Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary time

Dear All, Reflecting on this week’s Gospel according to Mark, I am reminded of the story about a thief who late one night hounded a priest: “Your money or your life!” When he saw the priest’s collar he told him to put his wallet away. The relieved priest lit a cigarette and offered one to his would-be mugger. “Not thanks, Father. I have given up cigarettes for Lent”, he proudly responded. At the times of Jesus it must have been common for people missing on the sins from within, while being utmost pristine in following ritual and purity laws… missing the forest because of the trees. Looks like the problem had been observed some 800 hundred years before, in Jesus’ quoting Isaiah’s reference to lip service from people, worshiping in vain. Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees that they are hypocrites when they are more concerned about the ritual law than the reason for the law. The problem has not gotten much visible improvement to this day. Some famous quotes from the last 50 years, like “The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.", “Psychology advises us to resist our feelings of guilt. Sociology instructs us to lay all blame on society and think of ourselves as victims”, remind us of the danger of thinking God takes our sins lightly because we take them lightly. Jesus recaps for us that “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly” “come from within and they defile”, dishonor and violate. Examination of conscience is not a bizarre design by old nuns for children, but an ancient practice that comes from the pagan world, passed on to the Jews and borrowed by Christianity. It also exists in other traditions and believes. I am personally impressed by a powerful examination of conscience worked up by the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi: a list of seven deadly sins. They are: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, commerce without

morality, science without humility, worship without sacrifice, knowledge without character, and politics without principle. In the First Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses give his people clear instructions to follow the Lord’s commandments once they enter the promised land. To the point that he announces that it will raise the standing of the people in the world they were living, because of such high standards. The Israelites are happy because the Law allows them to follow their God. The ancient Hebrews always felt that the Law was a blessing, a personal guide from the Almighty. As we begin to read the Letter of James, after seven weeks of Second Readings from the Letter to the Ephesians, he too reminds us that God is the source of every good gift. We will read from James for the next five Sundays and learn from one of the five “catholic” epistles. Catholic not as Roman Catholic, but as universal in scope, intended to impact not just one particular local community, as with the Pauline letters (Ephesians, Romans, Corinthians, etc.), but addressed to Christians living outside of Palestine (“to the twelve tribes in dispersion” says the first verse of James’ letter). The Father’s gifts go as far as enabling our re-creation, for the salvation that is offered to those who are born again of the truth of God’s word. The intimacy of God’s word is emphasized in the stunning image of the word planted deep within us that will grow and transform us… with clear recommendation about doing as opposed to only hearing the word. The complete text of the readings at http://scriptures-my-journey-oflife-andfaith.blogspot.com/2009/08/twenty-second-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html With God’s Love and Blessings, Rainer

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Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All, We are coming to the end of the five weeks reading from John’s Gospel with the last three Sundays on the discourse about the bread of life, the Eucharist. The followers at the time of Jesus were utterly confused. “This saying is hard, who can accept it?” is also something that to this day is quite widespread. Many, who had followed Jesus since the feeding of the five thousand on five loaves of bread and two fish, now give up on him and leave. It comes down to pure faith to stay with him, like Peter sums it up for all his followers at the time, and us today, “You have the word of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God”. Today we have the benefit of hindsight of what the Apostles learned at the last Supper, when Jesus took bread and wine and gave it to them to eat and drink as his body and blood. Before that, for many his discourse about his body and blood sounded more like an invitation to anthropophagy, which scared many of them. It remains a mystery, but we know it represent spiritual nourishment and involves the highest level of intimacy with Christ. The First Reading from the book of Joshua presents another challenge about faith to the Israelites. They had finally gotten to the Promised Land, after forty years of desert wandering. Moses had died a few steps before arrival and Joshua had take over from him the leadership of the people. He challenges them to decide between the one and true God or other deities, like the gods of the Amorites, inhabitants of the land they had just entered. In todays time the gods of ‘Amorites’ are many, like money, excess in accumulating stuff, consumerism, etc.

Where am I on this? With Joshua, who professes for himself and his household to be with the God, who freed his ancestors from slavery? The First Reading concludes with a profession of faith of the people of Israel, “Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God”. The Second Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians is one of three places in the New Testament where household codes are documented. Codes were quite common in Greco-Roman Literature of the first century. This passage has been basis for many chauvinistic views about the relationship of husband and wife. Yet one can only fall into that pitfall by ignoring two key phrases. The first is right at the beginning, “Be subordinate to one another”, with emphasis on one another. This means reciprocal and not unidirectional. The second is when Paul compares the subordination of wives to husbands with the subordination of the church to Christ, with specific attention to Christ. For example at the Last Supper when Peter had to subordinate to Christ accepting the washing of his feet by the Lord. Christ is a very unique leader, in the sense that he serves the ones he leads. If we read this passage with those two ideas in mind, we come much closer to what remains a great mystery, like it is described in the concluding sentence. The complete text of the readings at http://scriptures-my-journey-oflife-andfaith.blogspot.com/2009/08/twenty-first-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html With God’s Love and Blessings, Rainer

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Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All, This week’s readings invite to two banquets. The first comes from the Wisdom tradition of ancient Israel in the First Reading from Proverbs. The proverbs are attributed to Solomon (son of David, reigned 971-931 BCE) author of ‘three thousand proverbs’. It is rooted in a classic form of Egyptian wisdom literature. Wisdom, personified as a woman, spreads out a sumptuous banquet inviting “whoever is simple…. who lacks understanding”. To me this means, ‘don’t overcomplicate it’, ‘the less you know the more you are welcomed’ to this meal of dressed meat and mixed wine, which are insight and understanding. ‘Lady Wisdom’ seeks those who are not wise so she can offer the riches of wisdom that she possesses. The second banquet is an invitation from Jesus to the bread which is clearly Eucharistic. Chapter 6 of the Gospel according to John, from which we read during these five weeks, is about sustenance. It is about eating. It is about nourishment. The Eucharist is not about eating like we normally eat. Normally, when we eat, we assimilate the food. Our body breaks down the food, takes the nutrients it needs, and feeds our cell system. In a sense, the food becomes part of us. Eating is about what we do with the food. We assimilate the food. But that is not what happens when we receive the Eucharist. When we receive the Eucharist, we don’t assimilate the food, the Food sort of assimilates us. Jesus transforms us. Instead of the food taking on our life, we take on the life of the Lord. We read in this week’s

Gospel: “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” To us this means to follow Jesus with the reward of eternity (=”life forever” in a spiritual sense). The wisdom theme is also found in the Second Reading, where the Ephesians and we are warned against foolish living. The admonition is startling: “because the days are evil”. Some of the evils we are warned about in this letter are still with us like drunkenness and corruption, dishonesty (=”debauchery”). Other forms of evil, like arrogance that presumes that our point of view is the only legitimate one, may it be in matters of religion or culture or political partisanship; corporate greed; glorification of violence; etc. would get Paul going to say “the days are evil”. Despite the invitation to all to be enriched at the Woman’s Wisdom’s table and to be transformed by the body and blood of Christ, we often procrastinate and choose to stay comfortable in the lives we have fashioned for ourselves and shy away from reform or renewal. Yet we are all kindly invited to … the banquet that leads to life forever. The complete text of the readings at http://scriptures-my-journey-oflife-andfaith.blogspot.com/2009/08/twentieth-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html With God’s Love and Blessings, Rainer

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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All, The prophet Elijah suffers severe depression about 2,900 years ago. And some of us thought that Freud ‘invented’ depression by studying and describing it in the early 20th century? The bestselling Brazilian author Paulo Coelho wrote a novel about a passage from the First Book of Kings, our First Reading this week, The Fifth Mountain. There are inevitable moments of misfortune which interrupt our lives, when it looks like the world has conspired against us. The Story of Elijah can be a lesson of hope for us today. In despair Elijah asked God to take his life. Despite his loss of faith, God sent an angel to comfort him and provide food and drink. To his credit, Elijah, responded positively, not however, before he had given up. For the times, in our day and age that I may feel despair, this First Reading is reassuring that even after giving up, God is there for me and it is up to me at any time to get up and get going and move forward. Opening up the lines of communication, even if it is by angry faith, are the first step on the journey out of self-pity. Elijah first gets food and rest and then moves on to Mount Horeb, which is the northern name for Mount Sinai, the place of sacred revelation to his ancestors, the mountain where God revealed himself to Moses and gave him de wisdom of the Torah (the Law) with witch to nourish Israel. So often we need the touch of another ‘angel’ in our wilderness moments, those times of grief, of real and perceived misunderstanding or those tragic days of disillusionment with ourselves and our world. The phone call, the visit, the e-mail, the invitation to a cup of coffee are simple ‘touches’ and can help us rise and continue in our life’s journey. This last realization invites me to reflect not only on the times when I am in the slump, but the times that I may play the role of such an ‘angel’ to someone else. The Second Reading from the Letter the Ephesians reminds us that Christian life has ethical implications. Taken from the section of the letter

that deals with the Christian and non-Christian behaviors, Paul instructs his followers in Ephesus and all of us not to disappoint the Holy Spirit, with whom one was sealed at baptism, by refraining from acting on the list of vices (“bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling” “along with all malice”). The opposite conduct, living the virtues of kindness, compassion and forgiveness testifies to a life lived in the Spirit of Christ, called for in our Baptism. Ultimately, Christian ethical conduct cannot be separated from one’s relationship with God, as we are to “be imitators of God”. The religious leaders in this week’s Gospel according to John are foolishly certain that they know all about Jesus because they know his parents. They have closed the ears of their hearts and are not ready for a surprising God who can be present in the prosaic and ordinary. It takes faith to see what is going on here, and faith comes only by the grace of God, as Jesus said, “… it is written by the prophets: They shall all be taught by God”. The price is pretty lofty, when we hear Jesus’ promise: “whoever believes has eternal life” In closing a story I once read about a question asked at the last meeting before a person was received into the church: “What was the hardest thing to accept? Was it the Eucharist?” The answer was inspiring to me: “By no means, that was easy. If religion never asked to believe something beyond comprehension, I’d figure it was just something people made up. But this is the kind of challenge that I would expect from God”. Now, if you haven’t already, go and read the ten verses of John’s Gospel passage for this week. As always you can find the complete text of the readings at http://scriptures-my-journey-oflife-andfaith.blogspot.com/2009/08/nineteenth-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html With God’s Love and Blessings, Rainer

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All, During this second week of a five week pause from the Gospel according to Mark we read from a series of passages from the Bread of Life discourse from John. Holding the delicate balance between our responsibility to care for others (and ourselves) and our humble acknowledgement of our dependence on God is an ever present challenge. To admit dependence on anyone, even God, is particularly difficult for those of us who have the strength and ability to be self-sufficient, bringing about the risk to forget that our ultimate sustenance comes from God. Prior to this week’s passage in John’s Gospel are two miracle stories: the multiplication of bread and fish, which we read last week and Jesus’ walking on water. They are preludes to the teachings about our fundamental beliefs about Jesus, the Eucharist and eternal life. The First Reading this week, from the Book of Exodus, which is the second of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible – Old Testament – called Torah (meaning instruction or learning in Hebrew) or Pentateuch (penta = five in Greek). Exodus tells the story of the Israelites in Egypt, their departure (thus exodus), their journey to Sinai, the covenant with the Lord at the holy mountain and the building of a tent as place for the Ark of the Covenant. This week’s section recounts a fascinating event about ‘bread from heaven’. After being freed by God from the Egyptian captivity, the Israelites complain that they have no food. For those of us curious about the mechanics of certain miracles, trying to peek behind the scene, I found some interesting biological hypothesis about this manna (which in Hebrew means “what is it?”). It probably was not bread at all, nor did it come down from somewhere, but rather may have come off something. Most probably it was a substance secreted by the tamarisk tree that hardened as the morning dew evaporated and then deteriorated during the heat of the day. Yet the importance does not lie in figuring out how it came about, but its meaning. It came from God and it was only enough for the day reminding us to trust that God will always provide what we need. In this week’s Gospel passage, Jesus clarifies to us (and

to his disciples at the time) that it was not Moses that provided the bread, but rather Jesus’ Father giving it. The Gospel story is about the crowds searching (“… themselves got into boats and came …. looking) for Jesus” and basically posing three questions: 1) when did you get there?, 2 )what can we do to accomplish the works of God?, 3) what sign can you do, that we may believe in you? Jesus answers like a good teacher directing the crowds to new insights: 1) the Son of Man, sent by the Father, will provide imperishable food, 2) nothing needs to be done, except to believe that the food comes through God’s initiative, in order to receive it, 3) Jesus is the new Moses, through whom the Father provides the true bread of heaven. In the Second Reading, Paul insists that acceptance of Jesus as the real source of live and the very nourishment of our spirits effects a total transformation in us. Having been fed with the bread of heaven we are mysteriously transformed, renewing the spirits of our minds. All three readings remind us that those sustained by God have not earned such a blessing through their own merit. On the contrary, like the Israelites got manna, the ‘bread from heaven’ even after they murmured against God, so we are promised by Jesus the true bread of eternal life. We can see that God’s generosity is not dependant on our virtue, rather it comes from God’s goodness. The complete text of the readings can be found at http://scriptures-my-journey-oflife-andfaith.blogspot.com/2009/08/eighteenth-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html With God’s Love and Blessings, Rainer P.S. Please join us in prayer for complete and speedy healing of one of our fellows on the journey, Alina, who had surgery this week.