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Commentary on John 8:31-42

Contentious dialogue between Jesus and the Jews continues in today’s Gospel reading. There are some sayings here which we would do well to reflect on deeply.

If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

The Pharisees take umbrage at that statement. As descendants of Abraham, they were never slaves to anyone. But in fact, in the long history of their people, the Jews were almost continuously enslaved by invading powers. However, the slavery Jesus speaks about is the slavery of sin.

In responding to Jesus’ words, how many of us who want to be disciples of Christ have truly made his word our ‘home’? How many of us have to admit that we are not really very familiar with Jesus’ word in the New Testament? Yet we cannot truly follow him unless we are steeped in that word.

As well, how many of us really believe that the truth about life, communicated to us through Jesus, makes us genuinely free? How many of us experience our commitment to Christianity as a liberation? How many have left the Church because they felt suffocated and wanted to be free?

What freedom were they looking for? For many, being a Christian is sacrificing freedom in exchange for a promise of a future existence of pure happiness. We can say with confidence that, if we do not find being a Christian a liberating experience here and now, we do not really understand the true nature of our Christian faith. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says:

If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God, and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me.

To know Jesus, to love Jesus and to follow Jesus is the way to God, and it is in God, and only in God, that we will find true happiness, freedom and peace. But the only way to know the truth of that statement is to experience it personally.

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Commentary on Daniel 3:14-20,24-25,28

Today’s First Reading helps us to see that our lives find their centre in God; all else takes second place. The verses come from a different section of a passage we already saw on Tuesday of the 3rd week in Lent.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had built a golden statue and commanded all his subjects to bow down in adoration before it as a test of loyalty (this is not unlike the requirement that early Christians had to bow down before an image of the Roman emperor as a sign of abandoning their faith in Christ as Lord). Three young Jewish men in the service of the royal court, and who were particular favourites of the king for their outstanding qualities, refuse to worship the statue. They prefer death rather than turn their back on their God.

In his anger, the king threatens to have them thrown into a white-hot furnace from which no god will save them. The young men calmly reply that either their God will save them, because he can, or, even if he does not, they will still remain steadfast in their trust of God. The king, now even more angry, has them thrown into a furnace which has been made seven times hotter.

Later, when he makes enquiries, the king finds that the three young men, now in the company of a fourth (recognized by the king as an angel), are walking around unscathed in the fire. The pagan king is deeply moved by what he sees. First, he is filled with admiration for the God that delivered them from certain death and, second, he deeply respects the young men who disobeyed him and were ready to sacrifice their lives, rather than turn their back on their God. He exclaims:

Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him.

Today’s reading is linked with the Gospel in which Jesus speaks of those who are truly descendants of Abraham. If those attacking him were true descendants, then they would recognise Jesus as truly the Son of God. As it is, they show they are not true descendants.

Reflecting on the First Reading I might ask: What are the idols in my life? Is there anything in my life which I would find very difficult to sacrifice if God asked me to give it up? Is there any thing or any person in my life which comes between God and me?

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Commentary on John 8:21-30

Listening to Jesus, the Pharisees must have thought he was speaking in riddles. This was largely due to their own preconceived ideas about him. They take every statement he makes literally (they are the original Fundamentalists) and miss the symbolism. Basically, their problem is, as Jesus points out, that they:

…are from below…you are from this world, I am not from this world.

John uses the word ‘world’ in two senses. In one meaning, he simply is referring to the world that God created with all its variety. Later, he will tell his disciples that, if they want to communicate his message effectively, they will have to be fully inserted in that world, like the leaven in the dough. Separating themselves from that world will not do much for the building of the Kingdom on earth.

The second meaning of ‘world’ for John refers to everything around us which cannot be identified with God or Jesus. It is that part of our environment which speaks and acts in a way that is contrary to the Spirit of Jesus and the vision of Jesus for the world. Jesus does not identify himself with that world, nor does he want any of his disciples to identify with it either. Their mission is to change it, to shine his Light on it.

Twice in today’s passage Jesus says of himself “I AM”, an expression we saw yesterday and which was used directly of God himself.

When they “have lifted up the Son of Man”, then they will know who Jesus really is, and that everything that Jesus has said and done comes from God himself because, as he will say later:

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

“Lifted up” not only refers to Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross, but also includes the glorification of Jesus, his lifting up to sit at the Father’s right hand. For John, the cross is Jesus’ moment of glory, the triumphant climax of his mission. And because of these words, we are told, “many” came to believe in him, but most of the Pharisees were not among them.

This is a time for us also to examine our allegiance to Christ and what he means for us in our lives. Is our following of him truly a healing and liberating experience, not only for ourselves, but for others as well?

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Commentary on Numbers 21:4-9

Today, we see the Israelites on their long journey through the desert to the Promised Land. They are quite near their final goal. In their way stood the territory of Edom. In spite of requests to pass through without causing any trouble, they are turned down.

Moses, however, was determined not to engage Edom in battle, and the people became impatient with him and also with God for the direction in which they were being taken. They were full of confidence, having just won a victory over Arad, a territory lying between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. They forgot that their victory over Arad had been granted by the Lord in response to a solemn pledge to put a curse on the towns they attacked. But now they have forgotten what they had done with God’s help and were ready to rebel again.

As they make their way to the Sea of Suph, that is, towards the Gulf of Aqaba (at the southern tip of modern Israel) and skirt around Edom, they begin grumbling against God and Moses. They are finding life hard and wish they had never left the slavery of Egypt, which now seems better than what they are presently going through.

The focus of their complaints today is especially against the manna, the food that God provided them six days a week:

Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest “this miserable food”.

Their impatience leads them to blaspheme against Yahweh, to reject Moses and despise the “bread from heaven” (the manna). This was more serious than it might appear. By rejecting the food God was sending to them in abundance, they were rejecting God himself.

Their complaining about the tastelessness of the food represents a kind of tastelessness of their own, their ingratitude to God who fed them in the desert and prevented them from dying of hunger. Like the Israelites, thanksgiving to God for his blessings to us is often one of the prayers we make least often.

It is then that God sends a plague of poisonous serpents which kill many people. In Hebrew, they are called “poisonous [fiery] serpents” (saraph), from the burning effect of their poisonous bite (the word seraphim comes from the same root).

The people see this as a punishment from God for their grumbling:

We have sinned by speaking against the Lord…

They beg Moses to intercede with God on their behalf. God tells Moses to mount a bronze serpent on a pole, and says that anyone who is bitten and looks at it will live. And so it happened.

The significance of this reading is clearly in its being a foreshadowing of Christ on the cross. Later on Jesus will say:

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (John 3:14-15)

The serpent only healed people of the bite of a snake. Later, we are told in the Second Book of Kings that Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent which Moses had made because it had become an object of idolatry.

The life that Jesus gives from the cross is of a totally different kind. And that is what we prepare to celebrate as we come to the end of the Lenten season.

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Commentary on Ezekiel 18:25-28; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32

Today we are presented with another challenge by Jesus to the religious leaders of the people. It consists of a parable about two sons whose father operates a vineyard. He tells one to go and work there. The lad refuses, but later changes his mind and goes. The second one is also told to go. He agrees to do so, but in the end he does not. Jesus asks:

Which of the two did the will of his father?

They all agree that it was the one who at first would not go, but later did so.

In case there was any doubt, Jesus then clearly spells out the meaning of his story. Tax collectors and prostitutes, perhaps the most despised of all people from the religious leaders’ point of view, were making their way into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and the elders. In their eyes, it was a shocking and dreadfully insulting thing to say. As proof of what he says, Jesus reminds them that they refused to believe John the Baptist who “came to you in the way of righteousness” when he called people to repentance. On the other hand, the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe. And, even after that, the priests and elders refused to do so. They were there watching, but felt that John’s words did not concern them.

Outrageous
In the eyes of the priests and elders, the idea that tax collectors and prostitutes should enter the kingdom before them was outrageous. The very idea that such evil and immoral people should take precedence over the religious leaders in God’s eyes would be totally unjust. It might have helped them to be reminded of what the prophet Ezekiel says in today’s First Reading:

…you say, the way of the Lord is unfair.

The Lord replies:

Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed, they shall die.

And the Lord also says:

…when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life.

Here Ezekiel is saying exactly the same thing as Jesus and it is something we all need to listen to carefully. It means, for instance, that a person who had lived a good life for a long time, but in the end turned bad would “die in his sin”. On the other hand, someone who had lived a very immoral life for a long time, but turned round and accepted God at the end would live.

Jesus is applying this, first of all, to his listeners. They and their ancestors had a long tradition of following God’s Law, but now, faced first with John the Baptist and then with Jesus, the Son of God, they refused to listen. On the other hand, Gentiles who had lived godless or idolatrous lives for generations are now turning to Jesus and opening themselves to his teaching and his healing power.

Again, as we have said elsewhere, it is not for us today to pass judgement on the religious and political leaders of Jesus’ own people. Rather, we have to see what this incident is saying to our own Christian lives here and now.

Two messages
There are two messages coming out loud and clear. On the one hand, we can never be complacent about our relationship with God. It is possible for any of us at any time to find ourselves falling away from our commitment to Jesus and to his Gospel. And God always accepts us where we are. If we are in union with him, things are well; if we have by our own choice become separated from him, he accepts that too. His love and his grace are always available, but they can be rejected and spurned – and we can “die in our sin”.

On the other hand, no matter how far we have strayed from God and Jesus in the Gospel, no matter how depraved we have become, it is never too late to turn back, and we can be absolutely sure that a warm, no-questions-asked welcome is waiting for us.

We remember the parables in Luke’s Gospel about the lost sheep and the lost (prodigal) son. It is the meaning of the dialogue between Jesus and Peter after the resurrection – “Do you love me…?” Three times Peter had, in pure fear, used oaths to deny he ever had any connection with Jesus. Now, repentant, chastened and humbled, he comes back. Not only is he forgiven, his mandate to lead the community remains intact. Peter’s repented sin, far from being a disqualification, will make him a far more understanding leader:

Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep”.

No punishment?
Is there no punishment for the sinner then? We can say that there is indeed. The sinner basically punishes himself. The punishment is built into the very sinfulness. This is what Ezekiel is saying today:

Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair?

It is not altogether uncommon to hear people complain that God is unfair to them. But God responds that a good person who violates his own integrity to do something evil dies in sin, precisely as a result of the evil he has done.

Our self-seeking, our hate, anger, aggression, violence, jealousy, resentments, our greed and avarice…all lead to isolation, loneliness, hostility with others and often to physical and mental stress and breakdowns. Sin, which is a refusal to respond to God loving us, brings its own inevitable punishment. Our sins often leave wounds which take a long time to heal. God does not need to punish us; we do that very well by our own choices.

Real source of sin
However, we need to identify where sin really lies. Sin is not just a violation of a rule or a law. It is a violation of our very nature. It is not just in the violation of certain rules and commandments. To be away from Sunday Mass is considered a sin? But why? Where is the sin? To act with violence, to steal, to fornicate, to lie, to be avaricious are regarded as sins. But why? Are they sins because the Church says they are? Because the priest in confession says they are? Because parents or other authority figures say they are? Because a list in a prayer book says they are?

Something is sinful because it is wrong, it is evil. Something is sinful because it denies love and respect for God and for the dignity, the rights and integrity of others. They are the sins not only of Catholics, but of anyone who does them. God, Truth and Love do not belong to any religion. And sin, as a violation of our needed relationship with God, Truth and Love, brings nothing but pain and loss. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Dialogue of the deaf
Today’s gospel is clearly directed at the religious and civil leaders of the people in Jesus’ time. They spoke much about God and, in particular, how God was to be served by a strict observance of the Law. But it is clear they did not have the spirit that Jesus was communicating through his life and teaching. The spirit of love, compassion, caring and forgiveness for the weak and vulnerable. They also heard the teaching of Jesus but made no effort to carry it out. They excused themselves by challenging Jesus’ legal authority to do what he was doing. Because Jesus did not fit into the parameters of their legal world, they could not classify him and they rejected him.

On the other hand:

…the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

They certainly were not keeping God’s Law. They had said No to his commandments many times. But then they met Jesus and they experienced a radical transformation (Greek, metanoia) in their lives. They listened and they responded.

The chief priests and the elders are like the second son in the story. They say ‘Yes’ to obeying God but they do not listen to Jesus, the Son of God, or follow his instructions. The sinners, the outcasts of both Jewish and Gentile society, are like the first son. They do not obey God’s commands, they commit many sins, but later they accept the teaching of Jesus and become his followers.

What about me?
What is clear from this Gospel and from the First Reading is that God is primarily concerned with my present relationship to him. As far as the past is concerned, God has a very short memory…in fact, we might say he has no memory at all! This is the “injustice” of God that Ezekiel mentions. We remember the man who was crucified with Jesus on Calvary. He was a major criminal, a brigand, a robber, perhaps a murderer. There, in the very last moments of a life of murder and mayhem, he asks pardon and forgiveness:

Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.

Jesus’ reply comes instantly, without any qualifications whatsoever:

Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
(Luke 23:42-43)

How unjust! How unfair! We are reminded of last week’s parable where the workers complained about the latecomers who were given a full wage.

However, it would not at all be a very good idea to think that I could live a life of total selfishness with the intention of making a last-minute deathbed conversion. Apart from the riskiness of such a gamble, such a decision would be quite short-sighted.

It is a totally false idea that to base one’s life on the Gospel is somehow to step outside the mainstream of human living and do something unnatural or ‘supernatural’. For believers and non-believers alike, this is probably the saddest misconception of all. On the contrary, it is the Gospel life vision that is totally human and totally in harmony with our deepest aspirations. If we want true fulfilment and happiness, it is this Way that has to be seized as soon as we become aware of it.

Emptying oneself
In the Second Reading we have the magnificent hymn about Jesus’ own spirit of service and selflessness. Paul says this in the context of a plea for greater unity in the Christian community at Philippi. In urging the Christians to serve each other’s needs with the deepest respect, he asks them to have the mind of Jesus himself, to think like he does. And he illustrates this by quoting what seems to have been an early Christian hymn. It speaks of the awesome dignity of Jesus as the Son of God. Yet Jesus did not emphasise this in his life among us. On the contrary he “emptied” himself and became just like us. He went further and took on the status of a slave and ultimately accepted human death, and the most shameful of all possible deaths, death as a convicted criminal on a cross, a barbaric form of execution.

If we were to be filled with that same spirit that Jesus had we would have nothing to fear. And what wonderful places our Christian communities would be: places of harmony and unity, of love and caring, of compassion and mutual support, of looking after each other’s needs. And, let us remember, it is never too late to start. Let’s begin today.

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Commentary on Luke 5:27-32

Jesus certainly made strange choices in his prospective followers. In our time, when we look for ‘vocations’, we tend to search among committed and well-balanced Christians. But in today’s Gospel we see Jesus picking someone who was regarded as an immoral money-grabber and a religious outcast.

Tax collectors were despised on two counts. First, they were seen as venal collaborators with the hated colonial ruler, the Romans, for whom they were working. Second, they were corrupt and extorted far more money than was their due.

But Jesus knows his man. At the sound of the invitation, Levi drops everything—his whole business and the security it brings him. It is very similar to the fishermen leaving their boats and their nets. He then goes off after Jesus. Where? For what? He has no idea. Like Peter and Andrew, James and John before him, in a great act of trust and faith, he throws in his lot with Jesus, whatever it is going to mean, wherever it is going to bring him. In Luke’s Gospel particularly, the following of Jesus involves total commitment.

Then, as his last fling so to speak, he throws a party in his house for all his friends, who of course were social rejects like himself. The religious-minded scribes and Pharisees were shocked at Jesus’ behaviour. They complained to the disciples:

Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus answers for them:

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

Jesus’ words can be read in two ways. On the one hand, there is no need to preach to the converted—which is what we do a lot of in our Christian churches. What is needed is to reach out to those who are lost, whose lives are going in the wrong direction, who are leading a self-destructive existence.

And surely that is what the Church needs to be about today. There is a lot of the Pharisee among us still. We are still shocked if we see a priest or a ‘good’ Catholic in ‘bad’ company and often jump to hasty and unjustified conclusions, and think or say “A priest (or sister) should not be seen in such company.” As a result the Church is, in many cases, very much confined to the churchgoers in society.

Jesus’ words can also be taken in a sarcastic sense. His critics regarded themselves as among the well and virtuous. In fact, they totally lacked the love and compassion of God reflected in Jesus. Their ‘virtue’ did not need Jesus because they were closed to him anyway. We remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple. It was the one who acknowledged himself as a sinner and wanted God’s mercy who won God’s favour.

We too need to be careful of sitting in judgment on others, taking the high moral ground and claiming to be shocked at certain people’s behaviour. Without exception, we are all in need of healing.

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Commentary on Isaiah 58:9-14

The Scripture lessons as we enter the Lenten season could hardly be clearer. Lent is not just a time for focusing on ourselves by giving up things and perhaps even feeling smug about it. It is a time to look beyond ourselves and to find God there.

Earlier in the passage we read today, Isaiah comments on complaints being made by people that, though they are fasting, God is not taking any notice. The reason, says Isaiah, is because while they are virtuously fasting, they continue to exploit their workers and get involved in fights and quarrels.

If we call on the Lord for help, he will hear us, but he does have expectations of us. We must be rid of any form of oppression, false accusations or malicious speech. We need to share our bread with the hungry and console the afflicted. When we do this:

…your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday…
you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water
whose waters never fail.

There is a further call to spend the Lord’s day in a more reverent manner. It is a time to refrain as far as possible from our daily concerns, and make it more a day for quiet reflection and a time to remember God’s gifts to us:

…then you shall take delight in the Lord…

Lent, then, is really a time for us to reflect on the meaning and direction of our lives and to consider what changes are necessary, not just at this time, but for the year ahead.

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Commentary on Matthew 9:14-15

The Gospel more than once contrasts the lifestyle of Jesus with that of John the Baptist. In today’s passage, we see the disciples of John the Baptist (John himself never questions anything that Jesus does) asking Jesus why they and the Pharisees fast regularly, but his disciples do not.

The reason Jesus gave was because it was not normal to fast when the bridegroom was still around. He is the Bridegroom and, as long as he was present, it was a time for celebration. Fasting is a sign of mourning and would be as inappropriate at this time of joy, when Jesus is proclaiming the Kingdom, as it would be at a marriage feast.

But there is more than that. Jesus, in his life, pointed his disciples to something deeper and more important than fasting, namely, reaching out in compassion to others, bringing joy, comfort and healing into people’s lives. Fasting can be very self-centred, as in the case of the Pharisees who projected the attitude: ‘See how holy I am!’ (as we saw in the Gospel on Ash Wednesday). Jesus expects more than that.

But Jesus does say that when the bridegroom is gone, when Jesus is no longer visibly present, his disciples will fast. At that time, it will be appropriate to fast as a sign of penance and purification. There is a place for penitential acts and even asceticism. The Church (and every other major religion) has recognised that over the centuries.

But it is the reaching out in caring love that is most important. Without that, fasting has no value.

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Commentary on Isaiah 58:1-9

Today we have a magnificent and, in many ways, a frightening passage from Isaiah. It points to where true religion is to be found.

We have here a wonderful prophetic call in the spirit of those great prophets who lived in the post-Exile period. The call is for an inward spirit to match outward observance. It is a call that pervades Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel, and is found touched on in today’s Gospel.

The prophet writes:

Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Big feasts and the beginning of fasts were proclaimed by a trumpet. At Mount Sinai, God’s voice is compared to a trumpet blast. Actually, only one day, the Day of Atonement, was prescribed for fasting, but there could be other days to commemorate some national disaster. Today our Ash Wednesday fills a similar role, a day when many of our churches are packed.

The people are asking God to come near. They are calling out for just laws. They want to have their fasting and their penances noticed by God. On the surface, they seem to be so religious, so pious and docile, but all the while they are neglecting to do what God really wants. They ask plaintively:

Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?

God, through the voice of his prophet Isaiah, gives them a powerful response, one they hardly expected. Instead of praise, they get condemnation.

Yes, they fast all right, but at the same time they “serve [their] own interest”. They do business on their holy days and oppress their workers. They fast, but at the same time quarrel and squabble and physically abuse the poor.

Is this what God wants? Is this real fasting and penance…looking miserable?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Is it all these very pious acts that God cherishes and wants?

The kind of fast that the Lord wants is something altogether different. Is it not:

…to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin…

These words were written thousands of years ago. Yet they still apply fully in our enlightened age. They contain a proclamation that will be repeated by Jesus both in his words and actions. It is by doing these things that we will really be in the spirit of Lent. It is a lot more than keeping the fast and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, or giving up things like sweets or smoking.

What is really important is to reach out in love and compassion to those in need, and to treat every single person with respect and dignity.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly…

What “healing”? It is the healing of the wound of our sinfulness, shown by our lack of love and sense of responsibility. It is the wound of our hypocrisy and false religion.

After doing all that, when we cry out to the Lord, he will answer:

Here I am.

Yes, he is with us when, in the midst of pain and misery, we reach out to him. He does not need for us to “lie in sackcloth and ashes”.

How do I think God sees me during this Lenten season? What am I doing in response to God’s call to come to the help of my brothers and sisters?

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Commentary on Luke 9:22-25

Like the First Reading today, the Gospel passage is also about death and life. It begins with Jesus foretelling what is going to happen to him. He will experience intense physical suffering, mental suffering through total rejection by the leaders of his own people, and a brutal execution. But all will lead to resurrection and a new life that can never be taken away.

Jesus goes on to say that anyone who wants to be one of his followers must be prepared to walk the same path, carrying their cross after Jesus. Perhaps we should emphasise that we are to carry our own cross, which will be different from the cross of Jesus and from that of other people. And Luke adds that it is something we must be prepared to do every day.

Of course, it is a call that goes against many of our normal instincts. Renouncing self goes against our desire to advance ourselves in the eyes of others. And who does not want to preserve their life? Self-preservation is a deep instinct. But self-preservation is not the same as self-advancement. Jesus is saying that a life spent focused only on ourselves and our own self-advancement is ultimately a recipe for self-destruction. We are bound to be disappointed.

The only way to live is, like Jesus, to offer our lives for the benefit of others in love, in caring, in solidarity, in compassion and in justice. This is the only way truly to find ourselves and to come out winners. What is the good of winning the whole world—becoming incredibly rich and famous—only to lose one’s integrity, one’s self-respect, one’s dignity as a person, and thereby to lose one’s happiness?

Our world—Christian and otherwise—is covered with statues and images of people who gave their lives for others and for causes and values greater than themselves. They are our heroes and our models.

And first among them is Jesus, dying in apparent failure and ignominy on the cross. We now see that cross as a victorious symbol of the greatest love that one can show for brothers and sisters.