20th
Ordinary Sunday (Year C)
First Reading: Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10 Second Reading: Hebrews 12:1-4 Gospel Reading: Luke 12:49-53
“KEEPING OUR EYES FIXED ON HIM.”
A
Hindu came to England for his education. He was already married. At
Oxford he became interested in the Christian religion, was converted
and baptized. He was a young prince, and his first duty on his return
to his native land was to tell his father of his new faith. The rage
and grief of the parents were great. He was turned out of the house
into a cow-shed, and there left, hungry and sad. His mother brought
him a dish of the favorite curry he had often longed for amid the
strange meals of foreign lands, but before he might eat she had a
condition - “Say, I am not a Christian.” He refused and
the plate was taken away.
Hungrier
and thirstier he grew, and at length, hearing a scratching outside,
he found a low-caste man, a sweeper (whom in the olden days, to touch
was defilement) offering him water. Now, in spite of his ingrained
repugnance, he was thankful to receive it.
The
next morning he heard sounds of mourning – it had been given out
that he was dead, drowned in the courtyard well – therefore his
girl wife was widowed. From the cow-shed he could see her being led
across the courtyard in her bright clothes and jewels, then she was
thrown down, and they were torn from her, and the rest of the cruel
treatment that a Hindu widow receives was dealt out to her; while the
boy husband watched, powerless to help.
That
night, with the help of the friendly sweeper, he escaped to a mission
station near by; later the poor little 'widow' was also discovered,
and was brought to Christianity, and the husband and wife were
reunited in Christian marriage.
This is what Jesus says
in today's Gospel Reading from St. Luke - “Do
you think that I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell
you , but rather division. … a father will be divided against his
son and a son against his father, … a mother-in-law against her
daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
Christ
comes to us as a challenge. Everyone
who follows Christ and keeps his eyes focused on Jesus and the truth
of his message in all its integrity, everyone who lives it to the
full, will find the world opposes him. Christ himself suffered, as
did all the prophets, and we must follow in his footsteps.
Today is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture Readings of today invite us to consider the struggle and difficulty inherent in being a Christian. The path of following Christ is one of contradiction and difficulty in every time and place, and if we aren´t living with that tension, it is perhaps because we are living without complete authenticity as a follower of Christ. Following Christ should cost us all something dear.
“JEREMIAH OUGHT TO BE PUT TO DEATH...”
The
First Reading of today from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah gives a
glimpse of his sufferings in the days before Jerusalem was conquered
by the Babylonians. It takes great courage to tell people the truth
about themselves when they do not want to hear it. The prophet
Jeremiah’s mission to preach repentance to the Israelites often
brought him into direct conflict with the powerful elite of his day.
God
had given Jeremiah a message for the king that was sadly disregarded.
At
a time when Judah was a subject state of the much more powerful
Babylon, the weak King Zedekiah was convinced by various leaders of
the people to form an alliance with Babylon’s enemies and offer
armed resistance. Jeremiah strenuously objected and predicted doom if
the King did not change his plans. He warned that they would be
defeated by the Babylonians and that Jerusalem would be destroyed.
The prophet insisted that instead of revolt, repentance of their
sinful ways was the only way out of their difficulties. Seeing how
his preaching was demoralizing the army, the princes accused Jeremiah
of treason and convinced the King to give him over into their hands.
Today’s reading describes his fate: First, he was lowered into a
cistern and left to die. And then, at the hand of a foreigner who
interceded on his behalf with the King, Jeremiah was finally rescued.
God
never abandons His people.
PARADOXICAL PRONOUNCEMENTS OF JESUS:
In
the Gospel Reading of today, St. Luke continues his travel narrative,
in which he has Jesus instructing his followers on what they should
expect of him as his disciples. No doubt St. Luke knows that his
readers would be startled by the three important
pronouncements Jesus makes in today's reading. At first, we may find
these pronouncements difficult to reconcile with the other statements
made about and by Jesus. But the
very words Luke quotes invite us to understand the paradoxical truth
of what he is saying.
As a matter of fact, this
Sunday’s Gospel Reading shows us another image of Jesus. This is
not the face of a sweet, gentle Jesus. This is the fiery, passionate,
and crusading Christ. This is the Anointed One who takes up the
struggle for justice. This is the prophet who speaks the word of God
even when it hurts. This is the rabbi who stands uncompromisingly for
the truth. He spoke the truth and he paid the price.
a)
"I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were
blazing!"
In
Jewish thought fire is almost always the symbol of God's judgment on
people who either lived by His word or not. Just as fire separates
the dross from the gold, keeping the word of God separates good
people from bad. So then, Jesus regarded the coming of his kingdom as
a time of judgment. The Jews firmly believed that God would judge
other nations by one standard and themselves by another; that the
very fact that they were the chosen people of God would be enough to
absolve them. However much we may wish to eliminate the element of
judgment from the message of Jesus it remains stubbornly and
unalterably there.
b)
"There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great
is my anguish until it is accomplished!"
This
does not mean that Jesus is to be re-baptized in the Jordan. The word
baptism implies total immersion. That is the way in which
Jesus uses it here. The cross was constantly before his eyes. So,
we link this to the ordeal that awaited him in Jerusalem, as a
'baptism,'
where he would be immersed
in his suffering and death on the way to resurrection.
Jesus does not look forward to his 'baptism'
for the pain it brings but for the salutary effects it produces for
all of us.
This way Jesus reveals
his desire to give his life for us and
describes it as a 'baptism,'
for he will rise victorious over sin and death and will never die
again. In our baptism, we too are submerged into his death and by it
we die to sin and are reborn to a life of grace. Jesus wants his
burning love to catch in us so we have the same passion and zeal for
the Gospel and for the will of God that he did. He wants his message
to reach all men and we are his messengers.
c) "Do
you think that I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell
you, but rather division."
This
is a very puzzling, even alarming, statement, for it seems to
contradict the whole message of the Gospel. When Jesus said he has
not come to bring peace, he is referring to the peace that was in
vogue then in his time; the peace that was the product of war and
compromise; where injustice and oppression prevailed. As a matter of
fact, Jesus is not opposed to peace. Instead, he is the prince of
peace; he came to establish peace that comes from forgiveness. This
is the kind he wished his disciples when he told them, “Peace
I leave you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give
to you.”
On the other hand, when
he said that he had come to bring division, he was talking about the
division that his message would bring between those who accept it and
those who reject it; between the righteous and unrighteous. There is
perpetual conflict, a state of war, between these two groups as one
group strives to raise the world up to God and the other to pull it
down to hell. These two groups do not live in two different parts of
the world; they live side by side in the same neighborhood; they live
together under the same roof; and in fact the forces of good and evil
often exist together in the same person. By this Jesus indicates that
his message would divide families between those who would accept the
message and those who would reject it. It is painful to hear the
Gospel speak of families being broken up because of Jesus.
JESUS OUR MODEL AS WE RUN THE RACE OF LIFE:
In
the Second Reading
of today from the Letter to the Hebrews, the author reminds the early
Christians, and us, of what an authentic Christian life consists, and
that even Jesus had to endure opposition and suffering to be faithful
to the will of his heavenly Father. We have to live by God's word.
Therefore he tells us, “Let
us persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping
our eyes fixed on Jesus.”
Then he adds, “For
the sake of the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross,
despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the
throne of God.”
With these words, St. Paul is asking us to make Jesus our model as we
run the race of life. When we run the race of faith, we do not face
the hurdles alone. Jesus is there to cheer us on. He endured the
cross and its shame in view of the “joy
that lay before him.”
We should ours, too. He received the glory of his triumph by his
obedience to the will of his Father. We would, too, if we live by
God's word.
God never abandons his
people.
He will not abandon us if we fight the war against evil in ourselves
and in the world. With this thought, the author of Hebrews
encourages us not to grow weary or lose heart. Let
us then make our choice for Jesus and reaffirm it daily in thought,
word and deed. Then the “joy that lay
before him” will be ours.
CONCLUSION:
In
the Gospel, Jesus speaks of the division and struggle that will come
as a result of his preaching and mission, and
the difficulties his followers will have to face. Jesus wants his
followers to know the truth. He tells us that, if we truly want to
live as his disciples, sometimes we will experience trouble and
division. We cannot experience the peace of Christ until we turn away
from sin and let God reign in our lives. Sometimes when people chose
to do God's will, those they love turn against them. This can happen
when people do not fully understand or accept the message of Jesus.
This conflict with loved ones is what Jesus speaks of today. Remember
that Jesus himself had to suffer rejection from his own.
Today, Jesus is asking us
to
make our choice: For or against him. There is no in-between, “He
who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me
scatters.”
And our choice will have eternal repercussions - Live according to
his word and we will be assured of eternal life or go against his
word and we will suffer the eternal fires of hell. And his word will
be our judge, “There
is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words;
that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.”
Finally, every Christian
needs
to recommit himself to the path of following Christ, "keeping
our eyes fixed on him,"
since he is "the
Way, the Truth, and the Life."
There is no salvation in any other name. Jesus teaches the full truth
about God and about man, and though at times it is hard for us to
accept, we must pray for the grace to grasp his truth and for the
courage to hold on to it no matter what. And this is the Good News of
today.
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good reflections. Thank you.
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