Today's Message: 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

Jeremiah 38: 4-6, 8-10; Hebrews 12: 1-4; Luke 12: 49-53

How do I view the world today?  Do I tend to focus on all the wrongs, evil, pain, suffering?  Do I lose sight of the mission I have from God to be an instrument of His peace to my world and the bigger world?  What is my approach to people who always seem to be negative and find the ‘bad’ in so many places?  When do I tend in this direction myself?  As my life has enfolded have I realized that God has a plan to redeem myself and every one in the world?  Do I want to be an active participant in God’s plan or am I suspicious?  Do I ever confront the difficulties and obstacles that seem to attack my beliefs and faith?  Do I realize they mainly are focused on living solely for myself and not for my brothers and sisters?  Have I found myself tending toward depression or despair?  Do I see that the struggles that are a part of so many lives like addictions, life-threatening violence, terrorism and crimes and disrespect for life are rampant and are obstacles to my development as disciple of Christ and leader in being a person of love, mercy and forgiveness?

Our readings display much unhappiness and pain and we would think that God would respond more positively but Jesus stuns us with His take and His analysis of God’s position.  

Suffering, unrest and trouble have been a part of everyday life in the Middle East for a long time; we are reminded of this daily in newspapers and news programs.  Our first reading takes us back six hundred years before Christ.  Then the modern day Iraq was called Babylon and they were in power.  Their king and his army had plans to conquer all the surrounding nations.  Today’s reading shows how they were trying to conquer Jerusalem.  Jeremiah the prophet told the Jews that it was useless to fight or even to defend themselves.  They should just surrender or Jerusalem would be totally wiped out.  Now the people thought that this was not only unpatriotic but that God would never allow this.  Jeremiah had to be considered a traitor.  Many of the princes had set out to kill this prophet and they persuaded the king to go along with them.  So they threw Jeremiah in a cistern to die.  Now these cisterns could never hold water (Jeremiah 2:13). They believed in their ways of doing things and since it was their way, it was the right way.  Jeremiah has been urging them to turn to God and listen to His teaching and pay attention to how He is leading them to truth.  They reject him and abandon God.  A court official goes to the king and says the princes’ have wrongly accused Jeremiah.  The king saves the prophet’s life but continues to not listen to the words God has given him.  

Paul insists that as we travel down the roads of our lives and journey in our faith, we must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.  We are to do this because God sends so many witnesses for us to follow, but Jesus shows us the only and right way.  Jesus served as the ultimate witness who suffered willingly on the cross in order for each person to see the love that God has for us and God’s total willingness to bring that love daily to every person.  Life is and will continue to be a struggle.  Pain and suffering are a part of this journey and in looking to Jesus we should not grow lackadaisical or grow tired and go into a ‘poor me’ syndrome.  Paul Claudel, a famous French spiritual writer said, ‘Jesus did not come to take away suffering but to fill it with His presence.”  Am I living life, and as my mom so often said during the hard times: to ‘offer it up for the poor souls in Purgatory.’  I didn’t like to hear this, but there is great wisdom and a fabulous roadmap to follow.

Luke is telling us very point-blank that the end times will come.  It is each person’s role is to be prepared for this.  Because it hasn’t happened yet, people then and definitely today feel that there is nothing to worry about.  We echo the thought that thus there is no urgency in the message of Jesus.  The gospel puts a whole new perspective on Jesus and His teaching.

The same Jesus who spoke so often of love and peace said these words today. “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!…Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.”   It is always nice to remember the nice things Jesus taught and how He encouraged and showed us how to be His disciples of peace and forgiveness.  Today He shows us a radical Jesus.  His message is to have a refining and purifying effect on those who hear it…we are to filter out the ‘nice, sweet’ talk and see that Jesus suffered rejection, was angrily and horribly put to death in the cruelest of ways because people didn’t like what they heard.  They felt they ‘knew what God wanted them to do…they felt they knew the way…they could accept what commandments and teachings they liked because they were the ‘experts’.’  Jesus’ mission is not to bring peace but rather division.  He is the Prince of Peace but HIS PEACE comes at a steep price.  If I listen to His words they are succinct and strong.  Either people will be all for Him or totally against Him…there is no middle ground.  There is no place in Jesus’ words for any sort of compromise.  And people close to me, including family will not like this.  These divisions will tear families apart.  I have to ask myself serious questions all based on Am I loving?  Do I value what I have more than what I am called to be:  a person of love?  Jesus is calling for a selfless love that can transform me and my world.  But be warned that this love is often at odds with the demands and values of the world.  This Gospel of love necessitates that we risk what is attractive and appealing:  power, possessions, pleasure and prestige because these get in the way of equality, justice, compassion and treating each person as my brother and sister and one that should be cared for and loved because they are sons and daughters of God.  God’s word of love actually brings all people together as God’s holy people…BUT I WILL HAVE TO GIVE UP MYSELF AND WHAT I WANT IN THE PROCESS…not very pleasant at all.  

If our house was on fire and every object and treasure would soon be ashes…what would I rescue?  The French dramatist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau was asked this…he said, ‘I would take the fire.’  This is the fire of Jesus’ that can transform us and our world…That is what I must do and be!  Can I do it?

So I reflect on:

• When has following Jesus put me at odds with others?
• When has it put me at odds with my country, it's directions and laws?
• What gives me courage to live my faith, when doing so is uncomfortable?
• Am I always right?  Is my country always right?  Is my Church always right?  Is Jesus always right?  Do I judge the first three by Jesus’ laws or some other?

Sacred Space 2019 states: 

   “The gospel is a call to conversion, to becoming a new creation [2 Corinthians 5:17].  It means shedding the skin of a former way of living.  Does my Christian faith make a real difference to the kind of person I am and to the kinds of life I lead?

   Jesus is totally involved in His mission to save us.  Fire is the image He uses to speak of this great desire in His heart.  Not everyone would receive His message, and hence it would bring division at a deep level in many relationships. In what ways do I see Jesus’ influence on my life causing conflict?”