Acknowledging Jesus

Gospel: Matthew 10: 26-33

We have been conditioned to believe that acknowledging Jesus before others has to do with making a public confession or profession of faith.  But this is false, as in another place Jesus tells us that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven.  In fact, acknowledging Jesus before others has very little to do with what we have created in these creeds and screeds that have become so popular in modern Christianity where words have little if any meaning.  

To acknowledge Jesus is to affirm the dignity and worth of every human being as another Christ.  To acknowledge Jesus before others is to see Christ present in other people - in all people: the stranger and foreigner, the poor and marginalized, the prisoner, the enemy.  In seeing Christ in others and in affirming that dignity in others, we then come to treat others with love and compassion, mercy and kindness -for that alone is the criteria for judgment before God.

Many today make these public confessions and creedal statements, claiming to believe in Jesus.  Yet, these same folks wage endless wars on countless people, creating poverty and migration that they themselves will then deny help or care.  They demean the poor, the immigrant, the prisoner, and the foreigner.  They justify violence and degradation directed toward these others.  Such is not acknowledging Jesus.  Such is choosing for Barabbas.  

Why Worry?

Gospel: Matthew 6: 24-34

A great source of worry and suffering is identified by Jesus here as our possessions and our attachment to them.  Consider all the worry and time we spend on curating our stuff.  We fill our houses with stuff.  Many have storage facilities filled with more stuff.  We protect our stuff with alarm systems, locks, stockade fences, and firearms.  Yes, we would be willing to kill another person over our stuff.  The spiral downward in the spiritual life is directly tied to our possessions and attachments.  

But now consider the one who lives simplicity and voluntary poverty.  She is not attached to possessions.  She is not worried about the incessant curating and protection of the things of mammon.  She is truly free in the deepest sense of the word, far more free  than the one with many possessions and attachments.  The one with many possessions has to spend even greater amounts of money to protect their stuff, while the person of simplicity, poverty, and detachment does not.  

Here again this teaching is fundamentally linked to the Beatitudes - poverty of spirit, meekness, purity of heart, thirst for justice.  For the person of justice knows that having many possessions is intrinsically unjust and theft from those who lack basic necessities.  To give away our excess is not charity; it is justice.  Our detachment from the things of mammon is a posture of justice and the common good.  Today is a day for us to commit to this justice and the common good.

Sharing the Treasure

Gospel:  Matthew 6: 19-23

What is this heavenly treasure of which Jesus speaks?  The context of this passage makes it clear that the treasure is the mercy of God, the very topic that preceded this passage.  This treasure we can not earn or achieve; it is something freely given to us by God.  Its value cannot be measured by any human standard or monetary specie.  For without this mercy we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. We can not know peace within ourselves and among one another.  

So often we are told that this heavenly treasure is "merit" or indulgences, both of which are foreign concepts to the New Testament.  Yet we create such things because we have control over them.  They are things we can earn.  They are also things we have for ourselves and not to be shared.  But the mercy of God is not to be kept to ourselves.  It is a treasure meant to be shared with others, given away freely to everyone we encounter.  

When we discover this pearl of great price, we sell all that we have, i.e. material possessions lose their importance for us.  We have all received this treasure of mercy; the task of the spiritual life is for us to be aware of this gift, to have a spirit of gratitude for it, and to set about sharing this gift with everyone we meet through the works of mercy.  The example of the Lord Jesus provides us the Way in which to carry out this life of mercy in the world.