Religion and Culture

September 6: Saturday of Week 22 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

1 Corinthians 4:6-15; Psalm 145:17-18, 19-20, 21; Luke 6:1-5

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship? (To support Reaching Jesus... Step Five).

Religion and Culture

“The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5).

Paul is saying there is no point in jealousy, rivalry and bickering, because fundamentally we are all equally nothing. “What do you possess that you have not received?”

More important is the truth that we all have received. We are receiving right now existence itself from God. And life. We are even receiving divine life, because God is letting us share in the life the Father, Son and Spirit have been living together for all eternity.

What we have from ourselves is nothing. What we have from God is everything. We are at one and the same time nothing and everything.

Paul was glad to be stripped of anything he might boast of—human wisdom, strength, honor, even the necessities of life—because the experience of having nothing that he could give himself or hold onto as his own made him aware that everything he did have was from God. And this kept him aware that he could count on receiving from God everything God wanted him to have. No one needs more than that.

Jesus challenged and changed the Sabbath observance, a major root of Jewish culture. He declared himself “lord of the Sabbath.” We claim the right to challenge and change the very roots of our human culture. Because all truth and goodness comes from God, Jesus is lord of every culture.

PRAY: “Jesus is Lord”

PRACTICE: Let Jesus reign in everything you do.