17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 29, 2012

2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

          Some years ago I had an opportunity to read an article of Fr. Timothy Radcliffe entailed “Overcoming discord in the church."

           In his article Fr. Radcliffe writes about polarization which is present in our church due to two distinct groups which seem to be in a deadlock. He arbitrary names them as Kingdom Catholics and Communion Catholics.

          “By Kingdom Catholics he means those of us who have a deep sense of the church as the pilgrim people of God, on the way to the kingdom. The theologians who have been central for this tradition have been people like the Jesuit Karl Rahner, and the Dominicans Edward Schillebeecks and Gustavo Gutierrez. This tradition stresses openness to the world, finding the presence of the Holy Spirit working outside the church, freedom and the pursuit of justice.”

          “By Communion Catholics he means those of us who feel the urgent need to rebuild the inner life of the church. They go with theologians like Hans von Balthasar and Jospeh Ratzinger, our current pope. Their theology often stresses Catholic identity, is wary of embracing modernity too much, and it stresses the cross.”

Although both groups quite often have become suspicious and nervous about each other they both need each other. As Fr. Radcliffe says the sacrament of the church, our home, has always had this double rhythm. It has a tendency to gather and the tendency to reach out. It is like breathing. We breathe in and we breathe out. If we just emptied our lungs or just filled them and stopped, then we would die! We need both if we are to live, just as the church needs a fruitful and living tension between Kingdom and Communion Catholics.

I believe that what Fr. Radcliffe is trying to convey to us in his article is that our differences, regardless of what kind of Catholics we might be,  are not to be the source of divisions but the source of our enrichment. They are to help us to see more clearly what truly matters and what it is important to us. If we are not able to see that we become polarized and more eager not to solve our differences through dialogue. We become more divided and antagonistic towards those who seem to be different from us. The rift between us and them then grows and our distrust, division and disrespect of each other escalate into a full blown conflict.

This is what we read about in the newspapers and magazines, what we hear on the radio, and see watching TV. Intentional polarization, division, and conflict seem to be the engine of almost any human interaction.

So it is good to hear today's gospel taken from so called The Bread of Life Discourse, from which by the way we will hear for the next 5 weeks, that for Christ intentional polarization, conflict, and division is not his way of life.  

Today's gospel is very clear,  everyone was fed, regardless of who they were, even those who were probably morally and physically considered unclean. Women and children were standing next to men. The healthy alongside the sick. The weak next to the strong. The just next to the unjust. All, without exception, were fed and welcomed, and invited into the fellowship with Jesus. He was willing to help anyone who was looking for him.

We are reminded today and will be reminded for the next several weeks that for us Christians and Catholics Christ and the Eucharist through which Christ is offered to us are to be the source of our unity. The differences which might exist among us should be always considered in relation to Christ, and should never taken away from us whom we are in Christ.

          So as we will be exploring the Bread of Life Discourse in the next several weeks I invite you to ask yourself, regardless if you are a Kingdom Catholic or a Communion Catholic,  on this first week of our reflections the following two questions:

          What does it mean for you to receive the Eucharist?

          Who do you think should be receiving the Eucharist in our Church?

         

         

The 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 22, 2012

Jer 23:1-6; Eph 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

 

The last week we heard from the prophet Amos, living in the 8th century BC and directing his prophecies against people of the northern kingdom of Israel, today we hear from another well known prophet - the prophet Jeremiah, living in the 7th century BC and directing his prophecies against people of the southern kingdom of Judah. What do we know about Jeremiah?

Jeremiah was called  as a prophet in the thirteenth year of King Josiah, according to our calendar that would be year 627 BC.  Many biblical scholars believe that this date actually refers to Jeremiah’s birth. Later at the age of 17 or 18 Jeremiah delivered so called the Temple Sermon which marked the beginning of his public ministry which lasted for some 45 years.

Jeremiah had seen many political changes in his life. At the beginning of his ministry Assyria was the world’s greatest power, but by the time he died in exile in Egypt, Babylon stood supreme. Jeremiah experienced destruction of his people and their holiest places in the city of Jerusalem – The Temple. He saw his people taken into captivity and into exile to foreign lands. He was with them and experienced with them all of it to the end of his life.

Jeremiah’s faithfulness to God’s call and his prophetic ministry put him in trouble many times with his own people. He was hated by his own family and his own village of Anathoth, which was about three miles north of Jerusalem for not joining them for their wedding and funeral celebrations. The behavior that was considered as one of the greatest insults against your own community and family.

For his prophesying Jeremiah was arrested by the king and sent to a prison. The officials as well as his own family wanted to kill him.

Jeremiah suffered a lot in his life: physically by being persecuted by his own people and family, emotionally by being rejected by them, by feeling lonely, and also in a result of his own internal fights against God.

So what did Jeremiah prophesized about to deserve such a fate?

His prophetic message was mainly directed against two main evils present among his people: idolatry and injustice.

In today's reading he speaks against the shepherds, the leaders of his people. In his and God's eyes they were to watch over their people, protect them, keep them together and in order. They were to take care of those who were hurting. But instead of that  they only watched for themselves and abused those entrusted to their care. Again the same way as Amos prophesized the last week Jeremiah says this can't last. There will be  a price to pay!

In the Jeremiah's eyes any leader or ruler  that allows the rich and the powerful to exploit the labor and energy of the poor and the weak in order to enhance their own life-styles are to be judged severely. They are under the indictment.

As a matter of fact any society that allows the manipulation of political power to enhance the wealth of the powerful, their the rulers and leaders at the expense of the poor and the weak stands under the indictment. When the ruling power is self-aggrandizing and inattentive to the need of the weak and the poor they are to be punished and get rid of.

What does the Lord expect of those who worship and acknowledge the Lord's claim on their lives?

How do we live in good relation to the Lord who has saved us?

The answer is echoed again and again in the words of so many prophets: by hating evil, by loving good, and by doing justice. To ignore the matters of justice while continuing to praise the Lord and worship calls for indictment not praise. Regardless of what position one holds in the society.

So these are some of the questions we might ask ourselves this weekend:

What future would Jeremiah prophesy to a country which keeps cutting the taxes on the rich, raises them on the poor, seeks to balance the national budget on the backs of children, elderly, and sick?

What would he say to those who take advantage of immigrants and who abuse those who are jailed or imprisoned?

          We can easily find the answers to these questions by reading the lives of the prophets of the Old Testament and the times they lived in.

          Sometimes the only way for any country or society to avoid the indictment , those prophets were talking about, is to prevent gaining the power or to remove from the power those shepherds, those leaders who are inattentive to the needs of the poor and the weak, and to change the ways of doing business as usual.

          I guess our next chance to do it will be presented to us in this November.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 15th, 2012

Amos 17:12-15; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13

         

          The prophet Amos. The story of the prophet Amos about whom we have heard in today's first reading reminds us that God from time to time chooses certain individuals to help different groups, organizations and institutions to remain faithful to Him. To remind them that they are accountable to Him for their words and actions. To make sure that their words and actions are life giving.

          Although those individuals make us feel uncomfortable and quite often anxious the truth is they are a true gift to us.

          The recent events at the Penn State University and continuous  barrage of scandals in our Catholic Church, either connected to human sexuality, or financial greed or power struggles,  are clear reminder that quite often the institutions place their own institutional survival ahead of well being of individuals. Sometimes the leaders of those institutions, including the religious institutions, exercise their power and shamelessly use their privileges to fulfill rather their personal needs for prestige, influence, and material gains than to serve God and His people.

          This is why God sends from time to time people like Amos. Individuals who  are willing to speak the truth challenging existing in any society or organization status quos.

          So who was Amos?

 Amos, a native of the southern kingdom of Judah, born about 12 miles south-east of Bethlehem, was  probably a farmer and shepherd who was called by God in the midst of the 8th century before Christ to prophesize at the sanctuary of Bethel in the northern kingdom of Israel. At that particular time the Israel was divided into two different kingdoms.

The message of Amos was one of rebuke and warning, condemning the decadence that he found among his comfortably wealthy neighbors to the north. His reproach was directed at the elite class, including even the king, Jereboam II. Amos was decrying their wealth and arrogance. And this prompted the priest Amaziah as we have heard it in today’s reading to remind Amos that Bethel “was the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple,” meaning - all those living there were supported by the king and expected in return to speak in support of the king, his edicts and policies.

What is interesting is that Amaziah did not call Amos a false prophet, and did not deny the truth of what Amos said, he just claimed authority over where Amos might have spoken.

          Amos’ response was very simple. He believed he was elected by God to speak for God, and to speak at the sanctuary of Bethel. Amos felt that he had no choice in the matter, and Amaziah should have not, what we find in the book of Amos, resisted Amos and his message (Amos 3:8) for this was profoundly offending God.

What we all might find very interesting is that Amos  is speaking in a country which has risen to the zenith of its prosperity. It flourishes politically and economically. Its influence and power a felt by many countries in the world. It enjoys its imperial expansion. Many believe strongly that a leader of the country has done a good job serving his country’s men and women. The well-to-do citizens have secured their positions and continue prospering.

But at the same time the gulf between rich and poor seems to keep widening.  The existing religious system of the country seems to be in trouble. There is a lot of talk about faith and religious ideals but words do not match what is being practiced. It seems that existing prosperity lead to spiritual complacency and ethical laxity (6:1-6), oppression of the poor (2:6-7a; 5:12; 8:4,6), injustice in the courts (2:7a; 5:7,12; 6:12), sexual immorality (2:7b), religious abuses (2:8), violence (3:10), idolatry (5:26), and corrupt business practices (8:5).

And this is where Amos comes in. He warns that things will not last. And indeed they did not. About a quarter century later the country collapsed.

          The story of Amos reminds us that that although God, who usually works through different human institutions:

·       such as kingship, the sanctuaries, the tribe, the family at the Amos' times,

·        political parties, Congress, Senate, the Supreme Court, or different religious denominations, the Vatican, the United States Conference of the American Bishops, the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, or many other profit or non-profit organizations at  our times,

may from  time to time chose to work through different individuals, who might be at odds with those institutions.

          When this happens, quite often, those who maintain the institutions and benefit from them resist and attempt to silence people such as Amos. However, the individuals such as the prophet Amos cannot be silenced very easily. God, through the means of their conscience, does not allow them to stop proclaiming His message.

          So the question which I would direct to all of us today is the following:

Can anyone of us name at least one person who is not just undiplomatic, or stupid, or wrong, or who tries to polarize us for their own personal gains sake who would be considered Amos of our time or place or the institution we are a part of?

And if we are not able to do that:

·       Does it meant that things are so good that we do not need Amos in our midst?

·       or that we, feeling so comfortable or being so arrogant, have closed our heart to the voice of God and his messengers?

July 08, 2012, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ez 2:2-5; 2 Cor 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6a

 

          We are all afraid of being rejected for rejection is a very difficult thing to handle. It strikes our sense of self-esteem and it causes a lot of pain and anxiety in our lives. But as painful as it is it is impossible to be avoided.

          At one or another point of our lives we are being rejected as a friend, or a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or a parent, or a grandparent, as a child, or an employee or an employer, as a teacher or a student. Someone else is chosen, someone else is single out, someone else is preferred to us.

          When this happens we feel powerless, disappointed and perhaps very angry.

          Jesus experiences the situation of rejection in the gospel we have just read today. He came with his wonderful message to his own neighbors, to those who have known him as a child but they, as the gospel says, "took offense at him." Once again those who were the closest to him rejected him and his message. As a matter of fact, the whole gospel of Mark, is filled with the stories of people rejecting Jesus. Even his own natural, biological family rejected him (Mark 3:21).

          We might ask why?

          Many Scripture scholars believe that Jesus' human origins formed a road block to the belief that he was the Messiah. In what way? Let as consider two possible reasons.

          First, according to them, it seems as Jesus has stepped out of his status and role in society. Our only evidence in the New Testament for Jesus' occupation is the term commonly translated "carpenter" (from Greek word tekton). This word was used in Jesus time to describe anyone who worked in wood or other materials such as stone. If this was a case, Jesus would have been called upon to produce door frames and other wooden objects for his neighbors. Hopefully, he never produced any crosses for crucifixions as Nikos Kazantzakis speculates in his book "The Last Temptation of Christ."

          Jesus' status as a local craftsman would have been considerably lower than that of a member of the educated class, who could devote himself to learning the Law. In the society ruled by the laws of honor and shame those who attempted to elevate their position above that to which they were entitled by birth were resented. From the perspective of Jesus' society they were dishonoring their families by doing it.

         

          Second, in Jesus' culture any son was named almost always in relation to his father, but in today's gospel passage Jesus is named in relation to his mother as "the son of Mary." (By the way, this is the only time Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned by name in the gospel according to Mark.)

          There is a high probability, that unless Joseph was already dead, designating Jesus as "the son of Mary" rather than "the son of Joseph" might have been intended as an insult by the crowd. The insult hinting Jesus' illegitimacy.

          The bottom line is, the people of Jesus' hometown of about 2000 people, reject him and his message, and as they do he becomes powerless in their midst. They, as his own family before, seem to be ashamed of him.

How does Jesus react? He certainly does not:         

                   - lose his heart,

-         give up,

-         stop loving and caring,

-         stop proclaiming His good news,

-         grow angry for the rest of his life,

-         or become bitter or resentful.

          But he continues proclaiming his good news.

When we are rejected and feel hurt, powerless or angry because of rejection  let us remember Jesus from the gospel according to Mark. Jesus who was rejected by almost everyone including his own family who seemed to be ashamed of him.

Rejection is not the end of the world as painful as it feels at the time. It should never make us angry, bitter or resentful for the rest of our lives. It should never stop us from loving and caring, from living our lives the best way we know.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Jesus gave up because of being rejected by so many and so many times?

Would we be here now?