Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 12 2025

Taking God’s Love for Granted

As I work with good-hearted preachers, I hear in homilies repeatedly that God loves us and that we are to love God and our neighbor. Do you hear (or say) that, too? Some of us use “churchy words” over and over again. Might we not have a hard time transcending the superficial to say something fresh and new about love today when we have talked about love so many times? Love, love, love, blah, blah, blah . . .

How can we go deeper? For inspiration, we turn to a medieval Carmelite monk whose affection for God was so warm that his kindliness overflowed to others. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection wrote in The Practice of the Presence of God that all counts for lost in the time that is not spent in loving God. Wherever he was, he practiced the presence of God. Whatever he did, he did with Jesus. He flipped an omelet with God; he repaired shoes with the Lord; he spoke with others while remaining attentive to the Holy Spirit within his heart. Three hundred years later, his little maxims about love of God and love of neighbor are still invigorating.

You and I, how can we love more deeply? We can be more constant in our communion with God. We can pray more often. Today’s psalmist offers us little words of love to pray all day, modeling for us how to cherish the living God: “I love you, O Lord, my strength, O Lord, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer!” Lifting up our hearts for thirty seconds, we can send our adorations to God. Loving tenderness then wells up within us and overflows to others.

We have little control over “how good” we are in prayer or in love. But we can be more constant with them both.

Consider/Discuss

With Brother Lawrence, we can gain the habit of being constant in practicing the presence of God. Partner with one other person to try that for one whole day. Share with one another what that experience was like.
Think about times when you have taken expressions of love for granted: at the end of a phone call, as one is going out the door, etc. What jogs you out of that fog to better appreciate who and what you have?

Living and Praying with the Word

O Lord our rock, our redeemer, our stronghold, do not let us take your love for granted! When we absorb the immensity of your care for us, then we want to love you with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Deepen us this day. Well up in our hearts and help us to radiate your love to others. For through you and with you and in you, we have our being. We love you. We love you. We love you.

Jan 12 2025

Scripture Study for

Having delivered Israel from Egypt, God now sets forth the expectations of the covenantal relationship. Chief among them is a concern for the vulnerable, especially, but not only, aliens (non-Israelites residing on Israelite land), widows, and orphans (that is, children without fathers). Without an adult male Israelite relation to defend them, these people were particularly vulnerable to injustice and fraud. The poor in general were also subject to manipulation and exploitation. In Israel God is creating a just, compassionate society that reflects the divine character by ensuring that the defenseless are protected. The disturbing threat of sword and “poetic justice” for those who abuse widows and orphans emphasizes the strength of divine concern for them.

Despite “great affliction” the Thessalonians have persevered in imitating Paul, who in turn has imitated Christ. The gospel has transformed their entire worldview, and their new lives of faith have been such that others have observed and been edified as they spread the gospel not only in words but through their example. The gospel, which had been received “in power . . . with much conviction” has brought joy, hope, and conversion to the Thessalonians. This transformation is part of the content of their witness to the gospel; they have become “a model for all believers.” This, despite, or perhaps because of, the “great affliction” that they have nevertheless endured with “joy from the Holy Spirit.”

The question put to Jesus about the greatest commandment is presented as a test, although we are not told in what the test consists. We know that there was a tradition of pointing toward certain commandments as in effect summing up all of the Law and the prophets. Therefore Jesus’ response by quoting first Deuteronomy 6:5 and then Leviticus 19:18 would probably not have been controversial, and indeed he receives no rebuttal from the Pharisees. It is interesting to note that the second commandment is “like” the first in that they both command “love,” understood in the biblical sense not as an emotion so much as a committed stance. For God, it means devotion and wholehearted commitment. For neighbor, it means commitment to their good, and seeking to help them when they need it.

Jan 06 2025

Praying for Mercy

There is a funny song in the highly irreverent musical The Book of Mormon. One of the two young Mormons being sent as a missionary to Uganda is a real “golden boy” with genuine expectations of doing great things. When he is paired up with a less prepossessing fellow named Callahan, he sings a song predicting the great things they will do. The song’s title is “It’s You and Me—But Mostly Me.”

The prayer of the Pharisee falls into this category. It is not a bad prayer, we are told. The Pharisee stands before God in gratitude for many blessings. But the focus quickly shifts to “I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . ” It is the simple prayer of the tax collector that wins God’s heart. Note how Jesus expresses it: “the latter went home justified.” To be justified is to be in right relationship with God; it is a gift of God. Asking that God be merciful puts us in right relationship with God.

We can make our own several prayers found in Luke’s first two chapters. Consider the prayer of Mary upon hearing Elizabeth’s words of greeting (1:46–55), the prayer of Zechariah at the birth of John the Baptist (1:68–79), and the prayer of Simeon in the temple when he takes in his arms the Christ Child (2:29–32). Each keeps our focus on God as a God of justice and mercy. Each calls us to bow our heads humbly in recognition of who we are and who God is.

Consider/Discuss

Does God really want us bowing our heads and beating our breasts?
Where is the line between self-acceptance, self-esteem, and self-absorption?

Responding to the Word

When I am tempted to be boastful in my prayer, O God, help me to recall that I always stand before you as a sinner.

Jan 06 2025

Scripture Study for

Sirach insists that the justice of God is an established fact. He also states that God knows no favorites, neither the privileged nor the dispossessed. By making this statement he indirectly shows that, if there is any partiality, it is ours and not God’s. According to covenant theology, we are all responsible for each other. The well-off are obliged to address the needs of those who suffer misfortune. This is a matter of justice, not charity. As a covenant partner, God will intervene on behalf of the poor when other covenant partners disregard their responsibilities. Sirach assures these forlorn people that their entreaties will not go unheeded.

Paul is aware that his days are numbered. His death is imminent. He faces it with the calm resignation that springs from deep faith. He states that he is being poured out like sacrificial blood. He also views his death as a departure like that of sailors weighing anchor or soldiers breaking camp. Like them, Paul has completed a demanding tour of service and is now preparing to return home. Finally, employing imagery from athletic competition, he claims that he has competed well; he has finished the race. He is confident that just as God previously rescued him from peril, so God will rescue him again.

The story of the Pharisee and the tax collector is an example of divine reversal. The Pharisee is a model of religious observance. His practices of piety exceed the requirements of the law. The tax collector, despised because he is part of the economic system put in place by the occupying Romans, asks God for mercy. He stands at a distance, not raising his eyes to heaven. The tax collector prays that his sins be expiated, and his prayer is answered. The Pharisee asks for nothing, and he receives nothing. The men’s lives may have been the reverse of each other, but the judgment of Jesus exposes the real reversal.

Dec 12 2024

Scripture Study for

This passage from Sirach comes from a larger section on true worship of God, which consists not merely in offering acceptable physical sacrifices at the altar, but above all in following God’s will by keeping the commandments and avoiding injustice (34:21 — 35:22). Because God is inherently just, God does not favor one person over another because one is rich or poor, for example. Although God has a special care for the weak and vulnerable, they do not “get a pass” for sin or injustice. While God’s ear is particularly attentive to the weak, who often have no one to rely on but God, all those who seek to be faithful to God will be heard. These are the lowly, those who submit to the divine will and seek to live it. Their prayer, especially for justice, will always be graciously received.

Paul concludes his Second Letter to Timothy by reminding him, once again, that he must stay firm in his teaching of sound doctrine, “for the time will come when people will not tolerate” it, but “will stop listening to the truth.” So Timothy must be prepared to continue to put up with hardship to fulfill his ministry (4:3–5). Paul himself, who is in prison, has done this, pouring himself out like a libation, that is, like an offering to God. As he looks back on his work, he is satisfied that whatever struggles and failures he might have had, he has been faithful and thus is “crossing the finish line,” the reward for which will be presented by Christ himself. This same Christ has stood by Paul from the beginning, even when he has been abandoned by others, so that Paul too may fulfill his ministry.

There are perhaps few things so frightening to contemplate as the possibility that one has fundamentally misinterpreted one’s stance before God. The Pharisee represents the dangerous tendency in most of us to exalt ourselves at the expense of others. He is, in one sense, a good Jew; Jesus does not find fault with his fasting and tithing. But his words suggest that he does not consider himself a sinner, and in fact looks down on those who are. His “thanksgiving” is entirely self-congratulatory and he neither gives God praise nor asks God for anything. The tax collector, on the other hand, is a stereotypical sinner who, crucially, knows he is in need of mercy. He goes home justified because he asked for mercy and received it. The Pharisee did not go home justified because he did not ask for mercy; he did not think he needed it.