Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 27, 2021

God's Healing Power, or, Encountering God in the crosses of our lives

Mark 5:21–43

When Jesus had crossed again [in the boat] to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.”

He went off with him, and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him. There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?” But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

And he looked around to see who had done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue official’s house arrived and said, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” Disregarding the message that was reported, Jesus said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.”

He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official, he caught sight of a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. So he went in and said to them, “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.”

And they ridiculed him.

Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was. He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. [At that] they were utterly astounded.

He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.

Music Meditations

• “Hold Me In Life” (by Huub Oosterhuis and Bernard Huijbers) [YouTube]
• “Healer of My Soul” (John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]
• “Psalm 6 (Heal Me)” (The Psalms Project) [YouTube]
• “Open My Eyes, Lord” (by Jesse Manibusan) [YouTube]
• “Psalm 30 (Mourning Into Dancing)” (The Psalms Project) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

God, you did not make death, nor do you rejoice in the destruction of the living. You fashioned all things that they might have being. This includes me, O Lord. My birth was the Creation of your love, my ongoing being is the Sustaining of your love, and my actions are the very Word of your love. Help me to bring that joy and love to those around me. [Take a moment to think of one or more particular people to whom you wish to bring God’s love.]

Companions for the Journey

From “First Impressions” 2021:

Like Lazarus, the young girl Jesus raised from death died again. Who knows the cause of her second death. Did she die in childbirth? Was she felled by one of the common deadly diseases that afflicted people of that time? She may have lived long enough to have children, even grandchildren. Perhaps, as she lay dying, they gathered around her deathbed and watched as she breathed her last. When she did die, once again there would be the customary rituals. They would have hired flute players and a professional group of mourners. Neighbors would have heard the sounds and known that Jairus’ daughter had died—again.

Who knows, some of the older among them might recall how she had died when she was only 12. They would tell their young how her father, an important synagogue official, had put aside all the usual official prejudices against the preacher Jesus and gone to him, even falling down before him, to beg for the life of his daughter. Sickness and death have a way of shearing through the veneer of our self-importance and social standings. They touch us at our most vulnerable place, strip us of our illusions and remind us that, no matter how important we are in others’ eyes, we are still human—limited and temporary here on earth. And so, Jairus’ daughter dies again and Jesus is no longer around to help the grieving family. Did he perform that gracious miracle for Jairus’ daughter just once, a marvelous, but once-only gesture of his power?

The Christian community that saved this story and passed it on to us didn’t believe so. They saw more than a resuscitation in what Jesus did for the young girl. It is clear they saw important elements in the story that would be relevant for us, whose lives are all-too-often shattered by the death of loved ones—especially after 600,000 have died in our country and millions elsewhere have succumbed to the COVID pandemic. In addition, we too must face our own deaths someday. Can what Jesus did for the girl have meaning for us today? Our ancestors in faith believed so, you can tell by how they tell the story. They make hints: for example, they evoke hope in the resurrection in their telling. For example, Jairus asks that his daughter be made “well” and “live.” Both words have special meaning. In the early church’s preaching they were used to indicate “salvation” and “eternal life.” Our ancestors in faith believed that in performing this miracle, Jesus shows he is offering salvation and eternal life to the dead.

I hear echoes of today’s gospel story of Jairus and his critically ill daughter in a conversation I had some years back. A troubled mother chattered with me at a birthday party over coffee and cake. Her son was part of the Wave dance movement—you may remember how popular these events were among young partygoers. He would go out to huge dances in warehouses and spend entire nights there dancing—obviously this was before the pandemic restrictions. She knew that at such gatherings the drug Ecstasy was used to heighten the sights and sounds experienced by the dancers. She asked for prayers. It echoes what so many other parents have asked for their children in trouble. She had also been speaking to drug counselors so that she would know how to approach her son and get him help. Echoing the gospel, her prayers were that her son would get “well and live.” She wanted to help, not just to get him off drugs, but that he might find deeper meaning in his life. She hoped he would have the faith she had in Jesus and experience the love and support she had in her faith community. Like Jairus, she wanted to take Jesus’ hand and lead him to the bedside of her son. She hoped that through her, Jesus might reach out and touch her son, raise him from the “sleep” that he was in so that he might arise and “live.” (I wonder if that isn’t a way of praying for someone we love: imagine taking the hand of Jesus and silently leading him to the side of the one we are concerned about. No words necessary. Let him see and trust he will know what must be done to “raise them up.”)

There is a spiritual phenomenon described in the East called “waking up.” It may happen like this. We go through our busy lives running from one activity to another. We sedate ourselves in front of television late into the evening, grab some sleep and then start another rushed and too-busy day. The pandemic has only intensified these activities, being locked in for months has added to, not reduced, our workload and responsibilities. We have barely had time to see to the basics of daily life, much less tend to our inner life.

Eventually something may interrupt this deadening routine and “wake us up.” The possibilities are many: maybe we have a moment of dazzling insight about our lives, what is wrong and needs to be changed; perhaps someone close to us dies, or gets very sick; or our energies falter due to aging; we may go though a divorce because of a marriage long neglected, etc. Up until these events happen we are not yet “awake.” We were looking elsewhere, at what we thought made our lives “interesting,” “exciting,” “relevant,” or “important.” But something happens to us and we see now that we have been sleepwalking. What happened to Jairus’ daughter can happen for us, we too wake from a dulling, even deadly sleep. It is a gift! Someone has reached out a gracious hand and raised us up. Resurrection has happened here, in this life, for us. The crisis we experienced has proved to be a wake-up call. We are “saved” and enabled to see more clearly our current situation and Who it is that is offering us life.

Another way in which we are raised up: It seems obvious from the story that the girl has died, the mourners are announcing it clearly by their wailing. But when Jesus refers to her condition, he calls it “sleep,” which earns him the onlookers’ ridicule. Mark is noting for us what the Christian community professes about Jesus. Death is as sleep to him and what he does for the girl he will do for us, awake us from “sleep.” With faith that he has the power to do this, each of us can face our own death with the courage Jesus raises in us.

Jesus instructs that the girl be given something to eat. What could be a stronger, more convincing proof that the girl has returned to life? Her eating is not just a sign she has her bodily functions back. In this culture, eating in the midst of the family was a strong sense of belonging and having life. You had life, not just as an individual, but as part of a community. The girl is given food by her family, and so she has been restored to full life. Who knows how long she had been sick and away from the family table. Now she is back to that table, surrounded by those who love her. We may want to consider the parallel between the Christian and the Eucharistic table. When we have been “asleep” to God, or “dead” because of sin, the living Christ “wakes us up” by forgiving our sins and inviting us to eat at the table. We are then restored as a living member of the family of believers. We can again come to the table for the family meal, the body and blood, the very life of Christ.

A word about the woman who interrupts Jesus’ journey to Jairus’ home. She seems to have been a person of means. How else, in such a poor society, could she have afforded “many doctors?” Now, as a hemorrhaging person, she would be considered ritually unclean. She would not be allowed to worship in the Temple and would be required to stay apart from the community so as not to contaminate others. How ironic, she who in her past, might have known the synagogue official Jairus, even been in the same social circle with him, now would not be allowed to worship in his synagogue. Yet, need and their human incapacity to address their desperate situation by themselves, have brought them together. Now, united by their need, and their faith in Jesus, both are in the same community. Like us at this worship—united by need and faith in Jesus, our superficial differences are put aside as together we reach out for him. But his reach is longer—through Word and Sacrament he reaches out, takes us by the hand and raises us up.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Do not be afraid; just have faith

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• A common theme that runs through Mark is that of being on the inside or on the outside. How does illness make someone actually be on the outside of relationships, and how does it make us sometimes feel like we are on the outside, isolated?
• From Paul Gallagher OFM, in “First Impressions”:
  Has anyone you love dearly ever been close to death?
  How did their illness affect you?
  How did it affect your relationships to others? Your own prayer?
• From Paul Gallagher, OFM, in “First Impressions”
  Have you ever been seriously ill without being able to find relief?
  Have you ever been considered so contagious that you had to be quarantined from others?
  How do these experiences, or their absence in your life, affect how you hear this gospel text?
• Do I let my woundedness define me, or am I looking to move on and be healed?
  How does God help in this process?
• Of the two incidents in this story, which one moved me the most?
  Did either of them irritate me? Why?
• What is the difference between pity and compassion?
• What is it about the woman’s attitude toward suffering and toward God that we can learn for ourselves about:
  
  1. the role of suffering in our lives?
  2. what choices we have in how we react to the “crosses” we bear?
  3. empathy with and solidarity with those who are in pain of any kind?
  4. forgiveness of ourselves, another, even God?
• From Jude Siciliano, O.P.:
  Who is the outstretched hand of Jesus for us?
• Is faith in Jesus a “head-thing” for me, or a “gut-thing”?
  Have I ever entrusted my well-being totally to God in times of distress, sorrow, or even danger?
• Do I think there is enough of Jesus’ healing power to go around, or is it doled out to a few?
• What is the spiritual danger involved in thinking of God as a wonder-worker to cure all of our physical, mental and spiritual illnesses? What is our role in the process?
• Who was more important to Jesus—Jairus or the woman with the bleeding condition?
  Are there people that we think are more important to Jesus than others, or more important to Jesus than we are?
• Are there people whose voices we tend to ignore because they have a rather insignificant place in our society?
• Have I ever felt like an outsider in my social or church community?
  Have I noticed others who might also feel overlooked or unimportant?
• From Sister Barbara Reid, O.P., PhD, in “America”:
  How are both personal healing and preaching of social justice needed to bring about the reign of God?
• How do religious laws, economic biases or cultural norms keep us from having to deal with “those people”?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. God hates sickness but loves the sick. God hates death but loves the dying. This story of Jesus is a striking example of his sensitivity to where people are, and his willingness to reach out in a very practical way to others who need his help. It is important to remember that these miracles of healing are not to demonstrate his power, but to respond to the pain and suffering he is observing. Can you think of any other stories in the gospels where Jesus demonstrates this empathy? How can we cultivate that love and learn how to be there for all the sick, lonely and annoying people who need us? Can we learn to be there for ourselves, when we need a little care, healing or just a drink of water? Teach us O Lord, how to comfort the sick and help the dying cross their particular rivers. Teach us, O Lord, to be aware of what is going on around us and how we may be needed to do your work of healing and reconciliation.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

The sad story of the isolation and pain of the woman with the hemorrhage cannot be relegated to the time of Jesus. Women and women’s issues have long been on the list of societal concerns. We still have countries today where there are prohibitions about women driving or going to school; there are places where genital mutilation of young women still occurs. In our country, women who work outside the home get paid, on average, 83 cents of every dollar a male makes for doing the same job. Women who have been the subject of rape are often shamed—asked what they did to “invite” it by dressing wrong or drinking too much. Mothers who work outside the home still do 70% or more of the childcare and household maintenance. They are more likely to take time off from their jobs to care for the needs of children and the elderly/ill members of their families. They are more likely to suffer long term financial consequences in a divorce than men do. Do any of these things bother you? What are your family’s, your workplace’s, your culture’s, your church’s views on women? What are yours?

Poetic Reflection:

From Merton, Thomas, A Book of Hours (p. 67). Ave Maria Press:

Teach me to go to this country beyond words and beyond names.
Teach me to pray on this side of the frontier, here where these woods are.
I need to be led by you.
I need my heart to be moved by you.
I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer.
I need my will to be made strong by you.
I need the world to be saved and changed by you.
I need you for all those who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow.
I need you for all the crazy people.
I need your healing hand to work always in my life.
I need you to make me, as you made your Son, a healer, a comforter, a savior.
I need you to name the dead.
I need you to help the dying cross their particular rivers.
I need you for myself whether I live or die.
It is necessary.
Amen.

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord, so many in our world need healing and care. Give us the generosity of spirit to be attentive to their needs, to be patient and loving… Give us eyes to see those in our midst who are sick, lonely, hurting. [Take a moment to think of any specific people for whom you would especially like to pray, and raise your prayers for them to God.]

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 20, 2021

Don’t be afraid; God is with you

Mark 4:35–41

On that day, as evening drew on, he said to them, “Let us cross to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him.

A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm.

Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” They were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

Music Meditations

• “You Raise Me Up” (sung by Celtic Woman) [YouTube]
• “Abide With Me” (Matt Maher) [YouTube]
• “I Need Thee Every Hour” (Fernando Ortega) [YouTube]
• “Be Not Afraid” (sung by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]
• “Lord I Need You” (Matt Maher) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

From Sacred Space:

Lord, you had the gift of sleeping in any situation. You slept while the waves were beating and almost swamping the boat… And when you awoke you brought calm. To voyage with you is to voyage in in peace even in a storm.

Help me to remember that you are always with me, even when I don’t know it… Help me to trust in your presence and your care for others. [Take a moment to offer prayer for a person or people in particular need of God’s care.]

Companions for the Journey

By James Boyce, Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Greek, Luther Seminary St. Paul, MN:

“On that day.” The phrase is so brief the reader could almost ignore it.

Actually, this short transition is vastly important for setting the stage for this familiar story of the stilling of the storm. In the order of the original Greek, the text would read “and he continued to speak to them on that day…” The important effect is to remind us that this story comes right on the heels of all of Jesus’ special teaching to his disciples on the nature of the kingdom—on his characterization of that kingdom as couched in hiddenness and secrecy, and of its requiring a special gift of hearing to comprehend. So it should not surprise us if the journey of discipleship, and the course of our journeys in this Pentecost season should at times be fraught with unexpected dangers or risks.

Many readers have called attention to the way in which this story of the stilling of the storm can be read on several levels. On one level it shows Jesus power in a miracle that joins all the miracles of healing in Mark’s opening chapters. On another level it might serve as a parable of discipleship. We begin with a call or invitation that mirrors Jesus’ call of his first disciples to follow him (Mark 1:16-20)—“Let us go across to the other side”—a command to which his disciples obediently respond, significantly in the language of the story “taking him along with them in the boat” (vv. 35-36). At this point it is not difficult to imagine the scene as recalling the ark adrift on the chaos of the sea, but now presenting a band of followers under the protection of God’s Messiah, “safe and secure from all alarms.”

But events change suddenly. Out of the blue, so to speak, with no textual transition we read: “And there happens! A great windstorm and the waves began to beat against the boat so that the boat was already filling with water.” So much for implied safety of the boat.

Meanwhile “he is in the stern (the place where perhaps he should be steering?) sleeping away peacefully on a pillow! (taking his leisure oblivious to the predicament). And “they” (they are not at this point referred to as disciples) awake him and shout, “Teacher (not Master, or Messiah, or “Lord,” as in Matthew 8:25) do you not care that we are perishing?”

Their cry is the ultimate cry of fear, of doubt and abandonment, repeated often in the stories of God’s people, as for example in the psalms. Where is God in the midst of my distress? Has God abandoned his people? It is a cry repeated in so many ways in the midst of the terrors and distresses of our world today. If God is so great and powerful a creator, if God really cares about this world, then why do events in the world and in my life go so badly. The ready response: either God has no power, or God does not care for us or the creation. This is an honest appraisal of the situation in the story, and a parable of the situation of all of us when cast adrift in the storms of the world without God’s presence and care. The cry amounts to a prayer for deliverance. And it is immediately and directly answered. Jesus does not chastise or reason with their fears. He does not seek to correct their poor theology or remind them of the whole tradition of God’s deliverance and care for the people of Israel. Instead he immediately “woke up” (the word is actually “arose” and may here be a telling and parabolic clue to the end of this story?) and rebuked the winds forcefully with his double command: “Be silent! Be still!” The response of the winds is immediate. The wind ceased and there arose a “great calm” (the description of this “great calm” exactly matches and counters the “great storm” which has begun the predicament (vv. 37, 39).

But now that the rescue is accomplished and the sea is calm, there is time for some needed disciple instruction. Like with the parables that have gone before, now Jesus moves to “interpret” this yet one more “parable” for disciples whose capacities are weak without the gift of their master’s presence and care. The Lord’s care has already been demonstrated. Of this there is no need for greater elaboration at this point. The issue is that of “fear.” In Jesus’ question “Have you yet no faith,” the disciples in the story, and we as its hearers today, are called to recognition between two vastly different worlds that we might inhabit. In these two words we are called to see the gulf between two vastly different worlds that face those who are called to acknowledge the kingdom of God, the presence and rule of God in our midst. One can continue to live in the world of fear and chaos, seeing oneself orphaned or alone without the power of God, living in a world controlled by the power of Satan or the demonic. Or one can be open to hearing the message and promise of this Jesus in whom we are told that the kingdom of God has come into our midst and now offers a whole new future for our world and for our lives.

The line between these two worlds is thin and risky. But in between them stands the gift and power of the good news of God’s Messiah, Jesus.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• Have I ever, like the disciples, left one place where everybody looks and thinks like me to a place which is, metaphorically speaking, “across to the other side—foreign”? Did it make me uncomfortable or afraid? How did I handle it?
• Have I ever been invited to “cross to the other side”, to take a risk?
  Did I accept or decline the invitation?
• Do I think that following Jesus will guarantee me a storm-free life?
  Am I willing to follow Jesus only until the going gets rough?
• Has there ever been a time when I asked for God’s help, and God seemed to be sleeping?
• How did this event test the faith of the disciples? Did they “pass” or “fail”?
• How do difficult, uncertain or treacherous times test my faith?
• Does my fear of certain things make me a “bad” disciple?
• What is the intersection for me between faith and fear?
• What are some of the issues in our country and our world that seem particularly dangerous today (race equality, immigration, Israel, voting issues, the continuing pandemic in the rest of the world, for example)?
• What have been some treacherous seas I have experienced in my life or am experiencing now? Where was there chaos?
  Did I realize that Jesus was in “the boat” with me?
• What does the boat called “my religion” feel like right now? Are there any waves lapping at the hull?
• Have I invited Jesus to speak words of courage and support to me personally?
• One way we have usually interpreted the term faith is “belief”, usually in a set of theological principles. However, the term faith in this story can best be translated as “trust”, and that “belief” then is seen as utter dependence on and reliance on the goodness of the God who loves us.
  How do I think of the word “faith”?
  Do I trust God? Jesus?
  What does that trust mean to me?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Ann Lamott, in Hallelujah Anyway, wrote:

Being alive here on earth has always been a mixed grill at best, lovely, hard, and confusing. Good and bad things happen to good and bad people. That’s not much of a system: a better one would be silverware drawer of joy, sorrows, doldrums, madness, ease. But no, Eden explodes and we enter a dangerous, terrifying world, the same place where goodness, love and kind intelligence lift us so often. The world has an awful beauty. This is a chaotic place, humanity is a chaotic place, and I am a chaotic place…In the Christian tradition, we say that Christ continues to be crucified, in tsunamis, sick children, political prisoners, and that we must respond. This is what I believe, so I show up and get water for people, real people, which is to say, annoying people. Mother Teresa cradling strangers at dawn is very romantic, but in life, there is also your thirsty bigoted father, your lying sister the whole human race, living and dying and rising with Christ.

How do I think Jesus viewed his companions in the boat screaming at him in a panic?
How do I see the face of Jesus in the face of those who whine and complain, when in my estimation, they have nothing to whine and complain about?
Do I think that because I am deeply spiritual, I should somehow be rewarded with a blissful, peaceful and happy existence?
When I say I believe in God, what do I mean?
How do I see the goodness of God in the midst of my messy and imperfect life?

A Meditation in the Ignatian style/ Imagination:

Adapted from Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

I take my place in Jesus’ boat and let myself be drawn into the whole experience on the sea (lake) that day. Everyone knows what a tricky and dangerous body of water this is, with sudden deadly storms that have killed many fishermen. How do I feel when the rain comes down in sheets and the wind howls, whipping up the waves which pour into the boat? Am I afraid of sinking? What goes through my head as I turn to Jesus in utter panic and see he is asleep—ASLEEP!—in the stern of the boat? What is my emotional state at this moment? What do I say to him as I try to wake him up? Am I terrified because he seems so unresponsive? When he does wake up and authoritatively quiets the storm, do I feel foolish or angry because he is chiding me for being afraid in the first place? Does this experience make me look at Jesus in a new light? Will I have confidence in him in the future? Do I truly believe in His love and care? In God’s?

Poetic Reflection:

Much of Denise Levertov’s poetry is religious in nature. In this poem, we see her trust in the love and care of the Almighty:

“The Avowal”

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them;
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

Jesus has left us, and it is up to us, his disciples, to navigate the treacherous waters of our country’s and the world’s needs and problems. Sometimes our very Church seems like a frail barque, capable of capsizing. What are we to do? While it may seem overwhelming, what we are called to do, is to navigate the waters we call life on this planet. And from this story, we learn that Jesus has confidence in our ability to manage those challenges. Jesus is no longer physically around to jump in and rescue us and our world; we have to do it ourselves. Think of one little corner of your world where there is pain and anger, sorrow and uncertainty. Think of those in your little corner of the universe as fellow travelers on the boat with you. What concrete thing can you do to make their situation better, or at least tolerable? To whom in your life should you bring a drink of water, including yourself? Instead of being defeated by trying to act globally or make others do so, do ONE THING, one small thing, that stops the boat from rocking for someone, that calms the waters of his or her life.

Poetic Reflection:

Wendell Berry, a farmer, poet and former Stanford Stegner Fellow, finds nature to be a refuge from the anxieties and strife of everyday life:

“The Peace of Wild Things”

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the woodrake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

—Wendell Berry from Collected Poems

Closing Prayer

Lord, I need to hear your voice commanding me to calm down, to be still, saying “Peace, I am with you always.”H elp me to remember the times you held me up in the midst of one of life’s many storms… Help me to wait in faithful confidence for your comforting and sustaining presence.

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 13, 2021

What nature teaches us about the kingdom of God, and God’s care for us

Mark 4:26–34

The Parable of the Growing Seed

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

Music Meditations

• “Seek Ye First” (sung by Maranatha! Praise Band) [YouTube]
• “Here I Am, Lord” (sung by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]
• “As It Is in Heaven” (sung by Matt Maher) [YouTube]
• “The Kingdom of God” (Taizé) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

Lord, let me never imagine that I am the architect, the builder of your kingdom. Let it be enough for me to say: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What of mine can I contribute to your vision, Jesus?

Companions for the Journey

We have left the Easter cycle, with its narratives about Jesus’ last days and his resurrection; we are going back and picking up the story of Jesus preaching, teaching and healing throughout the land of Israel, beginning in Chapter 4. This is called Ordinary Time. During these narratives, Jesus often uses parables, like the ones we listen to this week, to explain how the Kingdom of God works. Hence, what follows is a little explanation of parabolic literature in the gospels:

Jesus’ Parables and Parabolic Images in the Gospels
What is a “Parable”?

From C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961, p. 5:

Definition: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

From James C. Christensen:

• The meaning of most parables is not so obvious, or at least it shouldn’t be. If we assume we know what Jesus is talking about, we are probably missing the main point; if we are too familiar with the story (having heard it so often before), we might not think carefully enough about its real meaning.
• Most parables contain some element that is strange or unusual. They should cause you to say, “Wait a minute! That’s not how farmers do their work! That’s not what kings usually do! That’s not what normally happens in nature!” And this strange element should cause you to think!
• Parables do not define things precisely, but rather use comparisons to describe some aspect of how God acts or interacts with human beings. Yet to say “A is like B” does not mean that “A is identical to B in all respects”; so one should be careful not to misinterpret or misapply the parables.

We might think that Jesus spoke in parables to make it easier for people to understand his message. According to the Gospels, however, he surprisingly does NOT expect everyone to understand them!

In Matthew, at least the disciples of Jesus understand the parables; but in Mark, even they have a hard time understanding, despite receiving extra instructions in private!

Parables were meant to catch Jesus’ listeners off guard, to make them re-evaluate their normal ways of behaving, and to align their hearts with God’s heart. Many parables, like the one about the Pharisee and the Publican, or the one about the Good Samaritan, employed elements which were very counter-cultural, and shocking to the people of Jesus’ time. However, because we have grown up with them, they seem familiar or even ordinary to us. Often, we need to translate those stories using examples from our own social and cultural situations in order to see how truly counter-cultural they are.

Many parables, which appear to be simple and straightforward stories, are actually multi-dimensional and complex. Frequently, we are left with things unresolved and have to make some conclusions of our own. Does the elder brother ever go in to join the party welcoming the prodigal son home? How do those in the vineyard who worked much longer hours respond to the words of the vineyard owner? Does the Good Samaritan return, and what happens to the victim? Does the Pharisee ever understand his spiritual arrogance? Once they get inside, do the five “wise” virgins enjoy the banquet, knowing that their sisters are still outside? How we resolve those issues in our own minds tells us a lot about our own attitudes. Are they in line with God’s or not?

If there is some overall wisdom to be gleaned from parables, it is this: God’s ways are not our ways. Parables tell us that the fight for the kingdom is not played out in palaces and war rooms, but in the everyday events of our everyday lives. The struggle for the kingdom is carried out in our divided hearts, where we sometimes mutter “‘Thy kingdom come’ without fully realizing that we might have to pray ‘My kingdom go’”. (Alan Redpath, British Baptist Preacher). The parable demands that each of us answer the question “What do YOU say?” How we answer defines our moral landscape.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

This is how it is with the Kingdom of God

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• Do I have enough trust that God will be there to make my life flourish?
• In what ways can I see God present and acting in my life and the lives of those I care about?
• Where, exactly, do I look for God’s Kingdom?
  In what aspects of my life or in the lives of those around me do I see God’s reign coming to fruition?
  In what areas is God’s reign absent?
• What personal qualities must I cultivate in order to plant for the future? (hope, optimism, patience, preparedness, for example)
• Has there been anything in my life that has suddenly blossomed from very small beginnings?
• Can I think of a feeling/conviction/desire that I ignored (buried underground) and forgot about, but that resurfaced later?
• Has there ever been someone in my life who is no longer near, but whose influence I still feel?
• What personal growth have I seen that surprises me and seems to be the result of a free gift from God?
• “…the reign of God is what happens. It is not any one thing that happens. It is the fact of God’s entering our lives at any moment and shifting things around, and our consenting to the break-in.” (Thomas Keating, “The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy As Spiritual Experience”)
  What are some of the surprising ways God has acted in my life?
• By virtue of our baptism, we are also the planters of the seeds of the kingdom. In what ways have I, by my living out my mission as a child of God, mirrored the truth of The Kingdom for others?
  What is more important, knowledge or courage?
  Has my message always been perfect? Have I let my failures discourage me?
  Has it been rejected? Have I let rejection discourage me?
  What role does prayer play in the dissemination of my message”
• Do I realize that God is behind every attempt I make to preach The Kingdom?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

I imagine that I am there with the crowds by the lake shore, and I see Jesus preaching from a boat at the lakeside. What does he look like, this mesmerizing preacher? What do his words evoke in me as he draws my attention to the trees and to the cornfields nearby? As he reminds me that all these marvelous trees and bounteous harvests were grown from little seeds, he points out that this is the way the kingdom of God grows as well. In my life, what events have been the seeds of my growth and development? Are those little seeds coming to fruition in me? Do I recognize the hand of God in my life? Where have been the moments of joy, of peace, of pardon and mercy that grew from very small and tentative beginnings to create the me that I am now? Working with this certainty, how am I creating God’s kingdom in the world I inhabit right now?

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

Read these verses from Psalm 92, reflecting on all the ways God has nurtured you, even when you did not realize it. Then compose your own prayer of thanksgiving for all that God has planted in your life. Use your memories, and be specific.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
How great are your works, O Lord!
Your thoughts are very deep!

The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
showing that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, in whom there is no wrong.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

Here are some concrete ways to live out the message of this gospel:

1. Think of someone who planted seeds of good things in your life: knowledge, love of music or sports, people skills; or think of someone who quietly nurtured your talents and allowed them to grow. Have you thanked him or her? Do so.
2. There is a message in the second parable about welcoming all who need refuge in the branches of the mustard seed—this in a culture known for its exclusivity. Where in our lives do people need comfort and shelter? What can I do to provide it?

Poetic Reflection:

This poem by Denise Levertov, late of the Stanford English Department, is a wonderful theological and spiritual reflection on today’s gospel:

Who ever saw the mustard-plant,
wayside weed or tended crop,
grow tall as a shrub, let alone a tree, a treeful
of shade and nests and songs?
Acres of yellow,
not a bird of the air in sight.

No. He who knew
the west wind brings
the rain, the south wind
thunder, who walked the field-paths
running His hand along wheatstems to glean
those intimate milky kernels, good
to break on the tongue,
was talking of miracle, the seed
within us, so small
we take it for worthless, a mustard-seed, dust,
nothing.
Glib generations mistake
the metaphor, not looking at fields and trees,
not noticing paradox. Mountains
remain unmoved.

Faith is rare, He must have been saying,
prodigious, unique –
one infinitesimal grain divided
like loaves and fishes,

as if from a mustard-seed
a great shade-tree grew. That rare,
that strange: the kingdom
a tree. The soul
a bird. A great concourse of birds
at home there, wings among yellow flowers.

The waiting
kingdom of faith, the seed
waiting to be sown.

Poetic Reflection:

In this lovely poem, Mary Oliver looks at the beauty of God’s creation and her response to it:

“Messenger”

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Closing Prayer

Lord, perhaps my task is mainly to sow seeds and trust that they will grow at their own rhythms and come to harvest in your own good time. Let me sow with love, let me wait in patience and let me reap in joy what you have wrought in my life and in the lives of others.

[Take time to think of whom, or what, in particular, you wish to give thanks for today.]

Thank you, Jesus.

The Body and Blood of Christ, June 6, 2021

Gratitude for all God has done for us and for Jesus’ gift of Himself must lead to action

Mark 14:12–16, 22–26

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”

He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.”

The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover.

While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.”

Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Music Meditations

• “Communion Song” (by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]
• “In Christ Alone” (sung by Adrienne Liesching, Geoff Moore) [YouTube]
• “Ahavat Olam (Song of Thanksgiving)” (sung by by Ben, Jonah and Henry Platt) [YouTube]
• “I Am the Bread of Life” (by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]
• “Remembrance (Communion Song)” (by Matt Redman) [YouTube]
• “Table of Plenty” (by Dan Schutte; sung by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

Lord, what shall we do with the gift you have given us of your very self? How can we learn to “see” you in the breaking of the bread? How can we go beyond wonder and gratitude to an actual living out of your presence in ourselves and in this world? How can we bring the comfort of your real presence to those we meet? [Call to mind particular people who may be especially in need of God’s presence.] Help us to be Christ for others.

Companions for the Journey

From First Impressions 2021, a service of the southern Dominican Province

On the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ there is a tendency to go right to the gospel narratives of the Last Supper, where Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. In today’s account Jesus takes and blesses bread, gives it to his disciples saying, “Take it, this is my body.” He gives thanks over the cup, gives it to them saying, “This is my blood which will be shed for many”. Isn’t that the focus of today, Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist at table with his disciples? Yes, but wait a minute, what Jesus did comes from the context of the Passover and that takes us to the Jewish roots of the meal. So, let us go there, to our ancestral story, from the book of Exodus, our first reading. Our scriptures today make reference to the use of blood in ritual re-enactment to seal our relationship with God, both in the ancient and new covenants. We are in the 24th chapter of Exodus, the ratification of the Sinai covenant. Exodus gives a dramatic account of the ritual of word and then blood. First, Moses reads the laws to the people—a reminder of our own liturgy of the Word. It is obvious that people didn’t think God’s “words and ordinances” were restrictive, or burdensome, because they respond, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.”

Well, that was certainly optimistic of them! We know from our own experience that enthusiasm, while a good response to God, is not enough for faithfully carrying out God’s will. Hence, the subsequent rituals. First, the burnt offerings of the young bulls. It symbolizes the people’s total self-offering to God. It is called a “peace offering”; both establishing and celebrating the peace made between God and the people. Among the ancients blood was seen as the life force. The pouring of blood in the ceremony sealed the covenant. First, it was splashed on the altar, honoring God as the initiator and principal partner in the covenant. God has reached out to the people, not because of their merits, but because of God’s love. God wants to be in a permanent relationship with them. The people realize this. Is it any wonder that twice they profess their desire to follow God’s “words and ordinances”? “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.” “All what the Lord has said, we will heed and do.”

And aren’t those the responses we want to make to what God has done for us and what we celebrate today? However, on our own, we cannot do “everything the Lord has told us.” But we are in covenantal relationship with God who has sealed the covenant with us in blood. Christ has offered himself on the altar for us, symbolizing God’s total self-offering to us. It is clear in today’s gospel that Mark’s narration of Jesus’ gift of himself, his body and blood, is to be seen in light of the tradition of the Passover feast, where the Jews celebrate their deliverance from slavery with the meal of the sacrificial lamb. Today, we Christians celebrate our deliverance from sin with the meal of Jesus’ body and blood. Note, Mark mentions “the cup,” not the wine, in his telling. Remember that previously in Mark Jesus asked the ambitious James and John if they could “drink the cup that I drink…?” (10:38-39) In the garden, before his arrest, Jesus prayed, “Father… take this cup away from me…” (14:36) The cup is the symbol of sacrifice, suffering and death. We followers of Jesus are invited to share in his life, the fullness of which includes our own sacrificial, self-offering. With the Israelites in our first reading, we too want to shout, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.” Well, we do try, but on our own, our discipleship falls short. But we are not discouraged because we are not on our own. God has made a covenant with us, sealed with the blood of God’s own Son. We who eat and drink of the food from the altar have a share in Jesus’ saving death and his new life.

At table with his disciples Jesus promises he will one day drink in the kingdom, the reign of God. He reminds us that the Eucharist we share today is not just a simple remembrance of a past event when he ate his Last Supper with his friends. The meal, his gift of his body and blood, also anticipates the feast we will someday enjoy with him and each other at his table, the eternal banquet.

But in the between-time of this meal, we can work to fulfill what this meal symbolizes—reconciliation and community, welcome to sinners and strangers, God’s embrace of all God’s creatures.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Take it, this is my body. This is my blood of the new covenant, which will be shed for many.

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• Jesus gathered his disciple around the table to offer himself to them. Who is gathered around the table with me today?
  Who are the “many” who are not at the table with me today? (This could be those from whom I am estranged, or it could be those who don’t feel comfortable in the setting I find myself in, or those who mightn’t feel welcome because they are poor or don’t speak the language, or who are not educated enough)
  What am I doing to gather others to the table of life?
• We have been invited to the table of plenty, being shaped and formed around it—shaped and formed to be better members of the family of Jesus. Have I ever had to summon courage to do the right thing?
  Was there a cost?
  Am I making any daily sacrifices that are in some small way similar to the ones Jesus made?
• From Faith Book, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:
  Receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord gives us a share in his life, death and resurrection so that we too can willingly give our lives in service and love for others the way he did. When we take the cup and drink from it today we are saying our “Yes” to Jesus’ way of life and we are receiving his life so that we can live the “Yes” we are professing.
  Do we just see certain parts of our lives as dedicated to service in the Lord’s name?
  Shall we ask the Spirit to help us offer all of our lives in service to the Lord?
• There is a temptation to turn this feast into a theological discussion of “transubstantiation” or the “real presence”. If instead, I allow myself to submit to both joy and wonder I may be the richer for it.
  For me, what is wonderful about this feast?
  How does this miracle fit into some other wondrous acts of God in history? In my own life?
  Which action of God do I marvel at the most?
• From Walter Burghardt, S.J.:
  Do I marvel in what I see, or in the fact that I see?
• There is a saying : “You are what you eat”. If this is so, those of us who partake of Jesus body and blood in the Eucharist PUT ON Christ, BECOME Christ. Do I believe this?
  In what ways this week have I done so, or failed to do so?
  Can others see Christ in me?
  How does my life reflect the true presence of Christ in the world?
• From Faith Book, 2012:
  Reflection:
  Receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord gives us a share in his life, death and resurrection so that we too can willingly give our lives in service and love for others the way he did. When we take the cup and drink from it today we are saying our “Yes” to Jesus’ way of life and we are receiving his life so that we can live the “Yes” we are professing.
  So we ask ourselves:
  Do we just see certain parts of our lives as dedicated to service in the Lord’s name?
  Shall we ask the Spirit to help us offer all of our lives in service to the Lord?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

A celebration of the food of life can lead to reflection on the importance of food (health, education, and shelter as well) … The US Catholic bishops on the Christian response to poverty:

Perhaps the first step that needs to be taken in dealing with poverty is to change our attitudes to the poor.
Everyone has special duties toward the poor; all who have more than they need must come to the aid of the poor.
Seek solutions that enable the poor to help themselves through such means as fairly compensated employment.
The policies we establish as a society must reflect the hierarchy of values in which the needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich.
Share the perspectives of those who are suffering.

Which of these suggestions is the most challenging for you to agree with or adopt?
What concrete action can you take this week to bring the care of Christ to those in need?

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Christ is truly present in the wine and bread after it has become the body and blood of Jesus… Have we ever reflected on the ways that Jesus is truly present at our Sunday banquet?
He is present in the Word. How actively do I really listen as Scriptures are proclaimed?
He is present in the presider. Do I see the priest as a true representative of Jesus at each Mass?
He is present in the gathered community. Do I see in the assembly the presence of Jesus? Do I see myself as the actual presence of Jesus in Mass and in the world?
I offer a prayer of thanksgiving and humility for the privilege of participating in the Eucharistic banquet.

Poetic Reflection:

Sometimes we need to look at the mystery of the body and blood of Christ with our hearts and not with our heads:

“The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist”

Something has happened
To the bread
And the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?
The body leans forward

To receive the gift
From the priest’s hand,
Then the chalice.

They are something else now
From what they were
Before this began.

I want
To see Jesus,
Maybe in the clouds

Or on the shore,
Just walking,
Beautiful man

And clearly
Someone else
Besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
If I ever will.

Also there are times
My body whispers to me
That I have.

—Mary Oliver, from Thirst

Poetic Reflection:

This is a wonderful meditation on Eucharist:

"Gather the People"

What return can we make
for all the Lord has done in our lives?
We bring bread, wine, our clay dishes
and our clay feet
to this altar
and we pray that we may here
make a beginning—
that somehow in our days
we can begin to see the promises
the Lord has made us.

The promises do not always
glow with obvious light, or
overwhelm us by their obvious truth.
No matter what anyone says,
it is difficult to understand an invisible God
and belief is not always
the easy way out.

So we gather the people
and we tell the story again
and we break the bread
and in the memory of the one
who saves us,
we eat and drink
and we pray and we believe.

We gather, we pray, we eat.
These things are for human beings.
God has no need of them.
Yet he himself gathered the people,
prayed, broke bread
and gave it to his friends.

And so the invisible God became
visible
and lives with us.

—Ed Ingebretzen, S.J., from Psalms of the Still Country

Closing Prayer

I beg you to keep me in this silence so that I can learn
from it
the word of your peace
and the word of your mercy
and the word of your gentleness to the world:
and that through me your word of peace may perhaps
make itself heard
where it has not been possible for anyone to hear it
For a long time.

—Thomas Merton

Trinity, May 30, 2021

The Triune God is always with us. We have been commissioned by Jesus to evangelize.

Matthew 28:16–20

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Music Meditations

• “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” (sung by Singing Nuns) [YouTube]
• “All Creatures of our God and King” (arrangement by John Rutter) [YouTube]
• “The Summons” (sung by Robert Kochis) [YouTube]
• “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (sung by Chris Rice) [YouTube]
• “Here I Am, Lord” (sung by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

Your name, O God, is the name of love. You exist in a Trinity of love. When we make the sign of the cross, we place your badge of love on our bodies. Helps us to accept that we are loved and lovable, and help us to embody that love in all that we do.

[Take a moment to think of and pray for any particular people who may especially need to experience God’s love and be comforted and sustained by it.]

Companions for the Journey

Commentary on Matthew 28:16–20

Stanley Saunders, Associate Professor of New Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, Atlanta

Each of the Gospels ends in a distinctive way.

Mark focuses on the empty tomb and the fear of the first witnesses; Luke on the appearances of the risen Jesus to the disciples, his ascension, and their preparation as witnesses; and John on a series of appearances of the resurrected Christ, especially to Peter. Matthew depicts the resurrected Jesus’ commissioning the disciples for mission. In what ways is this a fitting end—not only the right stopping point, but the goal—of Matthew’s Gospel? What does this ending tell us about that mission?

This episode draws together many of the most important themes and motifs of the Gospel, thereby suggesting that this ending is designed for this very story. As so often before in Matthew, the setting is an unnamed mountain (28:16, cf. 4:8, 5:1, 14:23, 15:29, 17:1), which Matthew associates especially with the revelation of divine presence and authority. Matthew also refers prominently here to “heaven and earth” (28:18), terminology that recalls the story of creation in Genesis 1, thereby linking this episode to a long tradition of stories about the fracturing of earth from heaven and the hope of their repair.

Jesus also provides the warrant for the disciples’ commission by affirming that he has been given “all authority in heaven and on earth.” Authority—its nature, source, and effects—is yet another persistent Matthean interest (7:29; 8:9; 9:6, 8; 10:1; 21:23, 24, 27). Matthew also returns in this scene to the Christological identification of Jesus as “God with us” (28:20, cf. 1:23), thereby framing the entire Gospel with this claim.

Even as this ending emphasizes key themes and claims of the whole Gospel, it also marks a fresh beginning point, signaled in part by the return to Galilee (28:16), where Jesus’ own ministry began. While they are called to be people on the move in mission, the disciples must also be rooted in the story and the land where their own journeys began. They will conduct their mission between two worlds: with Jesus on the mountain—itself apparently a thin place between the human and divine realms—they stand at the edge of a new world and a new time.

The time of empire, of debt and slavery, of the reign of death, is passing away. It will continue to exercise sway only where the death and resurrection of God’s son is not proclaimed. But the truth about Rome’s empire has been unveiled for all the world to see. It has wielded its most powerful tool—death on a cross—against God’s son as he proclaimed and inaugurated God’s empire, but now even Rome’s control of the apparatus of death has been shown to be hollow. The empire of the heavens has not just begun; it has already won the crucial victory.

Living between two worlds is not easy, however, even for those closest to Jesus. Matthew introduces elements into the story that challenge the apparently triumphal character of this scene. There are not twelve disciples with Jesus, but eleven, a reminder not only of the absence of Judas but, implicitly, of the betrayals in which the eleven also participated. Matthew also notes that their initial response to the presence of the risen Jesus is a mixture of worship and doubt. Most English translations of 28:17 leave the impression that the disciples included some worshippers and some doubters (e.g., “doubting Thomas” in John 20:24–29), but the Greek may also be translated, perhaps more naturally, to suggest that the whole group of disciples both worship and doubt.

In either case, Matthew acknowledges that both responses are to be found in the community of disciples. The word translated “doubt” is found in the New Testament only here and in the account of Peter joining Jesus in his walk on the sea in 14:31, yet another story of divine presence and power, marked by both doubt and worship (13:31, 33). The Greek word distazo carries a sense of standing in two places at the same time or being of two minds. Jesus commissions not perfect disciples, but people who both worship and doubt as they stand at the edge of the world that is passing away and the one that is coming to them.

What does this new world look like? Apparently, the key differences include both the presence of the resurrected Jesus, promising to remain with the disciples to the end of the age, and a reconciled earth and heaven. Jesus’ claim to have been given “all authority” in both realms signals the culmination of a biblical drama first announced in the earliest chapters of Genesis, where we find accounts both of the creation of “heaven and earth” and the disruption of the unity of that creation through the story of the fall and subsequent human rebellion and violence.

Matthew takes very seriously this story of the ruin of the relationship between earth and heaven. The terms “heaven and earth” constitute a “merism,” a figure of speech in which an entity is identified by means of its constituent or defining parts. In Genesis 1, heaven and earth comprise a single entity—God’s whole creation. By Genesis 4, their unity has been fractured. The prayer we pray nearly every Sunday in most churches, which is largely based on Matthew 6:9–13, recognizes this divide and asks for its resolution (“thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”).

Matthew repeatedly tells stories that recount the ways Jesus, and sometimes his disciples, cross and blur the boundaries between heaven and earth. But it is only with Jesus’ defeat of death that the breach between heaven and earth is mended. Jesus sends the disciples into the world not only to announce the salvation of humans, but to bear witness to the end of a broken creation. Jesus’ words at the Great Commission are thus not merely the fitting end of Matthew’s story of Jesus, but a vision of the end of a broken world and the beginning of new creation.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

I am with you always.

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• When I think of “God” what image comes to mind? (Father, Son or Spirit? … Something else?)
  When I pray, to whom do I pray?
• What does each “face” (persona) tell me about the nature of God?
  What gifts and support does each element of the Blessed Trinity bring to my life?
• What has the natural world around me taught me about God?
  How have I responded to the God I discover in nature? Is it praise, awe, thanksgiving, or something else?
• Why do you think the term “Trinity” does not show up in scriptures? Fr Jude Siciliano, O.P., thinks it is because when we in the institutional Church think of Trinity, we often think of theology and doctrine; the people who lived and wrote the scriptures were instead thinking of a people’s experience of God…what God has done for them.
  What has been my experience of God?
  What has God done for me?
  What is God doing for me right now?
  When I think about the Trinity, do I think of theology and doctrine, or do I think of my experience?
• How does the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) reflect the relational nature of love in our salvation history? In my own personal history?
• Do I believe that I am a reflection of the loving relationship that exists in the Holy Trinity?
  If so, how do I let others know that they, too are such a reflection?
  If not, what can I do to foster this confidence in myself as the very reflection of a loving Godhead?
• Consider this quote from Fr. Jude Siciliano, O.P.:

  Individual Christians and the church as a community, are expected to be a beatitude people: always hungering for growth in love; merciful to enemies; single-minded in our commitment to our Lord, and ready to accept persecution in Jesus’ name. Jesus taught that our response is to be total, not only in observable religious practices, but also in our unseen thoughts and attitudes. His disciples are to teach the world to act as Jesus acted, giving to the poor, and vigilant in prayer and fasting. The essence of Jesus’ commands was that we are to act in love and he told us that we will be judged according to how we loved.

  How does this challenge me personally?
  The gospel says that the disciples worshipped, but they doubted. Is it possible to worship and doubt at the same time?
  What are my doubts?
• What does this gospel tell me about my status as a child of God?
• What frequent behavior of mine diminishes me as a child of God?
• How do I experience the dignity I have as a child of God?
• What do I do to make the love of God available to all those whom I meet?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Meditation:

Adapted from Love a Guide for Prayer (a five volume guide to the Ignatian Exercises) by J.S. Bergan and Sister M Schwan:

Read the following psalm slowly, several times. As you read, breathe in the kind, tender and understanding love of God. Imagine the strength of this love flowing through you, permeating your entire being. Pause and remember a time when you felt the strength of God’s love in you. Allow yourself to delight in the energizing refreshments the awareness of this love brings.

Close with: “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. Amen.”

Psalm 103

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all within me, his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and never forget all his benefits.
It is the Lord who forgives all your sins, who heals every one of your ills,
who redeems your life from the grave, who crowns you with mercy and compassion,
who fills your life with good things, renewing your youth like an eagle’s.
The LORD does just deeds, full justice to all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the children of Israel.
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in mercy.
He will not always find fault; nor persist in his anger forever.
He does not treat us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our faults.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so strong his mercy for those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west, so far from us does he remove our transgressions.
As a father has compassion on his children, the LORD’s compassion is on those who fear him.
For he knows of what we are made; he remembers that we are dust.
Man, his days are like grass; he flowers like the flower of the field.
The wind blows, and it is no more, and its place never sees it again.
But the mercy of the LORD is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear, upon children’s children his justice,
for those who keep his covenant, and remember to fulfill his commands.
The LORD has fixed his throne in heaven, and his kingdom is ruling over all.
Bless the LORD, all you his angels, mighty in power, fulfilling his word, who heed the voice of his word.
Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his servants, who do his will.
Bless the LORD, all his works, in every place where he rules. Bless the LORD, O my soul!

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

Adapted from “First Impressions”, a service of the Southern Dominican Province, 2021:

From today’s Gospel reading:

Jesus said to his disciples: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given me. Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations…”

Reflection:

Jesus chose to give power and send out as witnesses, the least likely of his day. Doesn’t that speak to us “ordinary folk” who may not feel particularly gifted in matters of religion? Still, we are the ones upon whom Jesus pours his Spirit and appoints to “make disciples of all nations.”
So we ask ourselves:
How do we give daily witness to our faith in Christ?

There is a tale repeated in “Sacred Space” that a man went out on a starry night and shook his fist at the heavens yelling: “God what a lousy, rotten world you have made. I could have done much better.” Then a voice boomed from the clouds saying: “that’s why I put you there. Get busy!”

St. Francis of Assisi said: “All friars should preach by their deeds.” It is not enough to be telling people that they ought to follow Jesus; we need to demonstrate the love and care for others in an active way, as Jesus did. Many of us do not exert ourselves, beyond writing a check, to be active in helping the poor, the ill or the otherwise marginalized. We cannot preach the love of Jesus effectively if we ourselves are not the embodiment of that love in the way we treat those most desperate. Do some research. Find out where you can get your hands dirty in the service of Jesus.

Poetic Reflection:

How does this poem (from To Keep From Singing) by Ed Ingebretsen, S.J. illustrate that Jesus' mission was also His Father's mission?

“From Narrow Places”

From narrow places
the strength of our voice
rises:

our every breath
is prayer,
the great poem of need,
a constant scattering
of praise.

Early
we reach to God
in the claim of our hearts,
while he,
our father,
mothers us
in his

Closing Prayer

Lord, you terrify me with this command: “Go and teach all nations”. Help me to be rooted in you so that what I teach is actually your message and not mine pretending to be yours. Help me to have confidence in my ability to do as you ask—this in the face of my own lack of experience and theological knowledge. Help me to have the courage to keep going in the face of derision or lack of attention to your words, and finally, Lord, help me to believe that you—Creator, Word and Sustainer—are with me always.