial, abandonment, and doubt in the days before the resurrection are acts that we cannot redeem on our own.  In what way could we show God that we have learned the lessons of these falls and will not commit them again?  Each and every one of these men declared their allegiance to Jesus and vowed that they would die for Him, and yet they all failed, as they did so often during Jesus’ public ministry, as we have in our own lives.  Hence, only the free gift of Jesus’ own forgiveness can lift them up from the dregs in which they find themselves.  It is in their acceptance of this gift that leads the disciples to find peace in their own lives.

Now, however, their lives must be committed to the ministry of mercy and reconciliation that they experienced from the Lord Jesus.  By forgiving the sins of others – not just once per year in the annual observance of Yom Kippur, but in the daily practice of mercy in the prayer Jesus taught them – the disciples, and we too, can bring peace to a world disfigured by conflict and strife.  We can do this only by making the entire life and ministry of Jesus our own.

Some people may say that we must also stress God’s justice in addition to His mercy, implying that these two things are somehow distinct or represent a necessary dualism in the world.  However, God’s justice is always directed towards mercy and to bringing the person back to a full relationship with Him.  What is more, the justice of God is not some magical curse inflicted upon a person for breaking the law.  It is the natural consequence of following our own devices instead of God’s will.  The parable of the prodigal son highlights both of these realities – that the degradation of the son was the natural consequence of his own actions, and that this justice of God is directed toward the reconciliation of the son that takes place at the climax of the story.

Throughout Lent we heard the prophetic tradition remind us that God does not desire the death of the sinner but rather in the sinner’s conversion.  We must ask ourselves whether we truly have this desire for ourselves and for others as well.  We have experienced the mercy and peace of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Lord.  We are commanded now to be ministers of mercy and peace to others.  The very fact that our world and church remain torn by conflict and wars indicates the extent to which we have not appropriated this mission into our lives.  The fact that people who claim the name Christian have the same rates of divorce, abortion, support for war and capital punishment as the rest of society means that we are those very disciples who deny, abandon, and doubt and whom we look askance at in our reading of the scriptures.

Yet, we must rejoice and give thanks for receiving these gifts of mercy and peace these Easter days.  At the same time, we pray for the ability to live our mission as ministers of mercy and peace more effectively in our lives.  “Let us pray as Christians thirsting for the risen life.  Heavenly Father and God of mercy, we no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for he is alive and has become the Lord of life.  From the waters of death you raise us with him and renew your gift of life within us.  Increase in our minds and hearts the risen life we share with Christ and help us to grow as your people toward the fullness of eternal life with you.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

Following the Crowd - Holy Week 2013

Following the Crowd – Holy Week 2013

 

“But Jesus did not entrust himself to the crowd, because He knew them all.  There was no need for anyone to tell him about them, because He himself knew what was in their hearts.”  John 2: 24-25)

 

In 2003 my wife and I were given tickets to the final round of the Byron Nelson Golf Classic in Las Calinas, TX.  We sat atop the 15^th green which sits atop a hill, providing us with an excellent view of the approach and to a fair amount of the course.  As the afternoon progressed we saw a large sea of humanity snaking its way along the course, heading our way.  As the massive crowd approached we could not help but become enveloped in it.  After all, who wouldn’t want to see Tiger Woods make a charge at the top of the leader board?  The experience was intoxicating and sobering at the same time.  On the one hand we felt connected to a major sports figure, a movement, and a group of people enveloped in the moment.  But on the other hand there was a certain guilt attached to that intoxication, a feeling that the same crowd experience could produce something quite awful.  Holy Week provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the phenomenon of the crowd.

 

Many preachers during Holy Week will point out the fickle nature of the crowds that converge on different days of this week.  The overwhelming support for Jesus on Palm Sunday so quickly turns to an angry mob seeking his death five days later.  How do we explain such fickleness?  One answer is to suggest the presence of two different crowds.  The Palm Sunday crowd was composed of the common people who experienced the mercy of Jesus in his teachings and miracles.  They turned out in a mass movement to show their support for the Son of David.  They disappear five days later because of the power and influence of the second crowd, composed of the authorities and religious leaders of Jerusalem.  Fear led the first crowd to stay away or join the second crowd.

 

However, this explanation overlooks the fact that throughout Jesus’ public ministry He did not trust crowds because their motivation is entirely wrong in making the most fundamental decisions of human existence.  There is a false security in crowds.  The presence of so many people leads us to think that joining them is a safe decision.  In fact, cheap Christian apologetics uses this argument of many members of believers to falsely bolster Christian faith.  Such decision making results in an accidental stumbling upon a correct decision, but one that cannot last because it is grounded in nothing more than the false security of the crowd.

 

The Lord Jesus declared himself to be the way, the truth, and the life.  He told Pilate that His kingdom rested on truth, not on violence, emotion, or numbers.  He who listens to the truth hears the voice of Christ and is a member of His kingdom.  Consequently, the follower of Jesus bases their decisions of fundamental importance on the truth, on what is, and not on a crowd mentality.  How many examples of authentic discipleship are found in the Gospels where the character overcomes the presence of the crowd in order to follow Jesus – Zacchaeus, Bartimaeus, the man born blind?  It is no wonder that the number of disciples at the Cross is small – Mary, John, a few other women, Joseph of Arimethea, Nicodemus.  Peter and the other apostles succumb to the fear of the crowd and stay away.  For at the end of the day it is the cross that determines whether we are a disciples grounded in the truth or a random member of the crowd. 

 

In every age, but especially our own, we are called to be active, engaged, and fully conscious followers of Jesus who do so out of the truth and for no other reason.  Only such engaged discipleship grounded in the truth can achieve holiness and transform the world.  How many Christians in name only, however, attempt to reduce Christianity to a crowd mentality by making of the faith a political ideology tied to one agenda or another?  Such an enterprise is not new – it was present in the crowds of Holy Week two thousand years ago, and look at what it produced. 

 

As we strive this Holy Week to be active, engaged disciples grounded in the truth and shunning the logic of the crowd, we pray together for this holy gift:  “Almighty Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you sent your Son to be born of woman and to die on the cross, so that through the obedience of one man estrangement might be dissolved for all men.  Guide our minds by His truth and strengthen our lives by the example of his death, that we may live in union with You in the kingdom of your promise.  Grant this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

The Reproach of Egypt

The Reproach of Egypt – 4^th Sunday of Lent Year C

When I was a child there were many times when I did things I should not have done.  Inevitably my parents would discover my wrongdoing and question me about it.  More often than not I would deny it or lie about it, which only made matters worse.  Why would I deny or lie about something that was clearly known by my parents and undeniable?  I did not want to disappoint them.  I did not want to lose their respect.  The fear of disappointing parents or losing their respect is why most children lie about wrongdoing.  We see this phenomenon throughout salvation history:  Adam and Eve look to blame others for their wrongdoing; Cain denies killing his brother; Joseph’s brothers concoct a great scheme to hide their crime.  As children of God we do not want to disappoint our Heavenly Father, but instead of admitting to it and seeking His mercy we create many elaborate ways to hide this reality.

The slavery of Egypt represents the great reproach of God for the sins of Israel.  Liberation from slavery is the great event of Israel’s history because liberation from the physical slavery of Egypt is the outward sign of their liberation from their sins against God.  And yet throughout their wanderings in the desert the people of Israel continue to long for their captivity in Egypt.  How often did they think that it would be better to be slaves in Egypt than to die of starvation, dehydration, the serpents, and all the other calamities they suffered?  Even though God had removed the reproach of Egypt from the people of Israel, the faith of the people still wandered to other places.

The prodigal son is in many ways the personification of the people of Israel.  The son goes to his father, asking for his inheritance in advance, which essentially means he wants his father dead.  There could be no greater insult to a parent, and yet this is the reality of sin and turning away from God.  In choosing other things we essentially say that we want our heavenly Father dead.  And the son goes off to spend his inheritance on wanton living.  Eventually, the natural consequences of his actions lead to his total impoverishment.  He has relied on his own wits up to this point, and there is no good way out of his predicament.

So the son decides finally to return to his father’s house.  A real act of conversion has taken place within him, and he forms within his mind a scenario whereby he begs mercy from his father.  The son knows that he should not expect mercy.  Most probably his father has already disowned him; that was the natural course of action in those days.  And yet, while he is still a long way from home, the son sees his father searching for him!  How often has God searched the byways for us, but we were not looking for him? 

The father restores this wayward child of his back to the son’s original position in the paternal household.  Naturally someone will object, and sure enough his older brother is indignant at such beneficence on the part of the father.  What about justice?  What about my rights?  So says the older son.  But the older son has nothing to fear – he too is always a part of the father’s house.  Justice dwells secure in God’s house, but mercy must have a place too – and the greater place besides! 

Thus, in this story of the prodigal son we have the complete undoing of the sordid history of the Jewish people to this point.  Brothers once at odds with one another are restored under the household of God.  The cycle of revenge and violence that is such a part of Israel’s history and thought is shattered by the mercy and love of the Father.  We can truly say with Paul in the second reading that we are a new creation.  We are back in Eden and not in Egypt.  The old things have indeed passed away.  For the Lord Jesus has brought the message and example of reconciliation that must now become the fundamental mission for the followers of Jesus.  We cannot return to our old ways of revenge and violence.  We must reject them and be reconciliation and peace in the midst of this world. 

To live this vocation, we must have recourse to God’s aid and guidance at all times.  And so we pray:  “Let us pray, that by growing in love this Lenten season we may bring the peace of Christ to our world.  God our Father, your word, Jesus Christ, spoke peace to a sinful world and brought mankind the gift of reconciliation by the suffering and death he endured.  Teach us, the people who bear his name, to follow the example he gave us; may our faith, hope, and charity turn hatred to love, conflict to peace, death to eternal life.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

The Prophet and Nonviolence - 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The Prophet and Nonviolence – 4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Catechesis in the early church focused primarily on discipleship – how we must follow Christ in all aspects of our lives.  Among the many virtues to be imitated was that of nonviolence, exemplified by this instruction from one of the great church fathers:  “We are educated not for war, but for peace.  In war there is need for much equipment, just as self-indulgence craves an abundance.  But peace and love, simple and plain blood sisters, do not need arms nor abundant supplies.  Their nourishment is the Word, the Word whose leadership enlightens and educates, from whom we learn poverty and humility and all that goes with love of freedom and of mankind and of the good.  In a word, through Him, we become like God by a likeness of virtue.”  (St. Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator, 1. 12)  The readings today provide us the opportunity to reflect on the virtue of nonviolence.

The prophet Jeremiah was called by God to preach on the threshold of the Babylonian captivity.  Israel was to be subject to a violent takeover and march into exile, the result of their failure to be faithful to  the one true God and the failure of social injustice.  Needless to say, Jeremiah was not exactly popular among the leaders of Israel for pointing out their shortcomings.  Nevertheless, God tells Jeremiah that  the leaders will seek to crush him, but God will overcome them.  Jeremiah was utterly helpless:  he had no recourse to arms and violence.  Only his faithful obedience to God would lead Jeremiah to e protected from the faithless leaders of Israel and the violence about to befall the nation.  The entire prophetic tradition, in fact, longs for the end to violence in their description of the Messianic age:  “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.”  (Isaiah 2: 4)

In the person of Jesus we find the fulfillment of the Messianic expectation of peace and nonviolence.  Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek when attacked by violence, and to bless those who persecute us.  He continually rebukes his disciples whenever they seek the recourse of violence, chastising James and John for their desire to draw fire upon the unwelcoming Samaritan town and rejecting Peter’s use of the sword in the garden of Gethsemane.  In the Gospel text today the entire village of Nazareth takes up stones to kill Jesus for his use of the prophetic texts in teaching that God has love for all and not just Israel.  Instead of a violent outcome, Jesus passes through their midst without harm coming to anyone.

The famous thirteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is often associated with weddings, but in reality Paul intended it as a message to a community deeply divided and at war with itself.  The message is the manifesto of virtue of nonviolence:  love is patient, love is kind; it does not seek its own interests; it bears all things, endures all things.  Violence is the result of impatience, unkindness, the seeking of self-interest.  Violence bears nothing and does not endure anything.  Violence is the ultimate mortal sin against love.  Only the living of Christian love will enable us to overcome the culture of violence that afflicts our nation and our world.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980’s on the east coast meant regular bomb drills in school.  The menace of nuclear war and the indiscriminate violence of modern weaponry led us to these regular drills of hiding under our desks.  In the midst of this ethos, however, emerged the Solidarity movement in Poland.  While the U.S. was amassing an arsenal of violence to deal with communism, Catholic workers in Poland brought communism to its demise without any recourse to violence.  The general strikes and peaceful sit ins overcame the tyranny of communism and taught the world the way forward in dealing with the culture of violence.  It was a lesson they learned from Jesus the Lord, whose acceptance of the injustice of his death on the cross redeemed the world and taught the world how to reject the notion of responding to violence with violence.  As Pope Benedict XVI recently stated, “But Jesus knows that God’s kingdom is of a completely different kind; it is not built on arms and violence….Jesus does not wish to be defended by arms, but to establish his kingdom not by armed conflict, but by the apparent weakness of life giving love….To be disciples of Jesus, then, means not letting ourselves be allured by the worldly logic of power, but bringing into the world the light of truth and God’s love.  It is a pressing invitation addressed to each and all:  to be converted anew to the kingdom of God, to the leadership of God, of Truth.”  (Homily, November 25, 2012)

As we seek to follow Jesus the Lord in the way of nonviolence, we pray together for the gift of His Spirit.  “Let us pray joining in the praise of the living God, for we are his people.  Father in heaven, from the days of Abraham and Moses until the gathering of your Church in prayer, you have formed a people with the gift of your kingdom.  May we serve you with our every desire and show love for one another even as you have loved us.  Grant this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

 

Standardized Testing - 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Standardized Testing – 3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Every teacher abhors standardized testing for their students, not  because their jobs are now conditioned upon the success of their students on such tests, but because everyone knows that people learn in different ways, though they are only tested in one way.  The tests do not reflect the diversity of learning styles that exist among human beings:  some are auditory learners, others are visual learners, while others may be tactile or kinesthetic learners.  St. Paul knew this fact two thousand years ago as he catalogued the variety of gifts and talents God gives to people in the life of the Church.  The person who has received the gift of prophecy cannot be judged on the criteria of teaching, any more than the teacher can be measured on the criteria of someone with the gift of tongues. 

And yet there is a universal criteria that does apply to every human person, whether Christian or not.  There is a standardized test for the entire human race at the end of time, and it is not a catechism quiz or a dissertation on dogmatic formulae.  The test is the set of questions offered to the sheep and goats in Matthew 25:  did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, clothe to the naked, and welcome the stranger?  What is more, the standardized test is an open book test:  we know the questions in advance and we have a lifetime to complete the questions.  And as an open book test we have the Book to consult as a guide to help us complete the questions.

In the first reading the people of Israel rejoice in having the law read to them from the scroll.  This moment recorded in the book of Nehemiah is a watershed moment in the history of Israel and humankind in general.  Prior to this time the law was transmitted orally through memorization, but now Israel has the law recorded on scrolls so they can be accessed by the whole people.  The reading of the scroll is an emotional moment, for we have a plan for living that comes from God.  No other nation on earth has a god that cares for people in the way God does for Israel.  The law enables us to know God’s will and to successfully accomplish the questions for the day of judgment. 

What the people of Israel lacked was an example of someone who perfectly lived the law of God in his or her life.  Kings would come and each one would fail in some way to appropriate the law in their lives.  The prophets came to admonish the leaders and the people to live the law faithfully, but they faced persecution, rejection, and marginalization.  And yet Israel had the courage to include the teachings of the prophets in the official scriptures of her people.  Israel stands as a unique example of a culture and a people who accept and appropriate self-criticism within its history and ethos.

The prophetic tradition brought with it the expectation of a Messiah who would live the law perfectly, and through that example of perfect living would liberate God’s people from every possible form of oppression.  In the Gospel text Jesus announces that this expectation is fulfilled in himself.  The entire ministry of Jesus as recorded in the gospel texts confirms this mission of Jesus.  When John the Baptist tells his disciples to ask Jesus whether he is the one or should they look for another, Jesus replies:  “Tell John what you have seen and heard:  the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news preached to them.” 

Jesus proclaimed that he was anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to accomplish this work, and anointing and ministry that we share in baptism and confirmation.  Every Christian has the obligation to carry out this ministry of care and concern for the poor; it is a fundamental component of being a Christian.  To neglect this obligation is to reject the call of Christ, for it is the only standard by which we are measured in the eyes of God.  We all have a variety of gifts and callings within the body of Christ, but they all exist to serve the fundamental Christian vocation of imitating Christ in his mission to the poor and vulnerable. 

As we seek to become more faithful to our mission as followers of Jesus, we need to know His will for us and to see the example of Jesus in the Gospels.  We pray that the knowledge of God’s will and the example of the Lord Jesus will help us in our ministry to others:  “Let us pray, pleading that our vision may overcome our weakness.  Almighty Father, the love you offer always exceeds the furthest expression of our human longing, for you are greater than the human heart.  Direct each thought, each effort of our life, so that the limits of our faith and weaknesses may not obscure the vision of your glory or keep us from the peace you have promised.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”