THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

29 OCTOBER 2017

          The commandments given by the Lord in the first reading from the Book of Genesis reflect the experience of God’s chosen people.  They had been aliens in the land of Egypt.  Like widows and orphans, they had no one to protect them, and the Egyptians enslaved them and took advantage of their helplessness.  As they traveled through the desert in their forty day trek to the Promised Land, they were completely stripped of everything.  Unlike extortionists who took advantage of desperately poor people, God had embraced them and clothed them with his Covenant at Mount Sinai as his own chosen people.

            Because God had compassion on their ancestors in their distress, the Lord tells his people that they must do the same.  They must treat the aliens in their midst with compassion and care.  They must be attentive to the most vulnerable people of their society – widows and orphans who had not social nets to protect them.  They must not take advantage of desperately poor people who need their help.  If they take their cloaks as a pledge of repayment, they must take care to return those cloaks at night, so that the poor will not freeze at night without protection. 

            When the Pharisees test Jesus in today’s Gospel, they know that they had developed 613 commandments of the Law.  If he really is an authentic teacher, which commandment would be the greatest?  In response, Jesus quotes Scripture:  Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  He quoted the “Shema,” which our Jewish brothers and sisters recited every day.  But then he immediately quotes Leviticus 19:18:  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Like the commandments in the first reading, neither of these commandments is new.  However, Jesus joins them so radically that they can never be separated. 

            That is the real challenge for us, as disciples of Jesus Christ.  Like the Israelites in their exodus in the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land, we sometimes experience the love of God when we are at the lowest point in our lives.  We have just lost a loved one, or we have been diagnosed with a life threatening disease, or we have made some catastrophic choices.  In those moments, God searches us out, not as a warm feeling, but as presence that accompanies us in the darkness.  It is in those moments that we realize that we are created in the image of God.  Thomas Merton once wrote:  “To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.  Love is my true identity.  Selflessness is my true self.  Love is my true character.  Love is my name.”

            That is why Jesus links love of God so intimately with love of neighbor.  Once I am convinced that God loves me, I can reach out to love my neighbor.  Loving a neighbor does not necessary mean that I have warm feelings about my neighbor.  Love means that I want the best for that person, no matter how I feel about that person.

            During this month of October, we have been focusing the ways in which these commandments affect the most vulnerable of our society.  The most vulnerable include babies within their mothers’ wombs, the poor who depend on our generosity, the disabled and the elderly, and the aliens in our midst.  During this month, we have explored specific ways in which we can love those most vulnerable in our society.  We have also been praying for refugees and immigrants.  In our politically divided culture, there is much controversy on this issue.  It is complicated with no easy solution.  But, it is also important that we consider the Word of God, commanding us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

15 OCTOBER 2017

          Jesus tells this parable to the religious leaders in Jerusalem during the last few weeks of his life, just before they bring him to Pontius Pilate and have him executed.  So, there is a certain sense of urgency and a great deal of violence.  By the time Saint Matthew had recorded this parable in his Gospel, the Romans had destroyed the holy city, set on Mount Zion.  The original readers of this parable would have read it in the light of the prophecy of Isaiah.  Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the veil that had veiled all peoples had been removed.  Death was destroyed by the death of the Son of God.  Clothed with a white garment as they had emerged from the waters of Baptism, they feasted on the rich food of the Eucharist on the holy mountain of faith in Jesus Christ.  Even though their Jewish brothers and sisters had all been invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb, many had ignored the invitation.  With Jerusalem and the temple destroyed, the Gentiles had responded and had taken the seats at the table of the Lord.

            In hearing this parable today, we might be tempted to judge those who had rejected the message of Jesus Christ.  We can become smug and brag that we have not made the same mistake. We have responded to the Lord’s invitation and have passed through the waters of Baptism.  We are seated here on God’s Holy Mountain, sharing in the Supper of the Lamb who was slain (pictured on the front of our Altar).  However, this is the living Word of God addressed to us today.  That web of death has certainly been destroyed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  In telling this parable to us, the Lord invites us to take a good look at the veils that we place around ourselves, and the webs that we weave in our lives.

            The parable says that the king went out and invited everyone, both good and bad, to his son’s wedding feast.  The Lord has chosen us, not because we have been better than anyone else, or not because we have earned his invitation.  He called us to faith because he loves us and wants us to join him in the heavenly banquet.  Jesus Christ may have destroyed the ultimate veil of death.  We have to remove the veil that convinces us that there is no need to share in his dying on a daily basis.  We have to die to ourselves, to our own selfish interests, to our own destructive habits, so that we can share in rising to be one with Christ and with our brothers and sisters.  The warning is clear.  If we do not share in his dying, then we will not share in his rising.

            That is how we can understand what happened to the man who is kicked out of the wedding banquet.  There is no secret dress code in the Kingdom of God!  Instead, we were clothed with a white garment on the day we were baptized.  That exterior garment signified that the internal relationship we have in Jesus Christ.  We continue to wear that garment when we participate in the daily task of dying to ourselves.  Just calling ourselves Catholics and sitting here at Mass will not suffice.  The Lord calls us to stop making excuses and take steps to remove those veils and webs that separate us from him and each other. 

            In hearing this parable, we have to be careful not to interpret it too literally.  God is not an angry king who destroys people who do not respond.  God does not get angry in the same sense that king in the parable becomes angry.  God’s invites everyone and wants everyone to share in his banquet.  But he respects our fee will to refuse and walk away from his banquet.  His “anger” represents his passionate desire for everyone to respond.  That is why we held our 8^th graders “captive” all day today.  We want to help them to understand God’s desire for them to be part of his Kingdom.  We want to do everything possible to help them prepare for the Sacrament of Confirmation.  We want to help them to dust off the white garment given to them at their Baptism and wear it proudly today.  In helping them, we must respond ourselves.

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

8 OCTOBER 2017

          Because Saint Matthew wrote his Gospel to Christians who had been converts from Judaism, his earliest readers would have immediately understood the imagery he uses.  As the Responsorial Psalm proclaims, the people of ancient Israel saw themselves as a vine transplanted by God from Egypt into the Promised Land.  With this image, Isaiah reminds his people that they had become his vineyard not because of their own efforts, but because of God’s choosing them as his people.  It was God had terraced the fertile hillside, spaded it and removed the stones, planted the choicest wines, and set up a watchtower to protect the vineyard from animals and thieves.  He had even hewed out a wine press, to transform the grapes into the choicest wine.

            Isaiah tried to warn God’s Chosen People that they would be overrun, not because of any defect on God’s part, but because they had chosen to ignore the terms of the Covenant made through Moses.  But they did not listen, and the Assyrians destroyed their kingdom.  Jesus speaks a similar warning to the religious leaders of his day.  His Father had sent prophets to warn their ancestors to remain faithful to the Covenant.  They had rejected them.  Now they are about to take God’s Only Son outside the city walls and kill him.  They think that the produce belongs to them, instead of God.  Like the brothers of Joseph who sell him into slavery out of greed and jealousy, they resort to violence. 

            It is easy to judge the mistakes of the religious leaders and congratulate ourselves for being the new tenants of the Kingdom of God.  This parable of Jesus is not only directed to them.  It is directed to us.  As the current tenants of God’s vineyard, we cannot make the same mistake and think that everything belongs to us.  That happens when a young man makes his final car payment and thinks, “Now it’s all mine.”  He forgets that his father had cosigned for the car loan and made the first payments when he was in college.  A mother asks her two year old to share his cookie with his younger brother.  The child forgets that his mother had given him the cookie in the first place.  A football player is enshrined in the Hall of Fame and talks about how hard work got him this far.  He forgot all the unsung linemen who opened the way for him to run for touchdowns.  A man looks at his huge portfolio and boasts that he has worked hard to become wealthy.  He forgot the blessings he enjoyed being born into a family of means and intelligence.

            Whenever we forget that we are tenants of the Kingdom of God and not the owners, we can easily fall into the violence of the tenants in the parable.  In thinking everything is ours, we can become very greedy and go to any lengths to protect what we think is ours.  However, when we recognize that everything is a gift from God, we give thanks for the abilities that God has given us and work together with the Lord to produce much fruit in our world.

            When the Lord comes to claim the produce of the vineyard, he will not care about wealth or fame or pleasure or any of those things that we define as success.  The Lord will be looking for fruit.  Saint Paul makes a list of the fruits which are part of the Kingdom of God.:  peace, truth, honor, justice, purity, loveliness, graciousness, and union with God.  He writes to the Philippians (and to us) from his prison cell.  As the Apostle to the Gentiles and a faithful tenant, he has worked tirelessly for God’s Kingdom.  In facing his own execution, he encourages the Philippians to have no anxiety, knowing that they face persecution from the Romans and hatred from their Jewish brothers and sisters.  They can be free of any anxiety, because God is in charge, and they are the tenants.  The same is true of us, if we take today’s parable to heart and work as faithful tenants of God’s Kingdom in our midst.