Titus Destroying Jerusalem by Wilhelm von Kaulbach
A reflection for the 1st Sunday, Advent year B. The readings are Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7, Psalm 80, Corinthians 1:3-9 and Mark 13:33-37.
I was at a high school last Friday and I noticed how different the students behave when the teacher is not in the room; even if there is a guest speaker. (Sometimes they are better behaved without the teacher!) And I remembered when I was in High School. We were a very close group of about 30 students in my class; most of us had been together since kindergarten and we were tight. We covered for each other. If ever we were without a teacher and for some reason we were up to something that we didn’t want the teacher to know about, we would put someone on watch. We had a teacher who would give us an exam and then he would leave the room. Undoubtedly some people (not me!) would cheat. But the only way they could get away with it, was if someone kept watch. Don’t want the teacher coming in to catch you doing something you’re not supposed to be doing, or not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
Last week, also, I was watching a documentary about World War I (since it’s the 100th anniversary this year) and the story was about a 19-year old French soldier who had been given the night watch at the trenches and had fallen asleep. But despite the pleadings of his commander, who said that it was his own fault – he shouldn’t have given this young tired man the night watch – the young soldier was court-martialed and sentenced to the firing squad. Apparently the French army did this a lot. They had to make an example of him, because you can’t fall asleep while you’re on night watch – not during a war!
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A reflection for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A. The readings are Exodus 22:20-26, Psalm 18, Thessalonians 1:5c-10 and Matthew 22:34-40.
Which is the greatest commandment of the Law? This was a real question at the time of Jesus. People would gather around the water cooler at work and talk about which commandment was the most important. It’s like today, everyone talking about whether we need more security at the Parliament or people talking about which diet is better or what we need to do to be happy. That was a question that a journalist once asked Pope Francis: What is the secret to happiness; the secret to having joy in your life.
The scholar of the law in today’s Gospel reading is not just trying to trick Jesus – he’s actually asking him a real, valid question that people had at the time – like the journalist asking Pope Francis what’s the secret to being joyful.
Let me give you a little background. Today, in post-Temple Judaism, which we call rabbinic Judaism (maybe some of my Jewish readers can correct me if I get this wrong) – we commonly accept that there are 613 commandments in the Torah: 613 commandments in the Law of Moses. This does not include the 10 commandments. We’re talking about all the other commandments contained in all the 5 books of Moses. These are called the Mitzvot (mitzvah means law; mitzvot is plural). Many of these laws have to do with priestly service. The Levites were the priests and they had very specific laws as to how to do their job and how to offer sacrifice and serve at the Temple. These are the levitical laws and most of them are in the Book of Leviticus. There are also laws about food; what to eat, what not to eat and how to eat (like not to eat worms found in fruit, Lev 11:41 or not to eat the limb removed from a living beast, Deut. 12:23, or not to slaughter an animal and its young on the same day, Lev 22:28). There are laws about offering sacrifice and about ritual purity and impurity (what makes one pure or impure); laws about marriage (like marrying a widow of a brother who has died childless, Deut 22:5), about clothing (like a man shall not wear women’s clothing or a woman not wearing men’s clothing, Deut. 22:5); about agriculture and how to breed your animals (like not to sow grain or herbs in a vineyard, Deut 22:9 and not to cross-breed cattle of different species, Lev. 19:19); about idolatry (like not to tattoo the body, Lev 19:28, or plant a tree for worship, Deut 14:1). There are also criminal laws and laws about judicial procedure and punishment; laws about property (like never to settle in the land of Egypt, Deut 17:16). There are laws about employment and how to treat your slaves; laws about how to conduct business; laws about how to treat the stranger and the foreigners (like in today’s first reading from the Book of Exodus), how to treat the poor and unfortunate; laws about prayer and blessings; laws about signs and symbols (like every male offspring must be circumcised, Lev 12:3) and of course, laws about God. A good Jew knew about all these laws. Pharisees were strict with all these laws and a scholar of the law, was, well, an expert in all this Law.
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A reflection for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A, The readings are Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm 145 Philippians 1:20, 24, 27a and Matthew 20:1-16a
It’s not fair! Every time I hear that parable, the 6-year-old inside of me wants to scream, “no fair!” How is that fair? The guys who showed up at 5pm and worked for an hour, get paid the same as the guys who were there at 8 in the morning. It’s not right. And it makes me angry because we’ve all been there: You’re the most experienced and senior person at work and when there’s a new project (the project you’ve been looking forward to) or there’s a new big account, who gets it? The youngest, most inexperienced person at your work. Or you’re the best basketball player on your team and when the university scouts come, who gets the scholarship? Not the best player, but the tallest player.
It’s not fair. And especially as Christians. Christianity is the champion of human rights and social justice. We wouldn’t even have a concept of human rights or social justice; we wouldn’t have civil rights and even labour unions if it wasn’t for Christianity. So I don’t get this parable. The last shall be first and the first shall be last? I don’t get it. I guess that’s why God says through Isaiah in the first reading that his ways are not our ways. Not only are his ways not our ways, but his ways are better than ours: As high as the sky is above the earth, so high are God’s ways above our ways. There’s so much about God’s ways that we cannot comprehend. Today’s parable is one of them.
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Homily for the 18th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year A. The readings are Isaiah 55:1-3, Psalm 145, Romans 8:35, 37-39 and Matthew 14:13:21.
I didn’t have a great week: It was busy (that’s why this is not getting posted until Monday): A little too much to do at work; a funeral on Tuesday – a parishioner; those are always hard – and Saturday I was supposed to give a talk to a group in Caledon. I drove for 45 minutes and when I arrived there was no one there: I had the wrong date! Suffice it to say that I’m glad it’s a long weekend. But I wonder what the week was like for other people. How was the week for people stuck on the Burlington Skyway bridge on Thursday? Or how was the week for people who were planning on traveling to Ottawa or Montreal on the train? How was the week for those Malaysian and Dutch airline investigators who are trying to get to the crash site in Ukraine? Or how was the week for all the aid workers in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast who are working with Ebola virus patients? How was the week for those Ebola patients and their families? How was the week for people living in Baghdad? How was it for people living in Gaza? I wonder what the week was like for the family of Jaime Palm, the 15-year old girl who died in that strange accident on the soccer field in Bradford. My week was not great, but it was not bad. There’s always someone in the world who is having a bad week.
This Sunday’s Gospel story is the only story that is found in all four Gospels. This week we heard Matthew’s version, but it’s also found in Mark, Luke and John. It’s a story that we’ve heard so often – we know it so well – Jesus feeds the 5000; the multiplication of the 5 loaves and 2 fish (and half the time we say 5 fish and 2 loaves!) that we don’t really pay attention to it and we miss some other parts of the story. Today’s reading begins with Jesus not having a good week. He’s just found out that his cousin John the Baptist, who was in prison, has been beheaded by King Herod and so He goes off to a deserted place by himself. That’s what I want to do when I am having a bad day or I am feeling sad or have received bad news; I want to go off by myself – to pray, but also to be alone. I imagine that Jesus was feeling a bit sad, but also a bit angry and maybe even a bit afraid because He knows that what happened to John will likely also happen to Him. And then the crowd show up. I don’t know about you, but when I am in a crappy mood, I want to be alone. I don’t want people around and the last thing I want to do is talk to people, listen to people or listen to their problems. But Jesus goes to be with them. He spends time with them and he cures them.
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