Tuesday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 1 Peter 1:10-16

Peter continues to speak of the “salvation” which the Christians are confident of experiencing. We now are the possessors of the grace which the prophets of the Old Testament looked for.  They spoke in advance of the very blessings which the Christians are now experiencing, without knowing or experiencing them personally. But even at that time, they were already filled with the Spirit of Christ when they spoke of the sufferings of Christ to be followed by glory. There is a seamless unity between the Old and New Testaments as one flows into the other, as one prepares for the other.

At the same time, the way of Jesus is one which the Christians themselves will follow. Those who are united to Christ will also, after suffering, enter into glory. And so they will benefit in the midst of their present sufferings from Jesus’ having already entered into glory.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace intended for you made careful search and inquiry…in regard to the things that have now been announced to you…

And what prophets were providing was what has now been communicated to the Christians by the evangelisers of the gospel, first of all, the Apostles—the proclaimers of the gospel, the Good News.  The Apostles did so through the “Holy Spirit sent from heaven”, who came down on them at Pentecost, and Jesus himself on the cross “gave up his spirit” (John 19:30, from the Greek, paredoken to pneuma, literally “he handed over the Spirit”).

These are matters of such deep interest and importance,

…things into which angels long to look!

Their intense desire is highlighted by the Greek word rendered “to look into”.  It means “to stoop and look intently” (it is the same word used of Peter and Mary Magdalene peering into the empty tomb at Jesus’ resurrection; see John 20:5,11).

As Peter then says, our expected response is very clear. We have to move into action, (“…prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves…”, or in the Greek, “gird up the loins of your mind”), and put all our hope and confidence in the gift of salvation that will be ours when Christ appears.

We have here the first of a long series of exhortations (actually imperatives) which end at 1 Peter 5:11.  In the language of the 1st century the term ‘girding one’s loins’ meant that Peter’s readers were being called on to gather up their long, flowing garments and get ready for action.  Jesus uses a similar image:

Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit…be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him [the bridegroom] as soon as he comes and knocks.
(Luke 12:35, 36)

Here they are to:

…set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.

That grace is the final state of complete blessedness and deliverance from sin.  Peter later indicates that a major purpose of this letter is to encourage and testify regarding the true grace of God (5:12).

We Christians have to change our whole lifestyle.  We can no longer:

…be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.

We are to be like children, re-born into the family of God, children of our heavenly Father, able to pray, “…Our Father in heaven…” (Matt 6:9).  Believers are also described, by Paul, as being adopted into God’s family (see Rom 8:15).

Even more, we are called on, in so far as we can, to imitate the holiness of God himself who says:

…therefore…be holy, for I am holy. (Lev 11:44-45)

The word “holy” (Greek, hagios) suggests, not a kind of piety, but being set apart from the majority.  We have a vision of life and a consequent behaviour which makes us different.  As Christians, that difference should clearly appear in the way we live.  That is true holiness.  Being ‘holy’ also implies a certain wholeness, a total harmony with ourselves, those around us, our whole environment and God.

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Tuesday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 10:28-31

Having overcome their initial shock at what Jesus had to say about the danger of wealth as a serious obstacle to being a follower of Jesus or of being a member of the Kingdom, his disciples begin to take stock of their own actual situation. Clearly they cannot even be remotely numbered among the wealthy. Is there something to be said in favour of their relative poverty? Worried, the ever-irrepressible Peter exclaims:

Look, we have left everything and followed you.

Indeed they had. At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel we are told that, on Jesus’ invitation, they had abandoned their whole livelihood and become followers of Jesus. It was a bold step when they really had no idea where it would lead them.

Jesus replied:

Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

This sounds like a pie-in-the-sky promise, but has it been fulfilled? In fact, it has been—and many times over. By leaving a world where each one scrambles for a piece of the cake and where some get a huge piece and others only get crumbs, the Christian who truly has the spirit of the gospel enters a community where everyone takes care of everyone else, and where each one’s needs are taken care of by a sharing of the community’s resources.

This is how, by leaving one’s home and family and giving away one’s material goods, one enters a new family in which there are far more mothers, brothers and sisters; where one home is replaced by many homes offering their warmth and hospitality—in essence, offering a home away from home.

This is a reality which, unfortunately, has not been realised among many Christians—those who choose to live their daily lives in the rat race for acquisition characteristic of our modern capitalist societies. Their behavior reflects their belief that what they cannot get by their own efforts they will never come to enjoy.

Yet there are examples. One of the most obvious is religious life where the words of Jesus are lived out. The question is why should only religious have this experience of shared love and shared material goods? There are Christian communities and some charismatic groups where families live in a communal style sharing all their resources.

But by and large, we have to a great extent failed to realise that Christianity is not meant to be a religion where individuals, rich and poor, live individualistic lives and carry out certain ‘religious’ acts to “save their own souls”. Rather, Christianity essentially consists of creating a whole new way of living, by which people relate to each other in mutual love and care.

Jesus says that in his world the first will be last and the last first. In fact, he is saying that in his world there is no first and no last. Perhaps this can be illustrated by the following story.

A rich man was concerned about his future salvation, whether he would ‘go to heaven’ or not. In order to motivate himself, he asked God to give him a preview of heaven and hell, and God agreed. God said that they would first pay a visit to hell. When they got there the man was greatly surprised. He was brought into a sumptuous dining room of a large restaurant all decorated in red and gold. In the centre was a large round table and on it were the most exotic and delicious dishes that could be envisioned. Around the table were seated the diners. They were the most miserable-looking group one could imagine, all sitting there motionless and in silence just looking at the beautiful food in front of them. The reason for their glumness was that they had been given utensils which were three feet long! There was no way they could get any of the food into their mouths. And they were going to sit there like that for eternity. That was hell!

God then brought the man to heaven. Again he was amazed. Because they were in an identical banquet room, with the same kind of table and the same wonderful food. But everybody was in the highest spirits. The sound of laughter rang out everywhere. They were really enjoying themselves and the meal. Was this because they had the normal length utensils? No! Theirs were also three-feet long, but here everyone was reaching out food to serve people on the opposite side of the table—that was heaven.

It is a very good illustration of today’s Gospel. When everyone serves, everyone is served. When everyone gives, everyone gets. It is a lesson even we Christians seem to find difficult to learn.

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