August
17
[media
presentation below]
GospelThink
Sunday,
August 17, Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
LUKE
12:49-53
I
will disturb some people.
Prayerthoughts
a.
The message of Jesus is meant to “shake things up.” Of
course, I am quite familiar with the message. Do I live
that message in every instance of my life?
b.
Certainly Jesus preaches “peace.” But his doctrine will
disturb people, and in that sense there is no peace. Have I
tried to bring about “peace” in every circumstance?
c.
Am I responsible for any dissension in my immediate family?
Can I do anything about it?
d.
Jesus is of course “worried” about his impending death
and what he wants to accomplish with redemption. As I look
forward to my own death, what are some goals that I hope to
accomplish before then?
e.
What are some things that I can do to make the fact of
Jesus’s life and commandments a little more clear in the
way I live my life, say, the this week?
f.
My prayerthoughts…
Today
I will read Hebrews 12:1-4 and write an important thought
from it.
Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
THE
MODERN DAY PROPHET
The
first reading today (Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10) tells us quite
plainly that being a prophet in Hebrew Scripture times was
not a fun experience. Jeremiah had just made a prediction
of the fall of Jerusalem. It would fall, he said, because
the people would not reform their lives. As a result,
Jeremiah was almost killed for what he said.
The
Hebrew people attacked the messenger rather than change
their ways, a common enough experience among human beings.
Interestingly enough, Jeremiah did not want to be a prophet
in the first place. He had to prophesy during the height of
Israel’s turning away from God immediately before the
Babylonian Captivity in the 600’s BC. Constantly abused
because of what he prophesied, he kept his eyes fixed on
Yahweh, his God. It guided his life.
One
of the things that is clear from the Gospels, especially
Luke’s Gospel, is that Jesus was also a prophet. Like
Jeremiah, it was not an easy task. Jesus tells us what his
life as a prophet brings about:
Do
you think I have come to establish peace on the earth? I
assure you, the contrary is true. I have come for division.
Jesus
knew that he was going to disturb some people, and whenever
you disturb people, some people are going to agree, some
are going to disagree. There will be division.
The
conclusion to today’s readings is quite easy to discern:
if we are going to be a Christian of the twenty-first
century, we are going to be prophets. As with Jesus and
Jeremiah, it is not an easy task. We may disturb some
people, one of whom may be ourselves because we realize
that we have to change some things.
As
we talk of prophets, one of the people of our modern day
world that almost everyone thinks of is Martin Luther King
Jr. A couple of weeks before he died, during his regular
Sunday sermon in his Church in Atlanta, he spoke of his
death and what people might say at his death. It was a
relatively famous sermon that became known as his “drum
major” sermon.
Talking
about what people might say about him when he died, he
said: “I’d
like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King
Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for
somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried
to love somebody. I want you to say that I tried to love
and serve humanity.”
He called himself a drum major for justice and peace,
saying that nothing else in the world mattered. What
mattered was a life committed to doing good.
That’s
a pretty good description of the twenty-first century
Christian prophet: someone committed to doing good, no
matter who we are or in what circumstance. It means many
things in this complicated world and will have different
forms depending on our circumstances. Ultimately, the
modern day prophet will see the necessity to spend time
seriously studying what she/he is doing, and asking God for
help in carrying it out.
How
do we become such a modern day prophet? The letter to the
Hebrews in the second reading (Hebrews 12:1-4) gives us the
secret: the author tells us to “persevere in running the
race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on
Jesus.” That’s the secret: if we want to be a prophet,
it means to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, to try to get
into his thinking, putting his thinking into the
circumstances of the lives we are living.
It
is not an easy task. Living a life committed to doing good
is not easy. But, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, we can
achieve it.
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