A REFLECTION FOR THE 20TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Salvation Outside? The people of Israel, when chosen by God as his own special people, regarded themselves as being uniquely favored, and rightly so. But by way of conclusion from this they began to regard all other people as being just so much material for stoking up the fires of hell. Yet we have God proclaiming through the prophet Isaiah, Foreigners who have attached themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love his name - these I will bring to my holy mountain. I will make them joyful in my house of prayer (Is 56:6). I wonder how those Jews, who so abhorred all gentiles, could ever reconcile this saying with their own attitudes. Do we still have some nuances of this mentality today? Yes indeed, so conspicuous among us! However, lest we feel like condemning their bigotry, it is well to remember that up to the middle of the nineteenth century it was the firm conviction of many Catholics that only members of the Catholic Church could be saved, and those outside the Church could only be saved by belonging to the soul of the Church, whatever that really meant. As with the Jews, this was a flawed argument that in effect tried to set bounds to the scope of Gods grace, to see him as a kind of sectarian God, serving the interests of a limited and select group. But Sacred Scripture - both Old and New Testaments - warns us against such a narrow and biased outlook. Gods house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples, and God will make them all joyful in this house. This was what God was proclaiming through the prophet Isaiah, as given in the first reading. St Paul, who regarded himself as being privileged to be chosen as an apostle for the pagans, reiterates that God will show his mercy to all mankind without exception. Moreover, the gospel story foreshadows the breaking down of racial divides when it tells us how Jesus cured the daughter of a Canaanite woman. The Canaanites, we should remember, were the traditional ancestral enemies of the Jews. They were regarded as a sinful race that embodied all that is wicked and godless, a race, according to Jewish thinking, to be wiped off the face of the earth. It was the only occasion recorded in the gospel when Jesus was ever outside Jewish territory, and what transpired there foreshadows the spread of the gospel to the entire world. It marked the dawn of a new era, when membership of Gods holy and chosen people would no longer be restricted to followers of the Mosaic Law only. Confirmation of this is found in the last words of Jesus to his disciples before his Ascension, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. Indeed the heart of the Christian message lies in this: that irrespective of provenance, race, nationality or color, whether we are sophisticated and learned, or uneducated and ignorant, whether we are rich or poor, we are all called to be members of the newly constituted family, which has God as Father, and Jesus Christ as brother. As St Paul pointed out to the people of Colossae, we are the people of God; he loved us and chose us for his own, and not because of any merit of ours, or the colour of our skin, or because we are morally or intellectually superior to others. Gods choice of us to live out the gospel of Christ to the full is really a mystery. And just as certain people within the state, such as members of the armed forces or police, wear a distinctive uniform, so must we Christians be distinguishable among the rest of mankind by a kind of uniform also, not in any material way, but spiritually. You must clothe yourselves, says St Paul, with compassion, kindness, gentleness and patience. Christs message, which is that of love towards others, must live in all its richness in all our hearts. Everything we do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as we give thanks through him to God the Father. It is only then that we become really Christian, that barriers are broken down, that we can go forward, sustained by, and sustaining, the community which has been brought into being by the preaching of the message of Christ. Finally, you might ponder over, and bring away with you, this saying of St Augustine my spiritual father and mentor, when speaking from Hippo, as bishop to the people of his diocese, about the union that should exist between them, What I am for you terrifies me; what I am with you consoles me. For you I am a bishop, but with you I am a Christian. My dear brethrens in Christ, May the good Lord today and always open our hearts to those whom at times who consider to be foreigners or strangers. For salvation is given to all depending on one’s disposition to the Word of God. +Reach out to somebody today! I wish you all and a joy-filled encountering Sunday in Christ Our Lord, Amen.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 10:18:16 +0000
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