Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
One of the challenges we face when we read scripture is interpreting it for contemporary times. For example, today’s gospel reading has two very black and white scenarios. First, Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. … You cannot serve God and mammon.” Jesus simply does not leave room for anything in between. Again, after his teaching about not worrying about what to eat, drink and wear, Jesus says, “All these things the pagans seek.” And then, contrasting the pagans with the disciples, he says to his disciples, “Seek first the kingdom of God.” In the Jewish world view, there were only two kinds of people – the Israelites and the Pagans. As far as the Israelites were concerned, there were no in-betweens.
Today we live in a world of Fifty Shades of Gray. Neat compartmentalization in any area of life is impossible. Gone are the days where the entire family was Catholic or our moral and religious beliefs were uniform. As we hear today’s reading, then, we are faced with a twofold dilemma. On the one hand, we live in a secular, multicultural, religiously pluralistic, and highly globalized world. Things that were once clear are not as uniformly defied now. Marriage, sexuality, freedom, life, death, health, privacy, security, and even the meaning of being religious are intensely and bitterly debated. On the other hand, Jesus is clearly suggesting that there is something radical that separates those who follow him. The question I am raising is, “How do Catholics negotiate through the multi-religious, secular, and multi-cultural world? What are the convictions that guide the choices we make? What, if anything, separates us from the rest?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not easy. Even among Catholics, the answer differs. A Conservative and traditional Catholic will have a very different answer from the more moderate or liberal Catholic. Both these groups would answer a question like this from two very different perspectives. Moreover, both would think that the other side is wrong. In fact, the last two Papacies have become the topic of controversy. Who would have thought that one day a Pope would be on cover page of the Rolling Stone magazine? For other Catholics this is nothing short of a scandal.
In my three practical implications, I would like to draw out those convictions that are basic to every person who believes in Christ. In other words, if we take today’s scripture seriously, they provide us with some basic beliefs that can help us negotiate through our complex world. I also believe that these convictions can also be what set us apart.
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God Is In Control. One of the hardest lessons to learn from history is that God guides human destiny. The basic premise behind the 17th Century movement such as the Enlightenment and the resultant secularism is that human beings are responsible for our own destiny. In many ways, that is what Jesus is countering in today’s gospel reading. For Jesus, it is God who is in control. It is God who feeds the birds of the air and adorns the lilies of the field. It is this same God who also guides human destiny. When Jesus says, “Do not worry about what to eat, what to drink, and what to wear,’ he is by no means suggesting that we live life with careless abandon. Rather, he saying that if human being chose to live in the way God has destined them to live, then each human being would be cared and provided for in the same way that the bird of the air and the lilies of the field are provided for. It is when we divert from God’s plan that there is hunger, starvation, nakedness, anxiety and peril. When people amass unimaginable wealth, when people refuse to share, when people exploit others for profit, when we think that even God does not have right over our private property, when we create systems of poverty, of racial, cultural, and social discrimination, when we promote a culture of violence and a culture of death – these are all signs that we believe that we control our destiny. Similarly, in the church too, sometimes it is hard to let the church be God’s church. For example, the Papacy of Pope Benedict and the Papacy of Pope Francis clearly differ in their emphasis. But it is the same God who chose them both. The nervousness that some people are feeling with the Papacy of Pope Francis may suggest that we think that we control the destiny of the Church. So here is my first practical implication: Whether liberal or conservative, somehow we must believe that ultimately it is God and not us who is in control. This is also what should set us apart from the rest of the world.
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God’s Love Greater than A Mother. In this second practical implication I would like to draw from today’s first reading. In today’s first reading God says to the people of Israel, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” God was saying these words to a very hurting, abandoned, and insecure Israel. These words gave the people the assurance of God’s unfathomable love. Even if a mother forgets, God says, God will not forget us. A mother’s love is very special. A few months back a mother made a prayer request on our parish website. She was seeking strength and guidance because her daughter had just come out and told her that she was a lesbian. The prayer request the mother made was for the grace to accept her daughter and the grace for herself and the church to continue to love her daughter. Many of us may react very differently to this prayer request. But, a mother loves her own child very differently than any other person. That is why, when God wanted to talk to a very disconcerted Israel about God’s overwhelming love, God chose the image of a mother. In other words, there is one conviction that should characterize every Catholic – that God’s love is limitless, unfathomable, unconditional and all-consuming. Even if a mother forgets he child, God will not forget us. To live with this conviction is also what should be radically different about Catholics.
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A Church that Seeks Righteousness. Jesus, contrasting the disciples with the pagans says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.” If there is one thing that Christ wanted to set apart his disciples from the rest, it is this – that they seek above all else the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. Righteousness is about right relationships. Righteousness means right relationship with God, with others and self. No other person sought righteousness above everything else than Jesus. He did this by making sure that his heart belonged unconditionally to God; he did not exclude anybody from the Kingdom. From Pilate to Herod, to the High Priest and even the most despicable sinner was welcome to receive the love of God; and, he was true to himself in all things. And now Jesus says to us his disciples that he wants us to do the same. He wants us to seek above all, a right relationship with God, with others and with our self. No matter what shade of Catholicism or Christianity we prefer, we cannot excuse ourselves from the seeking and practicing righteousness in the way Christ did. And this is what separates us from everyone else. It seems to me that this clearly is the emphasis of Pope Francis’s papacy.
May today’s Eucharist help us to do two things: first, that we can believe that God who loves us more than a mother controls our destiny; and second, surrendering to the love of God when can then seek a kingdom of love an righteousness.
- Fr. Satish Joseph