missing1

June 11

[media presentation below]

GospelThink

Wednesday, June 11

MATTHEW 5:17-19
I call you to obey all of the commandments.

Prayerthoughts
a. The law of Jesus fulfills the Ten Commandments given to Moses. Therefore, I should know the Commandments and what they mean in light of Jesus’ words. (This is the task of the meditation.)

b. We should recognize the law of Jesus to be of paramount importance. List the three statements of Jesus that I should pay most attention to.

c. Most scholars would say that the law of Jesus was primarily the law of love. How do I rate my life right now in terms of love of God and others?

d. The Lord refers to scandal as he talks of how people obey his law. Is there any time in my life in which I scandalize others?

e. The two parts of being “great” in Jesus’ eyes are a person who “obeys” the law and “teaches” the law. Do I see myself as doing these two directives?

f. My prayerthoughts…

Today, I will list the Ten Commandments and my own understanding of what they mean for me in my life in light of Jesus's teaching.

Some Thoughts on the Liturgy

RESPECT FOR THE LAW OF JESUS

+ Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in the first reading uses a phrase that has a number of applications, namely, the phrase, “the ministry of the Spirit”

- what is the “ministry of the Spirit”

- mainly it will be as he describes it the ministry of righteousness

- that is, the ministry of bringing about what should be in the world

+ Specifically “what should be” in our Christian world is following the word of God, especially the word of God as contained in the Sermon on the Mount

- and in the first part of that Sermon, Jesus calls for a reverence for the law

- Matthew was more aware of the Jewish Christian than say, St. Paul was, and therefore he has Jesus be more respectful of the law than the other early Christian writers

+ The spiritual meaning for us lies in the question:

- who do we follow?

- an important question for the Christian of today’s world

- because that world is full of answers like power, pleasure and money

- if indeed we do follow Jesus as everyone of us professes,

- then the law of Jesus will be of particular concern and receive the highest priority for us

- the law of Jesus in the six cases that will be brought up in the Sermon on the Mount

- the law of Jesus as given later on summarized in the idea of love of God and love of neighbor

- the law of Jesus as a general rule of life

+ Jesus told his followers here in Matthew’s Gospel that his job was to “fulfill” the law and the prophets

- that meant that he was to make the law and prophets part of his own agenda

- making the law and prophets a truly Christian thought

+ Our ministry of the Spirit is to make the Christian thought important for us right now.

MEDIA PRESENTATION

Movie: "Missing" - beginning session

OUR CREATING MINDS

The Gospel

JOHN 1:3-5

All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and his life was the light of the human race--the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Gospelthink: God created life, the light of the human race.

The movie "Missing" is about Grace, the mother of June Allen, her abduction by her once-upon-a-time husband, and her daughter June's eventual discovery of the situation. June would never have been able to figure out what happened had it not been for her understanding of the Internet and how it works. While the movie shows the story of what actually happened, it also shows the importance of the technology of today's world. Without the technology of today, we would never be able to function as a knowledgeable people.

If we were to look for "technology" in the Scriptures, we would be hard-pressed to find anything "digital" in the literature of the Bible, and therefore in the country of Palestine in the first century of the common era. It is an obvious fact that Jesus as a human being did not have the modern means of getting across his message announcing the Kingdom to the people of the world. It is an interesting thought to discuss how Jesus would have used the technology we now have in order to make his message known.

That technology and everything that our brains have developed over the years was all part of the "life" that God originally created. The creation of our world and everything in it was the result of God's "life" by which everything came to be. As the Evangelist John reports, "What came to be through [God] was life, and his life is the light of the human race."

The book of Genesis reports that God saw that all that His creating light accomplished was indeed "good." It means that our knowledge of how to work with the God's created things is good for humankind. We can and should be grateful for what God can accomplish. Therefore, we can rejoice with June Allen at her ability to use God's created things to discover what she wanted to discover, namely, what happened to her mother.

It is unfortunate that the same created mind that produced the genius of the digital world used the free will that human people were given for a selfish end. Anyone can experience such selfishness as we study the evil that is part of our history from its first moment. But it is the hope of a world renewed in the presence of Jesus Christ that what we have created with God's "life" will only be used for a good end.

PRAYER

Good and gracious God, You have given us amazing abilities as a result of the life you have created in the world. Give us the grace to use what you have given to us for the common good. Be with us, we pray.

+++++

GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT

Theme: We are using the technology God has created.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
(session: approximately 56 minutes)
1. What scene during this session of the movie is most striking? Why?
2. What are the most important accomplishments of humankind? What are worse happenings?
3. If Jesus would have the technology of today, what do you think he would do first?
4. Do most people in our world acknowledge that God created the technology that we have? Yes or no and why?
5. As you study the history of our world, in your opinion, what evil did the most harm? Why?
6. In your opinion, what is the greatest hope that we should have?