6A20.   Sirach 15:15-20.   Life is at once a spectacular gift and a threatening challenge.  Choose well and live an unimaginably wonderful eternal life; choose poorly and experience a hell beyond any words or nightmares. “Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.”  God “is mighty in power, and all-seeing.”  “He understands man’s every deed.” God is love.  If we reject God, we reject love and shall live forever an existence that is utterly loveless.

Matthew 5:17-37.   Matthew’s chapter 5 is written to contrast the Mosaic law-filled covenant of the Old Testament with the Christ-filled covenant of the New Testament.  What the Torah or Law commanded is surpassed and fulfilled by the requirements of a life in the Holy Spirit.  Matthew’s chapter 5 finishes with the new command that summarizes the whole chapter: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  In Matthew 5:17b-18, Jesus says, “I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.  Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.”  Through his crucifixion, resurrection and kingship in heaven, all things have taken place and the purpose of the former law to make us holy has been fulfilled.  We read in Hebrews 5:7a, 8-9, “In the days when he was in the flesh, 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 all who obey him.”  The law of the Old Testament is rendered useless because now all salvation comes through Jesus and no longer through the law.  Jesus said in Matthew 28:18b, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”

1 Corinthians 2:6-10.   The all-knowing God has a wisdom that is beyond anything that this world can fathom.  God uses his wisdom to work together with his love for us so that we will one day be brought to share in his divine glory.  From Isaiah 64:3 Paul takes: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” that what “this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.”  So great is God’s love that he wished to share it with those who would freely choose to love him more than anything else and despite the fact that we had other seductive choices.  To love God and his will with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and all our strength (Mark 12:30) is to embrace God’s eternal love for us.

 

6A Sirach 15:15-20.  In this reading the word “choose” is used three times.  “Before man, are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.”  Our life, as lived by us, is basically going to be a choice of one or the other.  The choice cannot be forced on us.  The fire is the omnipotent power of God; the water, the ocean of worldly worries and pleasures that can drowned us.  God “understands man’s every deed,” what is at the depth of hearts and minds that produces our words and actions.  He is “all-seeing”.

Matthew 5:17-37.  Jesus says, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  What Jesus brings is what the Law, the Torah, offered and infinitely more.  The Law was only the beginning of what the fullness of Jesus brings.

Jesus then goes on to give some examples of what that fullness is, so much more than the Old Testament Law.  (1)”Whoever is angry with his brother” or says anything that is a ‘put down’ “will be liable to judgment.”  You kill, maim or harm not only another’s body but also his spirit or psyche.  (2)If you “recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  How can we be reconciled with God, if we are not reconciled with the people God loves?  (3)”Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  A sin in the body is the same as a sin in the heart.” (4)”It is better for you to lose one of your members (of your body) than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.”  Get a hold of your priorities and make sensible decisions.  If a sinful choice now, no matter how good it looks for the here and now,  makes you lose everything later, what sense does it make. (5)”Whoever divorces his wife-unless the marriage is unlawful (has cause to be null and void, i.e. never truly a marriage in God’s eyes) – causes her to commit adultery.”  To be married as a Christian, i.e. in Christ, is to be married in the unbreakable bond of love because God is love.  (6)”Do not swear at all.”  In other words, it seems that at that times swearing (not cursing) by this or that obligated one to be more or less true to his  words.  Jesus is saying that one’s making a commitment or verifying a statement, should be enough.  One should stand by one’s word without any need for swearing to the veracity of your words or your full commitment to do what you said you would do.

To summarize the fulfillment of the Law that Christ has brought is that the interior of one’s person has to be at one with exterior.  It is not enough just have external acts visible to the world.  What we are and have grown to be, and not just what we show on the outside, must show the integrity of the whole and entire person.  We must be truly good on the inside and out to be to fully good. We cannot be just Sunday Catholics.  Our whole person must belong to God.  “He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’”(Matthew 22:37)  Secondly, everything about us must show a sensitivity and obedience to what God wants of us and not of “that’s the way we’ve always done it around here.”

1 Corinthians 2:6-10.  “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”(John 16: 13a)  Genuine wisdom is the capacity to see the truth, reality, what genuinely is and not just what some people always thought or what people are thinking nowadays.  Our “God has revealed to us through the Spirit” his plan for our salvation, “mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory.”  This is ”what God has prepared for those who love him,” love him thoroughly, totally , completely.

 

5A23.   Isaiah 58:7-10.   God tells his people that he will be with them when they act toward others with the love that God himself has given them as the heart of their life.  “Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday.”

Matthew 5:13-16.  The beatitudes that precede this Sunday’s Gospel call us to be people who are filled with the presence of God and a life, that is thoroughly spiritual and not of this world’s ways.  Then we are the salt that is God’s goodness and strength, and the presence of God’s brilliance shines from within us.  When we live out of the life of God’s presence within us, we live a life that is far beyond that of the life that is lived as just another animal of this world.  That life cannot help but shine from within us.  Just by being who we are in the Lord, our everyday life gives glory to the God who is the source of our life.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5.    “I did not come with sublimity of words or wisdom,” “except Jesus Christ, and him crucified,” “so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”  Our ‘original sin’ or natural human compulsion is to live out of ourselves or our natural human instincts, that is to be self-centered or centered in what comes to us naturally.  Our divine calling is to be God-centered, that is finding our lives and living our lives in the God who lives and dwells within us.  At our baptism we received the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit “remains with you, and will be in you.” (John 14:17d)  Jesus himself said of himself: “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”  (John15:4a)

5A20.   Isaiah 58:7-10.    Love is not only feeling affection for others but also doing good for them.  Love must be both heart and hands.  This is not only common sense but also what God demands.  How can we ask God to help us, if we ourselves will not help one another?  God is often made visible and real through those who deliver help through their human hands and genuine concern.  One way God responds to pleas for help that come to him is through people who live on this earth.  Angels are God’s messengers from heaven to earth.  We too are God’s messengers bringing his love and concern to others.   Often God helps us so that we can help one another.  God relates to us not only individually but also as a community of believers; as a single person but also as a church.

Matthew 5:13-16.  Without salt many foods are tasteless and without light we cannot see.   Salt and light are essentials.  God, who is invisible and not physically present, makes his presence felt through us.  If we do not have God vibrant, alive and thriving within us we are salt that is lifeless and a lamp without light, deserving “to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”  One very important way God is present to this world is through his faith-filled followers.  By his lively presence within us, Jesus’ loving deeds and life-giving words are seen and heard  In this way we give glory to our glorious God.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5.  In the Acts of the Apostles 17:16-34 we read that Paul did go to Athens where the great philosophers had lived and taught.  There Paul did go “with sublimity of words or of wisdom.”  That effort was a failure and he was rejected.  Now in Corinth he comes only with “Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can come to have full faith in Jesus Christ.  Otherwise we will be like the seed (Matthew 13:18-23)  that fell on the path or on rocky ground or among thorns that bore no fruit, good for nothing “but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

5A :  Isaiah 58:7-10.  This reading has something of the corporal works of mercy in Matthew 25: 31-46.  The reward here is not as in the Last Judgment but that the Lord will treat one generously in this life.  It will be as if one’s light will always shine and the darkness or gloom will never envelope you because God blesses your righteousness.

 

Matthew 5:13-16.  These verses follow the beatitudes in Matthew’s Chapter 5.  It is as if when you practice the beatitudes, then you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  In their goodness the works of the followers of the Christ never leave the world in the darkness or fed with the insipid or the decayed and rancid.   We are Christ’s beacon of light to all the world; we are the Holy Spirit’s bright light shining in the household of Jesus’ followers, reinforcing their faith.  The good deeds of Christians give glory to our heavenly Father by showing that we are fruitful through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5.   Paul proclaims the mystery of God not out of his own “sublimity of words” or of his wisdom.  He writes, “I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling” because he realized that on his own he could not bring people to faith.  It was only through the power of God that the Corinthians could come to faith.  In other words, Paul was learning to become fully dependent on God and not on himself.  Not I, Lord, but it’s always you that makes it (the good) happen!

4A23.    Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13.  To be humble simply means to live with God as the God of my life, who is life for me.  Humility is to live in the genuine and absolute truth, the reality that God is the source of all goodness.  Surrendering my life to God means to forego the natural desire for me to be at the center of my life.  This is a struggle up until our last breathe.

Matthew 5:1-12a.  In beginning of his public ministry, Jesus said in Matthew 4:17b, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  He was calling upon us to repent of belonging to the kingdom of earth and coming under its kingship and instead to embrace God as the ruler or king of our lives, even while we still live on this earth.  Jesus gave his disciples a lesson or teaching in how to become a people of his kingdom.  Live, filled with God and not with this world. Grieve with those who are hurting so to be a comfort to them.   Live in the truth that is found in God and not in what this world claims to be true.  Find one’s life satisfaction in doing well in God’s eyes, no matter what others may think of us.  Love those who have hurt us.  May God be our only motivation.  Live in union with God’s Will.  Be happy when people challenge us for confronting evil.  Be happy when people persecute us as they did Jesus.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31.  In Acts 17:22-32 Paul preached elegantly to the learned and wise in the Areopagus of Athens but was rejected by them because it was not their worldly wisdom.  So Paul went to the lowly people of Corinth who, since they were not filled with the philosophies and wisdom of this world, were ready to accept God’s wisdom.  The only one who possesses the knowledge of the entirety of reality or truth is the God who made this universe.  What is not of God is an illusion and self-deception!

4A.   Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13.  This reading makes it clear that to be God’s people, we must be lowly and humble.  God is the great one and we would be nothing except what he gives us.  After the people of Israel had been taken captive and put into slavery by the Babylonians, apparently many fell away from the faith of their fathers.  When it came time for them to return to their old homeland, only a remnant came back of those that had left.  However, Zephaniah writes that their captivity made them humble and lowly, ready to treat their God as the Lord and master of their lives, ready to faithfully observe his law.  God promises bring peace and prosperity to his loyal remnant.

Matthew 5:1-12a.   Matthew likes to bring out that Jesus is establishing a new people, different than the Old Testament people.  The beatitudes are one way of expressing that difference.  The New Testament people are not so much observers of laws, emphasizing the externals, but rather, a people who grow spiritually, mature in holiness within themselves  in a way that shows itself externally.

1. Poor in spirit – not self-centered but God centered
2. They mourn with those who are hurting – compassionate, sorrowing with those who are in sorrow
3. Meek – they do not think of themselves as more than they really are
4. Hunger and thirst for righteousness – enthusiastically and energetically live for the accomplishment of God’s Will
5. Merciful – forgive as God forgives
6. Clean of heart – love for God is the only rationale and motivation for everything in life, it is the love from which every other love flows
7. Peacemakers – all our endeavors and thoughts come from being members of God’s family and joining in God’s work, making peace on earth by helping the earth to think as heaven thinks
8. Persecuted for righteousness – attacked for insisting that we must be obedient to God’s Will
9. Persecuted for being loyal to Jesus. “Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in heaven.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31.   “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly, and despised of the world, those who count for nothing.”  Those who think they alone have made themselves into someone who is important without God, who hold themselves in high esteem and others, as beneath them, are now put to shame.  Everything that is truly good is at root a gift from God and God alone.

The Athenians wrote magnificent books of philosophy.  They were highly thought of, whereas the Corinthians were lowly dock workers and the like.  However, the Corinthians accept Jesus as their Savior and so had eternal treasure in heavens.  At death it was the Athenians who counted for little or nothing.

 

3A23.     Isaiah 8:23-9:3.  Isaiah originally writes this to tell the Hebrews that the darkness that has befallen them because of their infidelity to the Lord with the invasion by the Assyrians will be dispelled by a savior that God will send.  Christianity sees this passage as a prophecy that Jesus is the savior who is the light that takes away the darkness of sin.

Matthew 4:12-23.   Once John the Baptist was imprisoned, Jesus saw that the way was opened for him to begin his public ministry, which he began in Capernaum.  “From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” As the king of a new spiritual kingdom, Jesus begins by calling 12 Apostles to replace the old kingdom of Israel that had 12 tribes from the original 12 sons of Jacob, the father of Israel.  In calling the fishermen, there seems to have been a mighty grace that flowed out into them because they immediately left their nets and followed Jesus.  Jesus “went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.”

1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17.   “Be united in the same mind and in the same purpose,” which is to belong to God and his Will.  Paul preached “the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.”  The full meaning of the cross is that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

3A20.   Isaiah 8:23-9:3.   “First the Lord degraded the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.”  Long ago the Assyrians had conquered the tribes of that region and carried them off as slaves.  God in turn conquered the darkness of their subjection with a great light.  “The yoke that burdened them,” “you have smashed.”  “You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing.” This is a prophesy that was also fulfilled at a much later time in Jesus.  Our psalm 27 says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.”

Matthew 4:12-23.  Jesus spent much time preaching and working miracles in Capernaum which is close to Zebulun and Naphtali.  Now that John’s ministry had ended because had been arrested, Jesus began his ministry announcing that for those who repent the gates of heaven are about to be opened.  The Israel of the Old Covenant is to be dispensed with and the new Israel with its New Covenant is to be established in the twelve Apostles who are to replace the old Israel of the twelve sons of Jacob.  Jesus went “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.”  Though Jesus begins his ministry among the Chosen People, his new kingdom is meant for all peoples.  He is the light that takes away the darkness.

1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17.  “It has been reported to me” “that there are rivalries among you.”  “I urge you” “that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.”  Christ sent Paul “to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.”  Paul is saying that in suffering and dying with Christ there is salvation that requires of us to surrender our own will and preferences for the common good of the Church.

3A

Isaiah 8:23-9:3.  The land and the people of Zebulun and Naphtali were looked down upon and their fortunes dim but in the end he brought glory, great light, rejoicing merriment and joy instead of darkness, gloom and distress.  Eight centuries before the time of Jesus, the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun were conquered and taken off into captivity by the Assyrians (see 2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chronicles 5:26).  Isaiah was prophesying that these lands, who were first to be degraded or fall before the eventual complete conquest of all the tribes of Israel and Judea, would be the first to see the light of God’s salvation, the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 4:12-23.  “When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,” “he left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum,” “in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,” thus bringing a great light to a people who had sat in darkness,”  “in a land overshadowed by death.” Although John said that he was preparing the way for Jesus, apparently he did not fade away with appearance of Jesus but continued his ministry as before.  Perhaps Jesus did not want to seem to be in competition with John.  However when John was taken out of the spotlight by his arrest, that was the signal to Jesus to bring the fullness of God’s light to the forefront.

Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Then he started choosing his 12 apostles as a way of establishing his new kingdom on earth replacing the old kingdom of the 12 tribes of Israel.  He called them and immediately they left their boats and nets and followed him, as he “proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom, and cured every disease and illness among the people.”  He was really calling upon the people to leave behind their worldly ways to live by heavenly ways while still living in the world.  The call to repentance is a call to separate ourselves immediately from the past and now to belong to and follow Jesus only.  The Old Law of the Old Testament is now obsolete.  The New Law is the Will of God/following Jesus.

 

1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17.

“I urge you” ”that there be no divisions among you.”  “

For it has been reported to me about you” “that there are rivalries among you.” “Is Christ divided?  Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”  In other words Christ is all.  It is he, and he alone, that we follow.  He is the Lord and Master of us all.  He died and rose for us.  We are baptized in him.  We “are united in the same mind and in the same purpose” because we have Jesus as Lord and king over us.

Paul writes, Christ sent me “to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.”  From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that Paul had gone to Athens, historically the world’s center of human wisdom from ancient times, and tried his best with human eloquence to convince them of Christianity.  He failed miserably but learned that it was not eloquence that was the center of our faith, but rather, the cross. Next he went to Corinth, starting his ministry by centering on the cross of Christ.  We follow Jesus to the cross and beyond.