Monday, March 11, 2024

 Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

 (Isaiah 65:17-21; John 4:43-54)

 The fourth Sunday of Lent marks a threshold.  No longer will the weekday readings call for prayer, fasting, and forgiving.  Now they center on the life that Christ promises.  The gospel book changes as well.  For almost four weeks one of the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) was used.  Now the Gospel of John presenting Jesus as “the resurrection and the life” is opened for work.

Jesus seems perturbed with the royal official when he says, “’Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.’”  He is wary when people’s faith is based solely on the miraculous.  Jesus is encouraging the man to believe in him as Mesías so that he may have eternal life.  As a matter of fact, the official does so.  He has accepted Jesus without seeing the miracle take place.  Only on the next day does he learn that his son recovered from his “near death” condition. 

Jesus has also given us new life.  Some of us were dead spiritually.  We thought too much of money, food, and prestige to appreciate life’s true meaning.  The disciplines of Lent have hopefully reoriented us correctly.  Now we look forward to experiencing the fullness of life. We should expect not just balance in our daily activities but the joy and peace of mutual caring.  Heaven or eternal life consists precisely in this.

Homilette for February 15, 2008

Friday of the First Week in Lent

(Matthew 5:20-26)

Twenty-five years ago Jim had a coronary bypass. It was radical surgery but the discipline that his doctors imposed was even more extreme. A heavy smoker since he was a teen, Jim had to give up cigarettes cold turkey. A professional in a demanding administrative job, Jim had to take time to exercise every day. Overweight, he had to shed excess pounds. In short, if he was going to live much longer, Jim he had to turn around many his life’s habits at the age of fifty. Jim’s brother died shortly before Jim’s bypass reminding him that the doctor’s instructions were not professional drivel. Jim is alive and well today at seventy-eight. He may not be as thin as his doctor would like, but he doesn’t smoke and walks daily.

In the gospel Jesus calls for a change of life-style every bit as radical as Jim’s although on a spiritual, not physical, level. We are no longer to get angry with or make fun of a brother or sister. Here Jesus refers not so much to our blood relatives but to the men and women of our church. If the Christian community is to be “the light of the world,” which Jesus calls it shortly before he issues these commandments, its members will have to constantly give good example. Refraining from demonstrations of anger and from acts of mockery (“Raqa” means empty-headed) are but obvious ways to show respect for others.

Is it then permissible to curse or deride people who don’t belong to our church? Such literal distinctions are what Jesus is steering his disciples away from in this Sermon on the Mount. The Scribes and Pharisees would split hairs in this way so that they might indulge their passions while still sensing moral superiority. In truth Christians through the centuries also have acted in this way. But Jesus is calling for a new righteousness that, as he says, will exceed that of the self-righteous. We are to see in everyone a potential sister or brother and to treat her or him deferentially.