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Daily Scripture

+ 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

Keep hope alive!

Readings: Revelation 5:1-10 Psalm 149:1-6, 9 Luke 19:41-44

_As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “if this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.” [Luke 19:41]

In Christian liturgy and literature, he Church has often been referred to as “the new Jerusalem” and heaven as “the new and eternal Jerusalem.” I think it’s a good simile. If you have ever been to the old section of Jerusalem, you surely would have noted the appropriateness of this comparison. Ancient Jerusalem is still very much in evidence if not literally, surely in its ambiance. A walk from the site of the ancient praetorium to Calvary – now well within the city limits – will surely give you a sense of what it may have been like when Jesus made that last fateful journey.

Today Jerusalem is truly an international city and bears within its womb and walls, the extremes of every race and religion. Jews still narrate the story of the great exodus and Christians break the bread of Eucharist while Islamic temples broadcast their ancient chants from minarets that echo through the streets in the wee hours of the morning.

This is the city over which Jesus wept not because it did not make him king but because it did not recognize its day of visitation, that is to say, its moment of opportunity. In reading a passage such as this, we need to put away preconceived notions about our understanding of Jesus’ messianic role in the light of its Christological evolution in Christian teaching today. Jesus was not about establishing new religious structures but about announcing the universality of God’s love – for Jews and gentiles, male and female, of every race and nation.

Would it be accurate to state that Jesus is weeping not just over Jerusalem but over our war torn world? And yet one cannot fail to see signs of hope on the horizon. Bernard Lonergan, Carol Rahner and Carl Jung support this very Christian notion that it is in our moments of deepest despair that a new wisdom emerges leading to a common vision of a new world in which love and respect overcome evil and injustice. Is it possible that in the midst of the turmoil in which our world seems enmeshed people of good can bring that vision to reality not through confrontation but through collaboration?

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 'C'

Sunday September 2, 2007

The ‘Art’ of Knowing One’s Place

“Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.”
( A Death in the Desert by Robert Browning)

Shortly after Tom Brokaw’s arrival in New York City as co-host of the Today Show on NBC thirty-one years ago, he took off on a shopping spree at Bloomingdales. Although he wasn’t quite ready for autographs, he was feeling very good about his new assignment and very content with himself and his climb to media success. As he wandered through the aisles, he noticed a man staring at him and quickly came to the conclusion that the man recognized him and perhaps might be ready to compliment him on his celebrity status.

Pointing his finger, the man said, “Tom Brokaw, right?”

“Right,” Brokaw responded.

“You used to do the morning news in KMTV in Omaha, right?”

“Right again,” said Brokaw, as he prepared for the usual accolades and fanfare often doled out to the famous.

“I recognized you the minute I saw you,” the man said. “By the way, whatever happened to you?”

Of course, Tom Brokaw went on to become the anchor of the NBC Nightly News but he has never forgotten the lesson he derived from that chance encounter.

Another story is told about Christian Herter, governor of Massachusetts during his campaign. Having arrived late one evening to a campaign barbecue, and not having eaten anything all day, he cued up at the buffet table and when he came to the chicken, he told the woman serving the chicken that he was very hungry. She explained that she was sorry but she had been given orders to give only one piece of chicken per person. The governor decided to push a little harder, “But I’m starved!” Again, she told him, “Only one piece of chicken per person!”

Ordinarily Herter is more modest about pursing his own needs but he was hungry and so decided to pull out all the stops and what he thought would be the trump card: “Madam, do you know who I am? I am the governor of this state!” Without missing a beat, she replied: “Do you know who I am? I am the lady in charge of chicken. Move along mister; one piece per person!”

Neither story is an indictment of the life-style or the quality of either man. They are hardly indicators of a major character flaw or breech of etiquette. Although of much lesser fame than they, I believe I could match each story with several of my own. Perhaps you could too! We may not be celebrities but we may find it very easy to be “on stage” at the family table. Upstaging others can show up in a know-in-all attitude. If you have ever been in the company of a a “know-it-all” you’ve noticed that they like to hear themselves talk and can’t wait to let others know how much they know! Some fathers, including “religious fathers” think they have all the answers; some mothers do too! And teens are not off the hook either speaking from their breadth and depth of experience.

But the scriptures for this weekend are not dealing simply with modesty, manners and the art of diplomacy or as a matter of fact not even about the care of the poor, but about character development and the qualities that distinguish people striving for a place at God’s table.

Although in the first reading, Jesus ben Sirach seems to be advising his readers about successful living and social graces, his reference to God as the object of one’s reverence for truth — humility is truth — makes it clear that he understood humility as an active, positive, cooperative trust and hope in God. This reading paves the way for the “great reversal” of Jesus enunciated in Luke’s Gospel: “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted!” and in the Magnificat of Mary: “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly!”

It is interesting that Luke places many of Jesus’ teachings and parables within the context of a meal, in this case, a Sabbath meal — for us, I suppose it would be equal to a Sunday meal. His reference to a wedding banquet in the parable of Jesus is an allusion to the heavenly banquet at the end of time.

We are always on the invitation list for the Sunday meal and in this assembly, we are all equal. There are no high places or low places here; we are all equal before the Lord. We might say that Sunday Eucharist is the great equalizer.

Luke employs hyperbole in his brief comment at the end of the Gospel. It pushes us to look at our own list of guests at our table or our turf. Who is excluded from our “list?” from our turf?

In the words of author, Joan de Merchant: “Our willingness to ‘sit down’ at this eucharistic table each week is a sign of our desire to join the great final banquet one day where all will be gathered as one. Our eucharistic table is the great leveler of all who partake at it. As we approach this table, we can be rightfully grateful that God’s invitations, often unlike our own, are totally gift — amazing grace. They may also seem at times to be just a bit quirky: After all, the likes of you and me have been invited to take a place here.”