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Commentary on Luke 21:5-11

The Temple at Jerusalem in Jesus’ time was a magnificent building and one of the wonders of the world. As the Gospel tells us, it had been more than 40 years in the building and was not yet completed. People were commenting to Jesus on the beautiful decorations of jewels and votive offerings. His hearers must have been shocked, if not utterly sceptical, when Jesus told them that, in time, the building would be utterly destroyed with “not one stone…left upon another”. In our not too distant past, who would ever have dreamt that the New York City World Trade Center, that temple to capitalism, would be reduced to rubble in a just matter of minutes—and how much more the Temple of God?

They asked Jesus:

Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?

Jesus’ answer is directed more to the end of time than to the actual destruction of the Temple, which occurred about 40 years later in the year 70 AD. In fact, one event blends into the other. To many who were witnesses to its destruction, it must have seemed like the end of their world. What kind of life could they live without their Temple, without the dwelling place of their God? How could Yahweh allow such a thing to happen? It left a huge empty space in their lives which nothing else could fill.

Jesus’ warning is that his followers should not misread the signs or be too alarmed. It seems the early Christians were expecting Jesus to return for his Second Coming within their lifetime. This must have led to many false alarms—people claiming to be the returned Lord, or warning that the end of all things was close at hand. Even the destruction of the Temple (remember many of the Christians were converted Jews) must have looked like the beginning of the end. St Augustine had similar feelings as Rome, the heart of Christendom, fell in ruins to the ‘barbarians’ (the ancestors of many of us!). The end of Rome seemed to him like the end of the world.

Jesus tells his followers not to be too ready to believe what they hear people saying. Nor are they to be too alarmed when they hear of wars and social upheavals. There will be many natural disasters, widespread diseases and celestial phenomena. These do not necessarily spell the end. The message now being given is:

…the end will not follow immediately.

At every pivotal time in the history of our planet, there are people who claim to see the end in sight. The coming of the third millennium was no exception. So far they have all been wrong. The attitude of Christians is not to be one of fear and anxiety. It sees the new era as a time of challenge and opportunity, a time for new beginnings.

On a more personal and much more realistic level, we may be anxious about the signs of our own time of departure from this world. But again, it does not help to become fearful and anxious. Rather, we should work to live each day to the fullest and to make it productive for ourselves and others.

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Commentary on Luke 10:17-24

We saw at the beginning of chapter 10 how Jesus had sent his 72 disciples out to all the places where he himself would visit. Today we see them returning full of joy and satisfaction:

Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!

They discovered that, in his name, they were able to do the same things that Jesus did.

In reply, Jesus said to them:

I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.

The power of evil is being reversed and this was partly the doing of his disciples working in his name. And he further reassures them:

I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you.

‘Snakes and scorpions’ more likely represent evil powers and so the statement is not to be taken literally and still less to be tested (as some obscure sects have tried to do with predictably tragic consequences!). It is true that for the committed disciple nothing can really hurt them. Physically, maybe, but not their real selves. Nothing, as Paul says, can separate us from the love of God, that is, the love that God extends to us at every moment of every day.

Then Jesus tells his disciples the real reason why they should be happy. It is not because they have special powers over evil spirits, but rather:

…rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

In other words, their blessedness comes not from what they are able to do, but because they have been chosen as the instruments for God to do his work, to make the Kingdom a reality. That is the origin of our blessedness too.

Then follows a beautiful prayer of Jesus to the Father. He thanks the Father because all that is coming into the world through Jesus is being made known, not to the wise and great ones of this world, but to “the little ones”, the people who, in the eyes of the majority, are of no account:

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

And, since that day on the lake shore when Jesus called four fishermen to be his followers, he has been calling very ordinary people to know his identity, to hear his message and share his vision.

And so he can say truly to them:

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

All of this applies to so many of us too. We, for reasons only known to God himself, have been given knowledge of the Son. We too, by means of the Church, have been given a vision denied to so many—we have heard the Word which is the Way to truth and life.

Whatever problems we may be facing right now, let us on this day count our blessings and express our gratitude for them. And the only way to do that is to say ‘Yes’ to Jesus and his gospel. Let us start doing that right now.

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Commentary on Luke 14:15-24

Today we have the last of four teachings of Jesus linked with meals. It was prompted by the remark of a guest at table who said:

Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!

It was very common to associate the future Messianic Kingdom with a banquet. Jesus responds with a parable which is a warning to his complacent listeners, many of whom probably smugly presumed that they would be among the small minority chosen to eat in the Kingdom.

A man threw a large dinner party with many guests invited. But when the time came and the guests were reminded, one after another they gave excuses why they were not able to come. One had just bought a piece of land and had to inspect it; another had just bought some oxen and had to try them out; a third had just been married.

It seems that the original invitation had been accepted, but when the final invitation came, excuses were made. In fact, none of the excuses has much validity. One would not buy a field and only then look at it, nor would one buy oxen without having tried them out before the purchase.

On hearing this, the master got very angry and ordered his servants to:

Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.

After this, the servants reported that there was still room, so they were given orders to scour the roads and bring in as many as they could find. Said the host:

Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.

The parable is a clear message from Jesus to his Jewish listeners. Many of them, especially the religious leaders steeped in complacency and presumption, had rejected the invitation to follow Jesus and enter the Kingdom. Some of them would actually conspire to bring about his death. Their place would be given to those formerly seen as outcasts, both Jews and Gentiles, people aware of their needs, i.e. the “poor in spirit”. There would be a special place for the poor and the disabled, people often seen by traditional Jews as people abandoned by God and buried in sin.

To go back to the beginning of the passage, blessed indeed are those who eat together in the Kingdom, but it is clear that only those who respond to the invitation will enjoy the privilege.

We have no more right to presumption than those Jews who rejected Christ. We too are being invited to go into the Lord’s banquet hall, but it is important that we respond to the call. We do that by our totally accepting and living out the teaching of Jesus our Lord. And part of that teaching is that we, too, invite and welcome into our community those who are poor, crippled (in some way), the blind and the lame—taking these words in their broadest sense. No more than those fellow diners of Jesus, our presence at the Kingdom banquet is never to be taken for granted.

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Commentary on Galatians 4:22-24,26-27,31—5:1

Today’s passage actually begins with a verse not in our reading:

Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law? (Gal 4:21)

By this Paul is invoking the witness of the Scriptures. To inherit the promise, it is not enough to be just a descendant of Abraham, as Ishmael (Abraham’s son by Hagar) was. It is necessary to be descended as the result of promise, like Isaac; it is necessary to be a spiritual descendant, not just a genealogical one. Hence for Paul, Isaac’s birth prefigures the rebirth of Christians.

Paul uses the examples of two of Abraham’s wives, Hagar and Sarah, to illustrate the difference between the Jews who were following the Law of Moses and Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, who follow the law of Christ.

Hagar was a slave woman while Sarah was a free woman and the wife of Abraham. In the beginning Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was barren, so he took the slave girl, Hagar, who gave him a son, Ishmael. It was only later, when she was already past child-bearing age that Sarah bore Isaac. The difference between them, according to Paul, is that Ishmael was born “according to the flesh”, that is, in the ordinary course of nature and without any special intervention on God’s part.

Sarah, however, had been barren into her old age, and the child she eventually bore was the result of a special promise that God had made to Abraham about his descendants. That promise only applied to Isaac and his descendants. (Hence, the significance of Abraham’s total trust in God when he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, and was ready to do so.)

The point Paul is making is that it is not enough to be descended from Abraham, as Ishmael and many Jews could claim. He sees in the two mothers symbols of the two covenants:

One woman…is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.

Paul refers to it as an “allegory”, not in the sense that it was not historical, but that Paul is using the story to illustrate the theological truth he is sharing with the Galatians.

The first covenant Paul identifies was that made on Mount Sinai between God and Moses. But Paul says, its children (the “present Jerusalem”) are now to be regarded as slaves, slaves of a Law that cannot save them. This is in contrast with the messianic Jerusalem, to which, as Isaiah foretold, “all the nations shall stream…” (Is 2:2). This is the Jerusalem which the prophets proclaimed—a Jerusalem not of laws, rituals and holocausts, but a Jerusalem which created a society of truth and justice for all.

The second covenant, however, belongs to this second Jerusalem, what Paul calls the “Jerusalem above”. The rabbis taught that the “Jerusalem above” would come down during the time of the Messiah. It is, in Paul’s eyes, the place where Christ reigns as King and whose citizens are his followers, in contrast to the “present Jerusalem”. It is this “Jerusalem above” which is the “mother” of the Christians.

Paul quotes from Isaiah’s joyful promise to Jerusalem:

Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children…

Jerusalem “bears no children” because her children are in exile. Paul applies Isaiah’s joyful promise to exiled Jerusalem to the gathering of believers through the gospel, by which ‘Jerusalem’s children’ have become many.

Paul tells the Galatian Christians—both Jews and Gentiles—that they are children not of the “enslaved woman” (of the Law), but of the “free woman” (the Spirit of Jesus). There is no need for them to continue following the old ways of the Law. To do so is to renounce the freedom which came to them in Christ.

The purpose of Christ’s liberating death was precisely to make us free. To go back under the Law would be to return to a way that is equivalent to a form of slavery. Human beings must choose either Christ or the Law as author of salvation. The freedom spoken of here is freedom from the yoke of the Law. The burden of the rigorous demands of the Law as the means of gaining God’s favour makes an intolerable burden for sinful man. As Peter said at the Council of Jerusalem when the acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian community was being debated:

…why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we [the Jews] will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:10-11)

It is important for us Christians to be aware that following Christ and the gospel is meant to bring real freedom into our lives. If we do not experience our being Christian as liberating, then there is something lacking in our understanding of what the gospel is about. One gets the impression that many Catholics do not have any real sense of liberation, although their faith may give them a measure of security—at a price. They have replaced the Law of Sinai for another set of legalities (“If I do this, is it a sin?”). It has to be said, too, that some pastors have preached a gospel heavy with rules and regulations and threats of sin and damnation.

Some see being a Christian as a matter of having to observe all kinds of restrictions which ‘other people’ are not obliged to follow. Some have been heard to say things like, “Oh, I wish I had not been baptised!”

For this reason, some remain riddled with guilt because they consistently feel they are not living up to the requirements of their religion. Others rid themselves of this guilt by leaving the Church altogether, saying: “Now that I am no longer a Catholic, I am not bound by that nonsense any more; I don’t have to go to church on Sunday; I can have sex with anyone I like, whenever I like” and so forth.

Others see virtue in ‘denying themselves’ and ‘making sacrifices’, giving up the ‘freedom’ that other people seem to have in order ‘to save their souls and go to heaven’.

There is no question of doubting the sincerity of such people, but it is sad that somehow they have not learnt or been taught that the true Christian is a truly liberated and free person. To be free is not simply doing just what one feels like doing. Such an attitude inevitably leads to self-destruction and certainly not to happiness and fulfilment. To be free is to be effectively able to follow the good.

That good we believe is found in the vision of life that Jesus proposes and which he personally followed. It is not a way just for Christians; it is a way for people everywhere. It is the vision of the Kingdom—a world of truth and goodness and justice and mutual respect for all, without exception—a Way that leads to God. A world where God, people and the world are living in a beneficially harmonious relationship.

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Commentary on Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 and Matthew 5:38-48 Read Sunday of Week 7 of Ordinary Time (Year A) »

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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 Zephaniah 3:9-10,14-18a; Ps 85; Matt 28:16-20

Read Saint Francis Xavier – Readings NO LONGER USED »

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Commentary on Matthew 6:7-15

Jesus tells us here not to babble endless prayers as if somehow by so doing we can bring God round to our way of thinking (see also Elijah and the priests of Baal: 1 Kgs 18:25-29). Some religious groups, too, would keep calling their god by all his different names, hoping that by hitting on the right one he would listen. There is no need to do this because God knows our needs before we ask. Why then do we need to pray at all?

The praying is not for God’s sake, but for our own. It is important for us to become deeply aware of our needs, of our basic helplessness, and of our total dependence on God. We also need to discern just what God wants of us so that we can do what he wants.

And that is what the Lord’s Prayer is about. Strictly speaking, it is not a prayer to be recited. It is a way of praying; it is a list of the things we need to pray about. And it is less our telling God what we want him to do than making ourselves aware of the ways by which we can become more united with him. It is a very challenging prayer and, in a way, a very dangerous and daring prayer to make.

Our Father…
God is the source of all our life and all we have and are. And, if Jesus urges us to approach God as “Our Father”*, then every single person, each one without exception, is my brother or sister.

May your name be revered as holy…may your kingdom come…may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…
The three petitions are all really saying the same thing. Obviously, in one sense we cannot make God’s name more holy than it is. But we do need to respect that awesome holiness, and that is more for our sake than God’s. The petition can also be a petition that God make his name holy by showing his glory, in this case by bringing about the Kingdom in its fullness.

We want God to be loved and respected and worshipped by all—not in some future life, but here and now on earth. We want the loving and compassionate Reign of God to be fully accepted by people everywhere as part of their lives, individually and corporately. We want God’s will for this world to be also the will of people everywhere.

Clearly, all this has to begin with ourselves. The coming of the Kingdom is not just the work of God alone; it is the result of our cooperating with him in the work. What am I doing in my life now for the realisation of that Kingdom?

Give us today our daily bread…
This is a prayer that our needs be satisfied for today, a prayer that rules out excessive anxiety about the future. But how are those needs to be satisfied? Do we expect manna to drop from the skies? And what about that little word ‘our’ again? Does it just mean me, my family, our community, our town, our country—or much more? Is this not a prayer that we all work together to ensure that no one goes hungry? Yet we know that millions do go to bed hungry every night and even more suffer from an unhealthy diet. And we recognize that most of it is the result of human behaviour and neglect. This prayer reminds us that changing that situation is the responsibility of all of us—this is another dangerous prayer.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors…
Yet again, we have a dangerous thing to pray for. I really should not say it unless I am ready to do it. And if I am not ready, I need to pray hard for a forgiving heart. This is the only petition which is spelled out more clearly at the end of today’s Gospel passage:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you…
(also see Matt 18:21-35 about the unforgiving servant)

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one…
A final plea that we will not fail, but that God’s help will be with us all the way. It is an admission of our basic impotence to set things right in our own lives and in the world. Given the challenges of the rest of the prayer, we need all the help we can get.

If this prayer were to really enter our hearts and minds, we would become deeply transformed people. So let us stop babbling it as we often do and really pray it, phrase by phrase—and let us live it as well.

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*As discussed in the Catechism, “God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 239)

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Commentary on Romans 9:1-5

In today’s reading, Paul now moves on to a theme which causes him great pain, namely, the rejection of Jesus as Messiah by the vast majority of his fellow-Jews.

We hear people making a wholesale condemnation of the Jewish people for their rejection of Christianity, but here as in most situations, generalisations are highly inaccurate. Jesus himself and his mother were Jews. All of Jesus’ early disciples were Jews, as were all of the first converts. Even after Gentiles began to be baptised, there were still Jews becoming Christians. However, the majority were not ready to accept Jesus as the expected Messiah and, in addition, they acted in some places very strongly against the Christians, whom they saw as renegade or heretical Jews.

Speaking of his own people Paul says that:

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

And he emphasises that these are not just empty words when he says:

…I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit…

Perhaps some felt he was not sincere because elsewhere he has been extremely critical of the attitude and behaviour of some Jews—both Christians and non-Christians.

But he feels so strongly for the spiritual future of his people that he is ready to be cut off entirely from Christ if this would benefit the brothers and sisters who are his own flesh and blood. Literally, he is willing to be “accursed”—an anathema—to be someone condemned and put under a ban of exclusion. And we know how intense Paul’s feelings were for Christ when he says:

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

In his letter to the Philippians his love for Christ is so great that he does not know whether he wants to live or die. In death, he would be with his beloved Christ forever; in life, he could continue his work of helping others to know the Christ he knows and loves (see Phil 1:18).

The “brothers and sisters” who are his “own flesh and blood” are his fellow-Jews, the actual descendants of Jacob (who was also called ‘Israel’). The name ‘Israel’ was then used of the entire nation, and later of the Northern Kingdom alone after the nation was divided, with the Southern Kingdom being called Judah.

During the period preceding and later in New Testament times, Palestinian Jews used the title to indicate that they were the chosen people of God. Its use here is especially relevant because Paul is about to show that, despite Israel’s unbelief and disobedience, God’s promises to her are still valid:

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship [of God], and the promises…

Emanating from this ancestral link, Paul lists all the privileges that came with it: their adoption as God’s children, the glory of God at times clearly evident among his people, the covenants with Abraham, with Jacob-Israel, with Moses, the worship of the one true God, the Law which expresses God’s will, the messianic promises and, finally, their physical relationship with Christ, a son of David. They have a very special place in God’s plan and it is no wonder that Paul grieves over their rejection of Jesus.

…to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

From the Jews came the great patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his twelve sons, after whom the tribes of Israel are named. But above all, it is from them that Christ is physically descended in his humanity. Jesus was a Jew born of a Jewish mother. All his family were Jews and he spent his whole life, with only one or two very brief exceptions, immersed in Jewish society. He went to the Temple and attended the synagogue. At the same time, Paul reminds us that Christ above all shares God’s divine nature in one of the clearest statements of the divinity of Jesus found in the entire New Testament.

Speaking of Christ’s origins and his relationship with the Father arising from the last sentence in the reading, the Jerusalem Bible comments:

Both the context and the internal development of the sentence imply that this doxology is addressed to Christ. Paul rarely gives Jesus the title ‘God’, though cf. Tit 2:13, or addresses a doxology to him, cf. Heb 13:21, but this is because he usually keeps this title for the Father and considers the divine persons not so much with an abstract appreciation of their nature as with a concrete appreciation of their functions in the process of salvation. Moreover, he has always in mind the historical Christ in his concrete reality as God made man. For this reason he presents Christ as subordinated to the Father, not only in the work of creation, but also in that of eschatological renewal. Nevertheless, the title ‘Lord’, Kyrios, received by Christ at his resurrection, is the title given by the Septuagint [the Greek translation of the Old Testament] to Yahweh in the Old Testament. For Paul, Jesus is essentially ‘the Son of God’, his ‘own Son’, ‘the son of his love’, who belongs to the sphere of the divine by right, the sphere from which he came, being sent by God. The title ‘Son of God’ became his in a new way with the resurrection, but it was not then he received it since he pre-existed not only as prefigured in the Old Testament, but ontologically. He is the Wisdom, and the Image, by which and in which all things were created, and have been re-created, because into his own person is gathered the fullness of the godhead and of the universe. In him God has devised the whole plan of salvation, and he, no less than the Father, is its accomplishment. As the Father raises to life and judges, so does the Son raise to life and judge. In short, he is one of the three Persons enumerated in the Trinitarian formulae. (edited, text references omitted)

This Jewish tradition of which Paul speaks is a tradition which we Christians acknowledge and recognise by our constant reading of the Old Testament. In fact, we cannot fully understand Christ and the New Testament without making the Old Testament part of our tradition.

Jesus, as Matthew points out again and again, was not a turning away from Judaism, but its fulfilment. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
(Matt 5:17)

While we regret that many Jews still distance themselves from our faith—often, it must be emphasised, in good conscience—we must never contribute in any way to the hatred or discrimination that has been directed towards them over the centuries, not least by many who called themselves Christians, leading ultimately to the horrors of the Holocaust.

There can be no doubt that many Jews are very close to God. They are our brothers and sisters and both communities should do all they can to come closer together and share their common heritage.

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Commentary on Mark 12:1-12

This will be our last week of readings from Mark’s Gospel. We are now in chapter 12 and fast approaching the climax of Jesus’ life and mission. This chapter is marked by a growing conflict between Jesus and the religious and political leaders of his own people. The chapter begins today with a parable (or, more accurately, allegory) directed towards that leadership. Its meaning was very clear to those who heard it.

It tells the story of a man who planted a vineyard, fitted it out with all that was necessary and then let it out to tenants to cultivate. It is clear that the owner is God, the vineyard is Israel and the tenants the people of Israel. The words of Jesus echo very closely a similar image in a poem by the prophet Isaiah:

I will sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.

In Isaiah’s image the vines only produce sour grapes.

In Jesus’ story there are evidently good harvests. The problem arises when the owner sends his servants to collect what belongs to him of the harvests. One after the other, the servants are driven away, beaten up or even killed. It is a clear reference to the way that God’s people treated the many prophets which God had sent to them.

In exasperation, the owner decides to send his only son, expecting that they will at least respect him. But no, the tenants argue that by killing the only heir, the vineyard will inevitably become their property. When the son (Jesus) arrives, they seize him, kill him and throw him out of the vineyard (a reference to Jesus being crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem).

Jesus then says:

What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

Jesus is rejected by the leaders and by many (but not all) of his own people. The Gentiles will be invited to take their place and will be more than happy to fill it.

The words Jesus quoted from Psalm 118 can apply either to himself or the Gentiles. Jesus, the rejected and crucified one, becomes the cornerstone. Or, the despised Gentiles become the recipients of God’s love and grace and the cornerstone of the new Christian communities.

Clearly, this story did nothing to endear Jesus to the leaders. They would have (as foretold by the story they had just heard) seized him, but they were afraid of the crowd (also Jews) who stood in awe of Jesus, his words and works.

This is one of those stories where we can be tempted to sit in judgement on those who rejected Jesus. But we are not reading it today for that purpose. Rather we are being asked whether we are listening to the word of God as it comes to us in the various people that God sends into our lives. How much better are we than the scribes and Pharisees? How often do we rationalise ourselves out of doing what God clearly wants us to do? What welcome do we give to God’s messengers? Do we even recognise them when they come? Maybe today—right now—would be a good time to listen more carefully than we normally do.