HOMILY WEEK 02 03 – Year I
Towards a More Peaceful, Pure Faith
(Heb 7:1-3,15-17; Ps 110; Mk 3:1-6)
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Which of the following statements resonates most deeply with you: Law and legalism, or Love and relationships?
The readings today invite us to deepen our faith in Jesus as Son of God and King of Peace, and to check out our attitude towards the way we live out our faith and see other people.
Jesus always spoke and acted in the person of God. This was especially evident when he would say things like: “You have heard it said (implying the Torah, the core of OT Jewish religion) but I say to you (thus overriding even the Torah), or in yesterday’s gospel, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (thus over-riding even the Sabbath laws).
While in the Gospel, we see Jesus as the Son of God, in the first reading from Hebrews, we see him presented as a King of Salem, or Shalom, or peace. Contrary to the mysterious OT Melchizedek of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who serves as a very clear Old Testament pre-figuring of Jesus, Matthew provides us with a very precise genealogy in the gospel of Matthew. We know that this priest of God is God, and thus the King of Peace. He can give us a peace that the world cannot give – as peace is a gift of his Spirit.
When interviewed about the prayer service for the families of the RCMP officers who were shot in St Albert early Saturday January 17th, 2015, pastor Dean mentioned the word “Salem” – meaning peace, and that the hope for the gathering was to arrive at a certain peace for everyone in the face of that tragedy that affected everyone in the community.
Today’s gospel presents another scenario in which Jesus overrides the Jewish laws, as he heals a man on the Sabbath, after first putting the legalists in the crowd on the spot as to the legality of healing on the Sabbath. The irony is that after he performs a grace-filled act of healing, for which they should be grateful, the Pharisees immediately went out and conspired with the Herodians to destroy him. What jealousy and spitefulness a narrow, legalistic mind-set is capable of!
Before judging these Jewish religious leaders too harshly and quickly, however, we would do well to check our own attitudes towards the living out of our faith. An attitude, to me, is the habitual way we think, feel and act about any given idea or concept in our lives. We may say one thing, but our actions can betray a deeper, less than ideal attitude when placed before the light of the gospels.
Often, it can centre on our notion of right religion, piety, spirituality and ecclesiology or view of how we are to do “church.” At times, it may betray a resistance to seeing Christ in those we don’t agree with or perhaps tend to judge as not meeting our higher standards. Often, it is much easier to see Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament than in another person who just doesn’t fit our narrow perspective as to how a believer should be.
I remember someone helping me get the Blessed Sacrament at a university chapel so I could bring communion to a patient in the nearby hospital. When I went to bid that person farewell, realizing I would probably never see him again, he admonished me to be quiet and not talk to him, because I was carrying the Blessed Sacrament. I was disappointed and hurt, for a variety of reasons. One was I was not able to say goodbye to him in a cordial manner. At a deeper level, it bothered me that he did not realize Christ was in me, not just in my pocket, and also in him, and I wanted to greet the Christ in him. After all, did not Jesus talk to people, touch them, enter their homes, eat and laugh with them? Did he not “quicken” his cousin John the Baptist in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greeted her?
Perhaps this gospel can be an invitation to re-think our idea of being holy and where and in whom we see or do not see Jesus.
The Eucharist is an agape, a love feast, a meal that surrounds us with the peace that only Jesus could give. During it we exchange a sign of peace, which is so fitting as Jesus is the King of Peace.
So, may our celebration deepen our faith in Jesus as Son of God, as King of Peace; help us to experience in our lives that profound Salem or Shalom that only he can give, and empower us to see Jesus in the least likely places and people.
