Category: Uncategorized

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Gospel: Matthew 12: 46-50

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds,
his mother and his brothers appeared outside,
wishing to speak with him.
Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside,
asking to speak with you.”
But he said in reply to the one who told him,
“Who is my mother?  
Who are my brothers?”
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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There’s an old Chinese proverb, “Not one family can put a sign outside of their home with the words, ‘No problems here.’” Every family – even the Holy Family – experiences tension.

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We see such tension unfolding in today’s Gospel while Jesus is found preaching inside someone’s home. Suddenly, Mary and a few other family members show up asking to speak with him. 

They haven’t come to ask him if he’ll be home for dinner; they’ve come to silence him. Mark tells us, some of his family thought he was, “Out of his mind!” 

They knew the Lord’s teachings were revolutionary, so they feared Jesus might disturb the civil and religious authorities. In their minds, silencing him would be an act of mercy, keeping him from throwing his life away. 

Although his family cared for him, they didn’t always understand him.

The fact they are standing outside not only speaks to their physical separation, but also their distance from him in mind and heart. 

If they are to become members of his divine family – the Church – then they must enter into the home, where they’ll be invited to, “hear the Word of God and observe it.”

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So, it is for us.

In baptism, each of us is welcomed into the “home” of the Church, where the Lord instructs us by his Word and Sacraments. Our mission is to remain inside this home, in good standing, in a state of grace.

What has been my experience of life in the Church? Do I feel at home? Welcome? Or “outside” for any reason?

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“Not one family can put a sign outside of their home with the words, ‘No problems here.’” 

There is tension in every family – even in this divine family, the Church. But nothing should separate us from each other. As Saint Paul reminds us, “We are one body, the body of Christ on earth.” 

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Image credits: (1) Ranch at Dove Tree (2) Third Church (3) InterChurch Holiness Convention

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Gospel: Luke 19: 41-44

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem,
he saw the city and wept over it, saying,
“If this day you only knew what makes for peace–
but now it is hidden from your eyes.
For the days are coming upon you
when your enemies will raise a palisade against you;
they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.
They will smash you to the ground and your children within you,
and they will not leave one stone upon another within you
because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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These pithy and bleak words from Jesus are spoken immediately after he mounts a donkey and begins riding into Jerusalem. He will not leave the city alive, at least until he’s raised from the dead. 

According to Saint Luke, after the Lord issues this sweeping condemnation of Israel, he enters the Temple, where he brandishes a whip, chases out the moneychangers, turns their tables over, and cries out, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

The Lord was fed up with the corruption that ate away at his people. Even now, as he prepares to offer his life for them, they do not understand. Nearly all will abandon him before he gets to the Cross, even his own disciples.

But there’s one thing that’s worse than being abandoned.

The tears of Jesus are the tears of God when he sees the needless pain and suffering his people experience because they do not do his will.

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Some pain is unavoidable. Our bodies ache and age. We lose people we love. Even as Christ’s disciples, we must take up our cross and follow him.

But we heap unnecessary pain upon ourselves when we try living life ignorant of God’s will, spending our time on our own terms.

The Lord laments the fact that his own people did not know him. Just forty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Temple will be destroyed by the Romans, never to be rebuilt. Many Jews will be killed, enslaved, or displaced. 

A tragedy that could’ve been avoided, it seems, had they recognized, in Christ’s words, “the time of their visitation.”

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Imagine the Lord approaching our own nation, or town, or heart. Does he lament over what he sees? Or does he delight in our fidelity?

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While certain pain is unavoidable, our burdens are always lighter when we yoke them to Him, who has loved us and given himself for us.

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Image credits: (1) Sahil Bloom (2) If Thou Had’st Known, William Brassey Hole, Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture (3) News and Views

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Gospel: Luke 19: 11-28

While people were listening to Jesus speak,
he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem
and they thought that the Kingdom of God
would appear there immediately.
So he said,
“A nobleman went off to a distant country
to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.
He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins
and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’
His fellow citizens, however, despised him
and sent a delegation after him to announce,
‘We do not want this man to be our king.’
But when he returned after obtaining the kingship,
he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money,
to learn what they had gained by trading.
The first came forward and said,
‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’
He replied, ‘Well done, good servant!
You have been faithful in this very small matter;
take charge of ten cities.’
Then the second came and reported,
‘Your gold coin, sir, has earned five more.’
And to this servant too he said,
‘You, take charge of five cities.’
Then the other servant came and said,
‘Sir, here is your gold coin;
I kept it stored away in a handkerchief,
for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man;
you take up what you did not lay down
and you harvest what you did not plant.’
He said to him,
‘With your own words I shall condemn you,
you wicked servant.
You knew I was a demanding man,
taking up what I did not lay down
and harvesting what I did not plant;
why did you not put my money in a bank?
Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.’
And to those standing by he said,
‘Take the gold coin from him
and give it to the servant who has ten.’
But they said to him,
‘Sir, he has ten gold coins.’
He replied, ‘I tell you,
to everyone who has, more will be given,
but from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away.
Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king,
bring them here and slay them before me.'”

After he had said this,
he proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.

The Gospel of the Lord.

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This is a difficult parable to interpret.

Jesus is on the verge of entering Jerusalem, where he will be killed and raised from the dead. With hindsight, we can understand this parable in the context of responsibility. We are living in a time in between Christ’s resurrection from the dead and his return in glory.

Each Christian has been gifted with a coin of “faith.” We know who created – and redeemed – the world. What we do with this knowledge leads to either punishment or reward in the afterlife.

The one who lives out their faith to the fullest will be rewarded ten-fold. The one who does so somewhat will still be rewarded, though less than the first. The one who buries their faith in the sand of indifference will be punished severely.

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I think the real heart of this parable centers around that third person, who takes their faith and buries it.

With hindsight, we can imagine this person to be an indifferent Christian. Although that is a fair interpretation, it’s not who Jesus was thinking of when he first delivered this parable. 

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He likely directed it towards the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day. They believed it was their God-given duty to preserve the Law in its entirety by maintaining absolute purity, thus avoiding any contact with the “defiled” or “sinners.”

But they missed the point.

Yes, the Jews were God’s chosen people. But their mission was to take this knowledge and to go out into the world, increasing the size of God’s flock. But they did the opposite; the more “religious” they were, the more secluded they became. 

Jesus, on the other hand, went out to the margins. He ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners without ever sinning himself. He expanded God’s reign by preaching, healing, and forgiving.

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This is what he still asks of us today – to learn how to live in a messy world without becoming defiled ourselves; to engage our neighbor; to seek the lost; to love our enemies; to share our faith in word and deed.

Doing so leads to a “ten-fold’ reward in heaven.

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Image credits: (1) Bible Study Tools (2) Amazon.com (3) Israel My Glory