20A   Isaiah 56:1, 6-7.  Their captors, having themselves been defeated, can no longer hold the Israelites captive.  A remnant of the Israelites returns to restore Zion.  However, not only are the Israelites invited to build Zion.  In Isaiah56:3a, b, we read, “Let not the foreigner say, when he would join himself to the Lord, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”  As long as Gentiles become good Jews, abiding faithfully in the Law, they will make themselves acceptable to the Lord.  “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.  Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel: Others will I gather to him besides those already gathered.” (Isaiah 56:7c-8)

Matthew 15:21-28.  When sending out the twelve Apostles to bring people to believe in him, Jesus instructs them saying, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.  Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Mt. 10:5b, 6)  In Mt. 18:17, Jesus says, “If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” To be treated as a Gentile means to be treated as one who is not chosen to be one of his own people, which is to say that what belongs to God’s people belongs to them and only to them and not to the people who have not been chosen.  This is all to give a background as to why Jesus says to the Canaanite woman in our Gospel reading for this Sunday, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”   In summary, in the initial stages of his ministry, Jesus sees his mission as to only the Jews loyal to Jerusalem.

In Exodus 5:1b, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and say, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Let my people go.”  Further on in Exodus 5:3, Moses and Aaron reply to Pharaoh’s negative answer, saying, “The God of the Hebrews has sent us word.”  The Old Testament indicates clearly that God had chosen his own people from among many peoples here on earth and not chosen all peoples.  He refers to himself as the God of Israel or of the Hebrews and not as the God all peoples.  That was to come much later but not at the time of the exodus.  This sense of being separate from the other peoples of the earth and chosen apart from other peoples by God was taught to Jesus all through his growing up as a young Jew.  In his humanness that was what he learned and became a part of his ministry.  In Lk. 2:52, we read, “And Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”  Jesus was truly God and truly man.  His divinity had to hold itself back to allow his humanity to be truly human in the way all human beings are.  Otherwise, his divinity, being as utterly awesome as it is, would have obliterated his humanity. Later, taught by his heavenly Father, his idea of his ministry would expand.  His Father teaches the man Jesus through the faith of the Canaanite woman in this Sunday’s Gospel reading and the faith of the centurion (Mt. 8:5-13) that not only does ministry call forth faith but also faith (the rich soil), or the preparation God has given to person to believe, calls forth ministry.  Wherever one finds the willingness to believe, one ought to minister.

Romans 11:13-15, 29-32.  In Paul’s ministry he finds that the majority of the Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah but many Gentiles accept him as the Messiah.  Paul expresses the hope that the Jews, seeing that the Gentiles have accepted Jesus, will make them jealous of the Gentiles and, by the merciful grace of God, lead them to be obedient to the call of God to accept Jesus as their Messiah too.

 

 

 

23A23.   Ezekiel 33:7-9.    “Thus says the Lord: You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel.”  Not only did the Hebrew cities live in danger of being attacked militarily but also morally, by adopting the idol worship of the peoples around them. The Lord appointed watchmen to keep his people on the straight and narrow of the Lord’s way.  In being responsible to God, God requires that we be responsible for one another.

Mathew 18:15-20.  Jesus had not only given authority to Peter over the church in his physical absence but also to small groups.  Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Jesus gave them authority to keep order in his church.  There were a series of procedural steps that they needed to go through but nonetheless Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  God calls us to love one another which includes invoking discipline over one another.

Romans 13:8-10.  Paul wrote, “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.”  God acts only with love.  When we act as God acts, we act rightfully.

 

23A20.    Ezekiel 33:7-9.  God, speaking to Ezekiel, tells him that he Ezekiel must relay the warning that God wants to be given to the wicked man or else he Ezekiel will be held responsible for the wicked man’s death, should he not repent.  Failure to obey God’s call to warn the guilty party will be seen to be just as evil as that man’s wickedness but, if we do our duty and warn the wicked man, then we will not be punished.

Matthew 18:15-20.  Knowing that he is near to leaving his believers as a person who could physically and visibly walk among his disciples,  Jesus leaves instructions on how keep order and discipline in his church.  First, try to get the sinner to get his life in order by appealing to him one on one; but, if that fails, next bring in one or two others, to help the sinner to straighten out his life.  Yet if that fails, then bring him to the church assembly; but if that fails, treat him as one whom no longer wishes to be one of God’s people.  In other words, Jesus is saying that as his church we have the duty to exercise responsibility for one another as God’s agents in this world.   Church is any assembly or congregation of God’s people, even if it is just two or three believers.  Jesus promises to be present and active in the midst of those who gather in his name.  To gather in his name means that the believers come together as branches that are totally dependent on the one vine that is Jesus. (John 15:5)  Just as soldiers go into battle under one flag, the believers are united to one another through their mutual belief in Jesus as the Messiah.  We who are physically in this world speak and act in behalf of and in the name of Jesus.  We are ambassadors or people who represent Jesus.  Jesus said in Matthew 28:19-20:  “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

Romans 13:8-10.   Paul says, “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” He is saying that we are no longer bound by the Hebrew Law or Torah.  Our only law is to love God who is love and perfect obedience to him.  Jesus said in John 15:14, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”  In John 15:10: “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

Note: When Jesus uses the expression ‘my commandments’, he is not referring to the ten Commandments of the Old Testament BUT being obedient to his WILL.  His will is his love for us.  The Old Testament commandments were a few ‘do this’ but mainly ‘don’t do this or that.  Obeying God’s will is infinitely more comprehensive than the Ten Commandments.  Do his will; obey his word and absolutely NOTHING else.  His will is his love for us.  Jesus said in John 14:23b:  “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  That is heaven on earth.

 

23A   Ezekiel 33:7-9.   Yahweh holds Ezekiel responsible for warning the wicked to the impending danger like the watchman warning the citizens of dangers that he sees approaching.  If Ezekiel fails to issue the warning and the wicked continue in their ways, then both shall be lost; but, if he does warn them, even if the wicked remain wicked, Ezekiel shall not be held responsible.  This theme of having a reasonable sense of responsibility for one another because God demands this of us is continued in the other two readings.

Matthew 18:15-20.  Jesus requires that the church community he is establishing has a system of familial correction to deal with sinfulness in its midst so to maintain a necessary level of spiritual integrity.  First, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”  The church that Jesus desires to establish should be like a family relationship with God as our Father.  The binding force in the church relationship should be our caring for one another in Christ.  After a continuing effort at reconciliation that spirals out like concentric circles including more and more people that calls the sinner to reform and yet the sinner refuses to reform, the sinner must be excommunicated from the church community.  In Jewish terms that meant to treat the sinner as one would a Gentile or a tax collector who were outside the Jewish community.  The Christian church community that Jesus seeks to establish has the right and responsibility to maintain its spiritual integrity that distinguishes it from the world outside of itself and so he said, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  In other words, Jesus endorses the church community’s decision.

Continuing in that same line of standing with the church community’s decisions, Jesus says, “If two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  The phrase ‘in my name’ means that we come together under God’s authority and in accord with his will.  “There I am in the midst of them” should be understood to mean that the church community sees itself as an instrument to accomplish God’s will and not its own will apart from God or that God is obedient to the church community’s will.  “All things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:18c)  Now that we have God in our midst there is no longer any need for an Old Testament law.  God is the center of the Church’s life.  We do all through him, with him and in him.

Romans 13:8-10.  Fulfillment of the law by loving one another is the lesson of this second reading.  The measure of how much we love others as the measure by which we love ourselves (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.) is made obsolete by the measure of love by which God loves us in his Passion and Death.  Jesus tells us in John 14:34, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved, so you also should love one another.”  God’s love is the measure by which we should measure our love.  “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

22A23.    Jeremiah 20:7-9.    Jeremiah, like anyone else, desired to live in peace and tranquility but the Lord imbued him with an irresistible drive to confront the Hebrew authorities with their refusal to be obedient to the Lord.  That led Jeremiah to be forced to live being mocked, laughed at and derided.  Our natural desires often must give way to the will of the Lord.  At times that can be painful and disturbing.

Matthew 16:21-27.   Jesus was preparing his followers for his eventual departure from this world in his human state by placing Peter as the head in his place and informing them of his future suffering and death.  Peter, thinking in ways that came to him naturally, told Jesus that he did not think it made any sense for Jesus to suffer and be killed.  Jesus received Peter’s rebuke as a way in which Satan was trying to get Jesus to reject his Father’s Will.  Jesus said to Peter, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human being do.” To belong to God and not to the ways of this world requires that we live in submission to God and reject or deny belonging to ourselves and our ways of thinking.  Only God can see what is truly good for now and for all eternity.  We can easily delude ourselves and think that we have it right and leave what God thinks out of the picture.  Our life time conduct, the lives we actually live in accord with God’s will or not, declare whether we deserve heaven or hell.

Romans 12:1-2.  In replacing the Mosaic Law instead of offering up animal sacrifices as worship, Paul writes that we now spiritually offer up our “bodies as a living sacrifice,” which is to say, we offer up our lives.  Do not think in the way this world thinks “but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God,” and do only what is pleasing to him.

20A20.   Isaiah 56:1, 6-7.   “The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him, loving the name of the Lord, and becoming his servants,” “them I will bring to my mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer.”  “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”   I assume that what Isaiah meant was that God was inviting all peoples to become Jews when he says for all who “hold to my covenant” that the Lord made to the original Israelites.  Nevertheless, now all peoples are invited to become God’s Chosen People.   Today’s Ps. 67 says: “May all the peoples praise you” and “may all the ends of the earth fear him.”  I understand the word ‘fear’ here means that all people should respect God as the God over us all and as the infinite God who created us to love as he loves.

Matthew 15:21-28.  This passage often scandalizes people.  The point of the Church’s including this scripture is that the invitation to salvation is extended to all peoples.  However, it raises two other concerns.  First, when the Canaanite woman for her daughter’s sake pleads to Jesus, “Lord, help me,” Jesus answers: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Immediately because of her faith, Jesus acquiesces to her request.  In Matthew 10:5a-6 Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.  Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews saw his calling to be only to the Jews.  Jesus was raised Jewish.  The Jews saw themselves as people separated from all others, singled out to be the only People chosen by God. Jesus reflects his childhood upbringing in his initial answer to the Canaanite woman. Secondly, in his humanity Jesus grew and matured as any other human being does.  Luke 2:52 says: “and Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”  Hebrews 5:8 says, “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for who obey him.”  I see this event in the life of Jesus as a learning experience for him.  Not only did the Holy Spirit inspire the Canaanite woman to say, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters;” but also the Spirit inspired Jesus to  respond, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it done for you as you wish.”  Jesus, in his humanity, was learning every day; in his divinity, he knew, knows and will know all forever.  The Church’s magisterium teaches that Jesus was one divine person but had two natures, the human and the divine. Some may be tempted to think that the above means that he was half- human and half-divine.  NO!  Jesus was one divine person that had two natures.  Like the Trinity this is one of those divine mysteries that we only superficially fathom. Let the example of Jesus help us in our humanity to learn every day, especially in the spiritual realm.

Romans 11:13-15, 29-32.  Paul gives us something of a maze here.   My understanding is that the sinfulness of the sinner invites God’s mercy.  As the Gentiles received God’s mercy in their sinfulness so may the Jews receive God’s mercy in their sinfulness, their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah.`  “For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.”  We are all sinners seeking to be saints.

22A.    Jeremiah 20:7-9.  Jeremiah does not want to announce to the people what God is proclaiming to them because the people reject what he is saying by mocking him, laughing at him, deriding him and reproaching him.  On the one hand, it gives him so much pain to proclaim the word of the Lord; but, on the other hand, even greater pain to hold God’s message within himself without proclaiming it.  This Sunday’s message is that all too often what popular opinion or culture holds is at complete odds with what God thinks and believes.  That opposition can make it very difficult and uncomfortable for those who side with God and have to live in a world that is apathetic, or even hostile, to what God thinks.

Matthew 16:21-27.  Jesus, knowing what will happen to him, tells his disciples what to expect.  Peter, being so much a part of the world around him, expects Jesus to militarily reestablish Jewish rule over Israel.  He remembers how, after Jesus had miraculously fed the great crowd (Jn. 6:15), they wanted to make him king.  He did not know that Jesus’ kingdom does not belong to this world, as just another worldly king (Jn. 18:36).  Peter does not realize that what he was saying was a great temptation for Jesus because Jesus knew well ahead of time how fearsome his passion and death would be (Lk. 22:42-44).  So Jesus “turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Jesus, in his humanity, was genuinely being tempted daily by the way the world thinks.  He was human in every way, except for sin, but still felt the great tug of temptation. (Hb. 2:17-18; 4:15)

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  To follow Jesus means to give up one’s own will and submit to God’s Will for us.  If we pursue our own will, we will lose our life forever in hell; if we pursue God’s will for us, we will live forever in heaven.  “For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”  As we live, so shall we be judged.

Romans 12:1-2.  The Old Testament Mosaic Law commanded the Hebrews to offer up the bodies of various animals as sacrifices on various occasions and for various reasons.  Now Jesus calls upon us to offer up ourselves: our wills, words, actions and thoughts, to God “as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship,” instead of the former physical sacrifice of the bodies of animals.

“Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”  To think as God thinks and not as human beings do calls upon us to be transformed by a renewal of our minds through the power of the Holy Spirit.  As in the first reading from Jeremiah this world has a different point of view, a different set of values, and a different way of reasoning than that of God.  To discern the Will of God we must live in the mind of the Holy Spirit so to belong to what is of God and not of this world.  “At that time Jesus answered, “I give you praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” (Mt. 11:25)  We must once again become like little children who learn what life is really all about from God our Father, being newly brought up in the ways of God.

21A23.   Isaiah 22:19-23.    Because Shebna, the Hebrew king’s prime minister, advised the king to go against God’s will, God replaced him with Eliakim.  Eliakim was to be obeyed because God gave him the authority to speak for God in God’s place.  When Eliakim spoke or commanded, it was as if God himself were speaking or commanding.

Matthew 16:13-20.     Jesus “asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’” They gave various answers but Peter, under the influence of God the Father, said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus then chose that moment to commission to Peter the authority to be the head or pope of his church here on earth.  “’Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.”  I believe that Jesus only wanted those who were open to accepting that he was the Messiah to hear that he laid claim to being the Messiah.  Those worthy of knowing that he was the Messiah were those who were willing to have an ear open to what God had to say and so were candidates to know divine truth.  They are people of faith.

Romans 11:33-36.  “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!”  God is infinitely beyond anything we humans can think or do.  In his generous love for us he gives us much.  However, we must always understand that no matter how much he gives us there is so much more that is not ours to have.  What we do have is from our glorious God, is wondrously magnificent!

21A20.   Isaiah 22:19-23.   Shebna’s position was like that of a steward, who because the king could not tend to everything was the second in command.  The Lord obviously did not feel that Shebna was living up to his responsibilities and so appointed Eliakim to take his place.  The Lord said, “I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder. Now he was the new overseer or steward, and not Shebna.  The Church places this reading here in anticipation to the fact that Jesus would assign Peter to be as a steward to God the King and no longer to the Jewish religious authorities.  Since Jesus would no longer be in this world as someone who would be seen or heard as he was when he was here in the flesh, he saw the need to establish a steward or overseer in his place.  Someone who could be seen and heard as another person of this world, Peter the first in the line of succession of the popes, Jesus’ supervisors or managers of the Church, as one visibly tending to work that Jesus had done while he was visibly present in this world.

Matthew 16:13-20.  Jesus questions his disciples, as to how people saw him and then as to how they saw him.  “Simon Peter said in reply, ‘You are the Christ, Son of the living God.’ Jesus said to him in reply, ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.’”  Then Jesus made Peter the steward or pope, the first of the popes till Jesus comes the second time at the end of this world and brings all that is his to heaven.  Jesus then says to Peter and so to his successors, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  The measure of that ‘whatever’ is what Jesus had just said to Peter.  In effect what Jesus is saying is not what ‘flesh and blood’ reveals to you but what my heavenly Father reveals is what you bound or loose on earth.  The Church is bound to the Will of God and that Will alone.  This can never be otherwise.   The human “flesh and blood” of this earth must be bound to whatever “my heavenly Father” reveals to you.  The head is Jesus and his body, the Church obeys him.  Even though Jesus appoints visible stewards and overseers, Jesus, though not visible, is still here as the one and only Lord and Ruler of his people.  The stewards are never the king but only servants of the king.  As example to us Jesus went to the mountain to pray and then brought back his Father’s Will to the Church he was establishing.  God supports the ‘master of the palace’ or good steward only as that steward represents his king and does not go out on his own apart from God, who is the king.

Romans 11:33-36.  “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”  Only those who listen to his wisdom and not to what is only ‘flesh and blood’ can bring God into the life of the faithful.

21A   Isaiah 22:19-23.  Shebna was the king’s steward who used his position for his own personal gain at the expense of others who were not in a position to defend themselves.  Yahweh has Isaiah deliver his message that Shebna is to be replaced by Eliakim who will use his authority, represented by the keys, as steward to faithfully serve the king and the kingdom.

Matthew 16:13-20.  Jesus asks who do people say the Son of Man is. The replies are that people think he is one of the many important Jewish religious figures of the past, but Peter responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus comments that the answer Peter has given came to him from God and not any human source.  All good and true things of any kind radically, though often remotely, come from God, the only source of what is genuinely good and true.  Jesus says, “You are Peter (which name means rock), and upon this rock I will build my church,” and he guarantees that “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” The guarantee that the Church will prevail until the end of time is not based on Peter’s strength or wisdom but on God’s.  Jesus continues, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  The giving of authority to the Church assumes that the power to bind or to loose is exercised under the supremacy of God’s Will.  Some claim that this authority was given personally to Peter only.  However, that would mean that Jesus is saying he will build his church on a man who is dead and, if only he has the authority to lead the church, therefore on an authority which is dead.  To the contrary Jesus has given the authority, symbolized by the keys, to whoever takes the position of authority that Jesus has established over his church.  The Church, with pope, who now has the keys, as its leader, is the steward to the king who is Jesus.  Peter just happened to be the first person to hold that position of authority that we call the papacy.  Because Peter, as the first pope, has been given the visible authority to lead the Church on earth under the spiritual guidance of God, Jesus says to Peter in Jn. 21: 15c, 16c, 17c, “Feed my lambs;”  “Tend my sheep;”  “Feed my sheep.”

Jesus tells his disciples “to tell no one that he was the Christ.”  To make the claim to be Messiah to people not properly prepared or disposed in a timely way would only create barriers to their believing in him.

Romans 11:33-36.  Oh! How magnificent is our God!  Oh! How spectacular!  “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” “How unsearchable his ways!”  His ways are forever and ever beyond our minds!  We are finite; He, infinite!  He is God; we are not!  We glory in the God who is our God, over us, OUR GOD OVER US, LOVING US!  “From him and through him and for him are all things.  To him be glory forever. Amen.”  When we give praise and adoration, we come to him mostly from our heart and little from our mind.  It is the pouring out of our hearts and with little use of the grasping, comprehension and understanding by our minds.  We do not so much take hold of him but we rejoice that he takes a hold of us through his omnipotence!