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Pastor's Corner: Share God's love and grace

To be a faithful Christian in the United States of America in the year 2017

It is hard for me to keep my mouth shut and listen to what others have to say. It seems that I always have more than two cents worth of input — especially on matters of faith. On occasion, I do listen, and I seem to be hearing more and more that it is becoming very difficult to live as a Christian in our United States because our rights are being infringed upon. Perhaps this is so … perhaps?

Now, before you just disregard this article, I would ask you to read Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18 and Matthew 5:38-48.

Both of these readings mark times in our Christian history in which we were being formed into the people of God. In the Leviticus reading the Hebrew people were being formed into a nation under the guidance of the one true God — called to be holy, a people set apart. This Hebrew national faith is the foundation upon which Jesus built our Christian faith. In the gospel of Matthew the author was writing to the newly forming Christian community and that community was trying to figure out what it meant to be Christian while living in a world that did not recognize the Christian faith, and it was, in fact, trying to eradicate it.

Both communities in reality had no power, no place or any rights in the time in which they were living. In both cases the only thing they could do was to listen to the words God spoke to them to take them to heart, and to try their very best to allow the message of God and the Holy Spirit to shape the way in which they lived. Perhaps there is a lesson for American Christians to learn from these two examples.

In the Matthew 5 reading Jesus is proclaiming His Sermon on the Mount. He is talking not only to his disciples, but he is also talking to a large number of people who had little wealth, no power and no status. They were accustomed to being dominated by the current world and religious powers. Jesus was trying to help them be who God created them to be — Holy with a strong sense righteousness; a people in right relationship with God, with one another, and with the world. Jesus was trying to help them to be a people who were not in power, but a people who were empowered to live as children of God in a world that could not recognize them. Jesus was trying to help the disciples and the people (and us) recognize the great power that they had been given as children of God; that ability to stand in the world with the pride and the self-awareness that proclaimed with their actions that they are Children of God. They were (as are we) by their actions to claim and to proclaim their personal value. At the same time, those disciples and those being instructed were to offer a challenge to those who were abusing them — a challenge to examine their actions.

If they were struck on the cheek by a Roman solider it had to be done with a backhanded motion, because to strike someone with the palm of your hand indicated that they were equal to you. So, when Jesus suggests that they turn the other cheek, he is saying that they are to force the one who struck them to treat them as an equal. The examples of the cloak and tunic and in being pressed into service for one mile and extending it to two miles has similar implications that the one being abused is to take control of the situation by pressing for recognition as an equal. They are to do this with no sense of entitlement, but they are to take action and live as a child of God.

Verses 43-48 of the Gospel reading from Matthew concerning the Love of Enemies, holds even more implications for us who might be experiencing a sense of the loss of our rights as Christians in the United States. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Now, I don’t know about you, but to me that is a very hard thing to do. I try my hardest to treat everyone fairly, and I expect everyone to treat me the same. I guess I have expectations, and my sense of entitlement gets me in trouble every time.

Jesus does not say that we are to try and love and pray for our enemy He says that we are to do it just as he did. Remember during his passion He asked His Father to forgive those abusing Him? Jesus was human just like us, and He knows that with the help of the Holy Spirit, we also can love and pray for our enemies. Sometimes loves means taking action and standing and presenting ourselves as equals — not as more than or better than, but as people who are willing to take on the responsibility of living as a Christian by loving when loving is very hard, by praying instead of striking back and by forgiving when every bone in our body wants revenge.

It is suggested that like the people in the book of Leviticus and those in Gospel of Matthew, that we, too, are called to be holy. We are being formed into the people of God. This time for us (when it feels like our rights are being infringed upon) is a time filled with grace and the love of God. As Christians we are called to share this love and grace.

Father, forgive us for we do not know what we are doing.

Come, Holy Spirit, enkindle in us the light of your love.

By Tim Maroney

St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church

 

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