Blessed are You who Trust in God, 100%!

6th Sunday of the Year – Cycle C – 17 February 2019

Readings: Jer 17:5-8; 1 Cor 15:12,16-20; Lk 6:17,20-26
 

“A curse on the one who puts one’s trust in Man” (Jer)

Three Scriptural Signposts:

1.The first reading begins with: “Thus says the Lord ….” Prophet Jeremiah, God’s mouthpiece and microphone, so to say, foretells the terrible misfortunes that will befall the people of Judah on account of their waywardness. Their main sin is turning away from the God of the Covenant who has been faithful, loving and providential to them. Sadly, despite repeated reminders, they choose to trust in Man, i.e., human resources, rather than to depend totally on God, i.e., Divine Providence. Jeremiah does not wish evil and condemnation upon anyone, but states the inevitable; namely, if one’s heart is “turned away from God,” one will experience tepidity, aridity, decay and death. Those foolish people who forsake God actually invite curses upon themselves: “Cursed is the one ….!” The language of the prophesy is poetic and evocative because he uses bipolar imagery that the people are familiar with: (a) a shrub in the wilderness, and, (b) a tree planted by the water. Indeed, the people will repent because they will eventually realize that their dependence on Man is useless, for they will lose their identity, land, kingdom and temple and be exiled in a pagan country, emptied of everything that they hold precious.

2.It is not difficult to see that the theme of blessing and curse of Jeremiah’s prophecy is reiterated in today’s Gospel passage according to Luke, with the curse and blessing in reverse order. This passage of the so-called ‘Beatitudes’ is more popularly known as the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ since, in the parallel text in the Gospel of Matthew (5:2-12), Jesus gives his teaching from a mountain—reminiscent of Moses giving God’s Law from Mount Sinai. However, in today’s passage, “Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place,” meaning, this is the ‘Sermon on the Plain’. Moreover, when one compares the language between Matthew’s beatitudes and Luke’s, the Lucan language is quite literally ‘plain-speak’!  Jesus does not mince words. While Matthew has “poor in spirit” [third person, singular or plural], Luke has: “Blessed are you who are poor!” [second person, singular]. The language is crystal clear and direct, addressed to each one of Jesus’ hearer-disciples, and, to you and me, today. Moreover, while Matthew has nine ‘beatitudes’ Luke has only four, with each ‘beatitude’ having its corresponding ‘woe’: poor opposed to rich, hungry juxtaposed against full, weeping contrasted with laughing, and hated (like prophets) as antithesis to ‘spoken well of’ (like false prophets).

3.‘Beatitude’ is derived from the Latin ‘beatus’, meaning happy, blest, fortunate and so on. Jesus complements and assures the riff raff, Janata, common wo/man of their blessedness not because material poverty is good and God is happy to see poverty and misery increase in our world – certainly not! If God is truly our Abba-Father, then God must surely be deeply pained to see so many of our sisters and brothers being poor, hungry, naked, despised and exploited in various ways. So, we must interpret Luke’s gospel within its’ overall thrust of being the ‘gospel of the poor’. Apart from his close circle of disciples, those who were standing before Jesus and listening to him were “a great multitude of people” who came “to be healed of their diseases” and those “troubled by unclean spirits” (6:17-19). These were truly the Biblical ‘poor’—the anawim—who, mindful of their ‘lack’ in various ways, totally trusted in God, 100%. They sought their support and salvation solely in God’s Providence, not Man’s power. In Luke’s gospel, one can think of so-called ‘sinners’ like tax-collector, Zacchaeus, who is ‘blessed’ and saved (Lk 19:1-10), while the rich young man totally attached to his wealth (Lk 18:18-30), goes away sad – cursed!

Possible Link in the 2nd Reading: The second reading provides a vital link to differentiate between those who trust in God and those who trust in Man. The latter group craves for power, pleasure and prestige—eat, drink and be merry—since they do not truly believe in the resurrection. But, for those who believe in the resurrection, there is the promise of a ‘tomorrow’—God’s tomorrow—and therein comes their total trust in a Providential God who alone can fill and fulfill.

The Refrain of the Psalm (1) is obviously very direct and clear: “Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.” Note that the imagery of “tree planted by the waters” is used here, too.

Three Texts from Catholic Tradition:

St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430): “Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence.”

St. Ephrem (306-373) is credited with some 55 beatitudes among which are: “Blessed the one who has become wholly free in the Lord from all the earthly things of this vain life and loved God alone, the good and compassionate.” And, “Blessed the one who has become a good ploughman of the virtues and raises a harvest of fruits of life in the Lord, like a ploughed field bearing wheat.”

Pope Francis in ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’ [n.63]: “The Beatitudes are like a Christian’s identity card. So, if anyone asks: “What must one do to be a good Christian?”, the answer is clear. We have to do, each in our own way, what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the Master which we are called to reflect in our daily lives.”

Three Contextual Concerns:

New Age Take on Wealth: Gurus like the late ‘Osho’ [Rajneesh] declared: “Cursed are the poor! Blessed are the rich!” Has our spirituality made us feel comfortable with wealth?

How credible is our ‘religious vow’ of poverty? Don’t we often justify our luxurious institutional, lifestyles by saying: “Jesus only means poverty in spirit, not actual poverty”?

Pope Francis’s call to ‘be’ a poor church requires our reflection and individual/ecclesial response.

In Lighter Vein:

An airplane developed engine trouble while flying into rough weather. The pilot announced: “I regret to inform you we’re in serious trouble. Only God can save us now!” An elderly, partly-deaf passenger seated next to a priest asked, “What did the pilot say?” The priest replied, “He says there is no hope!” Often, though we, priests and religious, preach about trusting in God, whenever we run into rough weather and are tossed about due to life’s storms, do we really trust God, 100%?

Reflections for 6th Sunday of the Year – Cycle C

By Rev. Fr. Francis Gonsalves, S.J.

CCBI Exec. Secretary for Theology & Doctrine

(Email: fragons@gmail.com)

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I Am a Mission, Send me, Lord!

5th Sunday of the Year – Cycle C – 10 February 2019

Readings: Is 6:1-8; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Lk 5:1-11

“Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?” I answered, “Here, am I, send me.” (Is)

Three Scriptural Signposts: One can see 3 calls and 3 com-missions in today’s three readings

[The three readings of today offer an excellent opportunity to focus on three calls of the three central characters in the readings: Isaiah, Peter and Paul. Common to these three calls is 3 A’s: (i) Awareness of one’s sinfulness and unworthiness, (b) Assurance of God’s power, holiness and faithfulness, and, (c) Acceptance of God-given mission]

Call of Prophet Isaiah: The first reading is a well-known passage from the Old Testament. Isaiah (approx. 742-700 B.C.) describes his vision of Yahweh in heaven with graphic imagery derived from the earthly temple of Jerusalem in which his experience takes place. This implies that the Jerusalem Temple is external expression of the eternal heavenly Temple. The Sanctus (Holy! Holy! Holy!) was, supposedly, part of the liturgy of the earthly temple, just as it is now used in Christian liturgy. Isaiah’s call is striking for he hears God seeking someone to speak in His name. Generous and ready though he is to volunteer, he is deeply aware of his utter unworthiness in the light of the overwhelming holiness of God. So, Isaiah confesses his sinfulness: “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips” (v.5).  Undeterred by Isaiah’s utterances of sinfulness and incompetence, God sends a seraph to touch his mouth with a live coal, declaring, “See now, this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out!” (v.7) Then, God asks, “Whom shall I send?” to which Isaiah generously responds: “Here am I, send me!” Prophet Isaiah will work as God’s mouthpiece for about 40 years trying to wean the people of Judah from their idolatry, selfishness and sinfulness, always reminding them of God’s love, mercy, holiness, fidelity and compassion. If one has used the previous week’s reflection: “You are God’s microphone” then one can stress that in Isaiah—like in the case of Jeremiah, last week—God chooses another ‘microphone’ to amplify God’s voice in human history.

Call of Peter, the Rock: In the Gospel of Mark, the call of Peter comes in the beginning as a bolt out of the blue. By contrast, Luke’s Gospel situates the call of Peter later, namely, after Peter has already witnessed Jesus healing his mother-in-law and after the miraculous catch of fish. Experienced fisherman that he was, Simon Peter certainly knew that it was senseless to cast his nets out in daylight after they had caught nothing all through the night. Nonetheless, he trusts in Jesus’ power and is astounded by the catch – so incredibly large that “their nets were beginning to break” (v.6) and their boats “began to sink” (v.7). Like Isaiah, Peter acknowledges his sinfulness in a most poignant plea: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (v.8). Jesus has now, literally ‘caught’ Peter, who is captive of all that he has seen, heard and experienced. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; from now on, you will be catching people.” The passage ends pithily: “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” Jesus ‘catches’ not just one big fisherman, Peter, but two others, too—James and John, sons of Zebedee—who will be three of his closest disciples among the ‘Twelve’.

Call of Paul, Apostle of the Gentiles: In the second reading Paul describes himself as “untimely born … the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle” (v.9), stressing his own sinfulness and unworthiness. He makes a public mea culpa: “I persecuted the Church of God,” and yet, he also extols the role of grace in his ministry: “But, by the grace of God I am what I am” (v.10). Note that Paul’s witness gives testimony to the wonders that can be accomplished when divine favour (grace) marries human labour (ministry, in this case). In this passage too we see the dynamic of → awareness of sinfulness → assurance of God’s grace → acceptance to proclaim the basic gospel message: Christ died for our sins; Christ was buried; and now, Christ is the Risen Lord.

Three Texts from Catholic Tradition:

Vatican Council II’s Lumen Gentium n. 31, reminds us that everyone is called for mission: “The faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world.”

Pope Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) n.15: “The Church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself. She is the community of believers, the community of hope lived and communicated, the community of love, and she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love.

Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium (2013) n.273: “I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world. We have to regard ourselves as sealed, even branded, by this mission of bringing light, blessing, enlivening, raising up, healing and freeing.”

Three Current Concerns:

Awareness: Am I and Are We aware of all that is happening around us in church and society? The idolatry, selfishness and sinfulness of Isaiah’s people are the same as those of me and you—products of our own times and places. Ask for the grace of seeing, hearing, touching and feeling the pulse of church and society: the signs of times and places, today.

Assurance: The mission is always a ‘com-mission’, namely, a mission ‘with’ God. This assurance of God’s power and presence is always consoling to the one sent on mission.

Acceptance: The call and mission are never stagnant but dynamic and require renewed response every day of our lives. God calls me and you, today. Will You/I be able to say anew: “Here I am, Lord, send me!”?

Reflection: There’s a popular Swahili saying, “To be called is to be sent,” which is also translated as: “We are called, we are sent.” This saying is used during the Easter Vigil Service in East Africa when the newly baptized are told that they are called by Christ and sent on mission. Here, we’re not specifically speaking about vocations to the priesthood or religious life, but about the universal Christic call shared by each and every baptized Christian. Let us remind ourselves and our people that it is God who calls and God who sends. Therefore, God’s work will surely reach final fulfillment in God’s way, God’s time. I must only pray: “Send me!” [End]

You are God’s Microphone

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C – 3 February 2019

Readings: Jer 1:4-5,17-19; 1 Cor 12:31–13:1-13.; Lk 4:21-30

“I appointed you a prophet to the nations …. Gird up your loins;

stand up and tell them everything I command you” (Jer 1:5,17)

Three Scriptural Signposts:

The first and the third readings clearly indicate the roles and risks of prophets, on the one hand, and God’s assurance of protection, on the other. Jeremiah (circa 600-550 BC) is certainly among the more popular prophets, whose life is known to us. One often hears verses of the first chapter of the Book of Jeremiah at ordinations, jubilees or anniversaries of priests and religious. Jeremiah’s poignant protest: “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy” (v.6) is not included in today’s passage, but fades into insignificance before the overwhelming voice of God’s assurance: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Appointed and anointed, Jeremiah is sent by God not only to the Israelites but to the so-called ‘Gentiles’ signified by the commission to prophesize “to the nations”. Moreover, he is to leave no segment of society unaddressed; for he must be ‘God’s microphone’, so to say, announcing and denouncing “against the whole land – against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land” (v.18).

Jeremiah’s life and mission were full of trials, tribulations and tortures. He bore insults, scorn, rejection, abuse, contempt and threats. Moreover, he was beaten up and put into stocks (20:1-2); given a death sentence (26:11); lowered into a cistern full of mud (38:6); was called a liar (43:2) and his scroll was burnt by the king (36:20-26). Torn between his faith in God and fidelity to his God-given prophetic mission, on the one hand, and the natural human fear of being harassed and hounded, on the other, his plea to God (20:7-10) to deliver him is heartrending. From the human point of view, gauging from his rejection by kings, false prophets, priests and people alike, Jeremiah seems to be a failure. Nonetheless, in God’s eyes, he is a success. God’s promise: “They [enemies] shall not prevail against you, for I am with you” is ultimately Jeremiah’s sole consolation.

The rejection faced by Jeremiah is repeatedly faced by Jesus. The gospel passage reiterates the point that a prophet’s message can be a source of great disbelief, discord and division. It’s said: ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’. Reports of Jesus’ wonders worked at Capernaum—some 40 miles away from his hometown, Nazareth—have reached his disbelieving neighbours who, like us, are swayed by prejudices and poohpooh his works. The divide between the group at Nazareth is clear. There are those “who spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (v.22) and there are the others “who were filled with rage …got up, drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill ... to hurl him off the cliff” (vv.28-29). Interestingly, they were asking for a miracle to believe in him; and he provided one before their very eyes: “he passed through the midst of them and went on his way”! His ‘hour’ had not yet arrived.

Possible Link of the 2nd Reading: In the readings of the past two Sundays, Paul has been stressing two points: (a) All Christians are members of the Body of Christ and must be in communion with one another for its smooth functioning; and, (b) Each member is given unique charisms, which are very different from person to person. Sandwiched between 1 Cor 12, which speaks of the hierarchical and charismatic gifts of the Spirit, and, 1 Cor 14:1 where Paul writes, “Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy” we have the well-known and much-loved 1 Cor 13, which speaks of love as the “greatest of all”. This means that in announcing and denouncing, too, every prophet and prophetess must be animated by love.

Today’s Psalm (71) has the imagery of “lips” with the response: “My lips will tell of your help.” This can be connected to the overall theme of all of us being God’s mouth and God’s microphone. Indeed, God tells Jeremiah (15:19): “You shall serve as my mouth!”

Three Texts from Catholic Tradition:

St John de Britto (1647-1693), prophet-martyr in India whose feast falls on Monday, February 4: “I await death and I await it with patience. It has always been the object of my prayers. It forms today the most precious reward of my labours and my sufferings.”

St Oscar Romero (1917-1918): “God’s best microphone is Christ, and Christ’s best microphone is the Church. The Church is all of you. You are a true microphone of God.”

Pope Francis (to religious): “Prophets know God and know the wo/men who are their brethren. They are able to discern and denounce the evil of sin and injustice. Because they are free, they are bound to no one but God, and they have no interest other than God. Prophets take the side of the poor and powerless, for they know that God is on their side.”

Contextual Concern:

Jesuit Father Stan Swamy (81 years) is a prophet who works for the rights of exploited Adivasis in Jharkhand. He wrote an open letter to the nation on Republic Day: “I [Stan Swamy] am one of the ‘suspects’ [of instigating the masses]. I was also raided on 28 August 2018, even after more than four months Pune police have not made any charges. and when I appealed to Bombay HC [No.4741 of 2018] to quash the FIR against me my petition was rejected. Instead it authorized Pune police to continue its investigation on me, without prescribing any time frame, to see if I have committed any offence under UAPA and if needed take strong legal action ….” True prophets, priests and pastors will face grave difficulties, imprisonment and false accusations. Am I and Are We aware of being ‘God’s microphone’?

In Lighter Vein: A wise physician once said: “I’ve been practising medicine for 30 years and I’ve been prescribing many things. But, in the long run I’ve realized that for most of what ails human beings, the best medicine is ‘love’. Unimpressed, a patient inquired: “Doctor, what if this medicine does not work?” The doctor replied nonplussed: “Double the dose!”  

One finds ‘love’ splashed everywhere: in advertisements, films, TV, internet. We also use phrases like ‘making love’ or ‘falling in love’. Love is no empty emotion that can be ‘made’. Moreover, every ‘falling in love’ must lead to ‘rising in love’ since true love dies, but only to rise again. Let’s remember that the “greatest is love” and let’s pray for the strength to be God’s microphone.

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