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Commentary on Luke 9:18-22

After the incident concerning Herod, which as we saw is a pointer to things yet to happen, the disciples return from their mission. What follows is omitted from our readings. In fact, Jesus took them to a quiet place where they could rest and reflect on what they had been doing. However, they were pursued by the ever-hungry crowds and Jesus fed them with the Word of God, with his healing and finally, through his disciples (“You give them something to eat”) with bread and fish. The story is another step in the Twelve’s involvement in the mission of Jesus, and it leads into today’s reading.

In today’s reading, we find Jesus praying alone. As we have already seen, it is something that Luke mentions a number of times about Jesus, especially before significant events in his public life. Some people might wonder what Jesus would have to pray about. Such a question could reveal a rather limited idea of prayer, e.g. as something you do when you want to get something from God or when you are depressed or in trouble of some kind.

But prayer is ultimately getting in touch with God and that is something that Jesus would surely want to do quite a lot. Prayer is also a way of discovering just where God’s will enters one’s life, and that is something that was always of supreme importance to Jesus because:

The Father and I are one. (John 10:30)

Jesus, we are told, was not altogether alone. His disciples were with him. Were they praying too? Later, they will ask Jesus to teach them how to pray.

All of this is Luke’s introduction to a high point in all the Synoptics: the revelation of Jesus’ true identity. From the other Synoptics we know that it took place at Caesarea Philippi, a mixed Jewish-Gentile region outside Herod’s territory.

Jesus asks them:

Who do the crowds say that I am?

They give various answers: John the Baptist (resurrected) or Elijah, expected to return to announce the imminent coming of the Messiah, or some other of the earlier great prophets.

But then he asks:

But who do you say that I am?

Peter, answering for all of them, replies simply:

The Messiah of God.

Some translations of the Bible use the Greek word Christos, Christ. ‘Christ’ is not a name but a title meaning ‘annointed one’. It is the equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah. The anointing refers to someone who is king and, in this case, the One who is anointed the Saviour King of Israel.

In short, Peter is saying that the man standing before him is the long-awaited Saviour of the Jewish people. It is a dramatic development in Jesus’ relationship with his disciples.

Jesus’ next words at first sight seem unexpected and contradictory. He strictly orders his disciples not to say anything of this to anyone. Surely they should be doing the exact opposite? But the people are not yet ready for this revelation. They have a very limited and preconceived idea of what the coming of the Messiah will mean. They see him in very political terms as a kind of national liberator who will drive out and destroy the Romans and all enemies of the Jewish people, and restore the past glories of Israel.

Even after the Resurrection, Luke has Jesus’ own disciples asking him:

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6)

Their ideas, even at this late date, are no different from the ordinary people’s. At this point in the Gospel, they must be secretly proud that they, of all people, are the first to be privileged with this information.

If that was the case, they were very quickly to be disillusioned. Almost immediately Jesus goes on to say that:

The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

This is the first time in Luke that Jesus refers to himself as “the Son of Man”. It occurs eighty-one times in the four Gospels and is only used by Jesus of himself. In the book of Daniel (7:13-14) we see the ‘Son of Man’ pictured as a heavenly figure who is entrusted by God with authority, glory and sovereign power. Jesus’ use of the title in a Messianic sense is made clear by its close proximity to Peter’s declaration of Jesus as the Christ or Messiah.

We know from Matthew and Mark that the disciples—in particular Peter—were dumbfounded when they heard Jesus’ words and wanted to reject them entirely. It was totally against all their expectations of the Messiah, apart from the fact that they could not bear to have those things happen to their Master.

To them, it simply did not make any sense. First, Jesus as Messiah was going to be rejected and handed over by the leaders of their own people. Second, he was going to go through a terrible and humiliating death. His being “raised” on the third day—whatever that meant—did little to alleviate their confusion.

But, as Mark indicates, this was a further step in their relationship with Jesus. They now recognised him as the Messiah, but now they had to learn just what kind of Messiah he was going to be, and how he was going to liberate not only his own people, but people all over the world.

We, too, of course, have to keep going through the same process. We, too, have to deepen our understanding of the true identity of Jesus. We have to be able to understand how the suffering and dying Messiah is not only the way he needed to go to reconcile us with God, but that we too have to be ready to go the same way. We have to learn to see the redemptive and healing power in the pains, sufferings, disappointments and failures of our lives.

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Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Today we have a well-known passage which has even become the lyrics of a popular song sung by numerous recording artists since the early 1960s. It is part of a longer passage whose overall theme is death—the inevitable end of every life. Life here is presented as equally divided between things which bring pleasure and sadness, comfort and pain. Each has its own ‘time’ slot, so to speak, and we have little control over one or the other.

Our occupations—some bringing joy, others pain—are overshadowed by the inevitable end in death. Death casts its shadow on life, which is a series of contradictory acts, some of them listed here, but all end in the meaninglessness of death. We are subject to times and changes over which we have little or no control. Only one thing remains supreme —the all-knowing and all-loving God. We are totally in his hands, and the sooner we realise that, the happier we will be.

At the end of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher says that, although we can try to see meaning in individual events as they unfold, we can be mistaken and the overall direction of the world is totally beyond us. God’s plan is simply too big for us to grasp:

He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

God’s beautiful, but tantalising world is too big for us, yet its satisfactions are too small. Since we were made for eternity, the things bounded by time cannot fully and permanently satisfy.

The New Testament keeps reminding us that:

…we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. (Heb 13:14)

We are but pilgrims passing through; we have no permanence in this world. The important goal is not to be reached here, because it does not and cannot exist. The ultimate goal is beyond this life.

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Commentary on Luke 9:7-9

Today we have a short interlude which is leading to some very special revelations. Herod the Tetrarch is hearing stories about what Jesus is doing. ‘Tetrarch’ means the ruler of one-fourth part of a kingdom. This one, Herod Antipas, was one of several sons of Herod the Great, whose kingdom was divided among four of them. Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD. Although not strictly speaking a ‘king’ he is called that in Matthew and Mark following popular usage.

Herod is puzzled because he is being told that Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead. At the same time others are saying that Elijah (whose expected return would signal the arrival of the Messiah), or one of the ancient prophets has reappeared. Herod has recently beheaded John the Baptist, and the superstitious king is filled with a mixture of fear and curiosity. He kept trying to ‘see’ Jesus.

Luke does not actually record the death of John and, in this short passage, he prepares the reader for the later meeting of Herod with Jesus (Luke 23:8-12). So Herod’s wish will be partially fulfilled at a later date, though under very unexpected circumstances, and in a way that Herod will find very unsatisfactory. He is hoping that Jesus, like some circus dog, will do some ‘tricks’ or ‘miracles’ for him.

Herod’s desire was almost entirely one of curiosity, it was the desire of the hedonist and the seeker of novelty. To ‘see’ Jesus in the full Gospel sense is something totally different. It can only happen to those who have the eyes of faith, and who can see in the person of Jesus the presence and power of God. We may recall the request of some ‘Greeks’ who told Philip they wanted to see Jesus and the reply that Jesus gave about the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying (John 12:20-26). We have not seen Jesus if we do not know him in his suffering and dying as his way to new life.

Let us ask to see Jesus today, a seeing that leads to a total acceptance of his way of life and following him all the way, through the cross and beyond to a life that never ends.

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Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1:2-11

Today we begin reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes, another Wisdom book which follows immediately in our Bible after Proverbs. The word “Ecclesiastes” is a Greek translation of the original Hebrew title of the book, Qoheleth—a word which means ‘Teacher’, one who conducts an assembly or a school. As the Greek word for ‘assembly’ is ekklesia, that explaining the title we use.

The book is presented as being written by Solomon, a king famous for his wisdom, and this gave it weight as a ‘wisdom’ book. However, scholars are agreed that the book was not written by Solomon, but comes from a much later period when the Jews, back from exile and in Jerusalem, were under the empire of the Persians.

The book teaches wisdom by highlighting the emptiness of most human pursuits: “All is vanity.” The language often sounds negative and cynical. Even so, “in the face of death and ‘vanity’, Qoheleth repeatedly urges humans to embrace life and its goods – food, drink, love, work, and play – as gifts from God” (Harper Collins Bible).

In the face of the emptiness and vanity of life, the Teacher makes two positive points:

1. Near the very end of the work he tells his reader to:

   Fear God, and keep his commandments, for that is the whole duty of everyone. (Eccle 12:13)

2. As humans have no really effective control over their environment and spend much of their time chasing the illusory, the real good is to enjoy life as a gift of God, and it is in the area in which they find themselves that they are to find him.

The theme of the whole book is expressed in the opening words of today’s reading: “All is vanity.” The original meaning of the Hebrew word translated ‘vanity’ was ‘mist’ or ‘breath’. It is one of a group of traditional images (e.g. water, shadow, smoke) used in Hebrew poetry to describe the transitory nature of human life. It is used thirty-five times altogether in this book, but in Qoheleth the word has lost its usual meaning. For him, ‘vanity’ signifies the illusory nature of things, and hence the delusions to which the human family is subjected. The basic thrust of Ecclesiastes is that all of life is meaningless, useless, hollow, futile and vain, if it is not rightly related to God. Only when based on God and his word is life worthwhile.

The reading says:

What do people gain from all the toil
at which they toil under the sun?

It reminds one of the words of Jesus to his disciples:

For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? (Mark 8:36)

A life without God and the values we identify with God, however much energy is put into it, is meaningless.

The second part of the reading is full of a kind of weariness and pessimism about the experience of life that many, if not most people have experienced at some time. The world by itself seems to have no inner meaning. It goes on and on repeating the same cycles again and again. There is a terrible determinism and inevitability about everything. Yet, Job, who had his fair share of troubles, looking at the same world is filled with wonder and adoration. To quote a well-used verse: “Two men looked out through prison bars / One saw mud and one saw stars.”

Of course, the author of Ecclesiastes was writing in a world which had far less control over its environment than we have, but even in our day there are still situations where we are basically helpless. Freak weather conditions, droughts and floods, earthquakes and volcanoes, deadly viruses, the breakdown of our bodies (often the result of our own indulgences and excesses in work and play), our recklessness with mind-altering substances (nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs), and the unforeseeable breakdown and/or mishandling of our technologies (e.g. car and plane crashes)—all of these can bring the most dazzling of human achievements to nothing, sometimes in a split second.

Meanwhile, as the Teacher says, “the earth remains forever”, meaning the world goes on just as before without us. Generations come and generations go; the sun rises and sets; the wind blows from the north today and from the south tomorrow and back again; and rivers keep flowing into the sea but the sea is not full. The world seemingly goes on indefinitely, but human life can disappear very quickly.

The cycles of life are repeated again and again:

…there is nothing new under the sun.

This is a phrase the Teacher will use twenty-nine times in his book. It could be heard as very cynical, but it also has a genuinely positive meaning.

We may feel that in our exciting technological world, new things are constantly appearing. ‘New’ is a word constantly shouted at us by products in our commercials and media. Yet, the deeper experiences of life repeat themselves again and again. Maybe we understand them a bit better, but the experiences themselves and the fragility of life have not changed since the Teacher’s days.

Jesus put this in another way when he reminded us that we did not know the day nor the hour when our life would come to an end. There is not a single person, however rich or however powerful, who knows when that hour will take place. The purpose of such a reflection, then, is not to fill people with fear and discouragement, but with a realistic awareness of the ultimate purpose of living.

What is the quality and purpose of my life at this time? Is my day spent in seeking and finding God or am I in search of something else which I have no guarantee of either finding or keeping? Or, on the other hand, am I so in touch with my Lord that, no matter when it happens, I will be ready to answer his call and run to him full of desire for perfect unity with him?

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Commentary on Luke 9:1-6

As we move on to chapter 9, we have left out a number of stories in chapter 8—the calming of a storm on the lake, the healing of a demoniac, the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of a woman with a haemorrhage. However, these are dealt with elsewhere in our readings from the other Gospels. We are now moving into a turning point in the public life of Jesus and in his relationship with his disciples.

This is, in fact, the third tour of Galilee by Jesus. On the first tour he was accompanied just by the four fishermen he had called first—Peter, Andrew, James and John. On the second, all the Twelve were with him and on the third, he was alone after sending out the Twelve on their own mission.

We begin the reading today with Jesus sending his chosen Twelve on their mission. It is the first time he has sent them out on their own without his being with them. Basically, they are to do exactly as their Master does. They are given power over evil forces and to heal sicknesses. They are also to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom.

They are to travel in total freedom and so are not to bring anything with them which would make traveling more difficult:

Take nothing for your journey: no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.

It is understood that the people will support them in return for the services they render. It is expected that hospitality will be extended to them in the traditional way of the Middle East.

And they are not to be choosy about where they are received:

Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there.

And, in places where they and their message and their services are not welcome:

…as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.

This was a symbolic act which the Pharisees practised when they left an ‘unclean’ Gentile area. In this case, the act signifies that people are not just rejecting the disciples but God himself, whom they bring with their message and their healing.

So they departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.

It really was the beginning of the Church. And it was the work of making the Kingdom a reality, God’s will being done on earth.

The same mission is entrusted to each one of us, although it will obviously be adapted to our life situation. We are called, individually and in community, to proclaim the Gospel by word and lifestyle. We are called to help liberate people from negative forces and addictions of all kinds that can enslave. We are called to be sources of healing and wholeness, and for this we do not need to be part of the medical profession. We are called to live lives of simplicity, using only those things which we need for life and work and rejecting all superfluity and luxury. As we have already noted: the really rich are those whose needs are the least. It is a message our consumer world needs to hear and see.

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Commentary on Proverbs 30:5-9

Today we have our last selection of readings from Proverbs.  They give us a taste of what the rest of the book is like. In this reading, there are two pieces of advice for us to reflect on.

Our reading today is taken from chapter 30, which is also entitled “The words of Agur son of Jakeh. An oracle”. It is not known who Agur is. He is simply called ‘son of Jakeh the Massaite’. Massa is in northern Arabia and elsewhere referred to as an encampment of the Ishmaelites (Gen 25:13-14). However, the word may not be meant as a place name but signify ‘an oracle’ or ‘a prophecy’.

First we are urged to take refuge in the unalloyed or flawless word of God, which will be our most effective security in life. When we fully assimilate that word, we are endowed with a vision of life which enables us to see where real truth and goodness lie.

At the same time, we are not to play around with God’s word and distort it to suit our own convenience. Moses gave a warning to the Israelites about that long before (Deut 4:2). It is something we can do very easily, especially when we take a text out of its context as some people, including preachers, tend to do. As Shakespeare wrote, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose”. It is not at all difficult for us to do the same.

The reading ends with a prayer to God for two things. This begins a section of the chapter called ‘numerical proverbs’. Further on the author introduces sets of proverbs with ‘three things’ and ‘four things’:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying…

In other words, the writer begs for the gift of integrity. The author desires wholeness, where there is perfect harmony between his inner self and his outward behaviour, and between God’s will and the deepest desires of his heart. Jesus said:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (Matt 5:8)

He also prays for a basic security in life, that he be supplied with his essential needs. We pray for this when we say the Lord’s Prayer:

Give us each day our daily bread…

He wants neither wealth nor destitution. Both have their dangers. Wealth can alienate one from God. In the arrogance of wealth I may be tempted to say, “God? Who is he? What has he got to do with me? I don’t need him.” We remember the parable of the rich fool with his full barns (Luke 12:13-21). Moses predicted that Israel would forget God when their food was plentiful and their herds large (Deut 8:12-17). The ever-growing prosperity of western society has led to a parallel growth in secularism.

Destitution, on the other hand, can lead to criminal ways in order to survive. In our day of great material prosperity coupled with enormous areas of destitution and poverty, the Christian community can give formidable witness by repudiating the consumerist, hedonistic mentality through living a life of decent simplicity. We also need to work hard to bring about a more equitable sharing of the vast wealth that parts of our world are generating.

This was originally the purpose of religious life and it is still the ideal, but it is not often as visible in the lives of religious as it could be. This is partly because some religious themselves are not immune to the consumerist ‘bug’, but also because the normally simple lifestyle of the majority of religious is not seen enough by people.

In our day, lay people too can give this witness of simplicity, living according to one’s needs. A good definition of a person who is really rich: one whose needs are the least.

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Commentary on Luke 8:19-21 Read Tuesday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »

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Commentary on Proverbs 21:1-6,10-13

We have today a set of two-line moral aphorisms which are quite distinct from each other and with which we are not likely to quarrel. However, whether they reflect the way we always behave is another question, so we do need to read or listen to each statement carefully.

Today the writer tells us that everything is ultimately in God’s hands. The heart of the greatest king is just like flowing water in the hands of the Lord. He can direct it where he pleases. Great kings like Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and Cyrus of Persia might have seemed all-powerful when compared to Israel, but before God they were impotent. They were merely instruments in his hands. Whether we are dealing with the great suffering that Nebuchadnezzar brought on Israel, or the liberations from the Babylonians which came with Cyrus—in either case, for all their apparent power, they were only doing God’s work.

It is not enough for a person’s external behaviour to seem good. God will see and judge the inner intentions of the heart. In the true follower of Christ there is no difference between his outward behaviour and his inward intentions. As Paul writes to the Corinthians:

I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. (1 Cor 4:4)

And in the Letter to the Hebrews we read:

Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Heb 4:12)

To act virtuously and in a spirit of true justice towards others pleases God more than any sacrifice.

This is a theme which goes right through the Old Testament, but is put with particular force in the prophets. Says the prophet Hosea, for example:

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hos 6:6)

And from Micah:

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil? (Mic 6:7)

And there are powerful words from Jeremiah:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” (Jer 7:21-23)

The Gospel will continue to emphasise this. For instance, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. (Matt 5:23-24)

For us it means that regular attendance in church and at Mass by itself is not enough unless it is accompanied by a daily life that gives real witness in word and action to the loving demands of the Gospel. Arrogance and pride, which result in trampling on the dignity and rights of others, can only be seen as belonging to sin. The ‘hardworking’ man reflects on the value of what he does and is a gainer in the long run. The one who rushes to gain wealth and material success for himself ends up the loser.

Similarly, to make a fortune through lying and deceit is tantamount to seeking death rather than life. As our society becomes more prosperous and people have more, paradoxically the level of dishonesty also grows at all levels of society. Even some who have more than they could possibly spend will commit massive fraud to get even more.  We may not be in that league but we might profitably ask: How honest are we in the use of our material resources?

The mocker ends up being punished by his own arrogance and the dead end he chose to follow. The formerly ignorant can learn from this. The wise person, however, is always ready to learn more from those who can teach him.

Finally, a very serious warning for all of us: if we close our ears to the cry of the poor and the needy, we cannot expect to have our own cries for help responded to either. Again, as our society grows richer, there are still many—far too many—who are shut off from sharing in that prosperity. Ironically, growing prosperity for some all too often exists with growing poverty for others.

In Luke’s Gospel we remember the parable of the rich man and the poor man, Lazarus, whom he totally neglected (Luke 16:19-31), or the unmerciful servant who had a huge debt forgiven by his master, but then threw a fellow-servant into jail for not paying back a paltry amount (Matt 18:23-35). And we pray the words:

Forgive us our sins, AS we forgive those who sin against us.

How much of what we have gained over the years has been shared with those who have not gained or even lost? The fact that what they have lost may have been largely through their own mistakes does not lessen their need for help. The term ‘deserving’ poor cannot be found in the Gospel. As someone once said: “God loves the poor, not because they are good, but because they are poor.” Each of these sayings can stand by itself, but together they build up a picture of the kind of person each one of us is called to be.

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Commentary on Luke 8:16-18

The message today seems clear enough. The Gospel message is not meant to be kept hidden. We are not a ‘mystery religion’ in the sense that the Gospel is only for initiates. It is a message that is to be proclaimed from the housetops. If what we believe and say is true, it will prevail.

We understand Jesus to be the Light of the world, and his followers are also to be like lamps shining out for all the world to see. An invisible Christian is a contradiction in terms, yet there are strong tendencies for us to keep our religion to ourselves and not foist it on others.

However, forcing others to believe is not the message being given, even if it were possible. Inviting people to ‘come and see’, to hear the message and have a personal experience of living it is something else. We also believe that the Gospel message offers a way of life that brings great happiness into the lives of individuals and, in fact, to whole societies if it is really followed. So, part of our communicating the message is as much through our lifestyle (“See…it works!”) as through what we say.

Jesus says today:

So pay attention to how you listen…

It is not just listening, but a hearing which understands, accepts, assimilates and puts into practice. What is heard and assimilated has to be passed on. Otherwise it dies, because:

…for to those who have, more will be given, and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.

To be a Christian is not to reach a certain level and stay there. It essentially means constant growth and development—to stay still or to stagnate is to go backwards.

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Commentary on Matthew 19:13-15

This short passage is an echo of the statement Jesus made at the beginning of the discourse on the Church (Matt 18:1-4). Parents were bringing their children for Jesus to bless. The disciples, with the officiousness of minor officials, thought they were doing their Master a favour by protecting him from such trivial nuisances.

Jesus scolds them:

Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.

Not to children alone but to those who have the qualities of the child: the simplicity and openness, the teachability, the freedom from prejudice, the readiness for change and adaptation. Only such people are ready to hear the message of the Gospel in its fullness.

The passage leads naturally into the next one about the rich man who asked Jesus what he should do to enter eternal life. For all his wealth, he would prove to be wanting in this particular area of openness.