Twenty First Sunday of the Year: Building the Church of Christ (Matthew 16:13-20)

John XXIII was pope during the turbulent 1960s when it seemed that everything was falling apart. The priesthood was in crisis, religious life was in crisis, marriage was in crisis, faith was in crisis, the church was in crisis. The pope worked long and hard hours trying to address these problems. One evening, after an exhausting day in the office, he went to his private chapel to do his daily Holy Hour before retiring but he was too exhausted and too stressed out to focus or pray. After a few minutes of futile effort, he got up and said, “Lord, the church belongs to you. I am going to bed.” Difficulties might have driven the Pope to acknowledge that the church belongs to Christ. But Jesus himself said it 2000 years ago:

You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).

This passage is crucial for a proper understanding of what the church is, and our role in the church. For this is the most explicit statement that Jesus makes in the Gospels about the church.
Firstly and foremost, Jesus calls the church “my church.” This tells us that Jesus is the owner of the church. Neither Peter nor the disciples owns the church. Pastors and church leaders who think and act as if they own the church are like farm workers who go about posing as if the farm belongs to them. All God’s people have been called together as co-workers in Christ's vineyard, though some work as foremen overseeing others. But we do not own the church. We belong to the church. The owner of the church is Christ.
Secondly, the passage tells us that Jesus is the one who builds his church. He is the master builder who has the building plan in his hands. Human co-operators are like masons and carpenters employed by the master builder to help him with the building. Our role is to listen and follow his instructions, doing our own small part in the grand design of the master. Workers who stick to their own ideas of what the building should look like rather than follow the directives given by the master may find themselves working at cross purposes with the master.
If Jesus is the owner and builder of the church, where then do we come in? We come in precisely where Peter comes in. Together with Peter we are the building blocks of the church. Peter is the foundation rock and we are the pieces of stone with which the church is built:

Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5).

The passive voice “let yourselves be built” indicates that God himself is the builder and not us. Our role is to allow God to use us. The question we could ask ourselves today is: “How is God using me to build up his church? Am I letting God use me?” We must not forget that no matter how small a piece of stone may be, the master builder could still use it to do something beautiful.

A famous stained-glass artist was commissioned to make a huge portrait for the window of the cathedral in Chartres, France. First he laid all of the pieces he was going to use out on the floor of the cathedral. Among these awesome pieces of glass was a small, clear piece about as big as a fingernail. As the stained-glass portrait was assembled, that little piece remained on the floor. Only the big colourful pieces were used. On the day of the window’s completion the entire city gathered to witness the unveiling of the portrait. The artist pulled away the cover cloth and the crowd gasped at the beauty of the colourful window glowing in the sunlight. After a few seconds, however, the crowd grew silent. They sensed that something was missing, that the portrait was unfinished. The great artist then walked over to where the little clear piece of glass lay, picked it up, and placed it in the portrait, right in the centre of Jesus’ eye. As the sun hit that little piece, it gave off a dazzling sparkle. The work of art is now complete. Without the small piece the work was incomplete. In the grand design of building the church of God, each one of us could consider ourselves to be that small piece of glass – so small and yet so indispensable.

The faith of a Canaanite {Twetieth Sunday of the Year}

Mahatma Gandhi in his autobiography tells how, during his student days, he read the Gospels and saw in the teachings of Jesus the answer to the major problem facing the people of India, the caste system. Seriously considering to embrace the Christian faith, Gandhi attended church one Sunday morning intending to talk to the minister about the idea. On entering the church, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and told him to go and worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. “If Christians have caste differences also,” he said, “I might as well remain a Hindu.”

The belief that God’s blessings are somewhat limited to peoples of certain nationalities or cultures has been around for a very long time. Such a belief was very much alive in the society in which Jesus grew up. When Jesus said in today’s gospel reading, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24) he was expressing a popular belief. It is not clear whether he really believed it himself or whether he said it in order to expose and correct its false claims. Every people and culture has a handful of such prejudices and myths – from the myth of the Jews as the only people of God to that of no salvation outside the Church, from the prejudice of the caste system in India to that of racial superiority in Nazi Germany, from the myth of the superiority of men over women to that of the superiority of Western cultures. We are today invited to expose such myths and correct their false and exaggerated claims.

It took the active intervention of a complete outsider, a Canaanite woman, to create the awareness among early Jewish Christians that the belief in the exclusive divine prerogatives of the Jewish people did not stand up to reason. Probably you and I owe the fact that we are Christians today to the heroism of this unnamed woman who dismantled the dividing wall of intolerance between Jews and Gentiles. We need to consult this woman in today’s service, asking her to teach us how to go about dismantling the structures that create undue division among God’s children, the human race that God has loved into being.

The first thing she teaches us in our Christian vocation to reconcile all humankind to God is courage. Given her position as a foreigner and as a woman, it took phenomenal courage on her part to decide to take on the all-Jewish and all-male company of Jesus and his disciples. She was so small that, even though she addresses Jesus by his proper Messianic titles: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David” (verse 22), Jesus still ignored her: “He did not answer her at all” (verse 23a). Most people at this point would give up and accept defeat. But not our Canaanite sister. Rather she intensifies her efforts and embarks on a one-woman demonstration to the point that the disciples had to ask Jesus to do something about it: “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us” (verse 23b). Her courage and her refusal to take no for an answer finally paid off.

The second thing we can learn from this woman is focus or what the civil rights movement calls “keep your eyes on the prize.” When Jesus spoke to her in language that demeaned her people: “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs” (verse 26), she did not lose her cool but kept her eyes on the goal of her mission, which is to show that even non-Jews are entitled to God’s blessing in Christ. Our sister knew that if she gave Jesus a piece of her mind at that moment, that would jeopardise her mission and she might lose what she came for. But with focus and with her eyes on the prize, she made it. She is a model of non-violence, if you figure that the words of Jesus to her were unjustified verbal assault on her and on her people.

Finally, it was Jesus who gave in: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (verse 28) and the woman got what she wanted. The message of this single woman outsider to every one of us today is: Be not afraid. Be not afraid to challenge prejudice and falsity even in high places, even in religious high places. The least among us can be a vehicle that God can use to bring justice and healing to all of God’s disadvantaged daughters and sons all over the world.

APOLOGIES

Season's Greetings to you all!
I'm heartily sorry for the long break, especially for you all who have followed this site  and read posts from me. Its close to a year since I stopped publications on this medium. I am indeed grateful to you all, who made comments, critiques and acknowledgements on some of my publications.
The good news is that, I'm back, and I mean back to serve you via this blog!
Follow me like you have always done, and let us together promote the Kingdom of God, and also understand our CATHOLIC faith through reading and sharing!
I wish you a pleasant week, and may God grant us all a grace-filled week!
See you next week.

TWENTY FIFTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR: THE SMART SERVANT (Luke 16:1-13)

An angel appears at a faculty meeting and tells the dean that he has come to reward him for his years of devoted service. He was asked to choose one of three blessings: either infinite wealth, or infinite fame or infinite wisdom. Without hesitation, the dean asks for infinite wisdom. “You got it!” says the angel, and disappears. All heads turn toward the dean, who sits glowing in the aura of wisdom. Finally one of his colleagues whispers, “Say something.” The dean looks at them and says, “I should have taken the money.”

Wisdom, in the sense of being smart or shrewd as we see in today’s parable of the dishonest servant, is not an end in itself. One can be smart and use one’s smartness to do mean things. Many con artists and terrorists are smart people who use their smartness to create unhappiness in the world. Today’s parable challenges us to be smart in the pursuit of the kingdom of God just as godless people are smart in their pursuit of selfish goals and ambitions. Jesus uses the example of a smart manager in his master’s business to teach us the need to be smart in the Lord’s service. We are challenged to imitate the manager’s shrewdness, not his dishonesty. “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly” (Luke 16:8).

Why did the master who had made up his mind to fire the manager now commend him? Probably the manager had been running his master’s business in a drab, routine and lifeless manner devoid of creativity and imagination. As a result the business was failing, so the master decides it is time to fire him: “Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer” (verse 2). The manager is facing a real danger of being dismissed from service. He knows the seriousness of the situation. He is not kidding himself. He knows exactly how helpless he is out there. He says to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg” (verse 3). He knows he is in a very difficult and precarious situation. He scratches his head and comes up with this ingenious plan to safeguard his future. The master praises him because if the manager had been using such smart thinking in the daily running of the business he would have made a much more successful manager rather than a failure.

The parable challenges us all to be smart managers. Me a manager, you say? Yes, we are all called to be managers. God has entrusted the whole of His creation into our hands as His managers. Jesus Christ, in addition, entrusts the kingdom of God – the kingdom of love, justice and peace – into our hands as his managers. World peace and harmony, and the renewal of all things in Christ, are the business of us all, collectively and individually. Jesus calls it the kingdom of God. Our business as followers of Christ, non-ordained as well as ordained believers, is to help bring about the kingdom of God starting from our own selves. We have all been given the necessary resources to do this. We have been equipped with the truth of faith, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit who dwells in our hearts, and we have been given time. Sooner or later we shall all be called upon to render an account of how we have invested and managed these resources.

Events in our world show that we live in difficult and precarious times, like the manager in the parable. The manager faced squarely the truth of his helplessness and vulnerability and did something about it. Why do we keep on telling ourselves the lie that we are safe and secure and that nothing can ever happen to us? We do not have to wait, like the dishonest servant, for a last minute display of smartness to fix our eternal concerns. The time to be smart is now. The smart manager used what he could not keep to get what he needed so badly, friendship with his business associates. We should likewise invest all our temporal and spiritual resources to gain the only thing that matters in the end: the kingdom of God.

ALPHA AND OMEGA DAY 9, GENESIS 8

The story of the flood is brought to a conclusion in today’s text. God has been true to his word: he punished sinful humanity and, saved Noah (an upright man) and his household. 

REFLECTION

• Have you ever embarked on a long journey without stops? How was the feeling when you finally arrived at the destination? Our answer to this question will help us to understand the offering which Noah made to God when he finally came out of the ark with his household and the animals. God does a lot for us day after day. He watches over us while we sleep; he guards us from evil in our going and coming; he makes us pass our exam; he provides our food and air for breathing. Like Noah, do we show gratitude to God for what he does for us, or do we see ourselves as deserving of such blessings?

• The author presents the sacrifice of Noah as pleasing to God and, God promised not to curse the earth again since he knew human beings and their inclination to sin. It is not as if God changed his mind because Noah’s offering pleased him. Rather, the author wishes to show that God knows us through and through. Do we see ourselves as holy and others sinful? Jesus has forever delivered us from slavery to sin, but we still have the inclination to sin. We cannot hide from God. We must therefore surrender ourselves to him so that he will guide in his ways (Ps 139:1, 23-24)

• In the midst of all the consequences of human sin, God still sustains the world he created. “Day and night will never cease” is to make us aware that God is still in control of the world. We can apply this to ourselves also in another sense. Thus, no matter what we’re going through, we must always remember that our Father has got the whole world in his hand, and he will make all things beautiful in his own time.

May the Lord bless and keep all of us, Amen.

ALPHA AND OMEGA, DAY 8: GENESIS 7

In today’s text, the story of the flood is continued. Noah, after having finished with the construction of the ark, is directed by God to get into it with his household and all kinds of creatures as indicated by the biblical author. The outstanding divine truth revealed through the text is that God saves and blesses those who are faithful to him.

REFLECTION

• God found Noah to be the only one among his contemporaries who was upright. The author presents God as punishing all other creatures apart from Noah and his household. Thus, through Noah’s faithfulness to God his whole household was saved. What about us? Are we the cause of joy/blessing for our families, friends, communities, etc. or are we the cause of shame and troubles?

• Did we not learn from our previous reflection in this journey that God said he would allow only 120 years as the length of human existence (Gen 6:3)? How come in this text Noah is said to be 600 years? Well, it is a way of showing that punishment is reserved for the wicked and not the just. For, God rewards the upright (cf. Ps 11:7).

• The story of the flood could be applied to the Sacrament of Baptism. From the text, God destroyed sinful humanity with water. In the same way, through baptism, our sinful old self is destroyed so that we attain a newness of life in Christ. In baptism, we die with Christ to rise with him as new creatures (2 Cor. 5:17).

• As we go about our everyday life, let us always remember that we could be channels of blessings for others, just as Noah was for his family. Let us remember to shun evil in order to work out our salvation (Phi 2:12) .

May the Lord bless and keep all of us, Amen.

IN SPANISH (En Español)

En el texto de hoy, se continúa la historia de la inundación. Noé, después de haber terminado con la construcción del arca, está dirigida por Dios para entrar en ella con su familia y todo tipo de criaturas como indica el autor bíblico. La verdad divina revelada en circulación a través del texto es que Dios salva y bendice a los que son fieles a él.

REFLEXIÓN

• Dios encontró a Noé para ser el único entre sus contemporáneos que era recto. El autor presenta a Dios como castigo de todas las demás criaturas, aparte de Noé y su familia. Por lo tanto, a través de la fidelidad de Dios a Noé se salvó toda su casa. ¿Qué pasa con nosotros? ¿Somos la causa de la alegría / bendición para nuestras familias, amigos, comunidades, etc, o somos la causa de la vergüenza y problemas?

• ¿Acaso no aprendemos de nuestra reflexión anterior, en este viaje que Dios dijo que permitiría a sólo 120 años, como la duración de la existencia humana (Gen 6:03)? ¿Cómo es que en este texto Noé se dice que 600 años? Bueno, es una forma de mostrar que el castigo está reservado para los malvados y no a los justos. Pues, Dios recompensa a los justos (cf. Sal 11:7).

• La historia de la inundación se podría aplicar al Sacramento del Bautismo. A partir del texto, Dios destruyó a la humanidad pecadora con agua. De la misma manera, a través del bautismo, nuestro viejo hombre de pecado sea destruido para que alcancemos una vida nueva en Cristo. En el Bautismo, morimos con Cristo para resucitar con él como nuevas criaturas (2 Cor. 5:17).

• A medida que avanzamos en nuestro día a día, recordemos siempre que podemos ser canales de bendición para otros, al igual que Noé, su familia. Recordemos a rechazar el mal, a fin de trabajar por nuestra salvación (Filipenses 2:12).

Que el Señor no bendiga y no guarde a todos, Amen.

ALPHA AND OMEGA, DAY 7 (GENESIS 6)

The author of the text which we are considering today wishes to draw our attention to the increasing rate of evil/sin in human history as ages passed. He presents the doom of evil doers and the salvation of the just using the story of the flood.

REFLECTION

• In describing the increasing rate of immorality, the author used words such as “daughters”, “women”, “children” and “sons of God” in reference to the human race. Genesis 6:3 attests that indeed the author was talking about human beings and not some super humans as we usually imagine. Have we so far noted that not all biblical stories are to be taken literally?

• In the text, God, who saw that all he had made was very good (cf. Gen 1:31), is presented as having regretted creating human beings. Has this ever struck us in any way? How often have we not been disappointed with our own selves? Could God be said to be like us in that regard?

• Well, “God regretted” was the author’s way of showing that God is holy and just, but human beings are unfaithful. “God regretted”, as used in the text, therefore does not in any way imply that God changed his mind; for God is always faithful to his word (cf. 1Sam15:29), and he is always merciful to those who repent of their sins and return to him with all their hearts (cf. Jer 26:1-3). God therefore cannot regret as we understand it!

• The story of the flood demonstrates that God saves those who remain faithful to him. We are often attracted to act the way all others around us do. However, one thing we must always ask ourselves is this: is what am doing pleasing to God? Let’s note, we must not follow the crowd because we can get lost with the crowd. Rom 12:2 should be our guide.

May the Lord bless and keep all of us, Amen.