Nov. 1st All Saints Day

 

All Saints (November 1)

 

Readings: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14  1 John 3:1-3  

Matthew 5:1-12

 

            The feast of All Saints marks a shift in the character of the readings proclaimed in Ordinary Time from the theme of the Christian community’s growth in grace to a concern with the last things.  The readings for all Saints reflect the feast’s original character as a celebration of Christian martyrdom in connection with the Easter season; they present the challenge of a way of life modeled on Jesus and the great heroes of the faith in the context of belief in the ultimate triumph of God’s kingdom over sin and death.

            The reading from Revelation 7 offers a consoling vision of the future that awaits the saints who have endured trial and persecution from the powers of evil in the present world order.  Revelation is an apocalyptic work written in the late first century C.E. by the prophet John of Patmos for seven churches in Asia Minor who were faced with Jewish hostility, public suspicion, sporadic Roman prosecution, imprisonment and even execution.  Many believers were tempted to renounce their belief in Christ and conform to the decadence of Roman society.  John’s visions of God and the Lamb’s ultimate triumph over the forces of evil, especially Rome, are meant to strengthen Christians whose faith was wavering, by assuring them that death for Christ is not defeat but victory.

            Revelation 7 is part of the vision of the seven seals (6:1-8:6).  In an interlude between the sixth and seven seals, John describes two visions which assure the faithful that they are protected from God’s judgment.  Following a pattern found in Ezekiel 9, John describes the instructions for sealing the servants of God (the faithful) before the four angels ravage the land and sea.  A symbolic full number of 144,000 from every tribe of Israel are so marked.  In the second vision, John sees a huge crowd from every nation, race, people and tongue joyfully participating in the heavenly liturgy before the throne of God and the Lamb (the crucified and resurrected Jesus).  They are dressed in long white robes of glory and are holding the palm branches of victory in their hands.  The vision’s climax comes when John learns from one of the elders that “these are the ones who have survived the great period of trial; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

            The second reading from 1 John 3 is a theological reflection and exhortation based on what God has bestowed on Christians through the act of divine love given in Christ.  In the tender language of first-person plural address, the author reminds us that we are already “children of God,” and though the mystery of what we shall later be has not yet come to light, we may be confident that we shall see God as God is.  This hope should give us the assurance to keep ourselves pure, that is, to love one another as Christ has loved us, in the face of the world’s hostility which does not recognize us just as it failed to recognize the Son.

            The Gospel is the beginning of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, the first of the evangelist’s five great discourses proclaiming the prophetic fulfillment of God’s law (Matthew 5-7).  The setting and tone are solemn and apocalyptic.  Jesus goes up a mountainside, a place of revelation like Sinai in the Book of Exodus (Exodus 19-40).  Seating himself in the position of teacher, he proclaims the fulfillment of the law in the way the Lord first announced the law on Sinai (Ex 20:1-17).  His disciples will have the role of Moses: handing down the revelation to the nations (Matt 28:16-20).

            Jesus’ proclamation begins with the beatitudes, a joyful announcement of God’s final blessing for the `anawim who totally depend on God for their vindication.  Five of the beatitudes reflect what might be called “passive” qualities: being spiritually poor, mourning over evil, hungering for justice and being persecuted for righteousness.  Three are more active: showing mercy, being single-hearted and making peace.  All mirror Mathew’s Jesus, the truly happy person who embodies the joy the kingdom brings and, obediently trusting his Father, suffers death for the sake of the kingdom (see Matt 10:24-42; 11:25-30).  All the saints are those who have followed in Jesus’s footsteps.

30th Sunday A

 

30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

 

Readings: Exodus 22:20‑26  1 Thessalonians 1:5‑10

Matthew 22:34‑40 

 

            In today's Gospel Jesus, facing an extremely hostile situation, teaches that the whole of the Jewish Torah and the teaching of the prophets can be summarized in the twofold command to love God and neighbor.  Because the love of God cannot be separated from the command to love the neighbor, the Lord's Torah is a source of protection for the weak and needy.  Let us thank God for the gift of the Torah in the words of the responsorial psalm: "I love you, Lord, my strength" (Ps 18). 

            The laws in our Exodus reading are from the Book of the Covenant which is a law code designed for Israel's settled agricultural life in the land of Canaan.  They all protect the rights of the weakest members of ancient society.  Israelites are forbidden to molest resident aliens; they are not to wrong widows and orphans, and they are not to demand interest from the poor who are forced to go into debt.  Two reasons are given for these laws.  First of all, the Israelites should remember their own experience of being oppressed aliens in Egypt.  Secondly, God is compassionate, and therefore he hears the cries of the oppressed and will act to vindicate them.

            In the reading from Thessalonians Paul continues his defense of his apostolic work in that community by recalling the great success that his preaching of the gospel had among them.  He goes on to praise them for "receiving the word despite great trials."   He notes that they have become a model for the churches in Macedonia and Achaia because of their sincere conversion from idolatry to the service of the one "living and true God" as they await the return of the resurrected Jesus. 

            The Gospel continues the controversies between Jesus and the religious leaders in the Temple which have been the subject of our readings from Matthew for the last several Sundays.  In this week's gospel reading the Pharisees, having heard Jesus silence the Sadducees in a debate about resurrection, "attempt to trip him up" on a matter of major concern to them: the importance of the Mosaic Torah.  A lawyer, representing the Pharisees, asks him, “Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?”   One must remember that the Torah contains 613 precepts.  Some rabbis held that all were equally important, while others offered some sort of summary or gradation of the commands.  Jesus' answer is deeply rooted in the traditions of his people.  He names as the greatest command the love of God demanded in the greatest Jewish prayer, the Shema`: "Hear, O Israel . . . You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole self, and with all your mind" (Deut 6:4‑5).  Jesus then goes on to link this to a second command taken from  the Holiness Code in the Book of Leviticus: "You shall love your  neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18).  For Jesus these commands are the two pegs on which hang the whole of the Torah and the prophets.  All their teachings are founded on these two commands, and all the details of the Torah legislation are reducible to them.  When we are confused by the endless controversies and hostilities that tend to swirl around religion, Jesus' simple and straightforward teaching provides a welcome guide.

29th Sunday A

 

29^th Sunday of the Year A

 

Readings: Isaiah 45:1, 4‑6  1 Thessalonians 1:1‑5  Matthew 22:15‑  21

 

            Throughout much of the biblical period the Jewish people were dominated by various foreign powers: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, the Greeks, and finally Rome.  In today's readings both Second Isaiah and Jesus offer us visions of how God's power and demands are operative, even in situations where the chosen people have no political power.  As we listen to the wonders of God's power in shaping human events for his saving purposes, let us acknowledge his greatness in the words of the responsorial psalm: "Give the Lord glory and honor" (Ps 96).

            The Isaiah reading is the famous Cyrus oracle of Second Isaiah in which the prophet announces that the Persian king Cyrus is God's "anointed" agent for freeing the exiled Jews from their captivity in Babylon.  Although Cyrus does not even know the Lord's name, from the prophet's perspective, his victories over nations, including Babylon, are the Lord's actions "for the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen one."  

            The prophet's vision separates God's saving plan from Israel's political ambitions.  Many exiles may have preferred a Jewish deliverer like Moses or David, but Second Isaiah daringly gives the pagan king, Cyrus, the title of "anointed" or Messiah.   If God can use an unbelieving, foreign king to further his saving purposes, then Israel's task is not to become a great political power.  Rather, she is called to be a "servant" and "witness" to the one true God (see chapters 42, 44-45, 53). 

            For the next several weeks, the Epistle reading will be taken from the first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, probably the earliest writing in the New Testament.  This Sunday we have Paul's greeting at the beginning of the letter.  Because of tensions within the community, Paul had to leave Thessalonica rather abruptly, and therefore in the traditional thanksgiving section, he assures the Thessalonian Christians of his continued union with them in prayer and encourages them to maintain their commitment to the Christian virtues: faith, love and hope. “We keep thanking God for all of you and we remember you in our prayers, for we constantly are mindful

before our God and Father of the way you are proving your faith, and laboring in love, and showing constancy in hope in your Lord Jesus Christ.”

            There has also been some criticism of Paul since his departure, and, therefore, he begins to defend the way in which he preached the gospel among them.  Paul insists that his preaching was not a matter of mere rhetoric but an authentic proclaming of the gospel. “Our preaching of the gospel proved not a mere matter of words for you but one of power; it was carried on in the Holy Spirit and out of complete conviction.”

            This Sunday's Gospel continues the controversies between Jesus and the religious leaders who are attempting to "trap him in speech" during his last days in Jerusalem.  The question of paying taxes to the Roman emperor is raised by two groups who had very different views on the question.  The Pharisees, as devotees to the Jewish written and oral law, opposed the tax because it forced them to admit Israel's subjection to pagan Rome and to use coinage bearing the image of Caesar.  But the Herodians, who supported the descendants of Herod the Great, advocated cooperation with Rome.  In this situation, Jesus apparently cannot win, when the disciples of the Pharisees ask: “Is it lawful to pay tax to the emperor or not?”  Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees by asking them for a coin of tribute.  He does not carry such coins; they do.  His question goes on to intimate that to carry such coins, bearing Caesar's image, is to cooperate with the emperor’s rule. "Why are you trying to trip me up, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax . . . Whose head is this, and whose inscription?" The Pharisees are forced to say the image is “Caesar's,” and they thereby concede that they recognize the claims of Rome on their lives.  This makes the meaning of Jesus' final challenge something like this.  Because you carry Caesar's coin, it is clear that you "render to Caesar what is Caesar's," but I challenge you hypocrites to "give to God what is God's."  

            Throughout Christian history many have been tempted to identify a particular political cause with God's will.  Jesus' challenge forces us to be aware that God's demands and purposes transcend any particular political project.

28th Sunday A

 

Reid, Patrick

28^th Sunday of the Year A

Readings: Isaiah 25:6‑10  Philippians 4:12‑14, 19‑20  

Matthew  22:1‑14

 

            In today's Gospel Jesus attacks the chief priest and elders with the parable of the wedding feast.  As we hear the repeated  invitations to come to God's joyful banquet, let us sing in hope  the refrain of this Sunday's responsorial psalm: "I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life" (Ps 23).

            Isaiah's vision in the first reading gives a joyful picture of the final messianic banquet on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem.  There are places for both Jews and Gentiles at the "feast of rich food and choice wines."  The prophet envisions "the Lord of hosts" providing "for all peoples" and destroying "the veil that veils all peoples."  He also speaks of the Lord God removing "the reproach of his people" (the Jews) who rejoice in his salvation. “On that day it will be said:/ ‘Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!/ This is the Lord for whom we looked;/ let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!’"

            The second reading continues the selections from Paul's letter to the Philippians with a "thank you note" to the community for the care package they have sent to him in prison through their brother Epaphroditus.  It reflects Paul's understanding of the "share" that he and the church at Philippi have in the spreading of the gospel of the crucified Christ.  Paul, somewhat proud of  his capacity to suffer for the gospel, is almost embarrassed by the gift, and therefore begins by insisting that in Christ, he has "learned how to cope with every circumstance‑‑ how to eat well  or go hungry, to be well provided for or do without."  But, almost despite his tendency to rugged independence in Christ, Paul is grateful for the Philippians' "share" in his "hardships," and he prays that God in turn will supply their needs in Christ.

            The parable of the king's wedding feast for his son is the last of three parables that Jesus addresses to the chief priests and elders, condemning them for their failure to respond to God's repeated calls to repentance and entrance into the kingdom.   (Recall the two previous Sundays in which we read the parables of the two sons and the wicked tenants.) 

            The allegory of the wedding feast begins with great joy as the king issues a twofold invitation to the guests who have been invited to his son's wedding feast. “Tell those who were invited, See, I have my dinner prepared!  My bullocks and corn‑fed cattle are killed; everything is ready.  Come to the feast.” Sadly, the invited guests refuse both invitations out of worldly concerns and even react violently against the king's servants. “Some ignored the invitation and went their way, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, insulted them, and killed them.” At this point, it is clear that the parable is an allegory for the religious leaders' repeated refusal to respond to God's invitation to the son's kingdom and the joys of the messianic banquet.

            The king's response is twofold.  In anger, he sends his army against the leaders' city to destroy it, an allegory for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in 70 A.D.  And secondly, he sends his servants “into the byroads" to "invite to the wedding anyone you come upon."  For Matthew, this is an allegory for the spread of the gospel message among the Gentiles. These new guests fill up the wedding hall, but, we learn, they are made up of both “bad as well as good.” 

            For Matthew, to be invited to the banquet is not enough.   One must also respond with the proper deeds of repentance and good works (see Matt 5:13‑48), and therefore he adds a second  parable about the man without the proper wedding garment who is asked by the king, “My friend how is it you came in here not  properly dressed?”  Those "invited are many," but they must respond properly if they are to be considered the elect who will fully enjoy the wedding feast of the son.

            Although Matthew understood this parable as an allegory for the rejection of Jesus by the religious leaders of his time, we, Christians living in the early twenty-first century, should hear the parable as an invitation and warning not to miss the joyful summons to experience God's kingdom in the midst of our busy lives.  In the parable some of those invited respond violently, but others miss the invitation simply because they are distracted by the ordinary affairs of life.  “Some ignored the invitation and went their way, one to his farm, another to his business.”  Are we those who are distracted by the business of our daily lives?