Listening to God's Messengers in our Lives

In today’s first reading, Jer 26: 1-9, Jeremiah is asked to deliver a message to the house of Judah, warning them that they are to become a city of ruin like Shiloh, remembered as a disgrace and referred to in future curses.  Not a pretty picture, by any stretch of the imagination. The people of the city of Judah can change that if they repent of their wrongdoing and return to the Lord.  “Perhaps,” God says through Jeremiah, “they will listen and turn back, each from his [or her] evil way, so that I may repent of the evil I have planned to inflict upon them for their evil deeds.”  Empowered by God, eager to do God’s bidding and, no doubt, hoping that the people do repent, Jeremiah delivers the Lord’s message. The result? The people attack him and demand that he be put to death.

In the Gospel, Mt 13: 54-58,  Jesus enters his home village and he, too, excited to return home, to bring Good News to the people, is met with disappointment.  “Who is this man? Is he not the son of a carpenter? Where did he get this wisdom?” And “they took offense at him.” In fact, they attempted to throw him over the cliff, to kill him. They’d have nothing to do with him, much less listen to him.

You and I have similar experiences throughout our lifetime. We enter our marriages all excited about building a great life together. Or we join a  religious community all excited about a complete commitment to the disciplines of religious life, the demands of community life, willing to make whatever sacrifices marriage or religious life  demand of us. Then things begin to fall apart! We become lax. We drift into acting independently, non-collaboratively, less and less willing to sacrifice for  one another. “Me first” creeps into our lives. “My way” becomes my preferred way of doing things. We are faced with the need to repent, reform, make sacrifices, look at how we are moving further and further away from our first fervor, our initial willingness to work at our marriages, our commitment to the ascetical practices that enhance community living and whereby we live for each other’s well-being and the common good of the family, of the community.  Am I willing to change, to be converted, to be called to greater faithfulness, to renew my commitment to the other, to something greater than myself? Or, like the people of Judah and the people of Nazareth do I attack the person who hints at the need that I make changes in my way of acting, that I become more family centered/community centered?

Standing Up for Truth

In today’s Gospel, Mt. 21: 23-27, the chief priests and the elders of the people get caught hedging the truth. They dodge Jesus’ question, afraid of the crowd and of being politically incorrect.  John the Baptist is the very opposite.  He stands his ground, preparing the way for the Lord, calling the people to repentance and pointing out Jesus to the crowds: “Look, the Lamb of God. “  Neither is John the Baptist afraid of confronting Herod’s sin of incest with his brother’s wife.

How often do you and I hedge the truth, say whatever needs to be said to assumedly remain popular, to avoid offending anyone, or to assure that we are politically correct!  Standing up for what we believe, speaking the truth, being honest and open when asked a question about our faith:  many times that calls for the courage to go against the crowd.  It means having the courage and the faith of Mary when asked to bear a son prior to the consummation of her marriage to Joseph, or Joseph’s courage to take Mary as his wife, or having Mary’s forte at the wedding feast of Cana when she instructed the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. It also means having the strength to obey as the apostles did when called to leave their fishing boats or the tax collector’s lucrative business to follow Jesus or to join Him when He dined with sinners.  It means following the example of Jesus who was unafraid to dialogue with the women of His day or having the courage of the woman at the well who was unafraid to encounter Jesus at the well and then return to her country proclaiming the Good News of the Messiah. It means trusting the Lord’s authority to proclaim the resurrection, as did Mary of Magdala when commissioned by the Risen Christ to go tell the apostles that He truly was risen from the dead. She proclaimed that truth unflinchingly even though the apostles treated her with scorn, disbelieving such a proclamation coming from a woman.  Truly, like all of the faith-filled persons before us, we, too, are challenged to believe in the authority of Jesus and act upon the authority He gives to us as Christians to proclaim our faith even when it is politically incorrect to do so.