Love Rejected

Gospel: Matthew 10: 17-22

On the day after Christmas we celebrate the feast of a martyr and we are left to wonder why.  We forget, of course, that Herod sought the life of the newborn Messiah and slaughtered an entire town's children in vengeance.  The opposition to Jesus comes at the very beginning of his life before he even has a chance to utter one word and perform one good deed.  This martyr Stephen followed the life of love and service of the Lord Jesus, and this cost him his life.

We might well ask why this is the case, the answer to which is found in the people who commit such atrocities.  For the message of love and forgiveness poses an existential threat to those in power, to the Herods and religious leaders of every time and place.  Their power and wealth is dependent upon a divided world continually at strife. It relies on the message of national exceptionalism and religious triumphalism, that God is for us and not them.

But the message of Jesus is that there is no us or them - there is only us.  Jesus reminds us of our origins at creation, that we come from one common set of parents, one origin point in God, and thus we are one human family.  God's love - and ours by extension - are for all, not a few.  God's communion and blessing are for all; let no one deny them to anyone.