22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time B

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8  

 James 1:17-18,21-22,27 ,  Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23       

“The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord” (Ps 15).

In an age tempted to ignore the basic ethical teachings of our Biblical faith, the readings for this Sunday remind us that the central message of the Jewish covenant and Jesus’ ethical teaching is doing the will of God as expressed in the commandments of the Torah. 

Moses’ sermon in Deuteronomy is addressed to the Israelites who are about to enter the promised-land.  He reminds them that observance of the Lord’s wise and just commandments will determine if they will live and take possession of the land.  If they carefully observe God’s law without adding or subtracting from it, Moses assures Israel that other nations will observe: “This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.”

The Epistle is taken from the Letter of James which we will be reading for the next several weeks.  James is a work of moral exhortation, calling Christians living in a decadent Roman Empire to live by the ways of God and reject the ways of the world.  In this week’s lesson, James reminds his readers that the Father “wills to bring us to birth with a word spoken in truth so that we may be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.”  The proper response to that word is to humbly welcome it and let it take root within so that one acts upon it.  To simply listen and not act is to deceive one self.  True religion, undefiled by the ways of the world, is a life of action in caring for the needy in our midst.  “Looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping one self unspotted by the world make for pure worship without stain before our God and Father.”

In the Gospel, the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus’ traditional enemies in Mark, challenge him by questioning why his disciples do not observe the traditions of the ancestors, but instead take food without purifying their hands.  Mark carefully explains to his Gentile audience the Jewish purification rituals originally meant for the priestly class (cf. Leviticus 15), but now applied by the Pharisees to all Jews. Jesus’ reaction is swift and to the point.  He accuses the Pharisees and scribes of being hypocrites like those mentioned in the prophet Isaiah’s prophecy.  ‘This people pays me lip service but their heart is far from me.  Empty is the reverence they do me because they teach as dogmas mere human precepts.’  (Isa 29:13)

In place of an external ritualism which emphasizes merely human laws concerning washings and unclean foods, Jesus proclaims that the only evils which defile a person are those coming from the deep recesses of the human heart (the seat of will and thought in Hebrew psychology).  The list includes actions forbidden by the Ten Commandments.

“Hear me, all of you, and try to understand.  Nothing

that enters a man from outside can make him impure;

that which comes out of him, and only that, constitutes

impurity.  Let everyone heed what he hears!

Wicked designs come from the deep recesses of the heart:

acts of fornication, theft, murder, adulterous conduct,

greed, maliciousness, deceit, sensuality, envy, blasphemy,

arrogance, an obtuse spirit.  All these evils come from within

and render a man impure.”

At a time when we are reminded daily of dishonesty and corruption at all levels of government and society, today’s readings challenge us to renew our commitment to living simple lives of honesty and justice based on the just decrees of the Lord.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time B

 

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Joshua 24:1-2,15-17,18    

Ephesians 5:21-32,  John 6:60-69

As the Church completes its five weeks of reading John’s Bread of Life discourse, we are given a final challenge to choose to go to Jesus, who has “the words of eternal life.”  We are invited to follow the words of the psalmist in today’s responsorial psalm: “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (Ps 34).

In the first reading Joshua has just completed the division of the land among Israel’s twelve tribes and now gathers them together at Shechem and offers the leaders a choice between serving the Lord, who has delivered them from Egypt and given them the land of Canaan, and other gods-- either the ones their “fathers had served beyond the River (the Euphrates)” or “the gods of the Amorites” in whose land they were now living.   For the ancient Israelites this represented a very real choice.  To choose to serve the Lord meant committing to an ethical way of life as delineated in the commandments of the covenant and rejecting the polytheistic animism of their ancestors and the decadent fertility cult of the land of Canaan.  Therefore, covenant with Yahweh was freely entered into by each household.  Joshua speaks as the head of his family when he says, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  The assembled people also choose to serve the Lord and give as their reason his gracious saving actions in bringing them out of slavery in Egypt, protecting them along their journey and leading them into the land.

The Epistle completes our reading of Ephesians with an exhortation to “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  The examples given are taken from a traditional list of household duties that would be found in the philosophical writings of the day.  Homes in the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D. were structured in a hierarchical manner with the husband/father as head of the household and the wife, children and slaves under his authority.  Ephesians transforms these family obligations by incorporating them into the mystery of Christ’s love for his bride, the Church, and its submission to Christ.  This is best illustrated in the exhortation to husbands to love their wives.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loves the Church.

He gave himself up for her to make here holy, purifying

her in the bath of water by the power of the word, to present

to himself a glorious Church, holy and immaculate, without

stain or wrinkle or anything of that sort.  Husbands should

love their wives as they do their own bodies.  He who loves his

wife loves himself. . .

The Gospel is the conclusion of John’s Bread of Life discourse in which some of the disciples break away from Jesus’ company because of difficulty in accepting his pronouncement:

“I myself am the living bread come down from heaven. 

If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread I

will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” 

Throughout John’s Gospel Jesus’ pronouncements are consistently misunderstood by those who interpret his language without faith, or in a literal or “fleshly” manner.  In this case many of the disciples understand Jesus’ language literally as if he were speaking of cannibalism and remark: “This sort of talk is hard to endure!  How can anyone take it seriously?”  Jesus challenges them to move from a literal/fleshly to a faith-filled/spiritual understanding of his language.

“It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.

The words I spoke to you are spirit and life.

Yet among you there are some who do not believe.”

When many of the disciples break away, Jesus turns to the Twelve and asks, “do you want to leave me too?”  But Simon Peter, as spokesman for the Twelve and a believer, answers, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe; we are convinced that you are God’s holy one.”  Like the Israelites in Joshua’s day and the disciples in John, we are offered a choice: to live lives of faith in gratitude for God’s loving deeds in our behalf or to live the “fleshly” lives of the gods of our time.

The Assumption (August 15)

The Assumption (August 15)

Readings: Revelation 11:19; 12:1‑6, 10  1 Corinthians 15:20‑26  Luke 1:39‑56

            The Feast of the Assumption of Mary celebrates our Roman Catholic belief that Mary, "having completed her earthly life, was in body and soul assumed into heavenly glory."  This event is not recorded in the canonical Scriptures, and, therefore, the readings for the feast concentrate on elements related to this belief: Mary's special dignity as the mother of Christ and Christ's victory over sin and death in his resurrection which is the basis for our belief that Mary too through her son triumphed over death.

            The apocalyptic vision in the Revelation reading uses symbols that are common to the myths of the Near East, Judaism and the Graeco‑Roman world.  All of these traditions have an archetypal story of the heavenly mother and her divine child who is attacked by an evil monster from the sea and then somehow rescued.  In the Book of Revelation this story is used to speak in a symbolic way of Jesus' triumph over the powers of evil through God's raising him to triumph in heaven.  It also alludes to God's protection of the mother and her offspring (faithful Christians).   The "woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head" recalls Joseph's dream, where this image symbolizes the tribes of Israel (Genesis 37).   The woman's labor pains are like those of daughter Zion in giving birth to the Messiah, especially in Isaiah 66:7‑9.  It is not surprising that later Christians identified the woman with Mary.   The "huge, flaming red dragon" is a grotesque and bestial personification of the forces of evil.  Despite his terrifying powers, the dragon is not able to devour the "boy who is destined to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod" because he "was snatched up to God and to his throne."  The woman is also protected when she flees into the desert, "where a special place had been prepared for her by God."

            In the Corinthians reading Paul is defending the Christian belief in bodily resurrection.  He insists that Christ has been raised from the dead and that he is the first fruits of a harvest which will affect the whole of humanity.  Using the Adam/Christ typology, Paul speaks of Christ as a new Adam who has brought life in place of death.  His resurrection is the first event in an apocalyptic transformation in which the dead will be raised and God's kingdom will be definitively established.

                        Just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will come

                        to life again, but each one in proper order: Christ the     

first fruits and then, at his coming, all those

                        who belong to him.  After that will come the end, when,

                        after having destroyed every sovereignty, authority,

                        and power, he will hand over the kingdom to God the

                        Father.

            The Gospel is the story of Mary's visiting Elizabeth.  It proclaims the special dignity of Mary in Luke's theology.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth greets Mary with the joyous words, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”  Mary's exalted status is founded on her trusting faith: “Blessed is he who trusted that the Lord's words to her would be fulfilled.”

            In her canticle, Mary, like Hannah in the Old Testament (1 Sam 2:1‑10), praises God her “savior” who has manifest his power and fulfilled his promises to Abraham by exalting the lowly.  In our celebration of this feast, let us join Mary in singing God's praises.

"My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

                        my spirit finds joy in God my savior,

                        For he has looked upon his handmaid in her lowliness;

                        all ages to come shall call me blessed.

                        God who is mighty has done great things for me,

                        holy is his name;

                        His mercy is from age to age on those who fear him.

                        He has shown might with his arm;

                        he has confused the proud in their conceit.

                        He has deposed the mighty from their thrones

                        and raised the lowly to high places.

                        The hungry he has given every good thing,

                        while the rich he has sent empty away.

                        He has upheld Israel his servant,

                        ever mindful of his mercy;

                        Even as he promised our father,

                        promised Abraham and his descendants forever."   

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Proverbs 9:1-6    Ephesians 5:15-20  

 John 6:51-58

“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (Ps 34:9a).  This Sunday’s readings invite us to partake of the living bread and the true drink that give eternal life: paradoxically Jesus’ body to be broken in death and his blood to be poured out on the cross.  In contrast to the quarreling crowds, who question how Jesus “can give us his flesh to eat,” let us approach the Eucharistic banquet with the joy, as we sing in the words of the responsorial psalm:

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,

and your faces may not blush with shame.

When the poor one called out, the Lord heard,

and from his distress he saved him.  (Ps 34:5-6)

The reading from Proverbs 9 describes Lady Wisdom’s banquet offering life-giving understanding to the simple in need of direction.  Her invitation is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ promise in the gospel reading: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”  Every feature of the selection highlights the care Wisdom has taken in preparing her life-giving feast.  First, she has built a perfect house with seven columns, dressed her meat, mixed her wine, and spread her table.  Then, she has sent out her maidens calling from the heights of the city to the simple to turn in to her banquet: “Come, eat of my bread/ and drink of the wine I have mixed!/ Forsake foolishness that you may live;/ advance in the way of understanding.”  Lest we forget the difficulty and utter seriousness of making the choice to follow the discipline of Lady Wisdom’s way as developed in the teachings of Proverbs 1-8, we should recall that in Proverbs 9 Lady Folly also offers a banquet to the simple, enticing them with the deceptive words: “Stolen water is sweet,/ and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Prov 9:17).  Those who attend her feast have found their way to death: “But he does not know that the dead are there,/ that her guests are in the depths of Sheol” (Prov 9:18).

The Ephesians reading continues the contrast between the disciplined and joyous way of wisdom and the folly of a life of debauchery.  In the context of exhorting the Ephesian Christians to turn from the darkness of their former pagan lives and calling them to walk in the light of the Christian way, Paul pleads: “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.”  He goes on to contrast the “ignorance” of drunken debauchery with the “understanding” of a life “filled with the Spirit” that is marked by “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”  We can find no better description of the joy that should characterize our Eucharistic celebrations.

The Gospel continues from last week John’s hostile dialogue between Jesus and the crowd, contrasting the manna that the Jewish ancestors ate and still died and Jesus, the one who will give his flesh for the life of the world and thereby become the living bread that gives eternal life.  The first verse of the reading repeats the last verse from last Sunday’s Gospel: “Jesus said to the crowds: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.’” Although John does not have the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, these words are similar to the ones used by Jesus in the other gospels.  Just as the crowd earlier questioned Jesus’ origins because they assumed that he was the mere son of Joseph (6:42), now they quarrel among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”.  As long as they remain on a mere earthly level, they can only understand Jesus’ language as a kind of cannibalism.  Only those who believe in Jesus’ life-giving death and its Eucharistic celebration can understand his language.

Jesus now challenges the crowd to move beyond their earthly understanding. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”  He then makes a series of promises, all of them pointing to the “life” that comes from partaking of his flesh and blood.  The participants will have “eternal life” in the present and will be raised by Jesus “on the last day.”  They also “remain” or “abide” in Jesus, just as the living Father sent him and he has life because of the Father, so they will have life because of Jesus.  Finally, Jesus ends by contrasting the old bread come down from heaven (the manna) and himself as the true bread: “Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B 

Readings: 1 Kings 19:4-9 , Ephesians 4:30-5:2                   John 6:41-51                        

“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”  The angel’s command to Elijah in the first reading challenges us to come to Christ in the Eucharist for the life-giving sustenance we need, especially in times of distress.  Let us pray in the words of the responsorial psalm, “When the afflicted man called out, the Lord heard,/ and from all his distress he saved him. . . . Taste and see how good the Lord is;/ happy the man who takes refuge in him” (Ps 34:6ff).

In the reading from 1 Kings, God’s sustenance transforms Elijah from a frightened man, longing for death, to a resolute prophet, strengthened to resume his God-given mission.  Elijah is fleeing from the wicked queen Jezebel who has put him under a death sentence for defeating and slaying her prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (see 1 Kings 18:1-19:3).  After a day’s journey into the desert, the prophet comes to a broom tree, sits down, and prays for death as he goes to sleep in hope of never awakening.  Filled with despair by his apparent failure, Elijah is ready to die in the desert, like his forefathers who came out of Egypt and wandered for forty years.  “This is enough, O Lord!  Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”  But God has a life-giving mission for him.  Like the frightened Moses before him, he is to journey to Mount Horeb (Sinai), where he will hear in a “tiny whispering sound” telling him he is not alone in his struggle and is to return to his people.  At this point Elijah needs strength for his journey.  Just as the Lord provided his ancestors water and manna in the wilderness, he now sustains his prophet with a hearth cake and jug of water.  Left alone Elijah would die, but strengthened by God’s food and drink, he can journey forty days and nights to the mountain of God.

The second reading continues the selections from Ephesians and presents a series of moral exhortations that illustrate the conduct proper for Christians who have converted from paganism and been baptized (see Eph 4:17-24).  Any action that destroys communal unity (bitterness, passion, anger, harsh words, slander, malice) saddens the Holy Spirit with which the community was sealed (see Eph 2:21-22).  In imitation of the forgiving God and Christ, who “gave himself for us as an offering to God,” Christians are exhorted to “be kind to one another, compassionate and mutually forgiving.”

The Gospel reading continues John’s Bread of Life discourse with Jesus’ challenge to the Jews, who are murmuring like their ancestors in the desert (see Exodus 16; Numbers 11), to believe in him as “the living bread” who gives his flesh for the life of the world.  Because of Jesus’ apparently ordinary human origins, the Jews cannot accept him.  They keep saying, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his father and mother?  How can he claim to have come down from heaven?”  In response to these doubts, Jesus insists that only those who are drawn by the Father can come to him, in all his ordinariness, as the revelation of God.  As “the one who is from God and has seen the Father,” Jesus offers both knowledge of the unseen God and a share in God’s eternal life.  He is the fulfillment of the time mentioned by the prophets when “They shall all be taught by God” (see Isa 54:13; Jer 31:33-34).  In contrast to the manna which the ancestors ate in the desert and died, Jesus “is the bread that comes down from heaven, for one to eat and never die.”

Paradoxically, it will be Jesus’ death that will bring this lasting life: “the bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”  As the Church journeys through Ordinary time, this Sunday’s readings offer us heavenly food to fend off death’s powers and impel us toward God’s future.  Through the most ordinary of signs--bread broken and eaten in memory of Jesus’ death--we are given the reality of God’s own life of love and are pointed beyond our feeble human powers and aspirations to life eternal.