30th Sunday in Ordinary time
Well here we are at the 30th Sunday of ordinary time as we are fast approaching the feast of Christ the King (34th Sunday) and then we begin all over again with the Advent Season. As I write this Israel is about to invade Gaza. Thousands have died on both sides, and thousands more will die from violence, hunger, destroyed hospitals, missiles etc. We pray for peace in the Holy Land as well as Ukraine and we remember all the other places and people who need our prayers and the peace of God at this time wherever they are in the world.
The first reading from Exodus this Sunday speaks to us of immigrants. They call them “aliens in our midst.” The listing includes all other people who live on the margins of society. The first reading also warns against mistreating strangers, widows and orphans and talks about the proper conduct of loans and pledges. The warning comes from God’s lips. It’s not just a nice piece of social philosophy; it is the demand of living our faith. It means that true faith, as Jesus teaches it, is about being in loving relationship with God and other human beings. Often, we think of those who are poor as being less than human. We confirm those thoughts by avoiding contact, with them. Yet as sons and daughters of God we are directed to welcome those persons and seek to support them. Avoidance and alienation is contrary to that. Speaking badly about them is contrary to the dignity and worth that God uniquely creates in the people they are. The Pharisees in the Gospel Reading for this Sunday are all out to get Jesus because he had silenced the Sadducees.
In an attempt to do this they asked him this question Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Many people say that as they grow older their relationship with God becomes much more central in their life. There is a sense in which we could say that it takes a lifetime of practice to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, to live the first commandment, putting God before all else. To direct throughout our lives God has given us guidelines, the Ten Commandments. So many people in the modern world have decided to turn away from God and from spiritual things. The passage is addressed to us as individuals in our various vocations it is also addressed to us as the Church of our time. The Pharisees and the Sadducees represent the fragmentation which Jesus rejected. The demanding nature of the law of love is stressed in the final verse of the Gospel passage for this Sunday: “On these two commandments love of God and neighbour depends all the Law and the Prophets. Jesus left a crucial last testament to each of us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Religious rituals are meant to be ways of reflecting on, savoring, remembering, celebrating and expressing that love. Sometimes they just end up as ‘empty’ rituals, when love has been replaced by fear, or when love is absent.
The Kingdom of God is not some far off place, but the moments when God’s life breaks into the human story. Those moments bring love, wisdom, grace, compassion, generosity, forgiveness and peace. Those practiced in the things of God recognise God’s presence most of all in loving relationships. In our “e-connected artificial intelligence” computerised world existence, the words of Jesus in this Sundays Gospel are especially challenging: to love with our whole heart and soul and mind requires us to “unplug” all our devices and distractions and be there for one another, to engage one another as our loving God is engaged with us. love in action will change us and our surroundings. All we need to do is to try and live like Jesus did. we should take one step at a time toward our creator and our fellow human beings and this will provide us with great reward. And we should not worry where we are going, for God’s Spirit will lead the way along the road that leads to salvation and the destination we will arrive at is eternal life.
Fullerton T 