Showing the Way

Gospel: Matthew 8: 1-4

The Sermon on the Mount is completed.  Jesus comes down from the mountain in order to put the Beatitudes into practice in the world.  His first encounter is with a leper who approaches him begging to be healed.  The crowd is disgusted and appalled.  Lepers were the ultimate outcasts of society, the most unclean of the unclean.  No one would have any contact or association with a leper, no mercy or quarter shown to them.  Lepers were so due to sin in the eyes of the world at that time.  

Yet this encounter is the perfect opportunity for Jesus to demonstrate to his audience the radical meaning of all he taught on the mountaintop.  Jesus does not shrink from the encounter; he embraces it.  He has compassion and empathy for the leper which leads to an act of mercy in healing the leper of his ailment.  The Beatitudes are being applied right away, starting with the most marginalized member of society in ancient times.  

Jesus invites the leper into the world of the Beatitudes in inviting him to practice meekness.  Do not tell anyone about this healing.  Go instead and show yourself to the priests so that you may be restored to a place in society.  Offer a gift of thanksgiving to God for this great mercy.  But tell no one about it.  Go instead to have empathy for others, to extend mercy and loving kindness as it has been extended to you.  That is the invitation we have all received - we the spiritual lepers that we are. 

The Will of God

Gospel: Matthew 7: 21-29

At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus ends with an uncomfortable truth: merely using the name of Jesus does not make one Christian.  How often is the name of Jesus invoked for unjust actions?  How often is the name of Jesus used to do good things but the one invoking Jesus' name really wants the attention and fame of performing the deed, having little care or regard for the person being cured or freed from their demons?  How often is the name of Jesus a mere prop in the showmanship of the preacher?

Once again, the Beatitudes must inform all we say and do.  The values of poverty of spirit, meekness, purity of heart, thirst for justice, peacemaking, mourning with and for others, and patient suffering are the criteria for Christian discernment and action.  Invoking the name of Jesus without these values is at minimum an act of little value and at worst an act of blasphemy.  The use of a name in the ancient world is one not to be taken lightly or cavalierly. 

Only the one who does the will of God is righteous, and the will of God is the work of mercy, the work of the Beatitudes.  This is the way of the Lord Jesus, who embodied the Beatitudes in all his words and deeds.  The Beatitudes and the example of Jesus are the standards of the Christian, not that of Moses, Joshua, Plato, or anyone else.  Let the Beatitudes and the way of Jesus be our method of examination and discernment in all we do. 

Breaking Tradition

Gospel: Luke 1: 57-66, 80

Today's feast is remarkable in the vast break with tradition for its time that the event represents.  First, Elizabeth announces the name of her son would be John.  The audience is shocked: no one in your family has this name - you can't choose this name.  They turn to Zechariah in the hope that he would overrule his wife, but instead he confirms the name for their child would be John.  Family and friends were simply aghast at such a breach of tradition.

But there is more: the fact that Elizabeth announces the name of the child is remarkable.  Ordinarily that was the task of the husband.  Yet, Elizabeth was the one who received the name from the angel.  She would be the one to announce the name.  Naturally, no one would believe a woman about the name or anything else, so ironically they turn to the man who did not believe the message of the angel to make the decision about the name.  

There remain institutions that insist preaching is reserved to the ordained, and ordination reserved to men.  Yet, the larger tradition says otherwise.  Elizabeth and Mary announce the names of their children.  The Samaritan woman proclaims the Lord Jesus to her town.  Mary Magdalene announces the Resurrection of Jesus.  That the Lord be proclaimed authentically is far more important than who does so.  Today's feast reminds us of this reality.