Tuesday of the
Thirty-third week in Ordinary Time
(Revelation 3:1-6.14-22; Luke 19:1-10)
An old movie shows a forlorn African-American outside a white
church in the South. The Lord appears to
the man and asks why he is so sad. The
man replies that he wants to pray in the church but the people won’t let him in. The Lord responds that they won’t let him in either! The comment corresponds to the reproach of
the visionary John for the church of Laodicea in today’s first reading.
The Book of Revelation was written to shore up the hope
of Christians suffering persecution at the end of the first century. Its revelation is not so much of what was
going to happen in the future but what was happening then. Some communities endured the persecution
without giving up the faith. Others,
like the church addressed in today’s reading, did not live up to their
baptismal promises. The striking image
of Jesus knocking on a door with no way to let himself in bespeaks of how
Christ does not force himself on any community.
He only offers himself, but the community must move to accept him.
We might check our community to see if we welcome
Christ. He comes in the poor and the
stranger. Do we provide resources so
that the poor have basic needs met? Do
we work for social justice so that the poor will have a sense of their innate
dignity? So we make an effort to reach
out to strangers who may come to worship with us? If we can honestly answer in the affirmative
to these questions, Jesus is living well among us.
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