31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mal 1: 14b- 2: 2b, 8-10; 1 Thes 2: 7b-9, 13; Mt 23: 1-12
by Dc. Larry Brockman
A tale of two peoples!
The first people, the Israeli Nation in Malachi’s time, was blessed as the chosen people and had prophets who brought the Word of the Lord to them over many centuries. They were the people of the first covenant. The Lord had saved them from slavery, and had blessed them with priests and prophets and kings. The Lord had given them commandments, laying down boundaries for them on what they should do and should not do in order to give them a roadmap to living righteous lives. But, the leaders and priests in Malachi’s time were not stepping up to their duty. They were preoccupied with divisions amongst themselves. They were not faithfully serving the Lord’s message to the people. And so, the Israeli people ignored the prophets, priests and commandments. They broke faith with one another, violating the covenant of their Lord. It’s almost like they became oblivious to their blessing- putting it on the back burner in times of prosperity, calling on the Lord only when they were in trouble.
The second people, the Thessalonians, had none of the advantages of the first people. No history, no prophets, no commandments, and no covenant. They were, however, blessed with the presence of St. Paul. Paul worked right alongside of them, and through his zeal for the Lord Jesus, he passed on the Gospel- the good news of the New Covenant. Paul did this with affection, and treated the Thessalonians with respect. Paul was a servant preacher that people could relate to. The Thessalonians responded well to his message. And as Paul said, thanks were given to the Lord for the generous and heart felt acceptance of the Christian message by these Gentiles. Because the Thessalonians not only accepted the message, but they acted on it with their hearts and put the message into practice in the way they lived their lives. These Thessalonians thus became the chosen people of the New Covenant, along with all the Gentiles who accepted Christianity.
The tale of these two peoples is one that occurs over and over again throughout history. Right now, it is you and I who are the chosen people. We are the people of the Covenant. We have the Bible, the Sacraments, the Church, the Traditions, Priests, and the example of all the saints to help us. We have a choice between embracing our faith with our hearts, as the Thessalonians did, or putting our faith into reserve, on the shelf, and out of the way, using it as a crutch when we get in trouble, rather than living our faith in our everyday lives. We, too, can become oblivious to the blessings we have through the traditions our parents handed down to us- our Christian faith and heritage and teachings and values. You see, the secular world keeps right on tempting us. It does that by claiming our time, our interest, and our attraction to things other than God. We can feel too comfortable knowing that we have “faith” if we need it. But are we really people of faith, acting on it? It is our challenge to focus on what is really important ion life, our faith.
One of the reasons that living our faith can become a problem in today’s world is the poison of hypocrisy. I think this is what the Gospel story is all about. Because our Churches- whether Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, or whatever, are human institutions which have sinners in them. The fact that there is more than one Christian denomination is a sad testimony to the divisions among us, just like the divisions observed among the Israelis. And so, we can become cynical about the imperfections of our Church hierarchies. There are proud and haughty leaders, child abuse scandals, sex scandals, rules heaped upon rules, high handedness, and other forms of hypocrisy that are plain to see, just like Jesus reported in the Gospel story. And there is reluctance of the Church to take a stand sometimes when it is needed. These signs of human weakness all point to selfishness. And yet, the true calling of our Church is to serve us- to help us in our salvation journey.
And so, what transcends the imperfections of our Church institutions is Jesus teaching itself. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “The greatest among you must be your servant”. That is the true test for all of us. I cannot help but notice that Paul won over the Thessalonians in exactly that way. Paul worked hard right alongside of them; he was their servant as well as an example to them of the Lord’s message and how to apply it. And so, we need to embrace our Church and it’s teachings and forgive the frailties of human weakness in our Churches. We cannot afford to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But it is a servant mentality that we must all have- one that embraces what we can do for others, rather than what we can do for ourselves.
In the tale of two peoples, which people do you identify with?