Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

The issue in the first reading is the matter of retribution, the manner in which God rewards righteous living and punishes wicked behavior. Two situations are described. In the first one, a righteous person sins; in the second, a sinner repents. God metes out punishment in the first situation and grants a reward in the second. Actually, having chosen another path, the once righteous person now suffers the consequences of that choice. In like manner, the sinner who turns away from wickedness and chooses the path of righteousness and justice will live united with God, the source of life. Is this injustice on God’s part?

The reading from Philippians is one of Christianity’s most exalted hymns of praise of Christ. Paul offered this magnificent vision of Christ’s self-emptying to challenge the Philippians’ own attitudes of mind and heart. Not only did Christ relinquish his Godlike state, he emptied himself of it. Without losing his Godlike being, he took on the likeness of human beings, not merely resembling a human being, but actually becoming one. As a result, his exaltation is as glorious as his humiliation was debasing. Every knee shall do him homage and every tongue shall proclaim his sovereignty. The entire created universe is brought under his lordship.

The sons in the Gospel story represent two ways of responding to a father’s command. The first son refuses to obey, a serious breach of protocol in a patriarchal kinship structure. However, the headstrong son repents and eventually does what his father charged him to do. The second son does not show such disrespect to his father by refusing to go as he was directed, but neither does he obey him. Jesus turns to his adversaries and asks them for an interpretation of the law: Which one did the father’s will? Without knowing it, they condemned themselves with their answer, for they prided themselves on their righteousness and piety, yet they refused to accept him.

Jan 12 2025

Can You Be Coached?

I recall a blue sky, a hot grassy field at Sand Run field, and a dozen twelve- to thirteen-year-old boys in their red WASA soccer jerseys. “Out on the field,” I called to the team. “Sure, Coach,” a short-haired athletic boy yelled out as he jogged toward the goal. A bigger lad stood by the sideline with his arms crossed. He didn’t move. He didn’t look at me. His body language exuded “No.” What was I supposed to do? “Please? We want you out there.” He looked me in the eye, shrugged, and lumbered onto the field.

As the season went on, the first “willing” player was skilled and he let the other twelve-year-olds know that he was good—and that he didn’t feel that he could learn anything from me about soccer. He didn’t get any better.

The second “unwilling” player endured ridicule for being a little chunky and a little slow, but he paid attention. He had never played soccer before. But he learned. He got better. He never became a soccer legend, but he was a delight to coach.

Sometimes we may be tempted to get a little spiritually cocky. We know that we are loved. We know that we matter. We may be the first to jog out onto the field.

But sometimes we avoid looking God in the eye because we don’t think that we quite measure up. “Nah, I don’t really think so,” may be our response when someone tells us, “God loves you.” How could God be pleased with us? Want a relationship with us? Care about us?

Coachability—it makes all the difference. Jesus told the Pharisees that “tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.” The Lord wasn’t looking for the perfect. He was looking for the coachable.

Consider/Discuss

When is it hard to “look God in the eye”? In what ways do you (or do you not) feel that you have to be perfect in order to measure up to God?
Have you ever felt like you told God, “No”? What happened when that turned around to “Yes”? In what ways would you hope to be more coachable?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, I’m tired. I don’t want to pray. I want to go to bed. I want to curl up under the comforter and shut the world out. What’s that you say? You want my “no” to be “yes”? You’ll be listening to my breathing? Counting the hairs on my head? Moving within me even when I sleep? Oh. Okay. Well, come on then, let’s pray.

Jan 12 2025

Scripture Study for

The reading from Ezekiel emphasizes that the divine will is for the wicked to turn from sin and toward God. What God sees is the direction in which one is currently headed, rather than where one has been. This sounds good when we have turned from evil to good, but the principle is less congenial when we have turned from good to evil. In response to the accusation of unfairness, God notes that what is in fact “unfair” is the human desire to have God always forget past sin but never forget past virtue. God’s “fairness” consists in holding us responsible for the life we have chosen rather than the one we have forsaken.

We surmise from Paul’s letter to the Philippians that there were divisions within the community, exacerbated by outside opposition. So Paul strongly encourages unity: same mind, same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. This unity is found by sharing the same attitude that Christ had, which was sacrificial kenosis (“emptying”), setting aside his own interests for those of others. The force of the exhortation is sympathy or empathy, regarding others as “one with oneself,” just as Christ united himself with humanity even to the point of death. Just as there was in Christ no selfishness, no holding back, no concern with “rights” or “prerogatives,” so it should be for the Philippians.

The parable of the two sons presents a clear analogy: only those who actually do the will of God, even if they refuse at first, will enter the kingdom. The parable involves two sons, highlighting the fact that even the tax collectors and prostitutes are children of God—disobedient at first, and maybe for a long time, but children nonetheless. The chief priests and the elders, who thought they were following the will of God, were given the opportunity to reassess that belief when John came preaching repentance. They refused to listen to him, even when they observed the conversion of sinners at his preaching. Those who thought they had no need to repent were mistaken.

Jan 06 2025

Open the Gate

Being complacent means being pleased with yourself. The prophet Amos paints a vivid picture of a pampered people, lying on couches, snacking and sipping to soothing music, massaged into a state of lethargy. Then he lowers the boom: “Party’s over. Get ready for exile.”

Jesus also paints a portrait of ongoing indolence. Rich Man lies on his couch, dressed in luxuriant purple and soft linen, eating rich foods and drinking choice wines “each day.” The problem is that he has become so anesthetized that he can’t move, not even to go out to the gate where poor Lazarus lies, smelly, starving, and sickly. Then, suddenly, death pulls down the curtain. Next scene: a reversal. The gate has become a gap, an abyss. Rich Man is on one side, Lazarus on the other. What is the point? If you enjoy this life, you will pay for it in the next? More that gates have an expiration date and we need to go through the gates life gives us now. The Latin word for gate is porta. The word opportunity comes from it. Every opportunity is a gate for entering into a world where we can make a difference. Who is on the other side can vary: a sick person, a sore person, a helpless person, a poor person.

And someone has come back from the dead to tell us this is our calling—Jesus, Resurrection Man. There is always some gate nearby. Open it and look at what’s in front of you.

Consider/Discuss

Who is “outside the gate” in your life?
When have you heard the voice of the Risen One call you to care for the poor?

Responding to the Word

Lord Jesus, the age to come should start now. Now is the time to hear your word calling us to make this world a place of hospitality and gracious care for all. If we are complacent in any way, break through our indifference and move us to act.

Jan 06 2025

Scripture Study for

The prophet Amos does not denounce wealth itself, but the complacency that often accompanies it. He is distressed because the affluent entertain themselves with wantonness while the social structure of the northern kingdom of Israel disintegrates. He censures the habit of self-indulgence at feasts. The wealthy dine on the meat of lambs and calves, the very animals that were used for sacrifice. Their fastidious tastes expose their arrogance. Perhaps the most excessive example of dissolute dining is their manner of drinking wine. Not content to sip from goblets, they guzzle from wide-mouthed bowls. One can only imagine the result of such drinking.

Paul’s address to Timothy contains a fourfold message. He exhorts him to pursue virtue, to fight for the faith, to grasp eternal life, and to keep the commandments. While these are responsibilities of all Christians, Paul expects that Timothy will fulfill them in ways that reflect his pastoral office. He employs an image from athletic competition in order to illustrate the struggle that being faithful often entails. The prize that Paul has in mind is eternal life. Underscoring the seriousness of his admonitions, he charges Timothy, before God and before Christ, to obey the commandments in anticipation of Christ’s glorious manifestation.

The Gospel paints a picture of radical reversals. The man who was treated as a castoff enjoys the bliss of heaven, while the one who savored life’s pleasures ends up in great torment in the netherworld. The reversal of the rich man’s fortune was not the consequence of the lack of moral rectitude; it resulted from his indifference to the needs of the covenant brother who lay at the gate of his home. When he asked that Lazarus be sent to warn his brothers to change their way of life (metánoia), he was told that if they did not heed the religious tradition that charged the wealthy to meet the needs of the poor, they would not listen to a resurrected Lazarus.