Thursday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 14:7-12

Chapter 14 of Paul’s letter to the Romans is one of the most inspiring passages in the New Testament.  It is a hymn to tolerance and the acceptance of others.

Because the Christian community consisted of both former Jews and Gentiles, there were often disagreements still over certain ritualistic practices which had been carried over from Judaism. To the Jews, the attitudes of the Gentiles seemed very lax, if not downright wrong.  To the Gentiles, some Jews seemed over-scrupulous and legalistic.  What Paul recommends is that each one be tolerant and understanding of the weaknesses of others and not to cause unnecessary offence.

In today’s reading, Paul reminds us that there is only one Lord and that is Jesus Christ.  It balances yesterday’s reading about the primacy of love.  The real object of that love must always be God and Jesus, found in every person.

And so he says:

…we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

None of us has an independence of our own.  In life and in death we belong totally to the Lord.  This, of course, is a fact which no believing person can deny, but if it is also a genuine conviction, then it also needs to be acknowledged and lived out in our lives.

And says Paul, it is:

…to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

How then can an individual abrogate to himself the right to sit in judgement over a brother or sister? Or have the right to look down on a brother or sister?   As is clear from the overall context of the chapter, he is referring to some of the weaker brothers and sisters who, for instance, will not eat food that has been offered to idols for fear they will be seen as not true converts from paganism.  Paul regards them as still weak in their faith.

Paul himself, who knows that idols mean nothing and are only man-made images, does not care where food comes from, but in the presence of such people, he will not eat that food rather than upset them:

…it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.(Rom 14:21)

Jesus had strong words of warning for people who were stumbling blocks in the way of the “little ones”, those still in the early stages of faith.  It is something we need to keep in mind.

Of course, Paul is speaking of issues which do not touch the core of our faith.  Among Catholics today such an issue could be taking Communion in the hand or on the tongue.  People may have strong ideas about one or the other, but neither side has the right to pass definitive judgement.  It will not be on an issue like this that we will be judged—nor should we judge others either.

We are not isolated masters of what we do or say.  We do not live in a moral vacuum, where we only have to be answerable to ourselves.  Everything we do has an affect on others and we are responsible for the influences we exert for good and for bad.

There can only be one Judge and he is the One before whom all of us will have to stand some day.  Only one Person has all authority before which all must bow. Paul then paraphrases from the prophet Isaiah (Is 45:23):

As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall give praise to God.

And Paul says in conclusion:

So then, each one of us will be held accountable.

So then, how can we take it on ourselves to sit in judgment on others, as has obviously been happening among some of the Christian communities with which Paul is connected?  It is not for any of us to judge the behaviour of brothers and sisters.  It is not for us to condemn them for their weaknesses which we don’t happen to have. God will take care of that in his own time and way. Only he knows what inner motives and the resources people have to do good. Our sole concern should be to be ready to give an account of our own stewardship.

That does not mean, of course, that we will not be called on to evaluate the conduct or the behaviour of other people. For instance, a prospective employee will be evaluated by an employer as to his or her suitability for a particular post.  For example, we do not just allow anyone who applies to become a teacher, a policeman or a priest.

But evaluating a person’s intellectual or other capacity is not the same thing as passing a definitive judgement on the person.  We may utterly condemn the work of a terrorist in blowing up a building full of innocent people, but we cannot pass a final judgement on such a person, whose inner motives and convictions are hidden from us and who also can change and become a totally different person. Perhaps today’s terrorist can be tomorrow’s highly respected prime minister. It is a fact that many of the people we now regard as saints were guilty of seriously immoral behaviour in their earlier lives.

Read more

Thursday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 15:1-10

The previous Gospel passage seemed to show Jesus at his most radical:

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Today we see Jesus’ compassionate and understanding side. These two views are not contradictory.

The Gospel says that tax collectors and sinners were gathering round to listen to Jesus. To some of the Pharisees and scribes this was quite scandalous. They say: “This fellow [Greek, houtos; and one can hear the contempt in the phrase] welcomes sinners and eats with them.” As far as they were concerned, any God-fearing person, not to mention a rabbi (teacher), would have absolutely nothing to do with such people.

It was bad enough socialising with them, but to share their food was unthinkable. They were unclean, and one became unclean by sitting at the same table with them. To eat with people was a sign of recognition and acceptance. As far as the Pharisees were concerned, these were contemptible, unclean sinners. It only confirmed the opinion of the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus was a person to be removed.

In reply, Luke gives us three separate parables, each touching on the same theme. We have two of them today. The third and most famous—the Prodigal Son—appears elsewhere in the liturgical readings (24th Sunday in Year C). Each one is a picture of God’s attitude towards the sinner, and it is very different from that of the Pharisee.

The first is of a shepherd who has lost one of 100 sheep entrusted to his care. The theme of the sheep and the shepherd is common in the Old Testament. We think of the famous Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd…”) and a beautiful passage in Ezekiel (34:11-16). Without hesitation, the good shepherd leaves the 99 ‘good’ sheep and goes off looking for the stray. When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders and comes back in jubilation, inviting all his friends and neighbours to celebrate:

Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.

Similarly, concludes Jesus, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who sincerely repents and comes back to God than over many (self-) ‘righteous’ people who have no need to repent, or who think they have no need to repent. There seems to be an ironic and sarcastic tone here. Who does not need to repent of something at some time? Jesus presents a totally different attitude to the repentant sinner, and he gives it as God’s own attitude.

The second parable is similar. A housewife who has “10 silver coins” (drachmas)—probably the sum total of her wealth—has lost one of them. Will she not turn the whole house upside down looking for it? A house like this would typically have no windows and rough earthen floors (and, of course, no electricity!), making a search quite difficult. But when she does eventually find it, she will call in all her friends and neighbours to share her joy:

Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.

Jesus concludes:

…there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

“In the presence of angels”, of course, means ‘with God’.

We need to remember that these stories were told as Jesus’ response to the criticism of some scribes and Pharisees. He had absolutely no reason to apologise for his mixing with tax collectors, sinners and other social and religious outcasts. He was like the shepherd or the housewife in the parables. He was looking for people who were lost so that he could bring them back.

He spent time in their company, not because he did not mind what they did; on the contrary, his whole purpose was to change them. But he could not do that at a distance.

The mind of the Pharisee was different. These people with whom Jesus was associating were sinful and unclean, and the ‘good’ person had to have no contact with them of any kind or they too would become unclean.

Notice the different motivation. The Pharisee was only thinking of his own spiritual and ritual purity. Jesus was thinking of the person who was lost and needed to be brought back to a world of truth and love. And so he reached out. He went to where the sinner was. A Pharisee thought he was spiritually and morally strong, yet his avoiding the sinner showed he was afraid of contamination. Jesus was not afraid of such contamination—he was the really strong one. He could be with the sinners without becoming one of them.

Much of this is highly relevant for our Christian life today. There is probably a lot more of the Pharisee in our Christian hearts than we are prepared to admit. ‘Good’ Catholics tend to keep away from ‘immoral’ situations and the people who are there. ‘Good’ Catholics do not like to be seen in certain places which do not have a ‘good’ reputation. They even call them “occasions of sin”.

We tend to live in enclosed enclaves (we may hardly be able to call them ‘communities’), taking care of our own spiritual welfare. But that is not the Church that Christ founded. We are called to proclaim the Gospel. We are called to reach out to the sinner. To do so, we have to welcome them and eat with them. Instead of living in sanitised suburbs, we should be down in the poor sections of our cities, in our pubs and clubs, in our ‘red light’ districts reaching out and listening and, where possible, bringing back a sheep that is lost and does not know where it is going.

Read more