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Commentary on Ephesians 3:2-12

Today’s reading is fairly dense and needs to be teased out a little if we are to get to its central meaning. Paul begins by recapitulating what the Ephesians and the surrounding churches had previously been told—how Paul is God’s chosen agent to communicate the blessing of God’s love to the Gentiles in those places, and that it was through a special revelation made to him personally that he was given an understanding of previously hidden messages that God wished his people to know.

As he puts it, he was given “the commission of God’s grace”. The revelation he speaks about is, first of all, the experience he had on the way to Damascus (Gal 1:15-16; Acts 9:9-22), which was the great turning point in his relationship with God.

If Paul’s readers will only look closely at his words, they will get some idea of the depth of the “mystery of Christ”, that is, of the whole revelation that has been made to us of the Son of God becoming incarnate as a human being. And because of this, we could have a direct and unique experience of God’s love for us and of his desire to make us one with him.

In particular, this mystery as it affects the Ephesians involves the intimate unity that now binds Jews and Gentiles together through Christ in a previously unimaginable way. It may be thought of as a secret that is temporarily hidden, but more than that, it is a plan God is actively working out and revealing stage by stage.

This revelation has come through:

…his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit…

This was something quite unknown to, or even desired by, previous generations. The prophets and apostles are called “holy” because they have been set apart for God’s service. This is the real meaning of the word hagios, a term also applied to all the members of the Church. The revelation, too, was not only made to Paul; in fact, as he admits, he came late on the scene. The prophets mentioned here are those of the New Testament and who, in the list of special charisms, come only second to the Apostles in importance.

The revelation is that:

…the gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

There is a total equality between them and the Jewish Christians. This has been brought about by Christ and his Gospel which is directed to people everywhere.

It indicates the unique aspect of the mystery that was not previously known, namely, the equality and mutuality that Gentiles now have with Jews in the Church, forming one body. That Gentiles would turn to the God of Israel and be saved was prophesied in the Old Testament; that they would come into an organic unity with believing Jews on an equal footing was not foreseen.

By a special grace or blessing, Paul has been made the “servant” of that Gospel, even though Paul believes that, because of his past behaviour, he is the very least in the community of the “saints”. He never ceased being amazed at how he had been chosen by God for his mission, especially after the way he had tried to wipe out the Christians before his conversion.

He describes that mission under two aspects: he is to unfold to the Gentiles all that comes to them through Christ, and also how that is to be personally experienced by them.

Up to now all of this had remained hidden with God, the Creator of all. And why was this? It was, says Paul:

…so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

This is done in opposition to the evil powers that try to dominate the world. The evil spirits were unaware of God’s plan for salvation and so they persuaded human beings to crucify Christ, and it is only the existence of the Church that makes them aware of it now. For Jesus has risen and ascended above them all in power and glory.

It is a staggering thought that the Church on earth is observed, so to speak, by these spiritual powers and that to the degree the Church is spiritually united, it portrays to them the wisdom of God. This thought may be essential to understanding the meaning of “calling” mentioned at the beginning of the next chapter (Eph 4:1), where Paul calls on the Christians to live worthily of the call they have received. The fact that God had done the seemingly impossible—reconciling and organically uniting Jews and Gentiles in one Church—makes the Church the perfect means of displaying God’s wisdom.

So now, all of us can have the courage to approach our God in complete trust and confidence. We too can thank God that it is through Jesus Christ, and our fellowship in the Christian community, that we have come to know and experience the plan and the love of God in our lives.

Let us thank all those individuals and groups who, in one way or another, have taught us to know and love God in Jesus. And the obvious response on our part is to go out and, as Church, help others to know and understand the extraordinary things that God has done for us through Christ our Lord.

There is also, of course, a huge responsibility on all of us to strengthen the unity of all Christians among themselves, and also to create close relations with Jews with whom we share so much. And, we can include Muslims, who are also “People of the Book”. Let us hear the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper:

…that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:21)

Doing so will help to make this union a reality.

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Commentary on Luke 12:39-48

Today we have some further warnings on readiness. The unpredictability of God’s coming for the final call is compared to a thief breaking into one’s house. If one knew when the thief was coming, one would be prepared and have everything well locked up. Many people have had the experience of being burgled or of having their pocket picked. The point is that we do not know the day or the hour:

…the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Peter asks if this image is just for the disciples or for the whole world. Jesus answers by telling a parable.

A faithful and farsighted steward is one who is found doing his job for the household whenever the master returns. The ‘steward’ was one who had responsibility over the other servants, and Jesus could be referring here to his Apostles and other leaders of the Christian community. A trusted slave (‘servant’) too could sometimes be put in charge of an estate.

But if the steward feels that the master is “taking his time in coming” (i.e. delayed) and sets about abusing the rest of his staff and wasting his time in debauching himself, he will be severely punished when his master returns unexpectedly. We know that the early Christians believed that Jesus would return during their lifetime, but as time went on and there was no sign of Jesus, Christians could be tempted to become less vigilant and begin to ‘live it up’. It was a dangerous thing to do.

Then Jesus makes a distinction. Those who know their master’s wishes (like his disciples), but are found misbehaving when he returns, will be severely punished. Those who do not know (non-disciples, outsiders) will still be punished for doing wrong, but their punishment will be less severe than that of those who have received their master’s teaching and instructions:

From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required, and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.

We as Christians, with the guidance of the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church, bear far greater responsibilities for the wrongs we do than others, such as non-Christians or non-religious people, who have less guidance.

Within the Church, there are people who are better formed and better informed, and they too bear greater responsibility before God. At the same time, it might be worth pointing out that those who could avail themselves of such formation and information and fail to do so may be also liable to greater accountability. We need to distinguish between nescience and ignorance. Nescience is simply not knowing or not being aware of some truth or value. Ignorance is not knowing what I ought to know and have every opportunity of coming to know.

Ignorance may sometimes be bliss, but not where knowing Jesus and the Gospel is concerned. And wisdom, far from being folly, is a gift to be treasured.

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Commentary on Ephesians 3:14-21

Today we have a lovely prayer of Paul for the Church or churches to whom he is writing. The passage has been summarised in the New American Bible thusly (edited):

• The Apostle prays that those he is addressing may, like the rest of the Church, deepen their understanding of God’s plan of salvation in Christ.
• It is a plan that affects the whole universe (v 15)…
• …with the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love in Christ (v 18), or possibly the universe in all its dimensions.
• The apostle prays that they may perceive the redemptive love of Christ for them and be completely immersed in the fullness of God (v 19).
• The prayer concludes with a doxology to God (vv 20-21).

It is a prayer Paul makes kneeling (“…I bow my knees”) in the presence of the Father. We are accustomed to kneeling during prayer, but in Paul’s time it was normal to stand, so Paul’s posture here expresses a very special submission and reverence.

Paul says, God is:

…the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.

There is a play here on the Greek words for ‘father’ (pater) and ‘family’ (patria). Patria is used for any social group descended from a common ancestor. Hence, God is the common ancestor of every single person and every community. This we affirm every time we pray “Our Father” in the Lord’s Prayer. We do not address God as strangers or as outsiders would, but rather as One who is very close to us in a real family sense.

Let us lay out more diagrammatically the petitions that Paul makes on behalf of the churches:

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, [the Father] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Let us note some of the things that Paul mentions here. There is a prayer that our “inner being”, that our ‘inner self’ grow strong through the power of the Spirit within us. He prays that, through our opening up to God in faith, Christ may be truly present and active deep within our being. As Paul said of himself on another occasion:

…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.
(Gal 2:20)

We, too, want to be able to say this about ourselves individually and collectively. With the mutual relationship that faith opens up, we are to be “rooted and grounded in love”. This is the agape-love which must be the main driving force of all that we say and do.

In language reminiscent of the Stoics, Paul prays that we may have what may be termed almost a cosmic grasp of the role of the Christ:

…that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth…

Paul uses it to suggest the cosmic function of Christ in the rebirth of the world. It could be referring to the size of the mystery of salvation, or preferably to Christ’s universal love on which (in the next verse) the mystery depends. Christ becomes the Omega Point, to which all creation and creativity is ordered.

In a paradoxical phrase, Paul prays that the Christians will come:

…to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…

Paul desires that the Ephesians (and we) come to know the love of Christ for us and for the whole world. It is the infinite love of God, expressed by Jesus dying on the cross as the uttermost proof of love:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

On this side of death, we will never get beyond grasping this love in a clouded mirror. We live in the “Cloud of Unknowing” and yet, from time to time, we can be given glimpses of understanding. It is something that the mystics have experienced, but in a way that they cannot put into words.

With this understanding—imperfect though it be—Paul prays that Christians:

…may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Christ, who himself is filled with the divine life, fills Christians with it. The Church itself, as part of the Body of Christ, in a sense completes the fullness of the whole Christ. Christians enter both the Church and the new cosmos, which they help to build, and which is the fullness of the total Christ.

Faith, knowledge and understanding, love and fullness—these are the gifts which Paul prays for in the communities. Surely we, too, need to make this prayer our own also.

Finally, Paul concludes with a prayer of praise to God through Christ Jesus. He praises the God whose power at work in us can achieve more than we could ever ask for or even dream of. In one sense, Paul can point to the rapid growth of the churches, in spite of so many difficulties, as a convincing sign of this. And when we see the vastness of the Church today we see the truth of these words. They are the basis of our hope for continuing growth in our own church.

Lastly, he prays for God to be glorified through Christ in every generation in the Church. The greater glory of God is, at bottom, the essence of all living, and everything we do is to be directed to this—faith and love leading to praise.

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Commentary on Luke 12:49-53

We have some passionate and disturbing words from Jesus today. First, he expresses his deep desire to cast fire on the earth. In the imagery of the Old Testament, fire is a symbol of God’s powerful presence. We remember Moses at the burning bush, the pillar of fire that accompanied the Israelites by night as they wandered through the desert to the promised land, as well as the tongues of fire that hovered over the disciples at Pentecost.

It is this Pentecostal fire that burns men’s hearts and draws them to change the direction of their lives. For Jesus’ wish to be fulfilled, we have to play our part in helping to spread some of that fire of God’s love everywhere.

Second, Jesus expresses a longing for his ‘baptism’ to be accomplished. Baptism here refers to his immersion in the terrible suffering and death by which we will be liberated. In fact, the ritual of baptism, where the person to be baptised was immersed in the baptismal pool, was seen as a parallel to Jesus’ going down into death and emerging to the new life of the resurrection. It is about this that Paul speaks.

Third, Jesus says he has come not to bring peace, but division on the earth. At first sight, this is a hard saying and it does not make any sense. Is Jesus not the Prince of Peace? Did Jesus not say at the Last Supper that he was giving his peace to his disciples, a peace that the world could not give and that no one could take away? Did he not say:

Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matt 11:28)

Was not the final greeting of the Risen Christ to his disciples in the upper room:

Peace be with you. (John 20:21)

Yes, but he also warned his disciples that, after he was gone, they could expect a rough ride. They would be hauled before rulers and governors; they would be beaten and jailed and put to death. People would think they were doing well in ridding the world of them. In that sense, Jesus was certainly not going to bring peace. And, by the time this Gospel was written, Jesus’ prophecy had been well borne out—and there was a lot more to come.

The break-up of families, father against mother, parents against children, in-laws against in-laws, was unfortunately only too common as one or more members in a family decided to follow Christ and be baptised. These must have been very painful experiences which no one wanted. Anyone who has studied the history of the Church, all the way back to its beginning and in many places throughout the world, knows how many families were torn apart by their accepting Christianity. In the Gospel, we see it in the story of the blind man who attached himself to Jesus and whose parents, terrified of the authorities, wanted to have nothing to do with it. It is surely an image which was quite familiar to converts in the early, not to mention the later, Church.

Jesus had warned that those who wanted to follow him had to be ready, if necessary, to leave home and family and enter into a new family of brothers and sisters. To follow the way of truth and love, of freedom and justice is always going to arouse the hostility of those who feel threatened by goodness.

But is it right to break up one’s family? We might counter by asking which is the more loving thing to do: to be true to one’s convictions and one’s integrity, or to compromise them for the sake of a merely external peace?

The one who leaves a family for the sake of Christ and the Gospel shows a greater love for one’s family and will never cease to love them, no matter how viciously they may react to the choice the Christian has felt it necessary to make. In the long run, truth and love will prevail—they must.

Finally, hostility, division and persecution, provided the Christian is not directly responsible, does not take away the peace that Jesus spoke about. On the contrary, it is only by being true to one’s convictions and one’s integrity, whatever the price that has to be paid, that peace can be experienced.

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Commentary on Luke 12:54-59

Today we have two inter-related pieces of advice from Jesus. It is striking how simple and down to earth are the examples which Jesus uses to illustrate his teaching.

Here he takes the common phenomenon of the farmer reading the sky to forecast the weather. With experience, one can become very accurate, at least in the short-term, forecasting by observing the colour and shape of the clouds, the direction and strength of the wind and so on. The wind from the west came from the Mediterranean and so brought rain. The south wind blew from the desert and so brought hot weather.

First, Jesus asks his listeners, if they are so good at reading the weather signs, why are they not equally good at reading the signs that are taking place before their very eyes? They were now in the messianic age. Jesus has been performing one sign after another through the power of his teaching and the authority that he brings, through the healing of the sick, the feeding of the hungry, the calming of storms, the liberating of people from evil forces and so many other miraculous events.

Yet, the people do not seem to be able to see the clear hand of God in what he does. They follow him with curiosity to see what they may be able to get for themselves, but very few commit themselves to following him as disciples.

Second, he asks them why they do not judge for themselves what is right? He urges them to solve issues here and now instead of dragging their opponents to court only to find they lose the case and end up in jail.

If that is wise advice in everyday life, how much more important to be ready when we come to face the Judge of judges? If we do not settle our affairs now, in the future it may be too late. Linking this with what has already been said, it is time for us to read the clear signs of God’s call coming through Jesus and to respond by a change of heart and behaviour (Greek, metanoia). Then, with no evidence to incriminate us, we will have nothing to fear from the Judge on that day of reckoning and accounting.

Bringing all this down to a more earthly level, we might say that in our own time, we live in an age that is litigation-crazy. In many situations, both sides often end up the losers (but not their lawyers!). The bitter aftermath can last for years.

There may be times when recourse to a court is the only way to see justice done, but very often, disputes are best worked out between the parties involved. For example, for many, the pain of marriage breakdowns can be vastly increased by litigation, and can be a source of long-lasting bitterness, especially where the arguments are over large—or even small—amounts of property.

As Christians, we need to develop a real sense of justice as shown by wanting the best for all concerned. Forgiveness and reconciliation should be a high priority for us. There should be no place in our lives for sheer vindictiveness or, perhaps worse, simply a desire to make someone suffer more cruelly than we have.

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Commentary on Ephesians 4:7-16

Today, we continue Paul’s plea for unity in the churches. He moves on to speak of the gifts or special graces which have been given to each member of the community:

…each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

In Greek, ‘grace’ is charis (from which comes ‘charism’, and ‘charismatic’). It is a totally gratuitous gift from God which we have in no way earned by our own efforts. As we shall see, these gifts are given to ensure the better service of the whole community.

Paul quotes from Psalm 68 and, following rabbinic style of interpretation, applies it to Christ. He focuses on two phrases: “when he ascended on high” and “he gave gifts to his people”. He uses the text to point to the resurrection and triumphal ascension of Jesus, which was followed by the outpouring of the Spirit on his disciples. The intervening phrase, “he made captivity itself a captive”, may apply to the spiritual enemies that Christ overcame on the cross.

Paul then comments on the Psalm with the observation that, if Christ “ascended”, it could only mean that he had first “descended” to the “lower parts of the earth”. This could mean either that Jesus had come down to earth (“the Word became flesh and lived among us”—John 1:14) to dispense his gifts before ascending into glory, or it could refer to his visiting the dead in Sheol between his death and resurrection. The first interpretation would seem more appropriate in the context. In either case, the one who formerly descended is now the one who ascends above all the heavens to fill all things.

According to the Jerusalem Bible:

“By ascending through all the cosmic spheres and taking possession of them all one after another, Christ becomes the head of the whole pleroma or total cosmos and makes the entire universe acknowledge him as ‘Lord’.”

It is this Lord of all who has given gifts to his people. And what are these gifts? The list Paul gives is not exhaustive and is not intended to be. Only some of the more important gifts are named.

These include the gifts to be:

Apostles: they are the twelve ‘foundation stones’ of the whole Church, but also including some other key founding members, like Paul himself.

Prophets: these are the people who pass on a special message from God relevant to a particular need or situation. Their role is regarded as very important and they are always listed immediately after the Apostles. While the Apostles are concerned with the handing on and conservation of the traditional beliefs, the prophet’s role is to make sure that the Church is faithful to its mission and responding to real and current needs.

Evangelists: their role is to proclaim the Gospel and invite others to know and accept Jesus as their Lord, and to become members of the Christian community. While the other gifted people helped the church grow through edification, the evangelists helped the church grow by augmentation.

Pastors and Teachers: these are the ones who take pastoral care of the community and who pass on and explain the message of the Gospel to the members.

In general, Paul limits his list of charisms to those individuals who are concerned with passing on the Gospel message because they are the most relevant in the present context.

The purpose of being endowed with these gifts is clear: it is so that all the “saints”, the baptised Christians, join together as one in the work of service to the whole community, to build up the Body of Christ. Of the particular “saints” Paul mentions here, some seem to be missionaries and other teachers, but they may include all the faithful in so far as they all help to build up the Church.

It is very clear that the gifts are not meant for oneself, but indicate the area in which each one is called to make a contribution to the life of the community.

The desired result of all this is clearly expressed by Paul:

…all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

“Unity of the faith” refers to the Christians’ common conviction about Christ and the doctrines concerning him.

“Knowledge of the Son of God” means that unity is not just a matter of a loving attitude or religious feeling, but of truth and a common understanding about God’s Son. It also implies a personal knowing of Jesus, and not just a knowing about him.

“Maturity” in the context of the reading does not refer primarily to the individual Christian. The sense is collective. It can be taken as referring to Christ himself, the New Man, the archetype of all who are reborn, or else (and this sense is to be preferred) as referring to the total Christ, i.e. the whole Body, made of the Head and the rest of the Body (see Jerusalem Bible).

United by a common faith by which we pool our Spirit-given gifts for the service of all in the community and grow in our knowledge and understanding of Jesus our Lord, in time we become the “full stature [i.e. ‘perfect human person’] in Christ” (anthropos), sharing the maturity and perfection of the Risen Lord himself. This ‘perfect human person’ is not to be seen individualistically; rather it refers to the way in which the whole community becomes identified with Christ as his Body.

The gifts, then, are not to be, as sometimes happened, bones of contention and division (“I am for Paul… I am for Apollos…”). By their diversity and complementarity they are to be agents of greater unity.

And that brings us the second half of today’s reading. Paul begs the church(es) not to be immature, not to be like impressionable children who get carried away or tossed ‘to and fro’ by the latest religious fad thrown at them by hacks and charlatans. The image suggests the instability of those Christians who are not firm in their faith.

Such people are so easily:

…blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming…

Then, as now, there were many distorted teachings that would easily throw the immature off course. While some of these false teachers may be convinced of what they say, others may be deliberately misleading and even evil.

It is clear that Paul, by speaking in this way, was referring to situations that had actually arisen. And indeed the Christians of the day (as in our own) were constantly being led astray by the religious practices of their pagan neighbours and the eccentricities of some of those within the Church itself.

Instead, by always “speaking the truth in love”, Paul says we shall grow in all ways into Christ. It is a wonderful phrase, but not always easy to carry out. We must be unbending in our commitment to truth, never willing to compromise on it, while at the same time reaching out in love and care to all—including those who see a different truth or who are clearly disloyal to the truth.

If we Christians had always been faithful to that principle, there might not have been the split of the Reformation and many people over the centuries, believed to be heretics, might have remained within the fold.

As well, by adhering to this principle of truth spoken in love, we:

…must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…

This is the test. Does my grasp of, and living of, the Truth as I understand it lead me to a greater maturity, to becoming someone who more and more grows into the image of Christ, a person full of grace and truth?

Paul concludes the passage with a wonderful image of our spiritual growth:

…we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

This is a truly beautiful picture of unity in diversity which Paul envisages for the church. It is the image of a group of people who share one faith in Jesus as Lord, who acknowledge their origin from one common Father, who are identified by their having been baptised into the community in the name of Jesus, and who have a common goal to build each other up into a community of love with the ideal of the perfect humanity of Jesus as their goal. At the same time, each one has a different calling to make their own distinctive contribution to the building up of the community.

They do this by teaching each other about the Gospel message and its meaning for their lives, by praying together and, above all, by celebrating the Eucharist together. At the same time, each member has been endowed with a particular gift by the Spirit. The gift (charis) indicates the specific role that each one has, to contribute with others to the building up of the community.

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Commentary on Luke 13:1-9

Catastrophes or accidents which take people’s lives constantly force people to ask, Why? or Why them? Why did that young mother die giving birth to her child? Why did that young father die of cancer and leave behind a family struggling to survive? Why did my father die at the age of 66 while my mother lived to be 92?

Today, Jesus mentions two apparently recent incidents in which lives were lost. In one case, Pilate the Roman governor had some Galileans executed in the Temple precincts. It is not clear as to why; perhaps the Galileans had violated some Roman regulation about public order. In the other, eighteen people were killed when a tower in Siloam, inside the south-east section of Jerusalem’s wall, fell on top of them. There is no other record in history of either of these two events. However, the first is regarded as typical of Pilate’s administration.

The New American Bible carries the following note:

The slaughter of the Galileans by Pilate is unknown outside Luke; but from what is known about Pilate from the Jewish historian Josephus, such a slaughter would be in keeping with the character of Pilate. Josephus reports that Pilate had disrupted a religious gathering of the Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim with a slaughter of the participants and that on another occasion Pilate had killed many Jews who had opposed him, when he appropriated money from the temple treasury to build an aqueduct in Jerusalem. (edited)

It seems that some people at the time were saying that this was a punishment of God on these people for moral wrongs they had done. Jesus disagrees:

Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

Jesus asserts:

No, I tell you, unless you repent you will all perish as they did.

The sins of the victims were not the cause of their death, but they are certainly warnings to the rest of us to see if we are ready for such a certain eventuality. And Jesus goes on to illustrate his meaning with a parable:

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’

The story can be linked to what Jesus has just said. In a sense, the people he has been talking to are like fig trees that have not borne fruit. The three years mentioned in the story may refer to the length of Jesus’ own ministry. However, they still have a chance to turn their lives around, a chance which was not given to those who had died in those two incidents.

We, too, are being given a chance—for a day? A month? Several years? The fact is that we have no idea. What is clear is that there is no time to waste; we have to start today. For God, the past is not what counts or the future, but only the present. As long as I am with him now, I have nothing to worry about.

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Commentary on Ezekiel 24:15-24

The death of the prophet’s wife becomes a symbol of how the people are to respond to the loss of their Temple. God warns Ezekiel that he is going to lose his wife, the “delight of [his] eyes”, through sudden illness and death. She would be taken away in “one blow”, some swiftly fatal disease, perhaps some form of plague.

However, when it happens, Ezekiel is to display none of the traditional forms of mourning, but is to suffer his loss privately. He is not to mourn or weep. He is to groan in the silence of his own heart, not to lament the dead. He is to keep his turban fastened (it was normal for the mourner to uncover his head and put dust on it). He is to keep his sandals on and not to cover his beard (a gesture of shame or uncleanness). Nor is he to eat the customary bread, perhaps referring to a funeral meal in which neighbours would take part as an expression of sympathy and commiseration.

That very evening his wife died and Ezekiel told the people what he had been instructed to do. Not surprisingly, the people wanted to know the meaning of this rather unusual and unfeeling behaviour. Ezekiel then passes on the message that God had given him for the people.

The beloved sanctuary of God, the Temple: “the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and your heart’s desire”, is about to be desecrated, i.e. burnt down by Nebuchadnezzar. When it happens, the people are to do what Ezekiel did after the death of his wife. This does not mean that the citizens of Jerusalem are forbidden to lament their sins, but that there will simply be no time for mourning; the catastrophe will be too sudden and cataclysmic. Many, in fact, will simply be cut down by the Babylonian invaders. It will be the punishment for the people’s immorality and idolatries.

Ezekiel and his behaviour over the death of his wife are to be a sign for the people:

Thus Ezekiel shall be a sign to you; you shall do just as he has done.

It is not the Temple they are to mourn for, but for themselves and their failure to recognise that Yahweh is Lord. The loss of a building is something far less significant than the loss of their own integrity and wholeness.

Obviously, there is no teaching here to discourage people from mourning the loss of loved ones. Rather, the lesson is that we can become so focused on these losses that we fail to see how much should be mourned in our own lives because of our repeated failures in our relationships with God and our living neighbours.

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Commentary on Ephesians 2:12-22

Today’s First Reading is a lovely passage in which Paul shows how Christ brought together the two groups—Jews and Gentiles—and made them one people, reconciling them with God and with each other. After speaking of the salvation that has come as a total gift to both Jews and Gentiles, Paul moves on to the mutual relationship that now exists between the two groups. Former enemies have become brothers and sisters in Christ and now form one seamless community. He is speaking here especially to the gentile Christians.

Today’s passage is summarised by the New American Bible:

“The Gentiles lacked Israel’s messianic expectations, lacked the various covenants God made with Israel, lacked hope of salvation and knowledge of the true God (vv 11-12); but through Christ all these religious barriers between Jews and Gentiles have been transcended (vv 13-14) by the abolition of the Mosaic covenant-law (v 15) for the sake of uniting Jew and Gentile into a single religious community (vv 15-16), imbued with the same holy Spirit and worshipping the same Father (v 18).  The Gentiles are now included in God’s household (v 19) as it arises upon the foundation of apostles assisted by those endowed with the prophetic gift (Eph 3:5), the preachers of Christ (v 20; see 1 Cor 12:28). With Christ as the capstone (v 20; Is 28:16; Matt 21:42), they are being built into the holy temple of God’s people where the divine presence dwells (vv 21-22).”

In the verse preceding the beginning of our reading today, Paul reminds the gentile Christians that they were rejected by the Jews as unholy outsiders. He implies that in some respects it was a false division. “Gentiles by birth” were called the “uncircumcision” (a term of rejection) by those who called themselves the “circumcision”, which ironically represents something “made in the flesh by human hands”. In other words, one group of people was rejected by another on the basis of a physical operation on the body.

More seriously, however, the Gentiles before their incorporation into the Christian community were without Christ and:

…aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise…

These covenants include those made by God with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and others. In a dramatic phrase, Paul speaks of the the Gentiles:

…having no hope and without God in the world.

That is, the Gentiles were without the hope of a Messiah—up to this a hope confined to the people of Israel—and without the true God. Instead they relied on false gods and man-made idols. Unfortunately, that can still be said about many people in our world today, and perhaps most of these can be found in so-called ‘developed’ societies.

But with the coming of Christ, all that has been changed. Those Gentiles who “once were far off” (i.e. from the Jews), have now been brought close by the sacrificial blood that Jesus poured out on the cross. This was the new covenant which embraced not only Jews, but all those, of whatever origin, who would approach the cross in loving surrender. In Christ, there is now just one people.

Jesus has become the peace that binds the two formerly hostile groups together:

For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us…

This is a reference to the wall in the Jerusalem Temple which separated the court of the Jews (to which only they had access) from the court of the Gentiles (open to all). In fact, there were several dividing walls in the Temple—separating Jews from Gentiles, Jewish men from women, priests from people, and the Holy of Holies from all—accessible only to the high priest once a year. All of these divisions are demolished in Christ. These walls (like all such walls) were a striking symbol of much deeper divisions.

Christ also destroyed:

…the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances…

Much of the Mosaic Law, of course, sets moral standards which were not changed by the coming of Christ—standards recognised by people everywhere. However, under the name of their Law the Jews had arrogated to themselves a privileged status which set them above and apart from the “strangers and aliens”. In particular, they looked down on those who did not observe the rituals of the Law as ‘unclean’. Many of these rituals have little to do with moral behaviour as such.

Religion should never be a source of division although, if it is to be true to its convictions, it will stand out as different and challenging, but never exclusive or divisive. Too often in our own days, we Christians have been guilty of the very things of which Paul accuses his fellow-Jews.

God’s plan, on the other hand says Paul, was to create in Christ “one new humanity” out of the two formerly opposed groups. “Humanity” here translates the Greek word anthropos (‘anqrwpos), which means a human person and has no gender connotations. The word for a male is aner (‘anhr) and the Latin equivalents are homo and vir. (Significantly, our Creed says that in the Incarnation Jesus became a homo*, not a vir—Jesus is primarily a Person sharing his humanity with both men and women.)

As described in the Jerusalem Bible:

This “new humanity” is the prototype of the new humanity that God recreated in the person of Christ, the second Adam, after killing the sinfully corrupt race of the first Adam in the crucifixion. This New Adam has been created “in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24), and he is unique because in him the boundaries between any one group and the rest of the human race all disappear. (edited)

This new “humanity” is the whole community, the whole Body, now consisting of both Jews and Gentiles, together with Jesus as its Head.

This reconciliation or peace was brought about by Jesus dying on the cross as the eloquent witness of God’s immeasurable love for peoples everywhere, irrespective of race, social status or gender:

…thus putting to death that hostility through it.

This hostility was replaced by the ‘good news’ (gospel) embracing both Gentiles (who had been far from God) and Jews (who had always been nearer to him). Through the cross Jesus united all in one body, which refers both to the physical body of Jesus that was executed by crucifixion and the Church or ‘mystical’ body of Christ in which all are reconciled.

In a beautiful Trinitarian phrase, Paul concludes the paragraph with:

So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Jesus is the Way for peoples everywhere, the Way to Truth and Life.

In the final paragraph today, Paul speaks of the effects of the hostility—the walls between Jews and Gentiles—being broken down and being replaced by peace. He says:

you [Gentiles] are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God…

The phrase “household of God” means ‘family’ (familia in Latin), which in ancient times included the whole household—the extended family of parents, children, close relatives and also servants and slaves.

Changing the image, Paul speaks of the Church as a building of which the Gentiles are now fully a part:

…built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone…

The New Testament prophets, together with the Apostles, are the witnesses to whom the divine plan was first revealed and who were the first to preach the Good News. The Church then is founded not only on Christ, but also on the Apostles and prophets:

…the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

The Gentiles, with the Christian Jews, are progressively being built into a house where God himself lives.

Paul emphatically makes two points here. First, he shows how, in the Christian community, Jews and Gentiles have come together in unity and peace as God’s people in Christ. All former barriers are removed. (In his Letter to the Galatians, he also included free people and slaves and men and women as all fully equal in the Christian ‘family’.)

Second, the Church is the new Temple of God. The temple is no longer a physical building of bricks and mortar, but a community of people united in faith and love with Christ as Lord and to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ:

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. (Matt 18:20)

Rome and St Peter’s could be removed from existence and every Christian church building in the world could be wiped off the face of the earth, but as long as even a handful of people can sincerely gather together in the name of Christ and the Gospel, God’s temple, the place where he lives, continues to be. In the Church that Paul knew there were no church buildings. The communities gathered in each other’s homes. There are still places in the world today where Christians have no other option except to meet in this way, often in secrecy and in fear of persecution.

Let us try to be more aware of Church as primarily the community of believers rather than as the buildings which we use for our gatherings. Furthermore, the ‘house were God lives’ is not static. As Paul indicates today, it is constantly being built up. It is a living entity which can be growing or dying. That depends on each one of us. Let every one of us work together at building up the part of the Church entrusted to our care.

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*Incidentally, the ‘homo’ in ‘homosexuality’ is a different word altogether. It is from the Greek homos (‘omos), meaning ‘the same’. Hence, it refers to sexuality between people of the same gender, be they masculine or feminine.

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Commentary on Luke 9:46-50

Following on Jesus once again telling his disciples that he was going to be “handed over” to suffering and death, we were told in our previous reading that they did not understand what he meant. It did not make sense to them.

Now, almost as an indication of how far they were from Jesus’ thinking, they began arguing among themselves which one among them should be seen as the greatest. Why should they be arguing about this? Was it because, whatever difficulties they had in accepting what Jesus had said about his future, they were wondering what was going to happen after Jesus had been taken away from them? If they were to remain together as a group, which of them would be in charge?

Perhaps Peter was already beginning to think that he should be the one. Perhaps some of the others felt it should be one of them. But Jesus, who, of course, was not present during these sensitive discussions, was well aware of what was going on. He took a child and put it in their midst, saying:

Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me, for the least among all of you is the greatest.

It is interesting that the greatness is to be seen in the child rather than in the one who ‘welcomes’ the child. The child represents all who are vulnerable and weak and powerless. To ‘welcome’ such persons is to treat them with the utmost dignity and respect and to accept them and lift them up.

In Jesus’ eyes, such little people are truly great because, to those who have eyes to see, they are the ones in whom we can especially meet Jesus and love and serve him. St Francis of Assisi, who kissed the leper (a particularly daring thing to do in his time), or St Teresa of Calcutta, tenderly picking up a decaying, barely living body off the street, knew this well. To find Jesus in such a person is to make direct contact with God himself.

Jesus himself will reach the peak of his own greatness when he hangs dying and helpless on the cross. This is the lesson the disciples will learn to see and accept in time. We have to keep working on it too, because it does not come easily to any of us.

The second part of today’s Gospel points to another area where the disciples have to change their outlook. John, the brother of James, who both come across in the Synoptics as somewhat hotheaded (they had the nickname “sons of thunder”), tells Jesus they saw someone driving out devils in Jesus’ name. They had told the man to stop because he “does not follow with us”. Perhaps there was also an element of jealousy, because in Mark’s Gospel (9:14-29) we are told that the disciples were unable to drive out an evil spirit from a boy.

Here we have something of the arrogance of the insider, of the elitist. John and his companions felt that the exorcism of evil spirits in the name of Jesus was something only they were allowed to do. Jesus did not agree. Jesus tells them:

Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.

In doing so, he enunciated this principle for them to follow.

It is a constant temptation among more devout religious people to set themselves apart from ‘others’. It can happen to bishops or priests or religious. It can happen in a parish to members of the parish council or some parish group—a prayer group, charismatics, the liturgy committee or whatever.

We can find ourselves developing a two-tier community of ‘us’ and ‘them’. We can find ourselves looking down on those who come in late for Mass and hang around the back door, or who only come occasionally, or maybe even only turn up at Christmas.

Even more, we can be tempted to set ourselves apart from non-Catholic and non-Christian groups. We can fail to see God working in all kinds of people, religious and non-religious, atheists, agnostics and people who apparently do not believe in anything.

Of course, as Christians, we do have a distinctive understanding of life and its meaning coming from the teaching and life of Jesus and it should not be compromised. But at the same time, we do not have a monopoly on the truth—no one has. The full Truth is beyond all of us. We are all searching.

Still less do we have a monopoly on good works. God can and does use any person to build the Kingdom. And it is our responsibility to work hand in hand with such people. Ultimately, our aim is not to promote our Church, but God’s work and God’s plan for the whole world.