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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.

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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, instead of submitting our will to God as Jesus does:

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.

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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 because:

1. though law is not the source of sin, it becomes the instrument of sin by arousing concupiscence;
2. by informing the mind it increases the fault, which becomes a conscious ‘transgression;’
3. 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 (Greek, 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.

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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 of reconciliation 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.

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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 Greek 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.

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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.

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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 responsibility 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.