Who is the Jesus of Today?: The 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

                                                Who is the Jesus of Today?:

The 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

August 27, 2023

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Isaiah 22:19-23; Psalm 138; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20

 

I could take the easy trite route as a preacher and simply say Jesus never changes, but I realize when I read Scripture, each time I read a familiar passage, I am different, so I understand it differently. Likewise, whenever I reread a book or rewatch a movie, I notice distinctive points that I had not notice before. I have changed, so the words have changed. With that said, I cannot answer the question “Who do you say that I am?” with the same confidence I did when I was 25 or 30 or 40. No, to answer this question confidently would be disingenuous of me. The answer becomes more complex each year.

 

The Gospels were written at a time when the Mediterranean world was the universe. Most people believed the world to be flat, and Rome was the center of power with Persians and Babylonians to the East and Egyptians to the southwest. Israel was fighting to be faithful to life under God’s rule and to find its place in the sun. The world has changed since biblical times. We have learned the earth is round and is one dot in a constellation of galaxies and universes that date back 13.1 billion years ago. Quantum physics has us searching for quarks as we fuse and fission atoms together. We dive deep into cellular structures within the human body and the human mind is thirsty for more knowledge. The more knowledge we gain, the less we seem to know. Who is the Jesus who helps us to deal with our discoveries and further questions?

 

His Church is evolving as it tries to manage change. It has become a global, internationalist, and cosmopolitan representation of God’s reign. The church is experiencing a huge shift in self-understanding, with regards to the development of theological thought, pluralization within the religious world, its exploration of moral issues such as marriage, gender, biopolitics, a feminist theology of empowerment, and identity politics. Jesus is not only the Jesus of Catholics, but of other Christian denominations. The church is examining its relationship with the world with its emphasis of pluralism of cultures and overcoming the model of medieval Christendom. 

 

Jesus is concerned for the migrants and refugees who are in a process of global resettlement. He tells us that he is concerned for the displaced where his language is one of dialogue and mercy rather than force and judgment and exclusion. The Jesus who interacts with us today sees a worldwide village that is like a global city – complex, multifaceted, multicultural, multireligious and engages with a secular society that it finds to be good and with unique challenges. The church of its European roots is giving way to a vibrant pluralistic church. 

The Church of Jesus is not a set of doctrines and rules, texts and traditions. It is a living body of saints like you who are gathered around the Christ and who builds up the reign of God one heart at a time. It is easy to say Jesus is the Christ, but in a complex world of today, what do we mean when we say that? What do we expect of him? As much as the human mind searches for answers and explores new depths of thought, there is one essential that I depend upon. I realize human limitations. Amid our quest for meaning, the only one who seems to answer that question is Jesus. I don’t have the answers, but only questions and ponderings. I comprehend my limitations, and I come to realize I need a savior – the one who provides meaning to my experiences, the one who will bring me into God’s reign, the one who will sustain me in a new reality. I don’t quite know how that will happen, but it is the moment when I experience a radical solidarity with the cosmic Christ and I feel satisfaction that our friendship gives my life meaning.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (1 Thessalonians 1) We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father

 

Tuesday: (1 Thessalonians 2) Rather, after we had suffered and been insolently treated, as you know, in Philippi, we drew courage through our God to speak to you the Gospel of God with much struggle. Our exhortation was not from delusion or impure motives, nor did it work through deception.

 

Wednesday: (1 Thessalonians 2) Working night and day in order not to burden any of you, we proclaimed to you the Gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God,
how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers.

 

Thursday: (1 Thessalonians 3) What thanksgiving, then, can we render to God for you, for all the joy we feel on your account before our God? Night and day we pray beyond measure to see you in person and to remedy the deficiencies of your faith.

 

Friday (1 Thessalonians 4) This is the will of God, your holiness: that you refrain from immorality, that each of you know how to acquire a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion as do the Gentiles who do not know God.

 

Saturday (1 Thessalonians 4) Nevertheless we urge you, brothers and sisters, to progress even more, and to aspire to live a tranquil life, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 23) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.

 

Tuesday: (Mark 6) Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. John had said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."
Herodias harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 23) You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth.
Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.

 

Thursday (Matthew 24) Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into.

 

Friday (Matthew 25) The Kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.

 

Saturday (Matthew 25) A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one–to each according to his ability. Then he went away. Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five.

 

Saints of the Week

 

August 27: Monica (332-387) was born a Christian in North Africa and was married to a non-Christian, Patricius, with whom she had three children, the most famous being Augustine. Her husband became a Christian at her urging and she prayed for Augustine's conversion as well from his newly adopted Manichaeism. Monica met Augustine in Milan where he was baptized by Bishop Ambrose. She died on the return trip as her work was complete.

 

August 28: Augustine, bishop and doctor (354-430),  was the author of his Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, and The City of God, which described the life of faith in relation to the life of the temporal world. Many other writings, sermons, and treatises earned him the title Doctor of the church. In his formative years, he followed Mani, a Persian prophet who tried to explain the problem of evil in the world. His mother’s prayers and Ambrose’s preaching helped him convert to Christianity. Baptized in 387, Monica died a year later. He was ordained and five years later named bishop of Hippo and defended the church against three major heresies:Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism.

 

August 29: The Martyrdom of John the Baptist recalls the sad events of John's beheading by Herod the tetrarch when John called him out for his incestuous and adulterous marriage to Herodias, who was his niece and brother's wife. At a birthday party, Herodias' daughter Salome danced well earning the favor of Herod who told her he would give her almost anything she wanted. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• August 27, 1679: The martyrdom at Usk, England, of St. David Lewis, apostle to the poor in his native Wales for three decades before he was caught and hanged. 
• August 28, 1628: The martyrdom in Lancashire, England, of St. Edmund Arrowsmith. 
• August 29, 1541: At Rome the death of Fr. John Codure, a Savoyard, one of the first 10 companions of St. Ignatius. 
• August 30, 1556: On the banks of the St. Lawrence River, the Iroquois mortally wounded Fr. Leonard Garreau, a young missionary. 
• August 31, 1581: In St. John's Chapel within the Tower of London, a religious discussion took place between St. Edmund Campion, suffering from recent torture, and some Protestant ministers. 
• September 1, 1907. The Buffalo Mission was dissolved, and its members were sent to the New York and Missouri Provinces and the California Mission. 
• September 2, 1792. In Paris, ten ex-Jesuits were massacred for refusing to take the Constitutional oath. Also in Paris seven other fathers were put to death by the Republicans, among them Frs. Peter and Robert Guerin du Rocher.