Faith

I must play the flute – Monday, 14th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 9:18-26

True leaders are humble and ask for help when they need it. This is the second ‘leader’ who has come to Our Lord for help. First, the centurion (8:5) comes pleading for his servant and now the leader of the synagogue kneels before our Lord. Mark 5:21 tell us that his name is Jairus. He is desperate; his daughter has just died and he wants Jesus to raise a dead child to life. Jesus simply gets up and follows him (verse 19).

You got to be struck by our Lords reaction. He gets up and follows the leader of the synagogue. Nine verses earlier, Jesus said to Matthew, “follow me” but now the Lord follows another to his home to work a miracle that no eye has seen so far. I am deeply touched by Our Lords response to this request; he just gets up and follows the man to his house. Jesus wants to heal us in our very homes but he can’t do that if we don’t invite him in and invite him with faith that seems ridiculous to the world. This was not a sick child, this was a dead girl but her father is faith filled, “she will live, just place your hand on her.”

The Gospel of today does not have one, but two miracle narratives. Our Lord has left for the home of the leader of the synagogue. There would not have been a single person who would not have dropped every important task just to follow Jesus and see what happens next. The Gospel of Mark fills us with the all the details of this narrative. Matthew, it seems, wants to get to the end of this miracle narrative and treats the next miracle with haste; his focus is on the first resuscitation narrative. We will hear of another one later in the Gospel of John when Lazarus is resuscitated to life.

Matthew interrupts this miracle narrative of Jairus daughter to tells us of a woman who took a chance on Jesus. Matthew tells us that she was suffering from a haemorrhage for the last twelve years. He tells us that she had a thought in her head. “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Matthew, unlike Mark and Luke does not tell us that she had spent all her money on doctors and had got worse. Nor does he tell us that Jesus, on being touched by the woman, stops mid-way demanding to know who touched him. Matthew simply tells us that Jesus turned, sees the woman and congratulates her faith. We are then told she was made well. Before I move on with this text, I want to say to you my bloggers and vloggers, take a chance on Jesus; turn to him in faith, say to yourself, “if only I touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Experience then, his miracle in your life.

Matthew brings us back to the narrative of the synagogue leaders’ daughter. This is where he wants us to focus our attention. He has deliberately hastened and glossed over the details of the woman who touched his cloak and was healed and here we are, at the home of what clearly is a dead child. Matthew wants to make a point; this girl is dead! He does this by mentioning the ‘flute players and the crowds who are making a commotion.’ These flute players and the crowd were part of the professional mourners who were employed at the time of a funeral. It is the presence of the flute players in the narrative that testify to the fact that the girl is truly dead. Also, flute players were generally employed when a child had passed away. The whole community would therefore understand that it is a child who has died in this home. Matthew leaves no room for doubt, the girl is dead and what happens next is going to be so spectacular that “the report of this will spread throughout the district (of Galilee)” (verse 26).

There is something that might elude us in all of this. Three verses earlier Jesus declared emphatically to the disciples of John the Baptist that he “is the bridegroom.” Now he arrives at the home of Jairus to perform a great miracle but the flute players greet the bridegroom with a dirge; they want to continue to play their sad songs even in Jesus’ presence. They would rather play their songs of mourning than change their tune. They are stuck in their ways and choose to mock Our Lord when pronounces that the girl is not dead but sleeping; they laugh at him! Must I be explicit in the application of this odd behaviour of the flute players to your life and mine?

When we chose not to believe, when we chose to play our sad songs in the presence of the Lord, when we refuse to stop what we are doing simply because we think we have it right and the Lord is all wrong, then he has to do with us what he did with the flute players and the crowds; he has to “put is out” (verse 25). This is what happens when we dig our trenches of disbelief, we are turned out and denied the joy of experiencing the miracle in our lives.

St Mark tells us that Jesus took Peter, James and John along with Jairus and his wife and those who believed (Mark 5:40) and they hear the words of faith, “Tal-i-tha cum” which means ‘little girl, get up.” (Mark 5:41). The Gospel of Matthew ends this miracle with a stern instruction given by Jesus, “see that no one knows of this” (9:30) but they disobeyed him and “went away and spread the news about him throughout the district.” They were disobedient!? (both the exclamation and the question mark are deliberate; read it how you may) How I wish we were too!

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Virtue lies in the middle – Saturday, 13th week in ordinary time – Matthew 9:14-17

What really is the purpose of fasting? Jesus never explicitly gave specific instructions on fasting or on the days one ought to fast. He did though give a teaching on how we ought not to fast. In Matthew 5:16 he did tell us that fasting is not a matter of IF you fast but a matter of ‘whenever’ you fast. The ‘whenever’ may knock off the feeling of an obligation but that is not the case. Jesus is taking to a Jewish audience and for them fasting was part of their religious DNA. He does however, correct the intention of their fasts; gloomy looks on days of fasting does not please God, especially if the fasting is done to win men’s favour.

Yet the impression that one would get from today’s text on reading what apparently sounds like an admonishment from John the Baptists’ disciples to our Lord himself, would seem to indicated that fasting was a necessary and integral requirement of the Jewish law. While today, pious Jews are mandated to fast six times a year; the only fast that was stipulated in the Old Testament was the Day of Atonement. The fasting, practiced by the Jews at the time of Jesus, was merely a traditional religious practice. The Pharisees however observed additional fasts on the second and fifth day of the week and imposed the same on everyone else.

But the apparent public rap on the knuckles for Jesus was clearly an attempt to name and shame Our Lord in order to get him to fall in line with main stream religious leadership. First it was the scribes, (9:3) then it was the Pharisees, (9:11) and now the disciples of his own cousin. Jesus is forced to take them on in response to their hostility. He does this with two illustrations; old wine in new wineskins and a new piece of cloth sown to an old one.

The point of the illustrations, is to bring about a change in the approach to faith and religion in the minds of the religious establishment. This was not some novelty that Jesus was introducing for the sake of attracting people to his ministry. This was good practical advice to his peers who were misguided by their own religious thinking and expressions of piety. His examples were common sense insights taken from daily life.

One should not assume that Jesus is merely some itinerant preacher running around trying to subvert ritual boundaries by destroying the traditional practices by introducing something completely new. He is here to align the real practice of the faith with what God wants for His people. These human religious traditions often have little to do with God and much to do with pandering to human need.

Jesus’ teachings are new and bold and aligned with the will of God. They are not some patchwork of thought to be attached to the traditional practices of the Jewish establishment. They demand a newness of both wine and wineskins. As the teachings are ‘new,’ the receivers of this good news must also put on a ‘new mind’. The old boundaries cannot contain the new reality of God’s reign coming near in Jesus.

Reflecting on this, we need to find a balance in the way the Church grows. There is much in the rich tradition of the Catholic liturgy that is beautiful and very meaningful. Change for the sake of novelty is a danger. Yet to simply cling on to celebrating a mass at right angles can be the reason that hinders people from connecting to this community celebration. Virtue lies in the middle.

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Just two words for Matthew -Friday, 13th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 9:9-13

We tend to judge; Jesus chose to love. If you were a first century Jew and you were taking a stroll like Jesus did in Capernaum, you would have recoiled on seeing the tax booth. No self-respecting person would ever consciously walk up to a tax collector and engage him in a conversation, much less ask him to be part of his clan.

St Matthew, the author of this Gospel tells us of his own conversion story. He does this somewhere between the sixth and seventh miracle narratives that he has been penning down in chapter eight and nine of this Gospel. For someone who has been so methodical in arranging the Gospel in five neatly explained discourse, this text of his conversion story seems like an interruption of sorts. What on earth possessed his to do so we will never know.

What we do know is how simply this conversion story panned out. For most of us, the call of our Lord, especially to the religious life, must take place in some dramatic form. For your vocation story to ring true it should have the appearance of the ‘cloak and dagger format,’ shrouded in awe and wonder. “Did Jesus appear to you like in some apparition?” would be the usual question. The more sensational the calling the more authentic would be your yes to the priest hood or religious life. But as the British would say, “such poppycock!” God rarely calls you on a telephone; he could but its most unlikely. It’s not like the network in heaven is bad, it’s the best; it’s just that this service provider choses not use this facility.

Our Lord saw Matthew and simply said “Follow me.” Jesus had just two words for Matthew and that was all that was need. There was no vocation pitch, no vocation camp, no tour of the seminary, no meeting with the bishop…just two words; “Follow me.”

We live in a world where social media invites us to ‘follow’ others. We speak of following this superstar, that religious leader, this political party and that food channel. Today the Lord invites us to follow him. He can’ be just limited to an Instagram page for he is so much bigger; he has a whole book and by the way it’s called the Bible. He does not post images but left us an everlasting image of his love for us; Him crucified on the cross. He has no reel that is stitched together with the perfect cation and well curated song to accompany it; He is REAL.

The Gospel of today also draws our attention to the second group of ‘religious people’ who had a problem with Jesus. Ironically, Jesus has no problem with the world but the world seems to have a problem with him. In the Gospel of Matthew, the growing opposition to Jesus’ ministry is seen in chapter nine. First the scribes, then in today’s text it is the Pharisees and finally it will be the disciples of John the Baptist.

What is it that is upsetting the Pharisees? According to them, Jesus is sitting at the wrong table. They would have loved to have the Lord, the superstar that he was, working miracles and drawing people in the thousands, to sit with them, at their table. But he chose to sit at the table of those who could only be called the scum of the earth. Why would any self-respecting Rabbi make such a terrible choice?

Jesus never came to win a popular vote. Popular votes do not get you crucified but rather keep you in good standing with all those whose voices you agree with even when they go against the grain of your faith or belief. You don’t have to look far, look how we vie for the popular vote within the Catholic Church. If only the Catholicity we profess was practiced the way the Lord intended it, we would have stopped every program in the Church that is already saving the saved! Ironically, the ones who hinder the work the Lord commanded us to do are those who are saved. They still determine how the Church is run, who runs it and who is ministered to in God’s name. Get off your high horse, listen to our Lord for once and not to your ego that is boosted by Satan.

Jesus did not come to make the fifty in the Church who attend daily mass happy. He congratulates you and loves you but his church was to be a Church meant to go to peripheries; to the least, to the last and to the lost. He said, “those who are well (hopefully that should be us) have no need of a physician” (that is Jesus). Think of it, how stupid you would look, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, only to be ushered in and then for you to tell the doctor, ‘nothing is wrong with me, I just came for no reason!’ Jesus is emphatic, “ it is the sick” not those causing others to be sick of the Church, that he came for.

I know that this article sounds hateful and hurtful. I could have picked my words and soften the blow but then, didn’t our Lord do the same? …. remember he called the religious establishment a “brood of vipers.” Now how would that that go down with a Sunday congregation. Your bet is as good as mine

Written with malice to none.

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You too can move mountains – Thursday, 13th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 9:1-8

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/body-and-soul-both-made-whole/

Chapter nine of the Gospel of Matthew has the last of the four miracle narratives. The first six were in chapter eight. Chapter nine also has Jesus calling Matthew to be an apostle and his is followed by a teaching on discipleship. It then winds down, giving way to the second of Matthew’s discourse in chapter ten; the mission discourse.

But chapter nine will also see the first sparks of confrontation that Jesus will have with the scribes (9:3), the Pharisees (9:11) and even with the disciples of his own cousin, John the Baptist (9:14). The passage of today has Jesus healing a paralytic. It is the first time that the Gospel of Matthew records the growing hostility between Jesus and the religious establishment of his time and in this case the ones who take umbrage at him are the scribes.

The Greek word ‘grammateus,’ translated scribe, means writer. The scribes were the ones who drew up legal documents. They also copied the Old Testament Scripture and devoted themselves to the study of the law, and the determination of its applications on daily life. They also studied the Scripture with respect to doctrinal and historical matters. Noted scribes had their own disciples and many of the scribes were members of the Jewish council.

We are no strangers to the healing power of Jesus. On this occasion, it is the power of petition that prompts Jesus to heal a paralysed man. Perhaps this miracle would have been without incident if Jesus simply took the man’s hand like he did with Peter’s mother-in-law. But St Matthew wants to make a point. Jesus is not just some wonder working miracle man; he is the Son of God whom even satan, who had possessed two men in Gadara, acknowledged as being so. For St Matthew, while Jesus has the ability to heal, he has even more, the authority to take away sins that were seen as the cause of illness.

His proclamation, “take heart son, your sins are forgiven” causes the scribes to be agitated. The scriptures do not tell us that they objected vociferously. Rather we are told that they had “evil thoughts in their hearts;” for they called him a blasphemer. This was the very charge that they brought against him at his trial (Matthew 26:65). The scribes correctly understood that Jesus claimed to do something that only God can do. But they were incorrect in assuming that Jesus was not God Himself.

Our Lord did not seek disputes. Yet when evil sets in our hearts we become the agents of satan and evil and then we are capable of attacking even our Lord. The evil in our mind pollutes our hearts, pushing us to train our guns against good men and women and turning the forces of evil against them. It is the little things, that we need to guard our heart from.

Finally, the Lord today was prompted to work a miracle looking at the faith of the friends of the paralytic. The paralytic perhaps had no faith at all; at least the Gospel does not seem to mention it explicitly. He was obedient, he took his mat and went home when he was told but as far as faith, we are told nothing. But it is the faith of the friends with which I want to end this reflection.

If there is anything that hits home in this text, it is the power of intercessory prayer. I have bemoaned the way the ‘prayers of the faithful’ are written and even more, prayed at Sunday mass. On one or two occasions in my parish, I have urged members in the congregation to come forward and make a spontaneous prayer. The silence that follows would make any school teacher ecstatic; but it is heart breaking for the minister. It is a moment when he realises how poor our faith is and how limited are our expressions.

We have failed to encourage spontaneous intercessory prayer. Such prayer when made in faith, moves mountains. It does not have to be wordy but simple words that come from the heart. ‘Heal a sister who has cancer Lord’, Help my neighbour get a job lord,’ ‘take care of our doctors and nurses who care for the sick.’ The list can be endless. The friends of the paralytic had their petition heard because they believed. Today, you can move mountains as you pray for those who are in need of your prayers for them.

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The deliverer driven – Wednesday, 13th week in ordinary time – Matthew 8:28-34

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/if-pigs-could-fly/

Chapters 8 and 9 of the Gospel of Matthew have ten miracle narratives punctuated by three teachings on discipleship. The Gospel of today focuses on the fifth miracle in this ten part series.

Jesus has had to deal with the incredulity of his apostles. He reprimands them, albeit gently for he found their faith lacking. The three miracles that he had worked in Capernaum had not convinced them that with Jesus in the boat they could smile in the storm. Now that the Sea of Galilee is calm once again, the apostles and the Lord arrive at the ‘other side,’ in the country of the Gadarenes. The country of the Gadarenes was more a region rather than some sovereign nation and it got its name from the town of Gadara on the south-east side of the lake. This was most certainly a Gentile region for we are told that its people reared pigs, an animal no Jew would ever touch, lest they be defiled.

Our Lord is encountered by two demoniacs coming out of the tombs, they are fierce and no one could pass that way. Right away, the demoniacs have no problem recognising who Jesus is; they call him the ‘Son of God’. How ironic it is that the twelve apostles, just a couple of verses earlier, ask “what sort of man is this?” in response to Our Lord calming the storm. If the demons recognise that Jesus as the Son of God, shouldn’t we?

At the time of Our Lord, there was a belief that demons were free to roam the earth until the Judgment Day came. They did this by taking possession of people. This possession was often associated with disease, because disease was the consequence of sin and a sign of being in Satan’s power.

Now they stand in the presence of the Lord, they know that this is a battle they won’t win. There’s no negotiation here as if they were equal partners at the negotiating table; Jesus is superior, and they know it and so they chose a way out; “send us into the heard of swine.”

The number of pigs isn’t mentioned in Matthew like it is in Mark 5:13 (“about two thousand”), but the herd is called large so that when the demons go out from the two demonised men into the herd and they all perish, we get the very clear sense of how big, how large, how serious these men’s bondage was, and how even this was no problem for Jesus.

But what happens next is even more surprising. The demons may have chosen their next place of residence but the swine would not have satan live with them for even a moment. They preferred death than having to live with satan. They rush down a steep bank into the sea and perish in the water.

The demons had clarity who the Lord was and seeing him they had a premonition that he was here to destroy them. It is they who say to him, “have you come here to torment us before the time.” What they did not expect is that the Lord was not here to give them a new comfortable dwelling or a change in residence. The Lord comes to conquer and destroy satan not to make him comfortable.

The narrative now takes an unexpected twist. For one, it does not tell us what happened to the two men in whom the demons had once taken residence. It takes for granted their new life of freedom from satan. However, we are told that the townspeople on being told what had happened begged Jesus to leave their neighbourhood. Were they scared? I think not.

The townsfolk should have asked Jesus to stay and stay forever, in order to be protected from any further attack. Why would you ask a mighty Messiah who has the power to deliver you from the clutches of satan to leave? The answer is obvious; we love our possessions more than the Lord. They would rather have their pork vindaloo on Christmas day but not the Christ who was born to save us.

Finally, to address the modern skeptics of the Bible, some who claim to be Christian and to whom demon-possession is rubbish. Such people claim that demon possession was just a primitive way that people described psychic or social disorders. But the Scriptures are not so accommodating to popular superstitions; if they were false or fanciful, they would correct them. Rather, they clearly affirm that there is a spirit world all around us that cannot be ignored. The war against satan is real.

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