The Focus Of Our Desires
Friday:
Eleventh Week of the Year: : June 17, 2016
Year II: 2Kings 11: 1-20; Psalm 132:11-18; Matthew 6:19-23
The Responsorial Psalm assures us when things look bad: “The Lord has chosen Sion for his dwelling”
(Psalm 132). The Church is the new Sion.
In 2Kings 11: 1-20 God seems to be showing his care for his people
through the violence and wholesale slaughter that characterized political
turnovers in the Chosen People.
The Jews were no different from
other primitive societies in this. And they were really not that different from
modern societies. Certainly no country in history has ever killed as many
people as quickly and as indiscriminately — men, women, children, old and sick
— as the United States did in the saturation bombings and atomic attacks of
World War II. And no industrialized country in the world equals us today in
state-sponsored executions. Most modern countries have abolished the death
penalty entirely. But even many American Catholics still approve of juridical
killing, in spite of its condemnation by the Pope and the united American
episcopacy.
In the United States the public
separation of Church and state is sometimes confused with a private separation
of religion and politics. People vote for their economic advantage, or for what
they perceive as “national security,” without asking the deeper questions about
social justice, international exploitation and unjustified use of force. For
the Jews, however, formally allied to God by covenant, church and state were
one. In the Jewish Scriptures God appears to take an active part in politics.
We are given the impression that God brings about the fall of bad kings and the
rise of better ones, sometimes through unspeakable brutality, as in today’s
reading.
Scripture scholars teach us not
to identify God’s revelation with our first impressions. We must discern the content of the inspired word in the light of the cultural form of its expression. Rather
than spend time analyzing the present text, we pass on to Matthew 6: 19-23, in which Jesus teaches his own way of guiding
governments. It is not through force, using the powers of this world, but
through the power of truth and love alone. For this the starting point is to
identify the focus of our desires:
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Your heart’s focus
will determine what you see. What you see will determine where you go. “If your
eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light.” If “the light inside
you is darkness” you will stumble and stray to your own destruction and the
detriment of all you deal with. “The Lord
has chosen Sion for his dwelling” but we must attend to his presence and
light within us.
Initiative:
Give God’s life: Be a “priest in the Priest.” Focus on the light Jesus
brought into the world.
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