Faith

Thursday, 17th week in ordinary time  – Matthew 13:47-53

We have reached the grand finale of Matthew 13. Unpacking the seventh and final parable of Jesus’ kingdom teaching we are faced with the reality that the kingdom of heaven is not sanitised but is diverse and different.

We love to control our image. We filter our photos, edit our words, and carefully pick our friends. Naturally, we expect God to do the same thing. We look at the Kingdom of Heaven and expect it to be a clean and an orderly place. We would like to live in a kingdom of the righteous only but then again that would be wishful thinking. There are all kinds and all sorts in the kingdom.

A drag net was one of the many ways that fishermen employed to catch fish. Two boats would be fitted with a net and as they moved the nets collected every kind of fish that happened to get trapped. As fishermen will tell you, not every fish that is caught is edible and even more, there are some fish which have no value in the marketplace. Attempting to sell them would be a burden to the fisher monger.

When Christ spoke his truth, he used a pedagogy that is employed even today with children. It is a method of teaching that moves from the known to the unknown. Jesus’ parables were largely based on farming or fishing which was the occupation of most of his listeners. Employing this method, he made clear what he intended to teach. He didn’t use elevated theology to confuse them; He used everyday reality to change them.

Earlier, in the parable of the wheat and the weeds, Christ highlighted the presence of satan and his minions. Jesus used that parable to teach with authority the consequence of sin; sin will find us in the fires of hell. It is for the sake of those who continue to live in denial of the reality of hell that Jesus gives the second such parable. Jesus didn’t talk about hell to scare us; He talked about it because He loves us too much to lie to us

When he spoke to the crowds of his time, as he does with us through his word today, he wants us to understand that death will come, as it came to the fish. Death did not just come to the bad fish it came to all that were caught in the net. But the point of the parable is not merely to focus on the reality of death but of judgment that follows.

“The angels will come!” That is what we will experience at death. But don’t think that because you see an angel when you die you have won a seat in heaven. We are told that they come with a clear mission. The dragnet may have caught fish but not every fish has value. There are good fish and bad fish and the bad fish must be got rid off. Grace gathers all, but truth sorts the catch.

For the second time in Chapter 13, Jesus talks of the ‘furnace of fire’ reserved for the evil. Interestingly, in both the parables that speak of judgment, the consequence of evil is clearly enunciated; ‘evil will be bound and burnt in a furnace of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (verse 30 and 50). Yet, heaven is not described with the intensity that hell is. The parable of the wheat and weeds refers to heaven as “my barn” and nothing more. The point of the parable is not to tell us of the joys of heaven but the reality of the suffering in hell.

To my mind, Christ is reiterating the reality of hell over heaven. He wants to stress this reality lest we begin to think that hell is a tool used by parents to drive their children into submission. Hell, for many, has become symbolic and casual talk. We say, “go to hell” or use it as an exclamation of frustration when we say, “Oh hell.” We have turned the fate of our souls into a piece of frivolous conversation. Yet that reality will come to burn us if we do not take it seriously.

This truth must be proclaimed especially when clearly understood. In verse 51 Jesus ask the disciples if they have “understood all this?” Their answer is yes. If our answer is also yes, then we become ‘the scribe’, the priest, the religious, the laity who then must proclaim this truth. If we are trained for the kingdom, as Christ says, then we have to proclaim the truth of Christ; both old and new.

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Faith

Talk about a birthday party you would desperately want to forget. There was no cake cut but a head chopped. What began as a ‘birth’ day ended as a ‘death’ day. St Matthew is borrowing this narrative from the text of St. Mark which was written a couple of years earlier and was already in circulation. The difference in the texts is that St Matthew strips away the dramatic fluff, cutting straight to the bone of the story.

Even though Chapter 13:54 to the end of chapter 17 deals with the ‘acceptance of Jesus by his disciples’ it begins with his rejection by his own people in Nazareth and is followed by this narrative which seems to be the reason for Jesus to begin his journey to die for us. The death of one martyr is the trigger for the Son of God to lay down his life. John’s execution was the grim dress rehearsal for Jesus’s crucifixion. In both the death of John and Jesus, the similarities are not lost on the reader.

John and Jesus are both hauled before men in charge of leadership, (Pilate and Herod Antipas) who were not really convinced that they should be put to death. Both men were pushed to a bad decision by people who would ‘profit’ from such a death. Herodias would have got rid of the voice of conscience that condemned her adulterous and incestuous union to Herod while Caiaphas and gang would have got rid of what they saw as a religious rabble rouser who could set off a very edgy Roman army. Both men succumbed when they executed the death warrant; Herod to the lust of the flesh and Pilate to the lust of power. Both were edged on by public perception; Herod was worried about his oath before his guests and Pilate was worried about his loyalty to Caesar.

But since this text is a flashback in the Gospel let me do a bit of flashback for you. Herod, mentioned in the Gospel, is Herod Antipas or Herod the Tetrarch (meaning one fourth). He was given the charge of Galilee and Perea but in reality, was a puppet in the hands of the Emperor Tiberius. He was the son of Herod the Great and this apple did not fall far from the tree. In many ways he was like his father though some portray him to be weak and indecisive. Herod Antipas (21BC – 39AD) had divorced his wife, the daughter of King Aretas, ruler of the Nabatean kingdom. This was a mistake because Aretas made sure of Herod’s downfall.

So what really lost Herod Antipas his crown? His love for ‘his brother’s wife’! The woman in question is Herodias. Herodias was the niece of King Herod the great, the daughter of King Aristobulus IV. She was married off to Philip the son of Herod the Great and bother of Herod Antipas. Her husband was also called ‘Herod Boethus’. Philip chose to stay in Rome, living a quiet life rather than the spotlight he would be thrown under in Jerusalem. But Herodias had dreams and all it took was a visit from Herod Antipas for her to snake her way into his life.

While Jerusalem’s elites only dared to whisper their disapproval, John the Baptist turned his condemnation into a roar.  This voice in the wilderness shook the corridors of power enough for Herod to have John imprisoned in Machaerus, one of Herod’s many palaces, this one in the Trans Jordan area. And then all it took was a birthday and an opportunity to win and woo Herod. John may have ‘lost his head’ with Herod’s moral life but this also made his loose his head, literally!

While Jesus told us that ‘the truth will set you free’ (John 8:32). Yet speaking truth to power also has its consequences. John was beheaded and Jesus was crucified. Speaking the truth does not insulate us from the wrath of those who have much to lose.   While the wicked sharpen their daggers in the shadows, the righteous stand firm in the light, knowing that human vengeance is a trap, but divine justice is an absolute certainty. Herodias and Caiaphas may plot the execution, but they cannot escape the ultimate courtroom where vengeance belongs to God alone. Do not trade the crown of righteousness for the muddy weapons of revenge

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Faith

Friday, 17th week in ordinary time  – Matthew 13:54-58

Matthew’s community was no stranger to rejection. The times that they lived in were marred by bitter hostility between the Jews and the followers of Christ who still clung on to their Jewish roots. The rejection by Matthew’s community was sealed with the pronouncement of the ‘ birtkat ha minin’, a Jewish curse on heretics (minim)which also include Jewish Christians.

The introduction of the Birkat ha-Minim (the blessing concerning heretics) was not just a theological disagreement. It was a structural eviction. For Matthew’s community, Jewish believers who deeply loved their traditions, scripture, and heritage, this curse effectively forced them out of the synagogue. It turned their sacred spaces into places of public rejection.

While the Jews, through the pronouncement of the Birkat ha-Minim, sought to silence and erase this community it instead accelerated their growth.  They realized that God’s presence was no longer tied to a specific building, but was found wherever “two or three are gathered” in His name (Matthew 18:20).

Turned away from the synagogues they once prayed in, the followers of Christ most certainly found comfort and solace in the narration of Jesus’ own rejection in today’s Gospel. Yet the positioning of the Gospel is itself confusing. Perhaps what perplexes us is why did Matthew place this Gospel at the end of the parable discourse? It seems a bit odd for the evangelist to end a series of powerful teachings with the rejection of Jesus.

The fault lies in the fact that the Gospels were originally written in continuous format; there were no chapters and verse. It was Robert Estienne who in 1551 introduced the numbering of verses within each chapter. The rejection of Jesus would read better if it was part of Chapter 14.

Chapters 14 to 17 are an interesting twist that Matthew gives to his Gospel. In placing the rejection of Jesus by His own countrymen in Nazareth, he contrasts it with the next four chapters with the acknowledgment of Jesus by his disciples.

While Jesus is rejected by His own, He is sought after by everyone else including the Canaanite woman, sworn enemies of the Jews.  It was Matthew’s way of assuring his community that they were not alone in their rejection but they will also find acceptance within the community and acceptance by the world.

Your rejection is not your definition; it is your redirection. When Matthew’s community was pushed out of the synagogue, they thought they were losing their covering, but God was actually expanding their territory! We spend so much time crying over the people who locked us out of the front door, that we completely miss the crowd of “Canaanites” waiting for us in the backyard. Stop begging for a seat at a table where you are tolerated, when God is building a community where you are celebrated.

Interestingly Jesus is rejected not because He has said anything blasphemous but simply because they were unable to accept the notions of Him that they had in their head. The tragedy of familiarity is that it makes you blind to the move of God right in front of your face.

The people didn’t reject Jesus because He lacked power; they rejected Him because He lacked prestige, reducing the King of Kings down to just “the carpenter’s son” because they couldn’t see past his human resume. They thought they knew who He was, so they missed whose He was, asking, “Who does he think he is?” simply because He didn’t fit into the box they built for Him.

Do not let people who only know your history limit your destiny. If they can’t see the greatness in you, it’s not because it isn’t there, it’s because they’re looking through the rearview mirror of your past while God is driving you into your future.

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Monday, 17th week in ordinary time – Matthew 13:31-35

In Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus unfolds a masterpiece of seven parables to reveal the mysteries of God’s Kingdom. The Gospel of today focuses on the third and the fourth parable that Matthew records for us. Both these parables focus on the expansion of the kingdom of God albeit in different ways.

God surprises us by hiding immense power in small, ordinary things. In the first case the Kingdom of heaven is compared to a mustard seed and in the second to a yeast. In the first case the growth in the kingdom is visible, in the second it is invisible. God’s dominion is seen in unexpected and even ‘scandalous’ ways.

Clearly the kingdom of heaven cannot be stereotyped or put into a casting mold. God’s Kingdom refuses to be trapped in human boxes or predictable formulas. The kingdom is dynamic and as much as we would like to have it packaged in bows and buntings, it is challenging and complex. We do not manage the Kingdom; it transforms us.

It is for this reason that Jesus does not define what the kingdom of God is but compares it to what it is like. He is clear each time speaks of the kingdom when he says, “the kingdom of heaven is LIKE,” for the kingdom is this, yet much more.

The third and fourth parable present the kingdom’s growth in unexpected ways. God, like his kingdom, is dynamic and beyond the ‘logical’ expectations of humankind. In speaking of a kingdom, one would tend to use superlatives, a lowly mustard seed or some rotting leaven would be the last thing on our mind. Yet, God consistently uses the minuscule to mock our obsession with the monumental.

By no stretch of the imagination does a common mustard bush naturally grow into the massive tree Jesus describes. But that is exactly the point; what is impossible by nature is inevitable by grace. Back then, a mustard bush wasn’t a prized crop; it was a hated garden pest. Imagine the absolute shock of the crowd when Jesus looked at a nuisance and called it a nation. God doesn’t check your reputation to determine your revelation; He takes the very thing the world tries to eradicate and turns it into something they can’t ignore.

Jesus does not want us to rule out the means or the measure that he can work with. If he can use, what was considered a small garden pest to become the tree that could shelter in its branches, then imagine how God can use you and me to bring about his kingdom. God doesn’t need a massive platform to make a massive impact; He just needs a willing seed.

The real lesson here is trust: we need to let God shape His Kingdom the way He wants, even when He uses things we don’t expect. We tend to scoff at the ‘garden pest’ that God chose and would rather pick the attractive ‘fruit that Eve was drawn to.’

This also demands our surrender to his will and his way. This is perhaps the hardest part for us; to let go and to let God. Surrender to God’s will is perhaps the largest challenge for the clergy who must be attuned to the voice of God even when there is a temptation to jump into the driving seat and render God unemployed. True pastoral leadership is not about taking control for God, but giving control back to Him.

But such is the kingdom, that God has the power to take something negative and use it for the growth of his kingdom. Leaven or yeast was viewed by the Jew as a symbol of corruption. In the Mosaic Law, leaven represents sin or corruption. The law forbade grain offerings made with leaven (Leviticus 2:11). In fact, no yeast was allowed to be burned on the altar in any sacrifice. The grain offering for Aaron and his sons (the priests) was also not to contain leaven and was to be eaten in a holy place (Leviticus 6:17).

Yet it is this negative and corrupting influence that becomes the agent of growth in God’s kingdom. It is not that God deliberately chooses a negative or corrupting influence to build his kingdom but that in spite of such elements his kingdom will grow.

For me this is a personal teaching; a moment of God speaking to me. Our nation has been a troubled one, even more with the ruling dispensation deliberately provoking the secular fabric of this nation. But then again, dictatorship in its many disguises is on the rise while democracy has taken a beating worldwide.  

Men and women of faith ask, ‘where is God’ when we face such unjust situations? Why has he abandoned his kingdom? Why does he let evil men rule and reign? Why are the mighty let loose and the weak wrecked into the earth?

Today, God reminds us that the kingdom is his; he is in charge. It is he who can turn a corrupting symbol and work mysteriously. Let us let God be God.

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Saturday, 25th of July – Feast of St James the Apostle – Matthew 20:20-28

Today’s text places Jesus on the threshold of his ministry and his approaching suffering, death, and resurrection, with the Gospel leading into Holy Week and his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Just prior to this passage, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection for the third time—proving that even as the crowds cheered his arrival, his eyes were already fixed on the cross.

In the midst of this, Salome, the mother of James and John, steps in to ask for a favor. This was clearly no ordinary request, as she kneels reverently before our Lord. While we cannot know the mind of Christ, his response is striking, “What do you want?” We often fail to realise that Jesus can see right through our grand gestures straight to the true motives of our hearts.

Contrast Salome’s privilege with the desperation of the two blind men sitting by the roadside in Matthew 20:30-31. They, too, seek a favor from Jesus, but while the mother of James and John kneels comfortably to ask for power, these men are forced to aggressively shout through a rebuking crowd, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”.

Both, Salome and the blind men are asking for something. She for her sons the blind men for themselves. Both of them use a different style of approach; one kneels and the other shouts out. Both get the Lord’s attention yet Salome’s wish is not granted but the blind men’s wish is

When Jesus stops to address them in Matthew 20:32, his question shifts slightly to, “What do you want me to do for you?”—proving that those who ask for mercy get a specific offer of service, while those who ask for status get questioned on their motives.

Jesus almost seems peeved with Salome and he sounds curt in his response, yet the blind men get a pointed question from the Lord, as if to suggest that Jesus would do for them what they asked no matter what.

Interestingly, when Salome asks the Lord a question, he does not answer her but turns to ‘her boys’ who seem to have accompanied her or were just hanging around. Relying on the trends our human nature sets, I think it is the former, not the latter. “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” asks Jesus. Our Lord knew that a couple of verses later he would enter Jerusalem and that would be his darkest hour of suffering.

St. James and his brother John clearly want a share in the glory. They desperately want the crown, but they completely fail to understand that the cross must come first. They wanted the destination of the throne without ever walking the path of the tomb.

 They speak out of zeal not out of knowledge when they say, “We are able.” Discernment is so essential to the Christian life. A willing heart without a discerning mind will eagerly volunteer for a battle it does not yet understand. While I am enthusiastic to live for the Lord, he may want me to die for him. Remember he said, “Whoever loves his life will lose it.”

Our Lord’s response to James and John will forever be for each of us a point of constant reflection. How often have we asked the Lord for something that we think we deserve or that we want and his response is the same that he gave to James and John; “You do not know what you are asking.” We so often beg God to open doors of blessing, forgetting that we lack the strength to handle the weight of what lies behind them.

St James did get his cup of suffering. He was the first of the Apostles who suffered martyrdom. Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great who had massacred the Holy Innocents, was trying to please the Jews in every possible way. In the year 43, St James became the scapegoat to be used by Herod Agrippa. At this point in time, St James was the authoritative figure in Jerusalem. The church had grown substantially and the beheading of St James, it seems, was the object of appeasement for the Jews. When the truth moves the hearts of the masses, the powerful resort to violence to silence the message.

The Spanish though will vehemently claim that St James preached to them and that his body now rests in Compostela. This place was and still continues to draw thousands of pilgrims from all over the world.

If you are a druggist, potter or pilgrim, then St James is your patron. He is also invoked in times of war and for patients with rheumatism.

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