Blessed Are You - 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus begins his public ministry by ascending a mountail and teaching the people. We are meant to see in Jesus the figure of Moses and the teaching of God on Mount Sinai. What is similar in Jesus and Moses is that God calls the lowly of the earth to be the light to the nations, and the qualifications of being blessed of God is the exact opposite of the expectations of the world.

God called the people of Israel to be his own, a choice that is utterly shocking in the context of the ancient world. Israel was in the bondage of slavery at the hands of the powerful kingdom of Egypt. Throughout Israel's history she stands as a lowly nation in comparison to the great empires of the ancient world: Babylon, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. The prophet Zephaniah reminds the Israelites of this calling in an attempt to return them to obedience to God's law. Captivity in each age led to the temptation to compromise with the larger culture, and it led to divisions within the community. Zephaniah hoped for a renewal of God's people in his day, and yet the prophet despairs of that hope and looks to the day of the Messiah when a faithful remnant will remain to pasture the people of God to a new period of glory.

Paul continues the theme of God calling the lowly in his own ministry. The first Christians were not powerful people by any stretch of the imagination. Corinth was one of the most prominent cities of the ancient world, growing wealthy by sea trade and pilgrims who flock to the pagan temples for ritual prostitution. Christians struggled in such a culture, and compromise with the world was the route some attempted. This led to divisions within the Christian community, divisions that were present to the people of Israel in the time of Zephaniah. Paul uses the same message to return people to fidelity to their baptismal call.

Matthew writes his gospel to a community struggling with the same compromise that Zephaniah and Paul experienced. The Jewish synagogues were beginning to expel the followers of Jesus from the Jewish community. Prior to that point the Roman Empire regarded the Christians as a sect of Judaism, and thus the Christians were granted the dispensation from offering sacrifices to the Emperor, a privilege given only to the Jewish people. If the Christians were not part of the synagogue, they were then required to offer these sacrifices, which of course their faith would not permit them to do. Matthew's community felt the pressure to compromise on two fronts: compromise with the synagogue on the identity of Jesus, and compromise with the Roman Empire on offering sacrifice to the Emperor.

Matthew, then, returns to the theme of what it means to be blessed by God. All of these attributes are consistent with the themes of Zephaniah and Paul, and they stand in radical opposition to the standards of the world. As a result of historical circumstances, Christians have come to expect a sort of worldly preference: legal protection, special status, material comfort, and the like. The fact of our historical preference over the centuries has caused us to forget about what truly defines the child of God. The history of the people of God is opposition from the world and being the lowly ones of the earth. Fidelity to God is solidarity with the poor and care for others, as the Psalmist states in the responsorial Psalm: "The Lord keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry." This is our faith; this is our call.

After Jesus' baptism he began his public ministry by reminding the people of God of their identity and calling. As we seek to be more faithful to our baptismal call, we seek the Lord's help in uniting our hearts to the opening prayer for today's Mass: "Let us pray, joining in the praise of the living God, for we are his people. Father in heaven, from the days of Abraham and Moses until the gathering of your Church in prayer, you have formed a people in the image of your Son. Bless this people with the gift of your kingdom. May we serve you with our every desire and show love for one another even as you have loved us. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen."

No Divisions Among You - 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The prophet Isaiah wrote his prophetic book during the end of the Babylonian captivity. To understand his message in today's first reading we first have to understand the reason for the captivity in the first place. In the view of the prophet, God led Israel into captivity because of her infidelity to God, her unjust behavior toward the poor, and the divisions that existed among the people of God. It was these divisions that separated Israel into two separate kingdoms - the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. These divisions led to the downfall of Israel in the face of menacing enemies. So, Isaiah's message today is one of hope: the punishment of God has been lifted and we are once again reunited to live as the faithful people of God.

Similarly, the message of Jesus finds a hearing among the people of his day. Roman occupation had divided the people of Israel into various political factions: Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes, and Zealots. Some called for compromise and collaboration with the Romans, while others called for opposition that ranged from fidelity to the Law to violent measures. In the midst of this scense comes Jesus proclaiming the kingdom of God, a term of Messianic expectation, but one that was easily misinterpreted.

Some people heard this phrase and immediately opined that the Messiah was here to re-establish the kingdom of Israel and overthrow the Roman occupiers. Is it not odd how we have the tendency to interpret the words of God to fit our own particular political allegiances? Yet, there can be found no trace of the political in the words of Jesus; clearly he meant something else by these words. Overthrow of an enemy like the Romans would take years, and Jesus declares the reign of God to be now. Where is the kingdom found? The answer to that question is the same place as where the action of the Gospels takes place: within our hearts. God is already present and at work in our lives. We need not wait for some nebulous indeterminate future. Repentance and reconciliation are to happen now in order for us to inaugurate the reign of God in our lives.

The first followers of Jesus do not realize this point yet; they follow him because they are Galileans - the land of Zebulon and Naphtali from the time of Isaiah - and desperate to be relieved of the oppression of Rome that has hit them particularly hard. Still, they follow Jesus and over the course of his ministry they come to learn more about this reign of God, not fully understanding all of its implications until Jesus has died and risen from the dead. Only then can we know what the full implications of the reign of God are.

Only when we realize what Jesus meant by the reign of God can we then understand the point Paul is making in the second reading: if we know the cross of Christ, how can we have divisions among us, for it is in the cross of Jesus that the reign of God comes to be fully known? The reign of God can only be founded in a heart that has emptied itself of its own desires, pleasures, and preconceived ideas. Only when we have been crucified as Christ himself can we know the reign of God and bring it forth in our world. The presence of divisions within the Church is a sign that while we may have been ritually baptized we have not died with Christ in our hearts and thus not truly ready for the reign of God to be realized in our lives.

The Psalmist's prayer - to dwell in the house of the Lord, to gaze on his loveliness, and to contemplate his temple - must be our own desire. Thus, we pray with the Church: "Let us pray, pleading that our vision may overcome our weakness. Almighty Father, the love you offer always exceeds the furthest expression of our human longing, for you are greater than the human heart. Direct each thought, each effort of our life, so that the limits of our faults and weaknesses may not obscure the vision of your glory or keep us from the peace you have promised. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Servant and Son - Baptism of the Lord Year A

There is a fundamental orientation in the Catholic theological tradition to have a both/and approach to questions instead of an either/or methodology. For example, the orthodox position of Jesus' nature is that he is both human and divine, not one or the other. In the spiritual life Jesus commands us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. A host of other examples could be found to provide examples of the fact that generally our Catholic tradition tends to be a more accommodating - but more challenging - position than one might originally suspect.

Today's feast of the Baptism of the Lord highlights this feature of our Catholic faith as well. In the first reading we are provided with the words of Isaiah the prophet who foretells the future Messiah by the words of the Lord: "Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased." Matthew echoes this ancient text in relating the event of Jesus' baptism by including the words of the Father after Jesus came up from the water: "This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." The Gospel writer changed the word servant to son in order to indicate the unique identity of Jesus the Messiah of God. Yet, there is a sense in which Jesus is both servant and son, an identity that we share as baptized faithful of Christ.

The entire ministry of Jesus was one of complete service to others. The second reading from the Acts of the Apostles attests to this fact. Jesus healed those who were sick, he comforted those who were afflicted, he fed those who were hungry, and he died for us all that we might be liberated from the slavery to sin. What is more, Jesus challenged those with power and wealth to act with justice and mercy, thereby extending the role of servant from individual responsibility to one of corporate obligation as well.

The role of servant is to follow the orders of the master. A servant must give an account of what he has accomplished for his master at the end of the day, and a servant's primary virtues are fidelity to mission and master and obedience to the tasks assigned. Thus, the servant performs his tasks out of a sense of justice and external obligation to the master. These virtues are good and necessary, and certainly Jesus is a servant in being entirely faithful to God the Father and the mission entrusted to him. Jesus showed perfect obedience to all that God assigned for him to follow. In our mission to be servants in imitation of Jesus we might consider these virtues for our own life and ministry.

However, the role of a son is entirely different than the role of a servant. In ancient times a son was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father. The son would imitate the Father and learn the trade or profession of his father so that one day he could take over the workd of his father in his own life. The son's fidelity and obedience to his father were not the result of external obligation or fear as in the case of a slave, but rather his fidelity and obedience spring from the love he has for his father. The son wanted to please his father because of his love and the hope of one day being like the father in all things: work, family, and other roles.

By accepting the baptism of John - a baptism not required of Jesus because of his unique identity - Jesus shows us how to be a servant and a child of God. Certainly we are servants committed to justice in serving God and others. Yet, justice is not enough to regulate our lives; it does not engage the heart. Thus, we, like Jesus, are called to act as sons and be animated by the power of love in transforming the world around us. The obligation of love commands our entire being and transforms us into another Christ living and dying for others.

Jesus, then, was called to a ministry of justice and love. As disciples of the Lord Jesus we too are called to this same ministry through our baptism. We invoke the help of God the Father to complete this mission with great fidelity: "Let us pray that we will be faithful to our baptism. Almighty, eternal God, when the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan, you revealed him as your own beloved Son. Keep us, your children born of water and the Spirit, faithful to our calling. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lived and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."