What Must I Do?

Gospel:  Matthew 19: 16-22

A man asks Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"  Jesus tells him to keep the commandments, specifically those that deal with our relations with others, with love of our neighbor.  Do not kill. Do not steal.  Do not bear false witness.  Do not covet.  And love your neighbor through concrete acts of care for them.  By avoiding actions that harm our neighbor and in performing actions of good for them, we come to inherit eternal life.

But the man is not satisfied.  I have done all that, what more can I do?  Jesus then says that if we wish to be perfect, we must then sell all that we have and give it away to the poor.  Then, we must follow the Lord Jesus and do the work that he has been doing:  healing people of their illnesses and infirmities; liberating people from their demons; and nourishing people at table.  This is the pathway to perfection - the care of the poor and marginalized of all backgrounds, excluding none.  

Notice what are absent from these lists  are the things that tend to dominate Christian concern: the quest for power, influence, and riches in our obsession with politics and media empires, or the building and upkeep of vast tracts of property.  Absent too are the perseverations over liturgical minutiae and theological erudition.  The way to eternal life and perfection is the way of love and care for others, for it was the way of Jesus in his life on earth.

Imagine If...

Gospel: Matthew 15: 21-28

Let us imagine this Gospel story from another angle.  Imagine if Jesus had listened to his disciples who tell him to ignore this foreign, pagan woman and the needs of her daughter who is caught in the grips of a demon.  Let us suppose that this version of the story is preserved, recorded, and passed on into the Gospel text, permeating the tradition.  Let us consider the various outcomes and consequences of this rendering of the story.  

Most immediate is the fact that the young girl would still remain in the grips of the demon; she would not have been helped.  Then, we would have a story and a tradition that now can create a theology of exclusion based on prejudice and bias against women, foreigners, and those of different faith backgrounds that can then be used to justify all sorts of animus against the same throughout history, leaving a trail of pain and death across the centuries.

Yes, even with the story as it is, we have still managed to create such ideologies and outcomes in the world.  At least with this story standing as it exists, those who do create such theologies and exact such pain on the world do so in opposition to the example and teaching of Jesus, not because of it.  The world can see that such theologies are utterly false and demonic, and that those who struggle to accept Christianity do so because alleged Christians follow the way of the disciples and not the way of Jesus.

Remembering the Promise

Gospel: Luke 1: 39-56

A Christian feast would not be so were there not some controversy surrounding it.  In a tradition that cannot celebrate the greatest feast of Easter on the same day, so today's feast comes with its own set of disputes, not the least of which is where it took place.  For some, Mary went with the apostle John to Ephesus where she was lifted up to heaven, and shrine exists there.  For others, Mary's dormition took place in Jerusalem, where the Dormition Church marks the locale of that tradition.  

Along the way rival ideas about whether Mary fell asleep and was brought up to heaven or whether she was just brought up to heaven added to the endless minutiae of disputes in Christianity that leave a person tired and exhausted, much like Mary to be sure at the end of her life.  This poor, simple village woman who exists as our model of bearing Christ and bringing him forth into the world by our life, surely did not sign on for such disputatious nonsense regarding the end of her days on this earth.  

In her Magnificat Mary rejoices that God has remembered the promises to his people, the promises of liberation and renewal.  Mary experienced that liberation and new life.  Her life and her final moments on earth invite us to experience that liberation and renewal as well.  Rather than adding to the discord and oppression in church and world, let us instead imitate Mary, bearing the Lord, bringing forth the Lord into the world in our lives, and being transformed by the liberation and new life that his life brings to all.