Tuesday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 11:37-41

Jesus continues to highlight what is central to our relationship with God. We skip over a short passage which is about various aspects of light. In short, the Christian is to be a person full of light through and through—not like the kind of people Jesus now goes on to describe.

He had been invited to dinner by a Pharisee. Jesus apparently went straight into the dining area and reclined at the table prepared to eat. The Pharisee was quite shocked because Jesus had not first washed his hands before eating. Of course, we are strongly recommended to wash our hands before sitting down to eat. But here we are not dealing with a question of hygiene, but of ritual washing. Jesus had omitted to perform a religious ritual which was laid down by the stricter Jews, although not actually part of the Law. The rule probably had originally a hygienic purpose. By giving it a religious sanction, one made sure that it was carried out. Many other obligations, some of them contained in the Mosaic Law like those from Leviticus, seem to be of the same kind.

Most probably, Jesus, in the ordinary course of events, would have had no problem about performing this ritual, but it is likely that here he is deliberately making a point. It allows him to draw attention to what he sees as false religion. A person’s virtue is not to be judged by his performance or non-performance of an external rite.

As Jesus tells this man in a graphic image, the Pharisees concentrate on making sure that the outside of the cup is clean while inside it is full of all kinds of depravity and corruption (like the judgmental thoughts in this man’s mind and the sinister plotting that the Pharisees in general were directing against Jesus). God is as much, if not much more, concerned about the inside as the outside.

Instead, Jesus says:

So give as alms those things that are within and then everything will be clean for you.

When the inside is clean, there is no need to worry about the outside. Giving alms is a positive act of kindness to another person, an act of love and compassion. It neutralises the greed and rapacity of which he accuses them. It is not, like the washing of hands, a purely empty ritual which says little and is almost totally self-directed.

It is so easy to judge people, including our fellow-Catholics, by their observance or non-observance of certain Christian customs, which of themselves are of a non-moral nature. In the past, for instance, we might have criticised a woman for not wearing a hat in church, or a priest for appearing without his Roman collar. Today, some might be scandalised because a person goes to communion having had a huge meal well within the designated one hour of fasting, or for some still, eating meat on Friday, even though the ‘law’ does not require it. We need to recognize that most of the passages in the Gospels attacking the Pharisees are really directed against ‘pharisees’ in our Christian communities, not to mention the pharisee in our own hearts.

Elsewhere, Jesus has told us not to judge because it is very difficult for us to know what is going on within another person’s mind. What Jesus is really emphasising here is the inner spirit and motivation. Once that is right, everything else will be taken care of.

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Saturday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Ephesians 1:15-23

Immediately following his great picture of God’s plan for all of his creation, Paul now makes a beautiful prayer for the Christians to whom he is writing. Let us see, phrase by phrase, what he says. He begins by saying:

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus…

The letter is purportedly being written from Paul’s place of imprisonment in Rome. Clearly he has been getting reports from the various churches by Christians who have been visiting him. He has been deeply gratified by what he has been hearing about the faith of the Christians and the loving support they show towards each other and he remembers them constantly, with gratitude, in his prayers.

In two lovely petitions he prays that God and Jesus may give them an ever deeper understanding of their faith:

…I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him…

Each one of us could reword that prayer and ask that God give each one of us, too, the spirit of wisdom and revelation which will lead us to an ever deeper understanding of Jesus and his gospel. Without that we cannot grow in loving and serving him.

He continues:

…so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

“The eyes of your heart…”—the heart is used in the Scripture as the seat of knowledge and also of love. We need to be strengthened in knowledge, understanding and love.

“The hope to which he has called you…”—hope here expresses a confidence in a future that is not yet here, but is guaranteed. It is a form of faith.

“The saints…”—indicates all the baptised and not just a special minority.

Seeing in the sense of understanding is a concept that goes right through the Gospels. Many blind people are healed, and when they can see, they praise and follow Jesus. Jesus is the Light of the world, a light that can only be enjoyed and benefited from by those who can see. We, too, are called in imitation of Jesus to be, in our own way, a light to the world (see Matt 5:14).

Here we are asked to pray that we may see just what God’s call in Christ means for us. We ask to understand the nature of Christian hope, which is not just something wishful, but a certainty that promises will be kept. It is the promise of a future glory that is waiting for us, along with a deeper understanding of the power that God exercises on our behalf.

And to know “the immeasurable greatness of his power”—Paul piles term upon term to emphasise that the extraordinary divine force by which Jesus Christ was raised is the same power at work in and through believers. Paul is saying that the Christians already have some notion of all this from the power of God that was made evident in the life of Jesus. Jesus was raised from the dead and given a seat at the Father’s right hand, in effect, a position of sharing in the nature, power and authority of God. This places him above all the hierarchies of ministering angels around God’s throne and all other powerful spirits now and forever.

Summing up, Paul says that God has put “all things under [Christ’s] feet”; he is Lord of all creation. As such, he has also been made “the head over all things for the church, which is his body”. The psalmist had already expressed it:

…what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet… (Ps 8:4-5)

The Psalm emphasises the destiny of man in general. The Letter to the Hebrews, using the same text, reiterates the words “subjecting all things under his feet” and applies them to Jesus as the Son of Man and Ruler of all. (Heb 2:6-9).

The Church, then, as the Body of the Risen Christ, is the visible manifestation of his ongoing presence in the world, just as my body is the means by which I am made sensibly present to those around me. And that Body, together with its Head, is “the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

According to the Jerusalem Bible:

“The Church, as the body of Christ (see 1 Cor 12:12-31), can be called the fullness (Greek, pleroma) in so far as it includes the whole new creation that shares (since it forms the setting of the human race) in the cosmic rebirth under Christ its ruler and head.”

In today’s reading, we have an awesome vision of the overwhelming greatness of Jesus now in glory with the Father while, at the same time, intimately part of our Christian communities. It is a frightening responsibility that we are the visible ‘re-presentation’ of Christ to the world and it is a responsibility of which we need to be constantly aware. The rest of this Letter will spell out what that union between Christ and his Church entails.

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Friday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Ephesians 1:11-14

Today we continue our reading of God’s plan of salvation at the beginning of the Letter. As Paul continues his panoramic vision of God’s plan for the whole human race and the whole of creation, he speaks today first of the Jews, his own people, and then of the Gentiles or ‘pagans’ (that is, non-Jews) who had responded to God’s call.

Paul begins:

In Christ we have…obtained an inheritance…

In using the word “we”, Paul speaks to his fellow-Jews. He tells them that Christ is at the centre of God’s plan. Whether we speak of the whole of creation or the individual, it is only in relationship to Christ that there is a meaningful future destiny. Christ is the paradigm for all creation, the visible ‘re-presentation’ of God himself among us. He is the Alpha and the Omega. However, Paul goes on now to speak, not of the whole of creation, but of those who have responded to God’s call in Jesus.

In saying “we have…obtained an inheritance” (in some translations, “We were claimed as God’s own…”), he speaks of the Jewish people, who were called in a special way to be his witnesses to the coming of the Messiah. The completion of their call would only take place in Jesus, who, of course, was also a Jew, a descendant of David and a son of Abraham (see the genealogies of Matthew: 1:1-17 and Luke: 3:23-38).

Paul writes that the Jews:

…were the first to set [their] hope on Christ.

That is to say, it was among the Jews that God would become incarnate and it was they who gave witness over the centuries to the hope of a saviour Messiah. A number of Jews would recognise that hoped-for Messiah in the person of Jesus, but many others would not. These latter still live in the hope of a Messiah yet to come.

Paul continues:

In him [i.e. Christ] you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation…believed in him…

Paul, in saying “you also” is speaking to the Gentiles—very likely the majority of his readers—who have heard the message of the gospel, have accepted it and have become followers of Jesus.

They, like their Jewish brothers and sisters, have been “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit”. Paul completes his trinitarian account of God’s plan with the Spirit, since the giving of the Spirit shows the plan has reached its final stage. The Gentiles, too, are called to share exactly the same salvation as the Jews. The proof of this is the clear evidence that the Spirit has come upon them and made them his own. They also share in that special kind of freedom that Christ gives to those who are truly his own, and which puts an end to the moral slavery they experienced during their pre-Christian life.

Nevertheless, though this gift has already begun, it is only given in a hidden way while the unspiritual world lasts, and will only be given fully when the Kingdom of God is complete and Christ comes in glory.

There is a great wealth of ideas in this magnificent presentation of what God has planned for his people through the saving work begun by his incarnate Son and carried out by the Spirit. These words are addressed as much to us as they were to the original readers of this letter. They can provide an endless source for prayer, reflection, praise and thanksgiving when we realise the kind of God we believe in.

Let us, too, ask him to help us live up to the calling which has come from him—a calling going back to long before we were even thought of.

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Thursday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Ephesians 1:1-10

We begin today reading from the Letter to the Ephesians and we will continue with it until middle of Week 30. In our Bibles, this letter follows immediately on Galatians, but belongs to a later period in Paul’s missionary life.

It is useful to be aware that the Pauline letters, from Romans to Philemon, are arranged, not according to the date on which they were written, but according to their length. Early editors would not have been too clear on the chronological order of the letters. They did not have the editorial tools which are available to us now.

Because of the general nature of its contents, the Letter to the Ephesians is often thought to be a kind of ‘encyclical’ sent to several churches in the region. Many of the best manuscripts do not have the name “Ephesus” in the opening verse. Also, because of noticeable differences in style and language compared to letters regarded as definitely from Paul, doubts have been raised about the Pauline authorship of this letter. It is possible that it was written by a disciple familiar with Paul’s teaching and issued even after the Apostle’s death.

The letter is thought to date from late in the first century AD, and seems to be addressed to a predominantly gentile church which already has lost most of its links with Jewish traditions. Overall it is a letter extremely rich in its ideas and that is why we will stay with it over the next nine weekdays.

In commenting on the readings, for convenience we will attribute the contents to Paul, because, although he may not have penned the letter himself, it undoubtedly reflects his teachings.

In the opening sentence, the greeting is from Paul, who calls himself an Apostle of Christ Jesus appointed by Christ. An ‘apostle’ (Greek, apostolos, from the verb apo-stello) is someone who has been entrusted with handing on an official message—an ambassador or emissary. This responsibility has come directly from God and, later in the course of the letter, Paul will emphasise the role of God’s planning in the unfolding course of events.

The letter is addressed to the “saints” (Greek, hagioi), who are defined as those who are “faithful in Christ Jesus”. In fact, the word “saints” was used at this time for all the baptised members of the community. The word really denotes people who are set apart from others.

In our passage today we find the usual greeting, in words that we now use in our Eucharistic liturgy:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Familiarity with such phrases can prevent us from fully savouring the content of the greeting, which asks for “grace” and “peace”.

These are both key words in this letter: “grace” is used no less than 12 times and “peace” occurs seven times. “Grace” (Greek, charis) is the unmerited love of God as experienced in our lives and “peace” (Greek, eirene) is that deep harmony between God, other people, our environment and ourselves. We could hardly wish people richer gifts than these.

The words “Blessed be God the Father…” now introduce a beautiful prayer of blessing which goes to the end of today’s reading and continues up to the end of tomorrow’s reading as well. In the Greek, it forms a single sentence (writers of classical Greek and Latin liked long sentences, but in our writing style they need to be broken up). The prayer is what we call a ‘doxology’ because it is a paean of worship and praise for all that God has done. The term comes from the Greek word doxa which means ‘glory’.

Paul speaks first of the blessings we have through the Father (v 3), then of those that come through the Son (vv 4-13) and finally of those through the Holy Spirit (vv 13-14). Today’s reading ends at verse 10 and the rest will be read tomorrow.

It begins with praise for the Father, who is the source of all the spiritual or “heavenly” blessings we have received through Jesus Christ. The terms “heavenly places” or “heavenly realm” occur five times in this letter; they emphasise that Christ is now in glory and they point to our future sharing in his life. Paul calls them the “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”. In other words, these blessings are not just recent. God had chosen us from the very beginning, long before our world came into existence. And the complete fulfilment of these blessings will only be experienced after our time on this earth. In the meantime we continue to experience them in this life, hopefully in ever-growing degrees.

These blessings come from the Father “in Christ”, a phrase which is used 12 times in this prayer alone and expresses our close union with him as members of his Body.

Why were we were chosen (why us…why me)? Paul now gives a number of reasons:

1. We are called to live “in Christ” and to be “holy and blameless”. Holiness is the result—not the basis—of God’s choosing. It refers both to the holiness imparted to the believer because of Christ and to the believer’s personal sanctification (see 1 Cor 1:2). It is both our vocation and God’s gift to us. Holiness is not our doing. And let us never say, “I don’t have a vocation”. Every baptised person has been called from all eternity, truly a sobering thought. The question each one of us needs to answer is: to what role in the community am I being particularly called? (We will see something of that later in the Letter.)
2. We are called—in a lovely phrase—to be “before him in love”. That phrase makes a perfect summary of a Christian life; everything is there and the rest is icing on the cake. ‘Love’ here is primarily the love God has for us (agape), and that leads him to ‘choose’ us and to call us to be ‘holy’. At the same time, this love does not exclude our reaching out in love for God which results from, and is a response to, his own love for us.
3. We are called to “adoption as his children”. In a sense every person is a child of God by virtue of creation, but through our baptism and our special relationship through Jesus, we become adopted children of God, to be in a special way brothers and sisters of Jesus and partners in his work to establish the Kingdom. Jesus Christ, the only Son, is both the source and the model of the way God has chosen for us to become holy, i.e. by adopting us as his heirs.
4. We are called “to the praise of his glorious grace”. God’s grace is the gift of being called to share God’s life through Jesus Christ. These are the two themes that run through this account of God’s blessings: their source is God’s liberality, and their purpose is to make his glory appreciated by creatures. Everything comes from him, and everything should lead to him.

   This we are to proclaim ‘from the housetops’ so that others too may open themselves to this gift. This is what Jesus meant in another context when he spoke of our being the “salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” so that people may come to be drawn to the love and service of the Lord (see Matt 5:13-16).

5. And lastly, by our being called to Jesus we have “redemption through his blood”. This means that by his suffering and death on the cross Jesus has, so to speak, bought back our freedom. The New International Version Bible explains:

   “The Ephesians were familiar with the Greco­ Roman practice of redemption: Slaves were freed by the payment of a ransom. Similarly, the ransom necessary to free sinners from the bondage of sin and the resulting curse imposed by the law (see Gal. 3:13) was the death of Christ.”

   This freedom comes through the forgiveness of our sins, which in effect means a total reconciliation with God through what Jesus has done for us. As we mentioned earlier when reading Galatians, the experience of freedom is an important element in our Christian life.

Summing up, Paul refers to all this as the “riches of his grace”, the abundance of freely-given love which has been “showered” on us in God’s unique wisdom and insight. The word ‘grace’ (charis) as it is used here, emphasises not so much the interior gift that makes a human being holy: rather, it refers to the gratuitousness of God’s favour and the way he manifests his glory. These are the two themes that run through this account of God’s blessings: their source is God’s liberality, and their purpose is to make his glory appreciated by creatures. Everything comes from him, and everything should lead to him.

All this happens because of God’s “wisdom and insight”. That wisdom is, in an extraordinary way, being shared with us:

[God]…has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ…

The word “mystery” is used here in a sense somewhat different from our contemporary usage, which usually refers to something we cannot understand. In Paul’s day, the Greek word mysterion was used in the context of certain cults whose inner workings were only revealed to the initiated. Paul uses the word here and in other letters to refer to truths which were formerly hidden or obscure, but now have been revealed by God for all to know and understand. For instance, it is used by Paul of the Incarnation, the death of Christ and its meaning in God’s plan and God’s intention for people everywhere—both Jews and Gentiles—to be his people.

The mystery or ‘hidden plan’ which he mentions here is God’s:

…plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Paul uses a significant term here that not only has the idea of leadership, but also was often used of adding up a column of figures. A contemporary way of putting it might be to say that in a world of confusion, where things do not ‘add up’ or make sense, we look forward to the time when everything will be brought into meaningful relationship under the headship of Christ.

The main theme of this letter is how the whole body of creation, having been cut off from the Creator by sin, is decomposing, and how its rebirth is effected by Christ, reuniting all its parts into an organism with himself as the head, so as to reattach it to God. The human (both Jew and Gentile) and the angelic worlds are brought together again through the fact that they were saved by a single act.

Of course, this is all a mystery in the contemporary sense too, something we will never fully grasp on this side of the grave. What Paul is emphasising is the uncovering of an exciting aspect of God in his relationship with his creatures, of which even God’s people up to this time had hardly any inkling. The rest of this magnificent blessing-prayer will be concluded in tomorrow’s reading.

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Tuesday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 23:23-26

We continue our reading of the ‘Seven Woes’ listed in the commentary from Monday of Week 21. Today’s reading contains the fourth and fifth ‘woes’.

4. …you tithe mint, dill and cumin… (vv 23-24)

In continuing his attack on Pharisaism, Jesus touches on two issues which are certainly relevant to our Christian living today. First, he attacks the mentality of those who are sticklers for tiny details of ritual or doctrine while ignoring the fundamental issues of justice, compassion and good faith. The Mosaic Law levied a tithe on agricultural produce. Some rabbis scrupulously applied the law to the most insignificant of plants.

A strict Pharisee too would carefully filter his drinking water in case he might swallow a small insect, which would be regarded as unclean. But in being so careful of such minutiae, he might well overlook matters of much deeper importance. Jesus is not criticising a conscientious carrying out of rules and regulations, but it is the attitude of hypocritical moral superiority which he attacks.

One can meet Catholics too who tie themselves in knots trying to observe the most petty regulations and can end up becoming the prisoner of scruples. What is more, they can be highly critical of others whom they regard as ‘lax’. An example might be people who are more worried about not having observed a full 60 minutes of fast before Communion than focusing on what the wider implications of participating in the Eucharist really mean.

5. …you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate… (vv 25-26)

The second point that Jesus makes is to criticise those who concentrate on the tiniest details of external behaviour while totally ignoring the inner spirit. There are certain Christians who speak and write at length about all the things that are not being done right in the liturgy of the Catholic Church, and who claim for themselves a level of doctrinal and moral orthodoxy to which even Rome does not attain. Sometimes even the Pope does not come up to their expectations.

What is striking about these people is the almost total absence of a sense of love and compassion in their writings and actions. They are only interested in ‘truth’ and ‘orthodoxy’, as if these things could exist outside of the nitty-gritty of human living. They can be more concerned about the tiniest rubrical details of the liturgy than about the Eucharist as truly a sacrament of a loving community prayerfully centred on the Person of Christ.

On the outside, the behaviour is impeccable, but inside there is a total lack of a true gospel spirit—the spirit of love and integrity, of compassion and a sense of justice for all. Instead, there can be a heart full of self-righteousness, criticism, anger, resentment or contempt for those who do not think the same, all cloaked in this outer veneer of moral and ritual rectitude.

The two attitudes are closely related and all of us can be touched by them in one degree or another. Let him or her who has never criticised another fellow-Christian cast the first stone!

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Wednesday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10,16-18

We have our final reading today from 2 Thessalonians—a short work with only three chapters. The teaching is a warning against people who do not work and do not pull their weight in the community.

It seems that this was partly related to the expectation of the Lord’s imminent second coming among the very early Christians. They believed that Jesus would return while they were still alive. As time passed, this belief receded, and this is reflected in the later books of the New Testament.

If the end of the world was so near, what was the point in killing oneself working? Paul (or the anonymous author of 2 Thessalonians) will have none of that. Paul’s own behaviour is proposed as an example to follow.

Next to the question of the Second Coming, he pays more attention to this related issue than anything else. It seems to have worsened since the earlier letter to the Thessalonians. The Christians are even told to keep away from, and to have nothing to do with, those who will not work. The word Paul uses is strong, an authoritative word with a military ring about it. This would not imply a complete separation from people who were in effect brothers and sisters in Christ, but rather a total refusal to identify with their behaviour. Idleness is sinful and disruptive, but those guilty of it are still brothers. Such behaviour was not at all in accordance with the “traditions” that had been handed on to them.

Instead, the Thessalonians are called on to imitate Paul, to make him their model. The Jerusalem Bible comments:

By imitating Paul, Christians will be imitating Christ, who is himself the one that Paul is imitating. Christians must also imitate God, and they must imitate each other. Behind this community of life is the idea of a model of doctrine, that has been received by tradition. The leaders who transmit the doctrine must themselves be ‘models’, whose faith and life are to be imitated. (edited)

The New International Version makes this comment:

The order in Christian imitation is:

1. Believers in Macedonia and Achaia imitated the Thessalonians, just as the Thessalonians imitated the churches in Judea;
2. The Thessalonians imitated Paul, just as the Corinthians did and just as all believers were to imitate their leaders;
3. Paul imitated Christ as did the Thessalonians;
4. All were to imitate God. (edited)

In case of any misunderstanding, Paul spells out just what he means. Whenever he was with the Thessalonians, he always worked to support himself, and even paid for the food that he was offered. To “eat…bread” is a Hebraic term for ‘making a living’. Paul, of course, does not say he never accepted hospitality (in fact, he says below that it is the missionary’s right), but that he did not depend on others for his general living. He and his companions worked hard “with toil and labor” so as not to be a burden on any community. (We know from elsewhere that Paul was a tent-maker.) They did this, not because they had no right to expect some material support from those to whom they were preaching, but because they wanted to set a good example which they expected the Thessalonians to follow.

It is another example of Paul’s setting aside a principle—in this case, the community’s duty to support the missionary—for something he believed was more important: that each one pull their weight in the community. (Another example is his refraining from eating certain foods which the scrupulous might regard as ‘unclean’ or in having Timothy, who had a Jewish mother and a Gentile father, circumcised, even though he himself did not believe in the necessity of circumcision.)

Paul had even laid down a ruling with them that food was not to be given to those who refused to work. There was apparently a secular proverb in the form, “He who does not work does not eat”. Paul sets it down as a rule to be followed in the community. He clearly had no time for spongers and social parasites, however exalted their motives.

The reading ends with the final blessing of the letter, a prayer of blessing for peace “at all times in all ways”. He then signs off in his own handwriting. Although he normally dictated his letters (there are hints his sight was poor—was this the “thorn…in the flesh” he speaks about in 2 Cor 12:7-10?), he sometimes added a handwritten signature as a sign of the letter’s genuineness. Here he tells us that this practice was his distinguishing mark. And although he had had words of criticisms for his readers, he concludes with a typical prayer that the loving grace of the Lord Jesus be with them all.

We could perhaps reflect today on our attitudes towards work. On the one hand, there are the ‘workaholics’, those who are compulsive workers, irrespective of the need to do what they are doing, or of the rewards it produces. There are others who work very hard simply to earn more and more, often way beyond the needs of a modestly decent standard of living. In both cases, other personal, family and social needs are neglected and the individual, as a result, can suffer. Paul clearly would not approve of this.

On the other hand, there are those who have a strong aversion to work and who will do all they can to live off others, whether that be their family, friends or the state. Paul would not approve of them either.

There are others who work hard and make significant contributions to society, but whose work cannot always be quantified in monetary or economic terms. Two obvious examples are the full-time parent or the adult caregiver of an aging relative. As well, many of those who work for churches or social service organisations serve as volunteers or agree to accept a token salary. They certainly deserve that their needs (not necessarily all their ‘wants’) be provided by the parish or diocesan community. Surely Paul would give his approval here.

So I need to look at my life and see whether, given my various resources, I make an appropriate contribution to my society:

• Do I work too much?
• Do I work enough?
• Do I work as a service to others? Is that how I see the job or profession I am in?
• Do I work only for the material reward?
• Am I sufficiently and appropriately remunerated for the work I do?

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Thursday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Today we begin reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Christians in the southern Greek city of Corinth. Paul had gone there after his dismal failure with the sophisticated citizens of Athens. Here, in a city of very mixed population and with not a terribly good reputation for its morals, he did very much better. This letter is one of the most important documents of the New Testament and contains some of Paul’s most central teaching. So we will be staying with this letter up to the end of Week 24—three and a half weeks altogether.

As is usual in letters of the period, Paul begins by identifying himself and numbers himself among the Apostles called by God. In its original meaning ‘apostle’ means ‘someone who is sent on a mission or with a message to communicate’. In the New Testament the word can be used in a general sense about someone who is sent on a mission (Greek verb, apostello). More particularly, it is used of the Twelve we meet in the Gospels, but was also applied later to Paul (who calls himself “the least of the Apostles”). The title is also sometimes given to a wider group including Barnabas, James “the brother of the Lord” and possibly Andronicus and Junias, whom we meet in the Letter to the Romans.

Paul uses the title of himself in most of his letters to affirm his authority as a messenger of Christ, an authority that was sometimes challenged. He reinforces his claim here by adding “by the will of God”. In other words, he is not self-appointed.

The greeting also contains the name of Sosthenes, who may possibly be the synagogue ruler who was attacked by his fellow-Jews in Corinth when their complaint against Paul was rejected by Gallio, the pro-consul of the local province of Achaia. (The story occurs in Acts 18 and is part of the First Reading on Friday of Week 6 of Easter.) If it is the same person, then he must have become a Christian either while Paul was preaching in Corinth or during the ministry of Apollos.

Paul addresses his letter to the “church of God that is in Corinth”. “Church of God” is one of his favourite expressions and used only by him. It refers to the community of Christians gathered together, often in one of their homes. Its Old Testament counterpart is “assembly (or community) of the Lord”. At this stage there is no formal building or institutional structure.

He also calls them a people “sanctified”, i.e. made holy in Christ. This refers not so much to their behaviour—for, as Paul will not hesitate to point out, they had many faults—but because they had been called, with Christians in other churches, to be a people set apart, distinguished by their commitment to the Way of Christ. The Greek word hagios, translated ‘holy’, means ‘set apart’, and the “saints” is a term used of all Christians in Paul’s letters, and not just those outstanding in virtue.

The opening greeting ends with a blessing and prayer for the “grace and peace” of God the Father and the Lord Jesus, a greeting we now use in our Eucharistic liturgy.

“Grace” (in Greek, charis) implies God’s love being given gratuitously, and not because it is deserved. No matter how good we are, God is never indebted to us. The first initiative of love always comes from God, never from us, nor can we ever do anything to earn it. It is always there first waiting to be accepted by us.

The letter now properly begins with Paul’s uttering words of thanks for all the testimonies of God’s love, his “grace”, that have been showered on the Corinthians in Christ Jesus. He is especially thankful for the gifts of “speech and knowledge”, exemplified in their preachers and teachers. These are special gifts of the Spirit (mentioned later on among other gifts). ‘Speech’ is the gift of being able to proclaim the gospel effectively. ‘Knowledge’ implies a deep understanding of the gospel message and not just facts about the message.

The “witness to Christ”, which Paul gave to them, has not been at all in vain; on the contrary, it has clearly been confirmed by the gifts of the Spirit of Jesus which are evident among them. Those gifts of the Spirit enable them to serve the body of Christ, which is the Church, until the time when the Lord Jesus will be revealed at the end of time—the time of his final coming. Paul will speak at greater length about these gifts in chapters 12-14.

According to those chapters, a spiritual gift is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit enabling one to minister to the needs of Christ’s body, the Church. The gifts are not intended for oneself, but to enable one to respond to the community’s needs. There are different gifts for different needs. (Notice that Jesus’ final coming is no longer seen as imminent, as in the Letter we read earlier in the week.)

The Corinthians will need these gifts as they wait for the full revelation of Jesus Christ, when the hidden plans of God are to be made known. Then Christ will reveal himself at the end of time, the time of his parousia (Greek, ‘final coming’) and his Appearing. Before this, “the lawless one” will have ‘revealed’ himself, only to be destroyed by Christ (2 Thess 2:3-8).

And it is God who will give them the help they need to remain “steady and without blame” until “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ”, when he will return to take all his own to himself. By God’s calling them, they are united in a special way with Jesus Christ. (The ‘day of the Lord’ in its various forms was mentioned in this past Tuesday’s reading.)

And, Paul says in conclusion, “God is faithful”. He is a God who always keeps his promises. His love is unchanging no matter what we may do. And he is the One who has called us into fellowship with him through Jesus Christ, his Son and our Lord.

Paul will have many criticisms to make of the Corinthians in the course of his letter, but for now he begins with words of thanks for all the genuine good that he sees among them.

We can so easily be aware of the shortcomings of individuals and groups inside and outside the Church, and we are not slow to express our views when we get together with others to gossip. But it is important for us to be able to see the good in every person, in groups of people and even in ourselves.

Let us always begin by being thankful for our blessings, for all the good things that we see in ourselves and all those around us. It is sad when we are not able to give genuine words of praise and appreciation.

And let us especially today reflect on the graces that God has poured into our own lives. Let us, on the one hand, thank him sincerely for them and, on the other, ask ourselves how we have used them for his love and service and the love and service of our brothers and sisters. After all, that is why they were given to us in the first place (we will hear more about that later in this letter).

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Wednesday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 23:27-32

We come today to the last two of the seven ‘Woes’ which Jesus throws against Pharisaism.  Again it is an attack on hypocrisy and he gives two examples:

6. …you are like whitewashed tombs… (vv 27-28)

On the one hand he compares the Pharisees to “whited sepulchres” (“whitewashed tombs” in the NRSVue translation), a phrase (like many others) that has found its way into everyday English through the King James version of the Bible. In other words, they are like the tombs that people in Palestine could often see spotlessly clean in their whitewashed stones, but which inside were full of the decaying and rotting bodies of the dead. 

One reason they were whitewashed was because a person who unwittingly stepped on a grave became ritually unclean.  Whitewashing made them more visible, especially in the dark. The Pharisees put on an external show of religious perfection down to the tiniest detail, but inside, their hearts and minds were full of pride and hatred and contempt for their fellow man.  It was epitomised in the story that Jesus told of the Pharisee and the tax collector who went to the Temple to pray.  The sanctimonious prayer of the Pharisee was:

God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
(Luke 18:11)

It was, of course, to some extent true, but it closed his mind to a different kind of sin altogether—his pride and imagined self-sufficiency.  As Jesus will say in another place, the greatest sin of the pharisaical is their sheer blindness, the inability to see themselves for what they really are. This, I suppose, is the most dangerous sin of the pious in any age, and yet the one least likely to be confessed and repented. And it can happen to any of us.

7. …you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous… (vv 29-32)

On the other hand, mention of tombs leads Jesus to comment on the Pharisees’ pride over the tombs they have built in memory of the prophets and other holy people. They congratulate themselves that, if they had been present, they would never have partaken in the actions which brought persecution and death to the prophets.  Yet here is Jesus, the prophet of all prophets, whom they are preparing to kill. 

In the last verse of our reading, Jesus tells them to go ahead and complete the murdering of the prophets, referring to what is going to happen to himself.  This is another classic example of the blindness of the self-righteous. The more committed we are to our Christian faith and to the behaviour that it expects, the greater the danger that we, too, can fall into the same trap and see ourselves on a higher level than others whose behaviour we deplore and perhaps even attack. 

Whole groups of such people have been appearing in recent years, people who claim to know the Church better than the Pope, who still deplore the ‘heresies’ of the Second Vatican Council, or who close themselves off into elitist groups afraid of being contaminated not only by the ‘world’, but even by other Catholics!

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Thursday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 24:42-51

We enter the final phase of our readings from Matthew, which will conclude on Saturday of this week. We will see selected readings from chapters 24 and 25 which form what is called the “Eschatological Discourse”. This is the fifth and final discourse, each of which is a collection of the teachings of Jesus and which are a feature of Matthew’s Gospel. This discourse is concerned with the end of all things, and the second and final coming of Christ to bring all things together.

The earlier part of chapter 24 includes the foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem, an event which for the Jews of the time (including those who had converted to Christianity) must have seemed like the end of the world (just as, later on, the collapse of the Roman Empire seemed to be the end of the world for St Augustine and his contemporaries).

The early Christians had expected to see the Second Coming in their lifetime and the sacking of Jerusalem and the sacrilegious destruction of the Temple must have seemed the certain signs of the eschaton (Greek, meaning “last thing”). But by the time Matthew’s Gospel came into circulation, that was already at least 15 years in the past. The end, although certain to happen, did not seem any more quite so imminent.

Matthew includes as part of the discourse a number of Parousia (Final Coming) parables. Following a pattern we have seen in other parts of this Gospel, they are seven in number. We have two short ones in today’s reading. Both consist of an exhortation for readiness to welcome the final coming of the Lord.

In the first we should be as alert in watching for the coming of the Lord as a householder would be to prevent his house being broken into and robbed. Like a thief, Jesus will come when we least expect him.

In the second parable, Jesus compares us to a servant who has been put in charge of the house while the master is away. This may refer to the community leaders in Matthew’s church and, by extension, to leaders of communities everywhere. It will be well for that servant when the master unexpectedly returns and finds his servant diligently doing his job. Readiness is measured by people’s consistency in carrying out their responsibilities. On the other hand, the servant may think that there is no sign of the master (who had been expected to come earlier) and goes about beating up the other servants and leading a debauched life. It will be too bad for that servant when the master does suddenly appear on the scene.

The lesson is clear. Many of the Christians, who had expected the Lord to come soon, now see no sign of him and begin to backslide in the living of their Christian faith. We can be tempted to do the same thing. “Let’s have a good (i.e. morally bad) time now and we can convert later.” It is not a very wise policy. In the long run, the really good life, that is, a life based on truth and integrity, on love and compassion and sharing, will always be better than one based on phoniness, on selfishness, greed, hedonism and immediate gratification of every pleasure.

And the “Final Coming” may never come for some of us (in our lifetime), along with the chance to turn back to him who is the Way, Truth and Life—but our individual lives will come to an end. The wisest people are those who consistently try to seek and serve their Lord at every moment of every day. They both experience happiness now, and also find that Jesus will not be a stranger when he comes to call them to himself. They are the ones who are both faithful and prudent.

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Friday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:17-25

In today’s reading, a distinction is made between true and false wisdom. Paul presents us with one of the most central concepts of his teaching, and indeed of our Christian faith. He begins by saying that Christ had not sent him to baptise. In so speaking, he is not in any way minimising baptism. What he is asserting is that his special calling was to proclaim the gospel. It was for others to establish Christian communities after he had gone to preach the Message in another mission field. Peter, too, asked others to baptise the gentile Cornelius and his household after they were received into the community (Acts 10:48).

Today’s passage focuses on the essence of our faith, which transcends all human divisions—a message just as relevant now as it was then. What he says arises out of his displeasure with factions which were forming in the Corinthian communities. Some were saying they were for Paul, others for Apollos, or Cephas (Peter), or even Christ. Paul emphasises that they are all, no matter who baptised them, one in Christ. It was Christ and Christ alone who died for them and saved them. Paul’s particular role or charism was to proclaim the gospel mainly to new communities; he was a founder of churches and communities and so he kept moving from place to place. The other church ministries were left to others to carry out. It is a good example of the diversity of gifts which he will speak about later on.

Further, his role was to preach the Cross of Christ, but not with an orator’s eloquence which might rob the Cross of its real power. Oratory was a highly esteemed talent in those days, especially among the Greeks and Romans, but Paul makes no claim to it and for that he is glad. Paul’s mission was not to couch the gospel in the language of the trained orator, who had studied the techniques of influencing people by persuasive arguments. What Paul shares is not human wisdom, but the wisdom of God. The strength of the message is not in how it is delivered, but in its content.

The Cross will speak for itself and does not need the persuasive language of the orator. The message of the Cross is unique. It requires a special kind of insight to see its meaning and its wisdom, which is itself a gift from God. For those who are not on God’s wavelength, it makes no sense, but for those who are, it speaks of God’s power—above all, the power of love.

Paul quotes from the prophet Isaiah (29:14) in which God says he will bring the wisdom of the wise to nothing. This was originally said in the context of the people of Judah and Jerusalem who thought it was an astute thing to do to make an alliance with Egypt and thus turn away the threats of Sennacherib, the Assyrian king. God had other plans to deal with him, plans which the ‘wise’ never dreamt of. In fact, Sennacherib was forced to withdraw from the gates of the city when his army was unexpectedly decimated by a kind of plague.

And where are the wise men now, Paul asks—all those pagan philosophers, including those Paul met in Athens and who laughed at his message. Perhaps Paul knew of the remark of Aristides who said that on every street in Corinth one met a so-called wise man, who had his own solutions to all the world’s problems (we still see them on our media every day!). Where, asks Paul, are the experts in the Mosaic Law? Where are the “debaters of this age”, those Greek sophists who loved to engage in long and subtle disputes?

Has not God, in Christ, made the wisdom of the world look foolish? Faced with the mystery of the Cross such people have nothing to say.

In a beautifully paradoxical statement (worthy of an orator!) he says:

…since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe.

This does not mean, of course, that Paul’s preaching is foolish, but that the message of Christ crucified is viewed by the world as foolish. Jesus said something similar:

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants… (Luke 10:21)

And so, the Jews are demanding miracles and signs as proofs of God’s saving power among them. Several times in the Gospels, Jesus was asked for a ‘sign’ to prove his credentials, even though his whole public life was a succession of signs which ordinary people frequently recognised. The Greeks, on the other hand, indulged in endless philosophising about ‘truth‘ and ‘wisdom’ without ever coming to grips with the realities of life.

The Cross is on a completely different level. It does not require great intelligence and learning to be understood. It can be grasped by the totally illiterate person. It is not a message of intellectual depth, but a witness to immeasurable love. It can only be accessed by faith and trust.

Paul and his companions are proclaiming a crucified Lord, a message of power shining through total impotence and apparent failure. On the face of it, it is a total contradiction—except to those who can see its inner meaning. No wonder it is a ‘scandal’, an insuperable obstacle for those Jews who were waiting for an altogether different Messiah. They expected a triumphant, political Messiah, not a crucified one.

Even Jesus’ disciples had this expectation. On the day of the Ascension, they asked him:

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6)

The answer, of course, was “Yes”, but not in the way they were thinking. Similarly, the two disciples on the way to Emmaus said to the stranger who walked along with them:

…we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.
(Luke 24:21)

It was only after Jesus had explained the Scriptures to them that they realised the real truth behind their question.

And to the Gentiles it made no sense whatever. How could a crucified criminal be proclaimed as the world’s Saviour? Greeks and Romans were sure no reputable person would ever be crucified, so it was unthinkable that a crucified criminal could be the Saviour.

However, for those who have received the call, be they Jews or Greeks, Jesus on the cross speaks eloquently of the power and wisdom of God. The crucified Christ is the power that saves and the wisdom that transforms apparent folly into ultimate and highest discernment. And Paul finishes with a memorable and much-quoted statement:

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Today, the Cross is still seen as a stumbling block and as nonsense by those who only see the external image. In a world dedicated to acquisition, power and success, it gives a totally unacceptable message.

The power of the Cross, the power of active non-violence is not understood, and the followers of Jesus are ridiculed and deemed irrelevant. As Christians living in this world, we are probably often caught in the middle. We are carried along by the power-success dream, and at the same time would like to be able to make the weakness-failure Way of Christ ours too. What we need is to be able to see clearly that the real power and wisdom is with Jesus’ Way, and that the way of the world ultimately leads only to nothingness.

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