Righteousness

Christ the King C: Amen

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Christ the KingOLD TESTAMENT:  Jeremiah 23: 1-6

Read the passage from Jeremiah

The “shepherds” here, as opposed to the ones to which we are accustomed to joining us at the stable in a few weeks, are probably Judah’s kings or other high-ranking leaders.  The indictment speaks indirectly to the royal houses of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, Israel’s last two kings.  Jeremiah says that neither shepherd called the sheep to account, so YHWH is calling them to account.  They are indicted for scattering the sheep in YHWH’s pasture by allowing injustices to exist and causing the people to drift away from their identity as God’s people.  So, the pastoral number will be reduced to a single branch, a “shoot” of the Davidic line, whose reign shall succeed as the reigns of Judah’s present kings have not done.  And under this new Davidic shoot, the future king will reign over a united Judah and Israel (such as existed under King David).  Finally, all will be one.

The prophet’s words sound harsh and full of lament.  The warning comes with an opportunity to learn from the failure of past leadership.  Their responsibility was to lead the people and the nation in their relationship with God.  They have failed.  But there’s another point to this.  The leader cannot lead without the gifts of the people.  The people, too, have failed.  They have not used their gifts; they have not been who God has called them to be.  The underlying implication is that the people had lost their relationship with God.  But with the new Davidic line, the “righteous Shepherd” will bring the people back to the God who wants to be in relationship with them.

The end of the church year has traditionally been a time to be confronted with the judgment of God, not so much to cower in fear, but rather to take stock of ourselves, to seek change, and to seek forgiveness and amendment of life.  We can’t help but ask the question, “Is it I, Lord?” when hearing this text.  No one is totally off the hook. While those with greater responsibility have greater accountability, all of us in democratic governments bear responsibility for the common good. All of us in a church, made up of the priesthood of all believers, bear responsibility for the well-being of all our brothers and sisters in Christ. Even more so than in the ancient world, this text becomes for us an equal-opportunity accuser.

But the good news applies to us too. There is a new reign that is coming to be as it sweeps through Creation.  The Kingdom of God has truly come near.  God is now the shepherd and will raise up faithful leaders, a “righteous branch” that will bring the reign to be.  It is a new beginning that will transform the world.

The reading fits well for Christ the King Sunday as we wrap up our Lectionary year.  We have been given everything and yet we are still not what we should be.  But God has not given up on us.  Emmanuel, God with us, is coming soon.

 

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. What does this say about leadership, even in our time?
  3. How does this speak to our own responsibility for bringing in the fullness of the Kingdom of God?

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  Colossians 1: 11-20

Read the passage from The Letter to the Colossians

Paul (or probably another teacher writing to the community with the same concerns) speaks to the church in Colossae, a community surrounded by a polytheistic culture that was terrified that if they didn’t appease these spirits that so many knew, they would be subject to disease and poverty and darkness.  So, their Christian teachings had to compete with the values and beliefs (even religious ones) that were swirling around the current culture. So the writer wants to make it abundantly clear that Christ is not just one among many competing approaches to life, not just the first among equals: Christ is at the very center of the meaning of everything, for all people. The question of Jesus Christ is of the most important thing in the lives of his followers.  It is not just something that we think about on Sunday morning, or when someone asks us what church we attend, but a question that shapes our whole life. For the early Christians, and for us today, following Jesus is a big-time “game-changer.” Or, to put it in ancient terms, as Neta Pringle does, the writer of this letter says that being a Christian “is not simply a matter of fitting Jesus into our present way of thinking. We are transferred, moved, deported, from one kingdom to another. Nothing is as we have known it” (Feasting on the Word).

We, too, have “unseen spirits”—the powers of greed and fear, of war and violence, of addiction and commercialism.  We live in a world of exaggerated individualism where we have forgotten about each other and excessive materialism where we have forgotten what is important.  The author of this letter is no harsh teacher but has the heart of a pastor. In response to the fears and confusion of the ancient Colossians, the writer is really kind and compassionate, bringing hope into what was a really scary world.  We are the same.  Christ is truly King over any powers that may come into your life.

In our individual experience, it seems that when a few things fall apart, the whole apparatus of life threatens to collapse. That’s what I see happening whenever people lose their center and forget the comforting quality of the Lord’s presence. It is amazing what a few days of poor test results or unresponsive medication will do. One’s whole world can seem to disintegrate. All coping mechanisms seem to go into hiding.

If I have one prayer for those who are entering critical surgery, it is this: That the peace of Christ will somehow hold the life of this patient and his or her loved ones together. Not physically together, as if no one in the family can afford to die, but spiritually together, as in that incomprehensible peace of Christ that can find its settling way into human hearts.

When chaos strikes, faith-filled people look for ways to quit idolizing their fears. They seek strategies for pulling life back together. The challenge for most of us is to make the priority of Christ more than mere words. Who needs more talk of making Christ first in our lives? The world is full of religious talk. We need instead to act, to live as if Christ were indeed the head of the body, and not some extra equipment we strap on when it’s “third and long.”

In Bibles that provide chapter headings, this section of Colossians may be titled “The Supremacy of Christ,” or something similar. This is the Christ in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Nothing of God is held back or left out of the person of Jesus. Though God once was content to dwell in places like Sinai, Zion or the Temple, now God is in a person. Everything that God is, and cares about, now resides in Jesus Christ. Christ is the face or the image of the invisible God.

Western culture has so thoroughly domesticated Christ that it takes some imagination to see the cosmic Christ of Colossians. We have whittled him down to the size of a pocket charm, confining him to the containers of our own ethnic, economic and political instincts. Chumminess is in; grandeur is out, We want a version of God that bears some resemblance to ourselves.

Fosteria, Ohio, made news in 1986 when a local resident saw an image of Christ on the rusting side of a soybean oil storage tank. Archer Daniels Midland was suddenly on the religion page. Hundreds of cars lined Route 12 on August evenings, full of curiosity seekers waiting to sneak a peek. As one local named Jimmy noted, “It’s real. The image looks like me, but I’ve always had long hair and a beard.” With more profundity than he may have ever realized, Jimmy spoke for all of us who unwittingly like to see Christ reflecting the image of our own lives.

The way to reorder jumbled lives and hold meaning together in the face of chaos, however, is not to see the fullness of ourselves in Christ. It is to cherish the fullness of God dwelling in Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, the one who holds all things together, the glue that makes Christ the King Sunday so important. (From “Super Glue”, by Peter W. Marty, in “The Christian Century”, November 16, 2004, available at http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3105, accessed 17 November, 2010)

 

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. What are the “unseen powers” of our own world and our own lives?
  3. What, in light of this passage, does the Kingdom of God mean to you?

 

 

GOSPEL:  Luke 23: 33-43

Read the Passage from the Gospel According to Luke

Another difficult text…(Did I go to sleep and wake up on Good Friday?) This is the chapter of the story that some of us, rather than hearing the heartbreaking account again, would rather just check out and go get another popcorn and return when the story begins to become more palatable.  We are prepared to hear this story read on Good Friday but, here, this should be a happy Sunday.  After all, we are crowning Christ the King.  And here we read of what can only be characterized as a brutal defeat.  And yet, when you think about it, it’s the climax of Jesus’ ministry.  There on the cross, a rejected and defiled Jesus hangs bleeding and thirsting.  And, yet, the writer of this Gospel depicts Jesus with all of his wits about him.  And praying…praying not for salvation or even a relief in the surely unbearable pain that he was experiencing and definitely not for vengeance to be brought upon those who had inflicted it. At his lowest point, Jesus, rather than decreeing self-pity or anger or vengeance, showered unconditional forgiveness upon the world who had put him there.  All that Jesus had been born to be was in this moment of the most incredible self-giving, self-denying act that anyone could ever do.

And the writer known as Luke tells us that, in effigy, the inscription ordaining Jesus as King is placed over the spot where he hung.  For those who did not get it and for those who don’t today, it is a joke.  On the surface, it makes the story harder to read, as if our team has lost that game.  But at a much deeper level, there is a profound irony to it all.  Because this is truly Jesus’ crowning glory.

And then we are told of the thief hanging there with him that asked for mercy from this one who in this moment he truly knew was the Christ.  Jesus’ response did not include asking him what he had done with his life.  He did not demand either a confession or a profession.  There was no “if” attached to his answer—no condition of “if you clean up your life” or “if you promise to stop doing what you do or being who you are”.  None of that mattered.  Because in this moment, the man that history has never named anything but “Thief” entered the story that we call the Gospel and was promised eternal life.

You see, it’s not about what we do or who we are.  It’s about becoming the story, becoming the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.  It’s not about placing a crown on the head of our King but about becoming part of the Coronation, part of that image of Christ the King.  It’s not about proclaiming Christ as King but about being the presence of Christ in this world.  O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, God with Us.  And now we know that’s exactly where God is.  It’s about entering the story.

In 1741, a well-known German composer living in England received a letter from a friend of his.  The letter contained a compilation of Old Testament and New Testament passages.  The composer was so moved by the words and the story that they held that he locked himself in his study and spent the next 24 days composing the work that we know as “The Messiah”.  When speaking of those 24 days in Late Summer, 1741, one of Handel’s servants was said to have described him with these words:  “He was praying, or he was weeping, or he was staring into eternity.”

If you’ve had an opportunity to hear the whole thing, you know that it begins without words, drawing you into the story, as if reminding you that all of Creation began in silence until God spoke it into being.  And Creation continued through exile and deliverance, through destruction and recreation…and grew and struggled and desperately searched for renewal.  But God remained veiled in awe and mystery with the promise that God will come when God will come and shake things to their very core, ripping apart what we think is good, what we think is just, what we think is right and righteous, and, like a refiner’s fire, transforming everything in Creation’s path.  And, always waiting…waiting on a promise yet to be fulfilled.

We are told that darkness will come but that light is just over the horizon.  And then the announcement comes…the world is with child.  Emmanuel, God with us…no longer hidden, no longer veiled.  And the earth rang out.  And we are invited to follow.  The coming begins our going.  The work begins.  The child grows and shows us not merely what to do to gain a place in heaven, but the very Way to God, the way to usher in the fullness of being for all of Creation.  But it is sometimes hard for us to change.  God has not just come to show us how to live; Christ has come to take away the sin, the brokenness, the darkness of the world.  And then we hear the Gospel for today set to music and for a few bars following we live in requiem.  And then the stone is rolled back and our eternity begins.  We are drawn into sacred space.  Handel depicts it as a door in heaven opening as we are ushered into the throne room of God.  And God is there, veiled in awe and mystery.

And then there is a sound…The angels—angels upon angels, in Handel’s depiction, a “myriad”, as the NRSV puts it sing with full voice.  And all of Creation, even the thief,  is summoned into the story, to sing with highest praise…”Forever and ever and ever”…Amen.

“Amen” does not mean “the end”.  In Hebrew, it means “indeed, truly”.  Indeed truly, our lives have just begun as the glory of the Lord is revealed and Christ is crowned the King of glory.  You see…it’s more than a story…Handel had it right…it’s a glimpse into eternity.  And in our praying and in our weeping and in our staring right at it, God comes.  O Come, O Come Emmanuel. And with each passing season, we come a little bit closer to seeing that part that is ours to build and tell.  Amen, indeed!

 

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. What does the notion of “Christ the King” mean to you?
  3. What responsibility or part do you play in the coronation?
  4. What things do we let get in the way of the Christ having first place in our lives?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

We must remind ourselves that, though our lives are small and our acts seem insignificant, we are generative elements of this universe, and we create meaning with each act that we perform or fail to perform. (Kent Nerburn, Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace)

If the meaning could be put into a sentence, there would be no need of telling the story. (Henry Van Dyke)

 

I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.  I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.  (Rainer Maria Rilke)

 

 

Closing

 

Waiting for the “when” keeps me from appreciating what I now have.  Longing for promises and dreaming dreams is not a harmful deed as long as the present moment is not overlooked, as long as gratitude rises for what is already here, as long as I do not base my happiness on what is still wanting.  Thankfulness for what has already been given is the foundation for hoping for what is not yet.

Today I am going to put aside my “when this happens” and my “if only this could be” and my “when things get better” and my “as soon as I have this.”  I am going to harvest what I now have, gather all the many gifts that are already mine.  I am going to observe what has been placed in the granary of my heart and marvel at the abundance.

I will stand before this heap of blessings and take a long, grateful look.  I will say farewell to my “when” and be thankful for what is.

 

May an abundance of gratitude burst forth as you reflect upon what you have received.

May thanksgiving overflow in your heart, and often be proclaimed in your prayer.

May you gather around the table of your heart the ardent faithfulness, kindness, and

goodness of each person who is true to you.

May the harvest of your good actions bring forth plentiful fruit each day.

May you discover a cache of hidden wisdom among the people and events that have

 brought you distress and sorrow.

May your basket of blessings surprise you with its rich diversity of gifts and its

            opportunities for growth.

May all that nourishes and resources your life bring you daily satisfaction and renewed

 hope.

May you slow your hurried pace of life so that you can be aware of, and enjoy, what you

            too easily take for granted.

May you always be open, willing, and ready to share your blessings with others.

May you never forget the Generous One who loves you lavishly and unconditionally.

 

(Joyce Rupp, “When” and “A Thanksgiving Blessing”, from Out of the Ordinary:  Prayers, Poems, and Reflections for Every Season, (Notre Dame, ID:  Ave Maria Press, 1999), 206-207.)

 

 

Proper 21C: Reversal of Blessings

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man-under-waterfallFIRST LESSON:  Jeremiah 32: 1-3a, 6-15

Read the passage from Jeremiah

The prophet Jeremiah has sort of changed his focus.  These chapters are commonly called “The Book of Comfort”.  It’s 588 B.C. E., and Babylon is pounding on the door of Jerusalem – again. Ten years earlier, they had “disciplined” a rebellious Israel with a measure of destruction and had carried off some of its people. But now Israel was getting overly confident again, probably because they thought they had Egypt backing them up (sometimes it works to get one bully to fight the other), and the Babylonians were going to make it very clear that there would be no more trouble from this upstart kingdom. We know that the destruction and exile that followed left a profound mark on the spirit and history of the people of Israel, when the land that had been promised to their ancestors long ago, the land to which their freed-slave forebears had been led through forty long years (and much longer in captivity), the land of David and Solomon’s glory, the land that was theirs: this land was in every sense taken from them. Jeremiah had tried to warn them that they needed to get right with God instead of taking God’s favor for granted, and he saw Babylon as the instrument of God’s punishment for Israel’s unfaithfulness.

When Jeremiah hears that his relative, Hanamel, is going to come to him with the offer to sell him his land in Anathoth, and then Hanamel appears and does exactly that, Jeremiah knows that this “message from God” is valid.  And so he obeys the command he has received, and purchases what is, at least at this moment, worthless land. (John Holbert calls it “the worst land deal in history.”)  Now see, the people still remembered that the land was not only a gift from God, but in a very real way, still belonged to God. But what good was it when the Babylonians were squatting and camping on it?  It certainly couldn’t be farmed, or provide sustenance or income for its owner. If he tried to sell it, he’d have to find another family member as “foolish” as he was, willing to pay money for what appeared to be worthless.

So, when the word of God came to Jeremiah and told him to buy the land, it also helped him to dare to see that there would be more than this impending desolation, more than the realization of his worst warnings, and that there would be life again, with God’s people back on their own land, and the most ordinary of human transactions, including those of real estate, resuming once again. That’s why Jeremiah ordered his secretary, Baruch, whom we meet for the first time here but whose role bears further reflection, to copy and preserve these documents of sale not only for verification but for future generations who will read them and be inspired to hope in their own day. Even though Jeremiah himself wouldn’t live to see this happen, he wanted to make sure that his descendants would see in the good times the hand of God fulfilling ancient promises, and would, in the bad times, hold fast to those same promises of abiding, faithful love and compassion by a generous but demanding God.

This is really a very forward-looking, faith-filled passage.  It is a passage that dares to see that God holds more for us than what we imagine in our present circumstances.  John Holbert says it like this:

Here is something that the prophet can teach those of us in the 21st century. When we see a world hell-bent on destruction, when we see the barbarians at the gate (of course, my barbarian may not be your barbarian!), when we think that the end has finally come to our hopes and dreams for justice and righteousness for all of God’s people, then we can watch the land deal of Jeremiah, watch him sign the deed, weigh out the money, give the deed and its copy to Baruch, witness Baruch put them in a jar, and we can know that the end has not yet come, because YHWH has more for us yet to do.

Baruch is Hebrew for “blessed”; that word is the first word of nearly every Jewish prayer. May it be the first word of our prayer, grateful for Jeremiah, grateful for his reminder to us that YHWH is not through with us yet. (From “The Worst Land Deal in History”, John C. Holbert, available at http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Worst-Land-Deal-John-Holbert-09-23-2013.html, accessed 22 September, 2013)

  • What is your response to this passage?
  • What do you think of the idea of this “forward-looking” way of seeing things?
  • What stands in the way of our realizing that very notion?
  • What message does this hold for our own time?

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  1 Timothy 6: 6-19

Read the passage from 1 Timothy

This passage is countercultural – much more so for us than for its first hearers. Contentment rests in connectedness, above all, with God, because it connects us to others, to our world and to ourselves. The passage confronts our mortality. But it does so assuming we might worry about life beyond this one.

We are invited us to a lifestyle which makes do with enough. There is no need to busy oneself with more. Accumulation of wealth is the task of a lifetime and leaves little room for others and in a paradoxical sense for oneself (and frequently those around us usually when they need us most). So our passage is addressing the practicalities of living and identifying the deception which we forge when we spend our lives accumulating more and more – far more than we need. The author appears concerned primarily with self destructive forces which bring ruin. Greed for money also plunges others into poverty and ruin.

“Godliness” was a popular value of that time (and our time, for that matter).  But we need to be careful with this idea.  We are NOT God.  We are not even “God-like”.  (And if we are, we need to look at ourselves a bit more!)  Notions like righteousness, faith, and love carry much more value.  They are essentially the alternative, the way of Christ. To decide for Christ is to decide against the prevailing cultural norms. We are reminded that Christ’s refusal to back away from his confession of this alternative, of God’s way was what hauled him before Pilate.  The odds are overwhelming.  It really is a struggle to resist the wealthy way of life which promises us contentment and takes away a living wage from others.

The author does not envision a belief that rebukes the rich.  Rather, we are called to use our wealth effectively.  Freed from the need to accumulate as the means of finding meaning in life, we can turn their attention beyond themselves to others and learn to love effectively with the means they have. The challenge is usually to know the cut off point of what is enough. Usually that inflates to levels of wealth which make the leftovers a symbol of excess rather than generous self giving. The problem is written across the face of the world. Its accepted violence evokes the abhorrent acts of terror which are then turned to justify our protecting our way of life. Christ offers a different way.

In a nutshell, the Way of Christ does not fit within the rules of the world.  It’s hard to explain; it’s hard to understand; it just is.  Frederick Buechner says this of “righteousness”:

“You haven’t got it right!” says the exasperated piano teacher. Junior is holding his hands the way he’s been told. His fingering is unexceptionable. He has memorized the piece perfectly. He has hit all the proper notes with deadly accuracy. But his heart’s not in it, only his fingers. What he’s playing is a sort of music but nothing that will start voices singing or feet tapping. He has succeeded in boring everybody to death including himself.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) The scribes and Pharisees were playing it by the Book. They didn’t slip up on a single do or don’t. But they were getting it all wrong.

Righteousness is getting it all right. If you play it the way it’s supposed to be played, there shouldn’t be a still foot in the house. (from “Weekly Sermon Illustration:  Righteousness”, by Frederick Buechner, available at http://frederickbuechner.com/content/weekly-sermon-illustration-righteousness, accessed 22 September, 2013.)

  • What does the term “godliness” mean to you?
  • How do you envision the “alternative” way of Christ?
  • So, what does this passage mean for us today?
  • What ways of life do we protect?

 

 

GOSPEL:  Luke 16:19-31

Read the passage from The Gospel According to Luke

This story apparently assumes that judgment takes place at the time of death.  It seems to indicate a popular view of the afterlife among many Jews and non-Jews of the period which focused on the individual’s fate.  In that sense it lacks the vision of a transformed world, which thought in wider than individual terms: the vision of a just society, transformed and recreated.  So we probably need to supplement it with this wider and more inclusive vision.  But it’s apparently set in the context of an abuse of wealth in that society.

The rich man is not depicted as one who is bad or evil; rather, his self preoccupation with which he prevented himself from caring about others as he cared for himself. The man is very rich and very privileged.  In fact, wearing garments of purple suggests some link with royalty. Having a gate and a wall implies a large mansion. The poor man is named, Lazarus. The name means “God has helped”. The image is one of abject poverty and humiliation.

So, after each of their respective deaths, the rich man received the torment that he had dished out to others.  And so, the rich man asks Abraham to get Lazarus to help him. What a reversal! Give him credit, the rich man then recovers some concern for others, but limited to his own family, his brothers (I hope he had no sisters!). The exchange which follows is interesting because it assumes that people need to hear the Law and the Prophets, whether from people still alive or from someone returned from the dead. The way to life is to keep the commandments in the way Jesus expounds them. Failure to heed this message on the assumption that faith in Jesus can be separated from it and will guarantee a place in heaven is as much a folly now as it was then. Being and doing are what matter, not signing up. It is not about earning a reward, but about engaging in an ongoing relationship which has compassion as its agenda.

The parable obviously targets the violence of apathy and neglect which is widening the chasm between rich and poor. The trouble is that even such abstractions become easy to tolerate. We need some first hand experience of encountering the real people whom we will then not be able to dismiss as relative statistics. And if that cannot be first hand, we need to help people engage in active imagination of what it really means to be poor, to be a refugee, to be caught on the wrong side of the chasms which vested interests maintain.

This is not really meant as a literal portrait of what life after death is like. It reflects the Greek notion that souls go to the underworld for punishment at death. Hades is not mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament as a place of torment. In Jewish and Christian understanding the resurrection of the dead with judgment and vindication will happen when the Messiah returns, not on the immediate death of each individual. So we have here a parable meant to illuminate truths about the kingdom of God and shed light on how we are to live this life, rather than the next.

Alyce McKenzie points out that “the background of this parable is a tale from Egyptian folklore about the reversal of fates after death. It also has connections to rabbinic stories. Rabbinic sources contain seven versions of this folktale. In Greek the name Lazaros has the same root consonants as the name Eliezer who, Genesis 15:2 tells us was a servant of Abraham. Some rabbinic tales feature Eliezer (Greek Lazaros) walking in disguise on the earth and reporting back to Abraham on how his children are observing the Torah’s prescriptions regarding the treatment of the widow, the orphan, and the poor.  Lazarus is a poor beggar (16:20); he returns to Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man requests that Abraham send him as an emissary to his brothers.”  (Alyce McKenzie, “To See or Not to See”, available at http://www.patheos.com/community/mainlineportal/2010/09/19/to-see-or-not-to-see-stepping-over-lazarus-reflections-on-luke-1519-26/.

This parable is found only in Luke.  It underscores a theme expressed earlier in the Gospel (Luke 1:52). God has “put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree”. It also reflects Luke’s heart for the poor echoing his version (Luke 6:20) of Jesus’ earlier beatitude “Blessed are you who are poor (Matthew 5:3 has “poor in spirit”) because yours is the Kingdom of God.” The story is a three act play. The first act portrays the earthly contrast between the wealthy man and Lazarus. The second act describes the reversal of their conditions in the afterlife. The third act depicts the rich man’s request to Father Abraham for a sign so that those still living can avoid his torment, a request that Abraham refuses.

First century hearers of this parable would not have assumed that the rich man was evil and that the poor man was righteous. On the contrary, wealth in the ancient world was often viewed as a sign of divine favor, while poverty was viewed as evidence of sin. The rich man’s sin was not that he was rich, but that, during his earthly life, he did not even “see” Lazarus, despite his daily presence at the entrance to his home. It is interesting, however, that he knows his name. The rich man remains anonymous, but Lazarus has the distinction of being the only person given a name in any of Jesus’ parables.

The point is that we need a bigger transformation, a bigger vision than the tale actually depicts.  It is a vision of a God who offers a place for all and turns no one away.  And in order to be a part of this vision, we need to be able to see all of our brothers and sisters that share this kingdom with us.  There are no longer divisions, no longer “the have’s” and “the have-nots”, no longer those who ignore the needs of someone else.  Is that so hard?

 

  • What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  • What does this mean for us in our own society?
  • What situations does our society (and we) tolerate when we should be changing them?
  • What makes the difference between our seeing the Kingdom of God and not seeing it at all?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

We of the modern time live much more in the attitude of interrogation than of exclamation.  We so blur our world with question marks that we lose the sense of wonder and sometimes even of vision.  It is refreshing to note how frequently the great spiritual teachers of the New Testament introduce their message with the world “behold!”  They speak because they see and they want their hearers and their readers to see.  Their “behold” is more than an interjection—it has the force of an imperative, as though they would say:  ‘Just see what I see.  Open your eyes to the full meaning of what is before you, which is the method of all true teachers. (Rufus Jones)

To belong to a community is to begin to be about more than myself.  (Joan Chittister, Listen With the Heart:  Sacred Moments, in Everyday Life, 65)

Imagine a large circle and in the center of it rays of light that spread out to the circumference.  The light in the center is God; each of us is a ray.  The closer the rays are to the center, the closer the rays are to one another.  The closer we live to God, the closer we are bound to our neighbor.  (Fulton J. Sheen)

 

Closing

I am here in this solitude before you, and I am glad because you see me here.  For, it is here, I think, that you want to see me and I am seen by you.  My being here is a response you have asked of me, to something I have not clearly heard.  But I have responded…You have called me here to be repeatedly born in the Spirit as your child.  Repeatedly born in light, in unknowing, in faith, in awareness, in gratitude, in poverty, in presence, and in praise.  Amen. (Thomas Merton)