29A.   Isaiah 45:1, 4-6.  The Lord makes King Cyrus, his anointed, savior or messiah of the Jewish people who freed them from their captivity and aided in their reestablishment as the Jewish nation.  Cyrus was a non-Jew.  “I called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not.”   It is God in his greatness who empowered Cyrus and any others who do truly good things in all of the events of humanity, whether they know God or not.  Our reading quotes God as saying, “I am the Lord, there is other.” It is by the power of God that goodness comes to this earth, though he may choose many instruments or various people to work his Will.

Matthew 22:15-21.  These last three Sundays in the readings from Matthew, Jesus makes it clear to the chief priests and the elders that they will no part in the kingdom of God because they have refused to have Jesus as the anointed, savior or messiah of the Jewish nation.  The Jewish leaders in turn plot to entrap Jesus by luring him into saying something that will put him at odds with either the Jewish people or the Roman authorities.  “Knowing their malice, Jesus said, ‘Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?  Show me the coin that pays the census tax.’ Then they handed him the Roman coin.  He said to them, ‘Whose image is this and whose inscription?’  They replied, ‘Caesar’s.’  At that he said to them, ‘Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”  I am always in awe at the ingeniousness of this response.  The glory of God shines through in his answer.  I am sure that they were stunned.  Jesus was not making any attempt to reason with them, since they were beyond any willingness of mind to be reasoned with but was simply fending off their attack.  The truth is that all authority comes from God and God alone.  Jesus says later to Pilate in John 19:11a, “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above.”  As the first reading indicated, Cyrus was anointed king by God’s power and so it was with Caesar and anyone who is ever given authority in this world.  God himself claimed that authority in the first reading by saying, “I am the Lord, there is no other.”

1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b. Writing to the church in Thessalonica, Paul gives thanks to God knowing “how you were chosen.  For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.”  The power is the power of the Holy Spirit’s grace conferred on the Thessalonians who with much conviction accept his spiritual life within them.  As God moved King Cyrus and also spoke through Jesus against the errant Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, God now moves the Thessalonians.  “I am the Lord, there is no other.”  Paul calls to mind the Thessalonians’ “work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord.”  These are the three theological virtues, like three pie slices forming a complete circle that is the wholeness of a full Christian life, putting our faith in his love for us gives us the hope for the eternal happiness that helps us to endure through the trials of this world.

28A20.   Isaiah 25:6-10a.   This reading begins and ends with the words “on this mountain,” referring physically to Mount Zion and in Jerusalem (Isaiah 24:23c).   From a spiritual point of view, I understand this phrase to mean that this mountain was the place of soul where God came down to his people and his people lifted themselves or reached up to God.  This section of Isaiah is referred to as the ‘Apocalypse of Isaiah’ to provide a hope or dream of what God would someday do for his people who were still captives living in a foreign land.  “On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death itself.”  I understand Isaiah to mean that God will destroy the worldliness or lack of God-centeredness that leads to so much misery and devastation on this earth that can only end in death.  He would wipe away every tear and especially the reproach or slavery of his people.  Because “the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain,” there will be the kind of rejoicing among all peoples that one experiences at a spectacular, wondrous banquet.  He is the God who spreads the table before us; our cup overflows (Psalm 23).

Matthew 22:1-14.   Again Jesus delivers a parable to the chief priests and the elders.  He is accusing them of being the ones who reject God’s invitation to come to the feast for his son Jesus.  They will be the ones who will be destroyed because they will murder God’s son and their city will be destroyed.  All other peoples would be invited to the heavenly banquet.  The symbolism of the man who attended the wedding feast without a wedding garment is of someone who was not there to embrace the joy of the king but only to partake of the food and drink.  To accept God’s invitation means that we choose to belong to God and to nothing else.  The feast that all were invited to was to have Christ as their life.  Those who do not have Christ as their life will be cast “into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20.  The Church in Philippi offers assistance to Paul.  Paul writes that he is able to do well whether he has little or a lot, as he says, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”  Paul teaches them to do the same, when he says, “My God will supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”   In these three readings we are told to put our faith in our all-provident God who rejoices in being a father who gives his children good things, because he loves us so much.

28A.   Isaiah 25:6-10a.  This is from the section of Isaiah called the Apocalypse of Isaiah, where Isaiah looks to the victory of Yahweh over the forces of evil to which God’s people had succumb, leading to their captivity; and, in turn, for those who remain loyal to the Lord.  The theme of this Sunday’s readings is that God provides for those who choose God.  ‘On this mountain’, probably meaning God’s seat among his people, Jerusalem, Yahweh provides a victorious feast for his people who have stayed with him through their reproach or shame of captivity, to which they have been delivered because of their sin.  In our New Testament world, this food and wine has been seen as a reference to the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  The veil, shroud or pall is the death of sin or rejection of obedience to God that God wipes away or swallows up by his grace, the force of his salvation from our sins.  “Let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!  For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain,” Jerusalem, from which he reaches out to provide salvation to all who accept him as their God and King.

Matthew 22:1-14.  The parable of the invitation to the wedding feast of the king’s son would most readily interpreted as the invitation to heaven; however, I personally prefer to think of it as the invitation to dine each day here on this earth as well as in heaven with the king’s Son, Jesus.  Those who refuse primarily would be the people and leaders of the Chosen people; but secondarily are all those of all times who refused the invitation of the grace of God that leads to the feast.  Rejection of the invitation to enjoy God’s grace leads to the fires of hell.  I interpret the lack of the wedding garment to mean to superficially enter into church life without participating fully in heart and mind.  To feast daily with the Lord is to enjoy his life and person as an essential part of our life and to live in submission of his dominion as king over us.

Philippians 4:12-14.  Paul says he knows “of living in abundance and of being in need. I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”  God provides through thick and thin if we have him as our life.  Paul thanks the Philippians who help him in his difficulties.  He calls upon the Philippians to depend upon God as he has done. “My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 23.  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”  “You spread the table before me.”  “My cup overflows.”  The theme of the generosity of the Lord, his endless providence, continues in this psalm.  He makes our life, here and hereafter, an endless feast with the goodness of having him as the foundation of our daily life.  But also he shepherds us.  “He guides me in right paths”  “I fear no evil; for you are at my side with your rod and your staff that give me courage.”  “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life.”  That does not mean that life is easy and painless but that, through it all, he is with me.  I live daily in his strength.  I am always secure and joyful.

27A20.   Isaiah 5:1-7.  “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?”  God had done everything to make Judah his holy people but without any good result.  “Then  he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.”  Frustrated with Judah‘s failure to grow to be God’s holy people, God said of Judah, the vineyard of God, “Yes, I will make it a ruin.”  God demand results from his work in gracing us.  If we refused to make use of his graces to grow in holiness, he will abandon us to the results of our sinfulness.

Matthew 21:33-43.   Jesus addresses this parable to the chief priests and elders.   Their ancestors killed the prophets and now their children, the chief priests and the elders, were to kill the son of God so they could take charge of the vineyard, the children of God.  The chief priests and the elders, not realizing at first that the tenants Jesus was referring to were themselves, they responded to Jesus’ question of what the owner should do with the tenants who had done such evil things, saying, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.”  They were predicting what would happen to them who themselves were the wretched tenants.  They would be deposed as the leaders of God’s people.  The vineyard, God’s people, would be given to others who would produce a holy people.   As in the first reading, God demands that the graces he gives us are productive.  Failure to be responsible, that is to respond to God’ graces and produce the results that God wants of us, will lead to a grave punishment.

Philippians 4:6-9.   In the verse before this reading Paul says, “The Lord is near!”  That is to say, be confident. “Have no anxiety at all.”  Make your needs known to God and God will give you what you need.  “Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  In other words, rest in the strength of God.  Be true to God and all he calls you to, as he is true to you. “Then the God of peace will be with you.”  It is only when we do not cooperate with the graces God gives us that the chaos and confusion of this world overwhelm us.

27A.   Isaiah 25:6-10a.  One can only imagine that Isaiah actually sung this to the people.  The vineyard is the people of Jerusalem and Judah.  Yahweh had prepared the people to be a holy people.  As if they were a vineyard, he had given them the Law, the Temple, the prophets; appointed the priests to produce a harvest of holiness.  Instead of growing into a holy people, they were like a yield of wild grapes, a people unfaithful to the Lord.  Rejected by his people, Yahweh made his vineyard into a ruin and allowed first the Assyrians and then Babylonians to trample and destroy the kingdom, first of Israel and then of Judah.  All that was left was bloodshed and the outcry of despair.

Matthew 21:33-43.  Jesus draws upon the images given in Isaiah’s sung parable to pronounce at the beginning of Holy Week a second parable (the first was last week’s gospel) to the chief priests and the elders of the people.  The landowner, again as the image of God, prepared a vineyard, a setting for his people to become a holy people.  However, now Jesus presents the tenants, those in charge of overseeing the care of the vineyard, as the villains.  Yahweh sent his servants, the prophets to obtain to obtain his produce, the holiness, or righteousness of the people but the tenants, the chief priests and the elders, rejected God’s servants, the prophets.  Finally, God sends his Son, Jesus himself, but at the end of Holy Week they kill him hoping to secure for themselves sole possession of God’s people and land, the vineyard.  Jesus says to the chief priests and elders, the tenants of the parable, “Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”  Jesus quotes the Scripture that the builders, once again referring to the chief priests and elders, rejected the cornerstone, Jesus, sent by the Father.  They tried to become the cornerstone themselves; but instead, they lost their position as the builders of God’s kingdom to others.

Philippians 4:6-9.  What is this yield, this produce that the owners look to receive at harvest time that is the holiness or righteousness of his people?  This epistle from Paul is the answer to that question.  People who live totally dependent upon God “have no anxiety at all” because they live in God’s strength and not their own weakness.  Secure in God’s strength there is no reason for worry.  One way or another he will supply for all.  “Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Through prayer, God maintains lines of contact with his faithful.  Prayer is both listening and speaking.  Peaceful discernment of God’s Will is the essential heart of prayer.  What God has to say is infinitely more important than what we have to say.  Two helps that Paul gives us are: whatever is honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious are signs of God’s Will as is, secondly, whatever can be learned from all in life of St. Paul as from the lives of all the saints.  When we live in God’s Will, “Then the God of peace will be with you.”

26A20.    Ezekiel 18:25-28.  God is the only source of life; everything or everyone else apart from God can only produce death.  Iniquity or sin is a rejection of God as our source of life.  The fruit of sin is death that has no redemption.  What counts at the time of judgment is where our life is at the time of judgment.  If God finds us on the right road of the straight and narrow at the time of judgment, we are on our way to heaven.  On the other hand, all the past good we have done will not cancel out the present state of sin we are in.

Matthew 21:28-32.   Ezekiel’s reading parallels today’s parable.  Yesterday’s sin is wiped away by today’s change of heart.  However, today’s sin is not wiped away by yesterday’s goodness.  The ‘yes’ that the chief priests and elders said to God yesterday does not gain for them forgiveness for today’s rejection of Jesus.  On the other hand, the tax collectors and prostitutes who were sinners yesterday but today accept and follow Jesus are on their way to heaven.  The old saying is that we are sinners on our way to becoming saints; not saints, on our way to becoming sinners.  We can never become complacent on our way to heaven.  This world, the devil and some of our own natural tendencies can easily put us back on the wrong road.

Philippians 2:1-11.  “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory.”  Jesus said in Luke 9:23-24: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”  Original sin, imbedded in human nature, calls us to grab everything for ourselves before others get it. That is life lived on the basis of the survival instinct, where all our lives are all about oneself and those one considers part of oneself.   Jesus demands that we live in him and he lives in us (John 14:4) or that we lose our grep on own lives so that we can live in his life-giving strength and will.  Paul says that Jesus emptied himself of living only in a divine state in heaven but humbled himself by taking on human nature.  His infinite love for us led him to become human so that he could sacrifice himself for the sake of our redemption.  “Because of this, God greatly exalted him” so that we may all declare that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  If God is everything for us, then we will have everything that is good and have it forever.

26A.   Ezekiel 18:25-28.   This selection of Ezekiel sets the stage for this week’s lesson.  There is a group that thinks they know better than God.  Adapting a line from a famous musical, “Why can God think like we do?”  Adding just another line, “We’ve got it right.  Why can’t God think like we do?”  It is so easy to take the position of God and allocate it to oneself, which is to say, “What I think is right and virtuous and not what God thinks,” or another way to say the same thing, “I replace God; instead of God over me, it is I over me.  I am quite capable of running my own life without God.”

Matthew 21:28-32.  That is exactly what the chief priests and elders of the people thought.  The second son took on the veneer of holiness and piety but within himself thought he knew better than the father; and so, he ignore what the father wanted and did whatever he wanted to do.  The first son had a mind of his own, had no desire to put up a front of pleasing the father, spoke his own mind and did as he himself pleased.  Realizing the error of his ways, the first changed his mind and, in fact, obeyed his father.  Jesus likens the second son to the chief priests and the elders of the people; and the tax collectors and the prostitutes, to the first.  Jesus points out that John the Baptist got them to do the right thing but the chief priests and the elders of the people refused to follow the way of John’s righteousness.

Philippians 2:1-11.    Paul calls on us to, “Have the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus,” i.e., as he emptied himself, humbled himself so should we.  Jesus was so submissive to the Father’s will that became “obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.”  He, unlike us, was equal to the Father but “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.”  He let go of what was his right to hold on to and “taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,” since he was truly human yet still divine so to accomplish the redemption of humanity.

“Complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.  Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory.”  The chief priests and elders of the people were so full of themselves that they rejected the way of righteousness of both John and Jesus.  That same selfishness is what divides the Church community.  That attitude that I know better than God, than the Church authority that divides the Church, creates divisions and an atmosphere which does not speak love of one another.

The last verse of Sunday’s psalm (Ps 25:8-9) says, “Good and upright is the Lord; thus he shows sinners the way.  He guides the humble to justice, and teaches the humble his way.”  He is “the way, the truth and the life.”  In Matthew 11:29-30, Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.” Resting in the Lord’s humility and obedience, leads us to be a humble and obedient people likewise.  “Let every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

25A20.   Isaiah 55:6-9.   “Seek the Lord while he may be found.”  God is the only source of all that is good.  Those who are not dependent on the Lord for guidance will wonder around in the darkness and be hopelessly lost.   “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”  With the guidance of the Lord we will sink into an abysmal abyss of chaos and worthlessness.

Matthew 20:1-16a.  In reading the Scriptures, context is extremely important.  This reading follows the scene of Jesus’ encounter with the rich man where Jesus responds to Peter in Matthew 19:27, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?”  Jesus’s response is that they will receive a hundred times more than what they have given up plus eternal life.  Jesus then concludes as he does in today’s gospel: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”  Who are the first and who are the last?  My understanding is that the ‘first’ are those who live by this world’s standards that those who get out and get whatever they can for themselves have more, i.e. grab what you can for yourself.  Jesus is saying that they will end up last. Those who live out of God’s generosity and so are considered in the eyes of this world to be last rather than living by their own greediness will end up first.  The Lord says in the first reading: “So high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”  When we live by God’s generosity, we will receive a hundred times more than what we put in.  When we live by human standards, we get back only what one gives.

Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a.  Paul wrote:  “Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.”  As Mary said in her “Magnificat,” also Paul is saying that whether he lives or dies, his body or person proclaims the greatness of the Lord.  Paul continues, “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.” His life is all about Christ, whether he is in this world or the next, nothing else but Christ.  Life wherever we live it must be all about Christ.

25A.   Isaiah 55:6-9.  “Seek the Lord while he may be found.”  Our time is limited here on earth.  While we are here, we have the opportunity to draw closer to him and he will draw us higher to him.  Our God is a generous God, “slow to anger and of great kindness.”  See how empty and meaningless is our life without God.  So high are his ways above our ways.

Matthew 20:1-16a.  At first it would seem that this parable is about the opposition of the human demands for fairness and justice versus God’s desire to be generous.  The parable starts off with the phrase that Jesus often used, “The kingdom of heaven is like.”  The usual daily wage that the parable is referring to is the reward of entering into heaven at the end of a life on earth in which we have successfully worked for heaven.  In that sense we all get the same wage.  The parable was pointed toward the Jews who thought that they were better than the rest of humanity and that God would always give them more.  “Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”  He was telling the Jews to live in God’s generosity and not their own sense of being a privileged people.  He was also telling the Gentiles that God would reward latecomers to faith in the one God with heaven just as much as the Jews who had longed toiled in the vineyard of the Lord.

Philippians 1:20c-24.  Paul says, “For me life is Christ, and death is gain.”  In 2 Cor. 5:8, Paul says, “Yet we are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord.”  Paul’s statements show the fruit of a genuine spiritual life in Christ.  Living is all about God living in us and being our life.  This world wants us to put off thinking about departing from here and the spiritual preparations we need to make by crowding our minds and hearts with worldly cares and fear of death.  Life in Christ while we are here in this world allows us to live in the truth and security of an eternal reality where there is no need for fear or worry.  Interior peace comes from what is eternally true and not just exciting and passing.  Living Christ daily calls us to live in the light and put away the darkness.   Paul goes on, “I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better.” He is following up on, “Life is Christ and death is gain.”  To grow in a life in Christ is to realize how ridiculous fear of death is and how wonderful it is to look forward to the fullness of life in Christ in heaven. “Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your benefit.”  Always Paul remains obedient to God’s will.  God is saying to Paul, “Do my work for you in the world.  Wait on me to call you to heaven.”  May we all be obedient to that voice for us.

24A20.   Sirach 27:30-28:7.   “The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance.”  We have no right before God to be vengeful.   “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your sins will be forgiven.”  Since we seek forgiveness for our own sins, how can we deny forgiveness to others for their sins?

Matthew 18:21-35.  Peter thinks that forgiving would be quite generous if we forgive seven times.  Jesus responds that we should forgive seventy-seven times, which is to say forgiving without end or infinitely because God’s love is infinite.  Then Jesus relates the story of the servant who was forgiven his debt by his master but was himself unforgiving to a fellow servant  who was a debtor to him.  When the master finds out what he has done, “his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’”  Then the master punishes the servant who had received forgiveness but refused to be forgiving.  Jesus ends by saying, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”   Forgiveness does not mean that evil and sin are not hateful.  It does mean that we must leave room for the sinner to repent and become whole and holy.  That is the will of our loving God.  We ourselves are sinners who seek to become saints with the help of the Holy Spirit.  It is not right to freeze anyone into his sinful state with no opportunity to repent.  The mercy that God gives us is his forgiving love.  That same mercy God wants us to give to others.  In the ‘Our Father’ prayer we say, “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive others their trespasses against us.”

Romans 14:7-9.  “Brother and sisters: None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.  For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”  In this world we live in an earthly environment in which we ourselves and those around us are what is central and meaningful to us.  This is our life.  If God is truly God for us, then all that must die.  God must be our only life.  All else must flow from the center which is God.   When God is truly our life, the God of our life, everything else in our lives becomes infinitely richer and deeper.  We live as we never lived before because everything is as it should be, now and forever.