Year C

Dec 11 2024

Scripture Study for

As he prepares Israel to enter the land promised to their ancestors, Moses once again exhorts the people to cherish their covenantal relationship with God and to heed carefully God’s commands, which are intended to give Israel life (Deuteronomy 10:15–16). The will of God is not mysterious or changeable, such that Israel will never be sure what God wants of them. Their God is not capricious or subject to whims. The Law is a gift to Israel so that they will always know what God asks of them. It is always available to them; they do not need to go searching for it. They only have to carry it out.

Here at the beginning of his Letter to the Colossians, Paul draws on a preexisting hymn to set the stage for his exposition of the work of God, through Christ, on behalf of all of creation. Who is Jesus Christ? He is, in the first place, the visible manifestation of God, for in him the fullness of deity dwells. Before his incarnation, he existed before all the rest of creation as the “firstborn.” This term refers not only to his primacy temporally but also and especially to his sovereignty of rank (just as with firstborn sons in the Old Testament).

Because of this, and because all creation was made “through him” (in the much the same way the wisdom literature speaks of Wisdom [8:22–35]), all of creation is “for him” and subject to him. Christ is also the firstborn of the dead, making his “preeminence” even more clear. Through him, all creation holds together and all creation— currently marked by much violence and chaos—is reconciled, such that the promise of peace is firmly established.

Jesus’ response to the scholar of the Law addresses both the substance of his question (“who is my neighbor?”) and the motivation for asking it (self-justification). The command to love one’s neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) refers originally to one’s “own people,” which is to say, fellow Israelites. This did not mean that one was free to act unjustly toward non-Israelites, as the numerous injunctions about mistreating “aliens” make clear. In Jesus’ time, this would certainly have meant loving one’s fellow Jews. But what about others? Jesus emphasizes that one’s neighbor is anyone who needs help, regardless of religion or ethnic background or anything else. The scholar clearly believed that he regularly fulfilled this requirement, perhaps limiting its application to fellow Jews. Jesus challenges his piety by demanding that he expand his notion of neighbor to include even such as the despised Samaritans.

Dec 11 2024

Tending to the Broken, Tending to Christ

I have tried so hard. I have given all that I have. And yet here I am, lying by the side of the road, beaten and left for dead. My head throbs. The sun dries the blood on my face. I feel my life fading. Is this the way that it is going to end?

A priest passes by. He is tall. He is well-respected. I am a man of no importance. He can tell by my cloak. And he believes that if misfortune has befallen me, it must be something that I have done wrong: God is punishing me.

A Levite passes by. He is absorbed in important thoughts. Too important to notice. Unconcerned. Oblivious to my battered body by the side of the road.

They do not see. They do not care. They just pass by. The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference.

I had thought that my time in the wilderness was to be a forty-day test. I did not know that it would be my end. My God, I am afflicted and in pain. You hear the cry of the poor. Do not abandon me!

Gentle hands reach under my shoulders. Liquid bathes my wounds. Warm animal fur brushes my cheek. I turn to look for the man’s eyes. I see a man who cares. He knows what it is like to be cast off, to be tossed to the side, to be uncared for. He is a Samaritan. He knows.

I am not done living yet. I have much more loving and serving to do on this earth.

I will be beaten again. My head will bleed again. From the cross, tender hands will again lift me. But I am not dead yet. This is not the time. This is not the place.

Consider/Discuss

The Law of the Lord is written in our hearts, very near to us. We know that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We only have to carry it out. Yet how often do we go swashbuckling through life, unaware of those who are broken on the road beside us? To what or to whom are we indifferent and/or desensitized? How can we begin to see what we do not see?
Have you ever felt left by the side of the road, beaten and battered, ignored by those with power and influence? Where have you turned for help in that situation?

Living and Praying with the Word

We turn to you, Lord, in our need. You live and move and breathe among us. You see what we do. You know that we tend to judge ourselves favorably. Sometimes we are so full of ego that we indifferently walk by you and we do not even see. Sometimes we ourselves are the ones lying by the road, broken and bleeding, and we cannot acknowledge our pain. Sometimes we think that we have been the Good Samaritan who has gently reached under your shoulders and lifted you up. And maybe we have. And maybe we haven’t. You have said that when we reach out to the least of yours, we do it for you. Strengthen our compassion this day. Show us how to truly care for our neighbor.

Dec 11 2024

Not a Vanishing Act

Last night before bedtime, I read about Jesus sending out the disciples. Before that, I watched a detective show with vampires in Edwardian England. Somehow, in my sleep, vampires and disciples got all muddled up: It was dark. Vampires flowed toward me from across the bridge, wanting to suck my blood. I was about to be emptied of me to become one of them. Then the disciples came from behind me. One of them yanked on my arm to make me come with him. I woke from the dream shaking in the darkness. My right elbow hurt.

I awoke and thought of a question that I had never considered before—what is the difference between becoming a vampire and becoming a disciple?

Some popular piety makes God out to be a bit Dracula-like: as the divine draws us close, all that makes us human is sucked out of us. Our end is to evaporate into the eternal mist. But that, well . . . that is pantheism, and not the end the God of Jesus Christ has in mind for us.

In Christian belief, as God the Creator draws us close, the more real we become. When Jesus calls us to discipleship, the goal isn’t to empty us of our distinctiveness, but for us to become so rich with God’s Spirit that we become the finest human that we can be. We needn’t be afraid of that pull of nearness. The One who tugs us to follow is the One who wants us to flourish.

Jesus sends his disciples out two by two because following him brings great happiness. We rejoice because our names are written in heaven. Whose name is written in heaven? Your name. My name. We are not dissolved into the mist and lost. Our names are written down as one particular human being, created and wanted by God. That is not scary. That is dream-filled delight.

Consider/Discuss

Evangelization efforts throughout history have wrestled with “making people who are more like us.” St. Paul continually battled with the Jewish Christians who wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised before they could be baptized. The early missionaries in the United States strove to make the Native Americans “more European” so they would follow Jesus “better.” The British worked to Anglicize the Indian sub-continent to be “more Christian.” Think about the historical tugging and pulling on people’s arms to make them become “like us.” What would Jesus do? How can we treat other people with respect while still offering them a relationship with the God of holy flourishing?

If you are a cook and bake a delicious new recipe for cinnamon-raisin bread, would you share it? If you are a bird-watcher and you spot a Bohemian waxwing for the first time, would you tell another bird-watcher about it? If you are a football fan and you read about your team’s new five-star quarterback recruit, would you talk about it? You’d be excited! How could you not talk about it? Think about the love and nearness of God, the exhilaration about what Jesus has done to lift us from the muck of life, to redeem us from the pit. Are we excited about that, too? How does sharing our personal story of the God who helps us to flourish differ from arm-twisting and yanking on elbows? How can we effectively witness to that happiness?

Living and Praying with the Word

Good God, thank you that you are not a dark vampire, wanting to suck the life out of me. Quite the contrary—as Isaiah says, you want to nourish me! Your heavenly, sustaining milk is abundant! You fill me with yourself. In the moments when I am close to you, I feel energized, stronger, more alive, more myself. Thank you for carrying me and holding me, as a mother comforts her child. So many people that I know are hungry for your nourishment but do not know you or trust you. Help me, good God of love, to tell the story of your richness, full of enthusiasm and joy!

Dec 11 2024

Scripture Study for

The final chapters of the book of Isaiah are set in the postexilic period, when Jerusalem was tiny, with maybe five hundred people. To the small band of returned exiles, this was hardly evidence of God’s promised glorious restoration. Yet God assures them that their very presence is merely the beginning of something greater: “Zion was scarcely in labor when she bore her children. Shall I bring a mother to the point of birth, and yet not let her child be born?” (66:8c–9a) In other words, God’s restoration has begun and will not stop. Our passage continues with this metaphor of Jerusalem as a mother who will one day be able to nourish all her children abundantly. This will be possible because God will draw all nations to the holy city for worship, enriching the city and allowing all her “children” to flourish (66:18–20).

Paul concludes his Letter to the Galatians by noting that those who have been arguing that to be a Christian one must become a Jew and take on the obligations of the Law are not interested in the Law so much as they are interested in gaining people to their side of this disputed question, “so that they may boast of your flesh” (6:13). Paul, however, is not concerned with gaining people to his side in some sort of contest; he does not want “followers” of whom he can boast (meaning, claim as his own). Rather, he only claims as his own the cross of Christ, which has transformed him. All that matters in the end is becoming a new person in Christ. Paul is free from concerns about what others think, about earthly honors or anything else of which “the world” boasts, because he belongs now to Christ, and thus “bears his marks.”

Jesus sends out his seventy-two disciples to prepare towns for his coming by preaching repentance, curing the sick, casting out demons, and calling more disciples to Christ (laborers for the harvest). The reception will be mixed: some will receive them in peace, others will reject the call to repentance and not receive them. In either case they are to behave as “lambs,” offering only peace and accepting gratefully what is offered to them in return. They are not to allow anything to slow them down in their urgency to proclaim the kingdom of God. When the disciples return and announce their successes, Jesus proclaims that Satan is steadily losing his grip on the world as the kingdom of God advances.

Dec 11 2024

Called to Follow

Dear D____,

I email you because a young man has asked my advice. He has encountered the living God and has fallen in love. In return, he wants to follow God with all of his heart. But he is not sure what path he should take. Today’s readings confuse him: Elijah permits Elisha to say good-bye to his family and then the younger prophet follows Elijah wholeheartedly; Jesus tells a man to leave his family behind immediately and not look back. The statement, “I will follow you wherever you go,” is how he feels, he says. But what does that mean? Should he leave the possibility of having a family behind and consider the priesthood? Is it that the deeper route, the more serious road to holiness?

D., you are a man of eighty-plus years who has lived a deeply Christian life. You are one of the most committed disciples that I know. Ever since your first Cursillo weekend, you have kept your eyes fixed on Jesus. You have not turned back. You linked arms with your wife and followed a straight path toward the Lord, walking together, raising your children to be faith-filled men and women of God. And you have touched so many, including me.

This young man’s hesitation about the priesthood comes from peers whom he sees living what he calls “a dandified Christianity,” in which a man is seen for his commitment, in religious garb that is obvious to all, adopting “a higher path” from which to look down upon the worldly life of family and work. That does not appeal to him. He wonders what is right for him.

As a Christian layman, your faithfulness has been unseen and unsung. He would be inspired by your example. Would you be willing to talk with him? Thanks! K.

Consider/Discuss

The Catholic Church has often considered that to be ordained or a vowed religious was “a higher calling.” The Second Vatican Council emphasized that all of the baptized are called to holiness, to follow Jesus without reserve, without looking back. In your own life’s calling, what is the narrow path that best leads you to the Lord? Temptations can knock both ordained and lay people off track, though the particular temptations may be different. How can we all, the people of God, help each other toward holiness?
In today’s reading, St. Paul suggests that we serve one another, that the whole law is summed up in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Guided by the Spirit, do we dip a toe into the waters of Christian self-sacrifice or do we plunge in wholeheartedly? Are we willing to give and give and give even when there is a cost?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you set your face resolutely toward Jerusalem, no matter what it was going to cost you. On our own power, we waffle and wander and weave. Send us a double dose of your Holy Spirit so that we stand firm, so that your determination is our determination, your willingness to give of yourself is our willingness to give. You empower us. You strengthen us. We depend on your help. When things succeed, help us to be grateful and not proud. For to you is the glory for all that is good! With the psalmist, we sing, “My heart is glad and my soul rejoices.” We too want to follow you wherever you go. Glory to you, God of the heavens and the earth!