Ordinary Time

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

The author of Wisdom lists forceful divine characteristics. Beginning with the total and exclusive providence of God, he states that only the God of Israel exercises care over all. Because God has neither peer nor rival, God is accountable to no one for the way justice is practiced. God’s might is tempered by leniency. The righteous trust in God’s power at work in the world. However, those who do not trust this power are fearful. The people of Israel are exhorted to pattern their treatment of others after God’s treatment of them, to temper their own might with leniency, to regulate their own justice with kindness.

Paul provides us with a bold and moving explanation of prayer. He describes human limitation and how the Spirit comes to the assistance of human beings precisely in this limitation. He maintains that we do not know how to pray as we ought. Still, such weakness need not prevent us from accomplishing great things through the Spirit who works in and through us. This Spirit acts as intermediary between God and us. Since God searches hearts, God knows that it is the Spirit who makes intercession for us. God has a purpose, and though we do not know what that purpose is, the enabling Spirit of God moves us toward it.

Three parables illustrate aspects of the growth of the reign of God: the field sown with weeds, the mustard seed, and the yeast in the dough. In the first parable, good seed is sown, but weeds grow up along with the crops. This represents a community that includes both good and bad. Purging should be delayed. The time of harvest will come when separation will take place. The second and third parables address the reign’s unimpressive beginnings, its gradual and imperceptible growth, and the extraordinary yield that it will ultimately produce. Jesus’ teaching ends with a solemn admonishment: Whoever has ears ought to hear and understand this.

Jan 15 2025

Rejuvenating Sluggish Hearts

Isaiah provides us with a glimpse of what ecologists today would refer to as the integrity of creation. Focusing on precipitation in the forms of rain and snow, he traces the cycle that it takes. His understanding comes from observation of nature, the primary source of wisdom. This metaphor assures us that we can be as confident of the power of the word of God as we can be of the working of the natural world. Just as nature produces miracles upon which we can rely and because of which we can survive, so the word of God can effect miracles upon which we can rely and because of which we can live.

Paul’s teaching on the end of time takes a very interesting turn. He maintains that the new life of which he speaks is not limited to the human sphere. Rather, the entire created world participates in this transformation. The entire created world is somehow swept up with humankind into this eschatological drama, awaiting the revelation that will be granted the children of God, not as spectators, but as participants. Paul assures the Christians that they already possess the first fruits of the Spirit, a pledge that guarantees they will be brought into full transformation. By implication, all of creation will be brought along with them.

The Gospel parable focuses neither on the sower nor on the seed, but on the receptivity of the soil. The parable is not a difficult story to understand. But what does it really mean? Jesus provides his disciples an allegorical interpretation of the parable. In each case described, the sown word is actually heard; to some extent it is accepted. Jesus is not referring to outright rejection from outsiders, but to the way followers receive the word of God. When one understands the meaning of the parable, one is apt to wonder: What kind of soil am I? How receptive am I to the word of God?

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

Jan 15 2025

Home Schooling

When you think of a king coming before his people, the image of someone riding on a donkey does not come to mind. If the Lone Ranger had Silver and Roy Rogers had Trigger, a similar white stallion would seem most fitting for a king. Not an ass, even a purebred one. But this image from the prophet Zechariah is one that must have planted itself in the imagination of Jesus, for that is how he made his great entrance into Jerusalem and was greeted as the Messiah. It was not the entrance of a powerful warrior, but of a gentle king whose rule would bring peace to the nations.

I have sometimes regretted the loss of St. Christopher from the calendar of saints. That legendary saint, whose name means “Christ-bearer,” signaled that the risen Lord had now chosen to be carried by his disciples. We bear him in our bodies, minds, and hearts. We bring him to the world when we work to bring peace and healing and knowledge of the Father.

This necessitates being willing to take on the yoke of Jesus. I remember once hearing that the yokes Jesus made in the carpenter shop under Joseph’s guidance rode easily on the shoulders of the animals, distributing evenly the weight they pulled. The yoke Jesus offers us is his teaching about the kingdom of heaven and how to live in it while in the world. This means putting on his attitude and spirit of attentive listening for the will of the Father—home schooling in the best sense.

Consider/Discuss

How do you believe Jesus will return at the end of time?
Have you accepted the yoke of the Lord? How does it guide you?

Responding to the Word

Lord, give us the rest only you can give when we feel burdened by life’s labors and sorrows. Open our hearts so that we learn from you to seek and accept the yoke that is easy. Give us the strength to help others with the burdens that weigh them down.

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

The passage from Zechariah is an oracle of salvation, containing an idealized picture of an Israelite king and the peaceful kingdom over which he will rule. Though this is a vision of the future, the verbs are prophetic perfect, indicating that in God’s time the future is already present. The king is seated on the foal of an ass, a purebred animal born of a female ass rather than of a mule. While this may be a depiction of a victory march, it is devoid of military ostentation. Instead, the king proclaims peace to all nations. This king is the agent of God’s blessings to all people.

Paul contrasts two ways of living: life in the flesh and life in the spirit. For Paul, flesh is human nature in all of the limitations that sometimes incline one away from God; by spirit he means a life that is attuned to God. Paul argues that life in the flesh cannot please God, while life in the spirit is a form of union with God. Sin may still exact physical death, but it cannot quench the spirit that lives because of righteousness. Just as Christ conquered death and lives anew, so those joined to Christ will share in his victory and through the Spirit will enjoy new life.

Jesus describes the intimate relationship that he shares with God in terms that can only be considered a high Christology, an emphasizing of his divine rather than his human nature. He claims that only the Father can really know him, because only God has this kind of experiential knowledge of him. Correspondingly, only he can really know God, for only he has experiential knowledge of the Father. If anyone else knows the Father it is only because Jesus has revealed God to that person. In this sense, Jesus is the mediator of knowledge of God. If his hearers learn from him, they too will be blessed with the revelation of the Father.