The Good News is For All
The Twenty First Sunday of The Year: August 21, 2016 (Year
C)
Inventory
How do you feel about change in the Church? Does
it upset you when they change the words of the prayers and hymns you grew up
with? When they make changes in the way of celebrating Mass and actualizing the
sacraments? In the way religion is taught? When phrases from foreign languages are
added to the hymns at Mass to be inclusive to immigrants?
Input
In the Entrance
Antiphon we are really asking God to save, not just us, but everyone “who
trusts in you” and “calls to you.” When we ask him to “have mercy,” we are
aware that to have “mercy” means to “come to the aid of another out of a sense
of relationship.” The readings will clarify
the nature of authentic relationship with God.
In the Opening
Prayer(s) we ask God to give us “lasting joy in this changing world.” We
find joy in focusing on what lasts, without being upset by what changes. This
is also what makes us “one in mind and heart.” Our true union is found in our
“desire for what you promise.” We ask to find our joy in “hearing your word in
every sound” that expresses the truth and love of God, no matter how foreign it
may sound to us, and in “longing for your presence more than for life itself.”
What we seek in the “life” we are used to is the presence of God — who is not
restricted to the places or practices in which we are used to looking for him.
We ask that every experience of difference and change will make us aware that,
in contrast to the “attractions of a changing world,” whether good or bad,
Jesus promises us the “peace and unity of his kingdom,” something “this world”
and anything we cling to in it “does not give.”
The Responsorial
Psalm translates all of the above, and both the readings, into action: “Go out to all the world and tell the Good
News” (Psalm 117).
An Open
Community:
Isaiah
66:18-21 presents
God as an expansive God: life-giving, unitive, all-embracing: “I come to gather
nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory.”
God is talking about sending out “fugitives,” survivors of the
persecution that is falling on Israel, to bring into his holy People
outlanders, strangers from “lands that have never heard of my fame or seen my
glory.” People not brought up in Israel’s traditions, who do not know its
history or share its common memories. People who are different.
This can be very upsetting to those who love
their religion precisely because they feel comfortable with its laws and traditions,
who find security in its stable worldview and manner of living. Those for whom
the support and comfort they feel in community with others is identified with
the “common unity” of shared expression: with belief formulated by all in the
same words and mutually manifested in the same gestures, customs and practices.
For people who understand “community” this way, the introduction of any foreign
element can be disruptive.
But God says these foreigners are family! Those
who invite them in will be bringing “your kindred” — your brothers and sisters
— “from all the nations.” They will be
brought in “as an offering to the LORD… just as the Israelites bring their
offering to the house of the LORD in clean vessels.” Bringing in the strangers
is no different from bringing in the ritual gifts already being offered to God.
Except, we might add, bringing people to God is certainly more pleasing to him
than bringing anything else.
God goes even further; “I will also take some of
them as priests and as Levites, says the LORD.” This is a little much! It is
one thing to let foreigners in; it is another thing to give them positions of
authority and sacred ministry. And to be a Levite may have been hereditary! One
theory is that they were the genetic members of the tribe of Levi (John
McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, “Levi”).
If God opens ordination to people who are “different,” what is he doing to the
established structure of his holy People?
It should not disturb us if the Church makes
changes to accommodate new or different people who are entering the Church. Not
if we keep exulting in Christ’s commission: “Go out to all the world and
tell the Good News!”
True
Identity:
In Luke
13:22-30 Jesus shakes the complacency of those who identified themselves as
members of the People of God because they followed all the established rules,
used the recognized vocabulary, and conformed to the traditional customs of
Israel. He says that at the “wedding banquet of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:6-9)
they may hear God saying to them, “I do not know where you come from.”
Ironically, Jesus tells them to enter through
the “narrow door.” These are the ones who, in the early Church, wanted to make
the door too narrow for the Gentiles to enter unless they conformed to all the
traditional Jewish customs (see Acts 15:1-29). In today’s Church it is those
who want to make fixed rules and observances a “Procrustean bed” of orthodoxy
to determine who is acceptable as a Catholic. Jesus tells them that if they
exclude those who are “different,” they themselves will be excluded from the
People and become “foreigners” to God.
Jesus said “People will come from the east and
the west, from the north and the south, and will take their place at the feast
in the kingdom of God. Some who are last
who will be first,” while some who think they are in the first row of
orthopraxis “will be last.”
What is the “narrow door”? It is very simple: a
single-minded focus on the person of Jesus Christ. A desire to love God with
our whole heart (see Deuteronomy 6:5; 10:12-13). If we do this, everything else
will follow in proper order and subordination. But we have a choice. Jesus says
“The gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are
many who take it” (Matthew 7:13). This is the path traced by “boundary
markers,” whether they are just five Commandments on each side or rules that go
into more details. The “wide” path can be more broad or more narrow, depending
on how strict we make the rules. But the path it delineates is wide compared to
the path of the Gospel, which is the narrowest path of all: a straight line.
There is nothing more narrow than a straight
line and a line is the shortest distance between two points. Christians who truly “belong” set their course by the “fixed star,” which is
the person of Jesus Christ. In every course adjustment—every choice—they point
themselves straight at him.
John Paul II is radical about this. “Following
Christ,” he says, is “the essential and primordial foundation of Christian
morality.” And he explains: “This is not a matter only of [believing] a
teaching and obediently accepting a commandment.” More radically, it involves
“holding fast to the very person of Jesus…. Jesus' way of acting and his words, his deeds
and his precepts constitute the moral
rule of Christian life” (see The
Splendor of Truth, nos. 18-21). Those who know Jesus, focus on Jesus, love
Jesus and try to base their life on his attitudes and values will recognize and
welcome all others who are doing the same thing, regardless of how differently
they express their devotion to him. “Go
out to all the world and tell the Good News!”
Make straight the path
The Book of Hebrews
12:5-13 urges us not to forget the “encouraging words” (also translated as
“exhortation”) that urge us not to disdain or disregard the “discipline of the
Lord.”
We may associate “discipline” with strict
control or punishment. But the actual meaning of the word in Latin is
“instruction” or “teaching.” It has the same root (discere: “to teach”) as “disciple,” which means a student” or
“learner.” To be taught by the Lord, no matter what form it takes, is always a
blessing. And always encouraging. Hebrews says it “brings forth the fruit of
peace and justice”; or, in another translation, “yields the peaceful fruit of
righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
So “lift up your drooping hands and strengthen
your weak knees,” Hebrews continues, “and make straight the paths you walk on,
so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” The
fact of the matter is, there is only one right path. It is following Jesus, who
is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). If we do not follow him, we
will be lame because we are “out of joint” When we “straighten up and fly
right,” we will be healed. That is encouraging. That is motivation.
Insight
What is the underlying unity of faith and devotion we can find in all the differences of
expression among believers?
Initiative:
Give God’s life:
Invite someone who is
“different” to come to Mass with you.
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