More

Commentary on Luke 10:38-42

Today we find Jesus in the home of the sisters, Mary and Martha. We also know that they have a brother named Lazarus. We meet the sisters again (showing the same characteristics as in this story) in John’s account of the raising from death of their brother (John 11:1-44). They lived in Bethany, a village about 3-4 km from Jerusalem and it seems that Jesus was a familiar visitor to the house and a friend, for at the time of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus is told:

Lord, he whom you love is ill. (John 11:3)

The story of Martha and Mary is, in a way, a contrast to the previous story about the Good Samaritan. It restores a balance in our following of Christ. The story about being a neighbour could lead us to think that only if we are doing things are we loving God.

Martha was a ‘doer’ to the point of being a fusspot. Martha, we are told:

…was distracted by her many tasks…

Serving others is something that Jesus himself did constantly, and he urged his followers to do the same. But it should not be a burden or distraction. And, after Martha had complained about her sister, Jesus told her:

…you are worried and distracted by many things…

A true servant does not experience anxiety and worry because that signifies a lack of peace.

Because Mary seemed to be doing nothing, Martha saw her as idling and even selfish. Martha must have been somewhat surprised when Jesus said that:

Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.

What was that better part? Wasn’t Mary just sitting at the feet of Jesus and doing nothing? No! We are told that she:

…listened to what he was saying.

Listening to his message is something Jesus tells his disciples and the crowd they need to be doing all the time. And we have mentioned before that listening involves understanding, accepting and assimilating that message so that it becomes part of our very selves.

If we do not spend time listening to him, how can we know that our activity is properly directed? It is easy for us Christians to be very busy, but are we busy about the right things?

To answer that question we have to stop to listen, to discern and to pray. And, ultimately, the highest form of activity in our lives is contemplation—being in conscious contact with God and his Word. If I find myself saying that I do not have time to give some time to prayer or contemplation each day, then there is a serious imbalance in my priorities and in my understanding of what it means to love and serve my God.

This story blends nicely with the parable of the Good Samaritan which went before it. Taken together they express what should be the essence of Christian living—action for others that is guided by what we learn in contemplation. This was the pattern of Jesus’ own life—he spent long hours bringing healing to people’s lives (being a neighbour), but also retired to quiet places to be alone in communion with his Father. The same pattern must be ours too. We call it being ‘contemplatives in action’.

More

Commentary on Galatians 2:1-2,7-14

Carrying on from yesterday’s reading, today Paul tells us of how he began his mission. It is fourteen years later and Paul finds himself again in Jerusalem. This is dating either from his return to Tarsus, his meeting with Peter on his last visit or his conversion at Damascus. It is not clear and it does not really matter. In any case, it is quite a lengthy period during which Paul must have grown greatly in his understanding of Christ and the Gospel.

This time he went in the company of two people whom he had come to know during these years and who would be closely involved in his evangelising work—Barnabas and Titus. Barnabas means “one who encourages”. His other given name was Joseph and we know that he was a Levite from Cyprus. He would also accompany Paul on the first missionary journey (Acts 13:1—14:28). Titus was a gentile Christian. He served as Paul’s representative in Corinth and later went to Crete to ‘oversee’, to be an episcopus over the church there.

Paul says he went to Jerusalem as the result of a private revelation. His main purpose was to let the leaders of the church in Jerusalem—Peter, James and John—know how he was proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish foreigners. He specifically went to the leadership because he knew there were elements among the Christians in Jerusalem who were strongly opposed to accepting Gentiles into the church, especially when they did not follow the Jewish traditions.

Paul says he went to them:

…to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain.

In other words, he was anxious that his preaching be in harmony with the teaching of the Jerusalem church, the ‘mother’ church. It is not that he doubted the rightness of what he was doing, but he was concerned that when new churches were founded they should keep in touch with the mother church. It is why, later on, he will agree with the request to support poorer churches (of which Jerusalem seems to have been one).

The leaders in Jerusalem gave him their full endorsement. They recognised that Paul had been called to proclaim the Gospel to the ‘uncircumcised’ just as Peter was called to proclaim it to the ‘circumcised’, i.e. the Jews. In fact, Paul did not just confine himself to the Gentiles. When he arrived for the first time in a town he nearly always headed straight for the synagogue. Often, of course, his message was rejected by the local Jews. So, he saw himself as primarily an apostle to the Gentiles. And, as far as Paul is concerned, the two distinct apostolates of Peter and himself were assigned by the Lord himself.

A kind of contract was then made. James, Peter and John (notice the order), the “pillars” of the Jerusalem church, shared the right hand of fellowship with Paul and Barnabas. Among both Hebrews and Greeks, this was a common practice indicating a promise of friendship. It was agreed that the former would concentrate on working among the Jews, while Paul and Barnabas devoted themselves mainly to the Gentiles. This division, as we have seen, was mainly geographical as Paul did reach out to Jews as well as Gentiles, but confined himself generally to territories where Gentiles were in the majority.

There was one proviso—that Paul would remember to give help to the poor, something he was only too happy to do. The ‘poor’ seemed to mean mainly the Christians of the Jerusalem church who had to be regularly helped by the churches of Asia Minor and Greece, as Acts tell us.

In the second half of the reading we find Paul back in Antioch in Syria. Antioch was the main city in Syria and, after Rome and Alexandria in Egypt, the third largest city in the Roman empire. It was already becoming a major Christian centre, especially with those working among the Gentiles, and Paul used it as a home base during his missionary journeys.

Here we find a showdown taking place between Paul and Peter. Peter, who in a vision (recorded in Acts 10:9-16), had been told by Jesus that there was no such thing as ritually ‘unclean’ food, had baptised the first gentile Christian, and had been mixing freely with Gentiles and eating with them.

However, when some followers of James arrived in Antioch from Jerusalem, Peter refrained from doing so. He did not want to offend those Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision and other Jewish customs such as those concerning ritual cleanliness and the avoidance of eating ‘forbidden’ food. Other Jewish Christians, and even Barnabas (who was a Levite Jew) began to follow Peter’s example.

Paul became very angry at this compromising of an essential principle which had already been agreed on. He opposed Peter “to his face”. Not only that, in the presence of everyone he declared that Peter, although a born Jew, had been living like a Gentile and not like a Jew. He had no right, then, to be imposing Jewish ways on Gentiles, which was the message his behaviour was giving.

It was not a question here, as Paul practised elsewhere, of not giving scandal to weaker brethren by enforcing one’s own beliefs and practices (see Acts 16:3 and 21:26; 1 Cor 8:13 and 9:20; Rom 14:21). Peter was giving out a misleading message. Peter’s behaviour should have advertised his real position, but instead of that he disguised it. He was suggesting, by following the Judaisers’ ways, that the only true Christians were converted Jews who followed the Law. This could only result in two separate communities which could not then celebrate the “breaking of bread” together.

There is a radical difference between accommodating the weak and compromising on essential principles. In Paul’s eyes, Peter was guilty of the latter and he had to be challenged.

The problem was especially relevant to the Galatian situation where Jewish Christians were trying to impose Jewish customs, including circumcision, on gentile Christians. Peter’s misleading behaviour was not at all helpful in such a situation, especially as it did not represent his own beliefs.

Today, there is a good deal of discussion about the extent to which our leaders can be challenged in the Church. There will always be a tension between what we may call the ‘institutional’ and ‘prophetic’ wings of the Church. While some would prefer perfect harmony between all members, it is not the way the Church has operated from its earliest days. We must not confuse ‘unity’ with ‘uniformity’. Unity presupposes harmony between differing elements.

We need the ‘institutional’ as the conservers of orthodoxy and tradition and continuity. But we need the ‘prophetic’ to arouse us to the need to adapt our message to changing needs and changing situations in a constantly changing world. No change means stagnation and ultimate death; too much change means loss of identity.

We have to keep a balance between both so there will always be ‘Pauls’ opposing ‘Peters’ to their face. This is not to say that Peter, the conserver, is usually wrong and Paul, the (r)evolutionary, is always right. Most of the time, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Careful discernment is needed at such times. One of the truest signs that we are on the right track is that the ultimate result is greater union. The truth can never divide because there can only be one truth.

More

Commentary on Luke 11:1-4

It is surely no coincidence that Jesus’ commendation of Mary for spending time listening to Jesus should be followed by a section on prayer.

Luke’s Gospel has been called the Gospel of Prayer. It is in his Gospel, more than any of the others, that we are told about Jesus praying, especially before the more important moments of his public life—such as at his baptism by John, the choosing of the Twelve, before Peter’s confession of his Messiahship and in the garden before his Passion.

Today we see Jesus just praying somewhere, and we get the impression that it was something he did quite often. We mentioned earlier that it was perfectly natural for Jesus to pray to his Father, if we understand that by prayer we mean being in close contact with God.

Sometimes it will be to ask God for help in our lives or in making the right decision, sometimes it will be to thank and praise him, sometimes it will be to pray on behalf of someone else and sometimes it will be just to be in his company. We saw this yesterday with Mary of Bethany sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus listening to him. In fact, a lot of our prayer should be in silent listening. Some people talk so much in their prayer that God cannot get a word in! And then they complain he does not answer their prayers!

After seeing him pray on this occasion, Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. In reply, he gives them what we know as The Lord’s Prayer. It is not quite the form we are familiar with—that comes from Matthew’s Gospel. In the Gospel of Luke, the prayer is simpler, but the basic structure is still the same.

Matthew’s text has seven petitions (we know how he likes the number ‘seven’), but Luke’s has only five.  It is believed that Matthew follows an earlier form which may be closer to Luke’s.

When Jesus taught this to his disciples did he mean that praying meant reciting this formula at regular intervals? In fact, it is (in Matthew’s version) a formula we all know by heart and which we recite regularly during the Eucharist, when we say the Rosary and on many other occasions. But it seems more likely that Jesus intended to do more than just teach them a formula to be recited. It is probably much better to see his words as an answer to their request:

Lord, teach us [how] to pray, as John taught his disciples.

We will get much more out of the Lord’s Prayer if we take each petition separately and spend time praying around each one. When we do that seriously and conscientiously, we will see that it is a very challenging prayer.

Let us briefly look at the petitions as they are in Luke:

Father:
To begin with, let us agree that ‘gender’ is a feature that belongs to humans, and God is beyond gender. We can address God as either Father or Mother; the basic meaning is that God is the source of life and the Creator of every living thing. In addressing God as Father (or Mother) we are acknowledging that we are children, sons and daughters, of God. But if we are children of the one God, then we are brothers and sisters to each other. And there can be no exceptions to this, not even one.

Is this what I mean when I utter the word “Father”? Am I prepared to see every single person on the face of this earth, irrespective of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, skin colour, class, occupation, age, religion or behaviour as my brother and sister? If not, I have to stop praying at this first word. We can begin to see now what teaching his disciples to pray meant to Jesus as well as to them and us.

May your name be revered as holy:
God’s name is already holy and nothing we can do can make it any more so. In this petition we are rather asking that the whole world recognise the holiness of God—that the whole world sing with the angels: “Holy, holy, holy…” God does not need this, but we do. And when we sing like this in all sincerity, then we are saying that we belong to him and recognise him as Lord. And it is, in fact, another way of expressing the following petition.

May your kingdom come:
We refer frequently in these reflections to the Kingdom. It is that world where God’s reign prevails in people’s hearts and minds and relationships. It is a world where people have submitted gladly to that reign and experience the truth and love and beauty of God in their lives and in the way they interact with the people around them. It produces a world of freedom, peace and justice for all.

Though, in praying this petition, we are not just asking God to bring it about while we sit back and wait. We are also committing ourselves to be partners with God in bringing it about. Our co-operation in this work is of vital importance. To be a Christian, to be a disciple of Jesus, is essentially to be involved in this task of making the Kingdom a reality. And it has to begin right now; it is not just to be left to a future existence. In Matthew’s version (Matt 6:5-15), we pray:

May your kingdom come.
May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Like many of these petitions, it is a prayer that God’s will be carried out through our involvement. Again, it is a really challenging prayer.

Give us each day our daily bread:
This is a prayer that we will be always provided with what we need for our daily living. There is a highly dangerous word buried in the petition. That word is “us”. To whom does “us” refer? My family? My friends? My work companions? My village, town, city, country, nationality, race or gender? Surely it refers to all God’s children without exception.

If that is the case, then we are praying that every single person be supplied with their daily needs. But that cannot happen unless we all get involved. The petition is not simply passing the buck to God. The feeding of our brothers and sisters is the responsibility of all.

Yet millions are hungry, other millions suffer from malnutrition as well as being deprived of many of the other essentials of dignified living. Clearly, we are not doing all we can to see that all of “us” have “our” daily bread. So again this is a very dangerous prayer.

It is even more dangerous when we say it in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the sacrament or sign of a community that takes care of all its members and of others in need. It is the sacrament of breaking bread with brothers and sisters. If we leave the Eucharistic table and do nothing about this, then our sign has been a sham.

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us:
How easily we say this again and again! Yet it is a very frightening thing to do—to put God’s forgiving us conditional on our forgiving others. Forgiveness and reconciliation must be part and parcel of Christian living, and we all know that at times it can be very difficult. Yet, as we see in the book of Jonah (read during Cycle I at this time), our God is so ready to forgive. To be like him, to be ‘perfect’, is to have that same readiness to forgive. Our deepest urge should be not to condemn and punish, but to rehabilitate and restore to life.

And do not bring us to the time of trial:
We are surrounded by forces which can draw us away from God and all that is true, good and beautiful. We pray that we will not succumb permanently to anything of the sort. We need constantly God’s liberating hand to lift us up as he lifted the drowning Peter. This is the one petition where we depend totally on God’s help.

The Lord’s Prayer is beautiful. It is challenging. It needs to be taken slowly and meditatively so that we have time to enter deeply into each petition. Perhaps as we pray we can stop at just one petition which at this time is particularly meaningful to us and leave the others for another time. It is primarily not a formula to be recited, but themes for prayer. Any one petition is enough to last a long time.

More

Commentary on Galatians 3:1-5

Paul now zeroes in on the Galatians for allowing themselves to be led astray by the Judaising ‘missionaries’ who had been working among them. “Who has bewitched you?” he asks them. Are they out of their minds? It is not that they were incapable of understanding, but they had failed to see the falseness of what they were being led into. Are they not aware that the foundation of all their beliefs is their having been saved by Jesus Christ who died publicly on the cross and rose again? This is not a secret, but a well-known fact. There are echoes here, perhaps, of the bronze snake that Moses displayed on a pole and which saved the lives of all those who looked on it.

Was it through carrying out the external requirements of the Law (e.g. by circumcision and dietary practices) that they had received the Spirit, or rather because they had committed themselves in faith and trust to the message of the Gospel which had been proclaimed to them? (Paul will mention the Spirit 16 times altogether in this letter.)

Are they silly enough to reduce their reliance on the Spirit to the mere observance of some external ritual actions? Have they exchanged the guidance of the Spirit for dependence on things of the “flesh”—mere human entitities? Trying to achieve righteousness by works, including circumcision, was a part of life in the “flesh”. What can these actions achieve by themselves—nothing! Has all Paul’s preaching been for nothing?

Have they experienced the Spirit and seen the working of miracles among them because they practise the Law, or because they have submitted completely in faith to the Gospel which was proclaimed to them? As in the Letter to the Romans, Paul will emphasise here, again and again, that it is only the work of the Spirit within us that produces worthy actions.

In the verse following our reading, Paul reminds the Galatians:

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”… (Gal 3:7)

Abraham, against all common sense, was ready to sacrifice his only legitimate son, the only person who could carry on the family line which Yahweh had promised him. Once that trusting faith had been tested, the son was spared. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul will have much to say about Abraham as a model of trusting faith in God’s word.

We cannot ‘earn’ God’s love by the fulfilling of self-initiated activities, even by the observance of moral or religious laws. That was the mistake of the Pharisee whom Jesus describes ‘praying’ in the Temple: “See how good I am Lord; I deserve everything you can give me in return.”

God is not in us because we are good; we are good to the extent that we open ourselves to let God work in and through us.

The fourth Weekday Preface conveys this idea so beautifully:

You have no need of our praise,
yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift.
Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness,
but makes us grow in your grace
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

More

Commentary on Luke 11:27-28

Today’s short passage is linked to yesterday’s because it begins:

While he was saying this…

After Jesus has effectively silenced his opponents and their ridiculous accusations:

…a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!”

It was a beautiful tribute first to Jesus himself, but also to his mother (someone, presumably, totally unknown to the speaker). In more contemporary terms, we might rephrase it as, “May God bless the woman that produced such a fine son as you!” This woman is clearly one of the crowd that has been amazed at the work Jesus is doing, in contrast to the cynical unbelievers who want to destroy Jesus.

And indeed, we, on a very different level, do recognise the extraordinary privilege that was Mary’s to be the Mother of God’s only Son. We pray to Mary:

Blessed are you among women…

But Jesus turns the woman’s words around:

Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!

Greatness in God’s eyes lies not in gifts and privileges that have been granted, but in the response that is given to God.

The true source of Mary’s greatness was not in her being chosen to be Jesus’ mother, nor even in her preservation from original sin, but in that unconditional ‘Yes’ she gave to the angel at the Annunciation. This ‘Yes’ she faithfully honoured to the day she stood in grief at the foot of the cross. She heard the word and she kept it—to the very end.

Some of the people we saw Jesus arguing with yesterday were powerful and influential in their society; they were the ‘great’ ones of that society. But they neither heard, nor saw, nor kept the word of God, although they claimed to be experts in it.

And even Jesus himself was not great just because of his powers over demons or his ability to silence his accusers, but because he, too, heard the word of his Father and kept it. There was a total identity between what his Father wanted and what Jesus was saying and doing.

For us, too, it must be exactly the same. That is the only greatness that matters, the only greatness that we need be concerned about.

More

Commentary on Luke 11:5-13

Jesus continues his instructions to his disciples about prayer. Today the lesson is one of perseverance.

Jesus gives the parable of a man coming to a neighbour in the middle of the night looking for some food to provide hospitality to an unexpected visitor. The neighbour is not willing to get up and disturb his wife and children who are sleeping with him (which would be very common in a one-room house). But, says Jesus, if the man persists, the neighbour, simply to get some peace, will eventually get up and give the man all he needs. If a grumpy neighbour will listen to an inconvenient request, how much more will a loving God pay heed to the needs of his children?

In another example, Jesus asks if a father would give his child a snake instead of a fish, or a scorpion instead of an egg. If even a very ordinary father would not think of treating his children so callously:

If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Of course, a very pertinent question comes to mind: if God is such a loving and caring parent who will only give good things to us, why do we have to persist in asking? Why do we have to ask at all? The reason is not because God needs persuading (like the sleepy neighbour). Persistence in prayer is for our benefit.

There are a number of ways of praying persistently. One is to keep begging God to give us something we want or that we think we need. Another is to think that somehow we can manipulate God or put him under some kind of obligation by asking him repeatedly. So, if I do a nine-day novena and say certain prayers each day, I may expect that God or some saint somehow is under an obligation to give me what I am asking for. In some kinds of novenas or other devotional exercises, there are people who would tell us that “satisfaction is guaranteed”. This, in fact, is very close to superstition—if not heresy.

The kind of prayer that Jesus is talking about is really something quite different. He seems to presume that what we are asking for is the gift of God’s Spirit:

…how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Is that what we normally ask for? To ask for the Spirit is to ask to have the same Spirit that inspired Jesus in his life and work. It is a Spirit which is totally at one with the will of the Father. In the parallel text in Matthew (7:11), it is “good gifts” which the Father will give. What could be more of a “good” thing than the very Spirit of God?

The other types of asking can be a subtle way of asking God to do our will:

Father…not my will but yours be done. (Luke 22:42)

Whatever form our prayer takes, ultimately it must be to be like Jesus, so that we may grow in the likeness of the Father:

To know him more clearly, love him more dearly, follow him more nearly.

One way of moving in this direction is to make this the constant theme of our prayer. The more we pray for this, the more likely it will become a reality in our lives. And it is inconceivable that God should refuse to hear this prayer.

More

Commentary on Galatians 3:7-14

Paul continues today explaining the concept of justification by faith. Tellingly, he goes right back to Abraham, who was understood to be the physical and spiritual father of the Jewish people (see also John 8:31-33,39,53). Hence, Jews are also referred to as the ‘seed’ or ‘descendants’ of Abraham. Everyone whose life is based on faith in God’s word is a child of Abraham. It is significant that Matthew, writing for Jews, traces Jesus’ genealogy back to Abraham, while Luke, writing for Gentiles, traces it back to Adam.

But now, Paul says that all believers—both Jews and Gentiles—are his spiritual children. The offspring of Abraham are all those whose lives are based on faith rather than external observance of the Law. And so Jesus can say that Zacchaeus, the sinful tax collector, after his change of heart following his meeting with Jesus, is truly a “son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).

Paul sees this already foretold in the book of Genesis when God told Abram to leave his country and become a great nation. At that time God had said:

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen 12:3)

Abraham is constantly presented as the archetype of the man of total faith in God. Several times, against all logic and reason, he trusted in God’s promises and was not disappointed. Now Paul says that all those who have a similar faith in God will receive the same blessings as Abraham. And it is faith, not observance of external laws, which brings this about.

On the contrary, Paul sees the keeping of the Law as a kind of curse. Some think that God can be won around, that they can ‘earn’ salvation, by their scrupulous keeping of rules. But the book of Deuteronomy (quoted here by Paul) says:

Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.

Paul is clearly arguing that, as no one can possibly do that without failing in some degree, this curse cannot be avoided. The letter of James tells us that:

…whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. (James 2:10)

In the past, Catholics were also taught that committing just one mortal sin against just one commandment (e.g. deliberately missing Mass on Sunday) would earn eternal punishment.

Further, observance of the Law is not the means by which we are put right by God, because (and here Paul quotes from Habakkuk in the Old Testament):

…the one who is righteous will live by faith.

In fact, the original text from Habakkuk said by “faithfulness” (Hab 2:4). Paul is following the Greek Septuagint where the Hebrew ‘faithfulness’ is rendered by ‘faith’. Of course faithfulness is derived from faith.

Paul’s argument here and, at greater length in Romans, can be summarised as follows:

The Law gives information—it does not give spiritual strength. No law, whether Mosaic or otherwise, not even the primordial command given to Adam, can prevent sin; in fact law makes sin worse:

1. because, though law is not the source of sin, it becomes the instrument of sin by arousing concupiscence;
2. because by informing the mind it increases the fault, which becomes a conscious ‘transgression;’
3. because the only remedy the law can offer is punishment, curse, condemnation, death; hence it can be called the “law of sin and death”.

(from the Jerusalem Bible, commenting on Rom 7:7)

Paul then, in his usual dramatic way, turns the tables. Those who had become cursed by their constant failure to keep the Law can be rescued and liberated by Christ, who himself became an object of curse by dying for us on the tree of the cross. Paul clarifies this by quoting from Deuteronomy:

Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree…

In this way, the blessing of Abraham, promised to “all nations” in Genesis, is realised for all, Jew and Gentile alike. By bypassing the mere observance of the Law, we are all filled with the Spirit through faith, our unconditional throwing of ourselves into the loving arms of our God. What Paul tells the Galatians is true for us, too.

Of course, we Christians do not now follow the Jewish law—or do we? When asked what is specific to their religion, many Catholics will say “the Ten Commandments”. And a ‘good’ Catholic is one who keeps the Ten Commandments and the “commandments of the Church” (though they are often rather vague as to what these are). But Paul would strenuously deny that.

The Ten Commandments belong primarily to the Old Testament and to observe them, however faithfully, does not make one a Christian at all. We remember the rich man who was called to follow Jesus. He said he had kept the Commandments perfectly all his life. It was not enough. He had to reach out in love to those in need by sharing his wealth. This the man could not do, and:

When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving… (Mark 10:22)

As Paul emphasises, the essence of our Christianity is our faith in the Way of Christ; it is the only source of life. Keeping the Commandments is not the condition for our being saved. In fact, it is only when we are under the saving power of the Spirit of Jesus that we can begin to keep the Commandments. For the true Christian, the Commandments are almost irrelevant. The Christian is measured by one law only and that is the law of love (agape). When one keeps that commandment—to love others as Jesus has loved us—all other obligations (i.e. the Commandments) are taken care of. “Love and do what you like”, St Augustine is supposed to have said.

The power of love comes from faith in Jesus, and the exercise of that love is the measure of our closeness to him:

Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me. (Matt 25:40)

So, as Christians, we are to be measured not by how well we keep commandments and rules, but by the strength of the love that binds us to God and our brothers and sisters.

More

Commentary on Luke 11:15-26

As said by the prophet Jeremiah:

Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,
who have eyes but do not see,
who have ears but do not hear. (Jer 5:21)

In today’s passage, Jesus frees a person from enslavement to an evil power which had rendered him mute, so that he could not speak (in Matthew’s version of this story, the man is also blind). As Christians, many of us can suffer from the same evil influence when we refuse or are afraid to acknowledge openly our Christian faith. We hide and we remain silent, especially when the values we hold are attacked or ridiculed. Once liberated, the man could speak and he did so, much to the amazement of the crowd. Let us, too, pray for this gift of speech—to be able to say the right thing at the right time.

But there were those present who accused Jesus of using the demon’s power to drive out the evil spirit. At the same time, in spite of the extraordinary signs that Jesus was initiating on almost a daily basis—including the one they had just witnessed which caused such astonishment among the people—his enemies asked him for a sign from God.

There is a clear gap between the leaders and the people here. While the leaders keep asking Jesus for his credentials, the people are shown as constantly praising and thanking God for all that is being done among them through Jesus.

Jesus then shows the self-contradictions in his opponents’ charges. A kingdom that is split by internal rivalries cannot survive. Why would evil spirits attack each other and as such frustrate their goals? And, Jesus says to his accusers:

Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out?….But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

When people are liberated from the control of evil spirits, that is a sure sign that the loving power of God is at work. Any other interpretation does not make sense. And the ‘Kingdom of God’ is personified and embodied in Jesus himself. It will also become present in his disciples who do his work.

And Jesus goes on to give another image. A strong man guarding his house and possessions remains undisturbed until someone stronger comes and overthrows him. That is clearly what is happening. Jesus is the stronger one and the evil spirits are being driven away by him. They are helpless before him. This liberation of people and society from evil powers is one of the most dramatic proofs that the all-powerful reign of God is present in the person of Jesus. What further signs could be asked for?

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

There can be no neutrality where Jesus is concerned. We have to make our choice—for him or against. Not to choose is itself a choice—against him. Compare this with the similar, but actually quite different saying we saw earlier:

…for whoever is not against you is for you. (Luke 9:50)

This was in the context of the Apostle John complaining that he saw a man cast out demons in Jesus’ name. In so far as that nameless person was doing Jesus’ work and doing it in Jesus’ name, he was with Jesus. That surely has implications for the many good things that non-Catholics and others who are not Christians at all are doing.

And this saying about the non-acceptance of neutrality leads to another warning. It is not enough to have been liberated from the power of an evil (“unclean”) spirit. Otherwise this “unclean spirit” may say:

I will return to my house from which I came.

But,

When it returns, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself…

The end result is that the evil spirits:

…enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.

No, instead, the emptiness left by the departure of the evil spirit has to be actively filled with the Spirit of Jesus.

Was Jesus referring to some of the people around him? Was he especially calling out his critics? These were people who by their meticulous observance of the Law saw themselves as morally blameless, but in whose lives the positive presence of the Spirit, as exemplified in Jesus himself, was totally absent?

It is easy to use the Sacrament to get the forgiveness of our past sins and leave it at that, feeling comfortable with having a ‘clean slate’. Nature may abhor a vacuum but the devil loves one!

The true reconciliation that the Sacrament calls for, even demands, is a new and stronger commitment to the living of our Christian life. The Sacrament is intended to be an experience of conversion and change. It is much more concerned with the future than with the past.  The past is gone and there is nothing we can do about it. The present is in our hands and that is where we meet God.

More

Commentary on Galatians 3:22-29

Today, Paul continues to compare the ineffectiveness of observing the Law with the effectiveness of faith in Christ.

We know that we are God’s children and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. (1 John 5:19)

Everyone is touched by sin and the Law does not help; if anything, it makes things worse by making us more aware of our shortcomings. One ‘Do not’ after another creates feelings of such negativity and is so depressing. Wherever one turns, one is in danger of putting a foot wrong and can hardly avoid doing so.

The only way to experience the promises made to his people by God is by faith—a total commitment to Jesus Christ and his Gospel of truth, love and service. Only those who have such a faith can have this experience. Being made right with God is a free gift; it is not owed to us in any way and there is nothing we can do of ourselves to force God to give it to us. He is, and never can be, in debt to us.

Every ‘good’ act we do is simply evidence of God himself working through us. And so we read of the prostitute who burst into the house of Simon the Pharisee and covered the feet of Jesus with her tears and her kisses:

…her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. (Luke 7:47)

Her sins are not removed because she loves; she loves because the gift of forgiveness has been given.

Certainly, allowances have to be made for the huge number of people who have no opportunity of hearing the Gospel proclamation. We leave that to God’s love and God’s providential care. Paul’s words today, however, have a crucial relevance for us who have been given the message.

Paul sees the Law as a temporary expedient, necessary until the message about faith in Christ was made known. Before the way of faith, we had no real freedom under the Law; we were, as it were, the Law’s prisoners. It acted as a kind of guardian or ‘baby-sitter’ imperfectly showing us the way to God—”don’t do that…don’t go there”. Paul uses the word paidagogus (from which our word ‘pedagogue’ comes). The paidagogus was the slave who looked after and monitored the young free-born schoolboy in Greek culture. He accompanied the boy at all times and had some disciplinary authority over him.

It is not until we make the surrender of faith in Jesus as Lord that we can have full freedom. We do not need the guardianship of the Law any more because, through our faith commitment, we have become children of God—full adults and heirs in God’s family—in a way that was never possible only under the Law. We are now free. The only law we are under is the liberating law of love.

Addressing all the Galatian Christians, Jews and Gentiles alike, Paul tells them that, since they have all been baptised into Christ (the sacramental sign of their faith in him), they “have clothed” themselves in Christ (symbolised by the white garment they put on after emerging from the baptismal water). Each one is now another Christ and all the previous distinctions that divided them have fallen away. Now, there is neither Jew nor Greek—no ethnic distinctions; neither slave nor free—no social distinctions; neither male or female—no distinctions based on gender. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12:13)

This is surely one of the greatest contributions of Christianity to the world’s cultures but, alas, one that has not yet been fully realised even in many Christian communities. (see The Secular City by theologian Harvey Cox, who claims that it was this thinking that paved the way for our contemporary trans-national and multi-cultural societies.)

Paul says that merely:

…if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

We are among the numberless heirs, more numerous than the stars in the heavens or the sands on the seashore, that were promised to him. This happens by our saying one, unconditional ‘Yes’ to Christ and all he stands for and committing ourselves unconditionally to his vision of life.

The underlying message for the Galatians is that there is now no need of the Law and they should ignore those who are trying to tell them otherwise. Belonging to Christ in faith is all that is needed. Everything else will flow from that.

Let us then today renew our commitment of faith, our unconditional surrender to God through Jesus and his Gospel. Let our Christian life, too, be based on that faith, and let us not fall back into a legalistic mentality (always asking “Is it a sin?”). It is on this foundation of a total self-surrender to Christ’s Way that the Kingdom is built, that Kingdom that Jesus came to proclaim and establish.

More

Commentary on Luke 12:35-38

In today’s Gospel, we have more advice from Jesus about readiness. It is an echo of the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids (Matt 25:1-13).

We are to be ready, with our belts fastened and our lamps burning, like servants waiting for the groom to return from the wedding. If we prepare in this way, when the master comes and knocks, we will be ready to admit him without delay.

There is a reward, a surprising reward, for servants thus prepared. When the master comes back and finds his servants awake and ready, he will seat them at table and himself wait on them:

Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.

Jesus had said of himself:

…just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matt 20:28)

He is the one who, as Master and Lord, washes the feet of his disciples. And if the master comes in the middle of the night or before dawn, blessed are those servants who are ready for his return.

This need for readiness is not a reason to be anxious nor a reason to be afraid. Reason and experience tells us again and again that the Lord’s call comes at the most unexpected times. The only solution is to be ready here and now and leave the future to take care of itself.

In our relationship with God, it is always the present which counts. The prepared servant lives constantly in the present and seeks and finds God there. A life so lived takes care of itself—and its future.