A Corrective Lesson

Gospel: Matthew 18: 15-20

Today's Gospel portion provides us Christians today with a rebuke on our own behavior.  The first is how much we ignore this passage.  We go from offense to the airing of grievances openly and excommunication immediately.  Little attempt is made to make amends or mend fences in disputes.  The images of culture war and social justice warriors lends itself not to reconciliation and amendment, but to total warfare and victory at any cost.  

The second is related to the first.  In our readiness to treat opponents as Gentiles and tax collectors - in making them pariahs and the unclean - we utterly ignore how in fact the Lord Jesus himself treated Gentiles and tax collectors.  He ate at table with them.  He healed them, their family members, and their servants of illnesses of all kinds.  He freed them from the demons that oppressed them.  Jesus treated them with loving kindness and mercy.  

The culture war folk and social justice warriors are products of a Christianity that has focused on creating communities of like minded individuals that in turn create suspicion and animus toward anyone not in those institutions.  Jesus, however, went from place to place encountering people of all types, meeting them where they are at, and providing for their needs.  The Way of Jesus is to carry a towel and basin for washing feet, not a sword or gun to harm others.   

Feed the People

Gospel: Luke 6: 1-5

The Pharisees criticize the disciples of Jesus for performing work on the Sabbath in order to eat by shelling the wheat husks and eating them.  Acts of work, of course, are forbidden on the Sabbath in the Law.  The reply of Jesus is a telling one.  He gives the example of David and his cohorts who ate the showbread reserved only for the priests, a violation of ceremonial law, but not a violation of the Sabbath commandment regarding work.  This response is telling.

Jesus is making a broader point on how feeding people is the greater priority of the Law than Sabbath laws or even ceremonial laws of the Temple.  The Sabbath is important, to be sure, but more important is the care of human beings who lack food and other basic necessities.  Ceremonial ritual is also important, but when human beings are starving and thirsty, lacking clothing and shelter, then the rituals of the sanctuary take a backseat to the needs of others.  

We take great pride in our ornate religious structures and elaborate liturgies - places we exclude many from having access to the food of heaven because of our own laws designed not to bring people closer to God but to create a state of superiority over others.  The showbread is not for us alone, but for all people who hunger.  The body of the Lord was given for all, the Lord Jesus fed all at the field of multiplication.  It is for us to imitate the Lord and to feed all who hunger. 

Standard Deviations

Gospel: Luke 5: 33-39

In every religious tradition there is always a group that sets itself as the standard around which all others must conform and submit.  Their behaviors and attitudes are the ones by which all other people are judged.  Such is the case in today's Gospel portion where the Pharisees and followers of John the Baptist state that they fast and pray, making the behavior of Jesus' disciples unacceptable in their view because the disciples are not doing what these self-proclaimed guardians do.  

In our own time such groups are prominent.  They call themselves "Bible believing Christians" and "Faithful Catholics".  They have selected a few things from the scriptures and tradition that are acceptable to them - ignoring a great amount in the process -  and have made it the alleged "non-negotiables" of faith life.  Their own behaviors and attitudes are then used to judge all other people.  Hypocrisy does not bother them since they are the self-proclaimed guardians and criteria of belief and practice.  

The only standard and criterion of faith is the Lord Jesus himself.  The Christian life is a constant reading and reflection on the Gospels of Jesus in order to pattern our lives on his alone.  We deviate widely from The Way when we set ourselves or others up as the standard of faith.  Jesus alone is the Way of authentic faith and living.  Today is a day for us to commit to a daily meditation on the Gospel so that we might be illumined and divinized by the life of the Lord Jesus.