Sermons
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 17, 2016, Year C
The way St. John writes his Gospel is different from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the so-called synoptics. All Gospels present us with several miracles of Jesus, but only John calls the miracles “signs”. For him all extraordinary acts of Jesus are simply signs of another greater reality God wants to give us.
For example, Jesus feeds the five thousand people in the desert who are excited because they had a good meal free of charge. Immediately, John points out that this bread is only a sign of another “bread from heaven” that Jesus wants to give us: the gift of his body and blood – the gift of his whole self. Or take the miracle of Jesus curing a blind man in the temple. All of a sudden the man can see Jesus for the first time as well as the world around him. Later, they meet again and Jesus asks him: “Do you believe in the Son of Man? ...You have seen him now!” The man begins to see him with eyes of faith, as the Messiah.
Similarly, Jesus changes water into wine, enough wine to get the whole party drunk. He changes something ordinary into an extraordinarily precious wine. In the end John explains: “Jesus manifested his glory and his disciples began to believe in Him.” The signs say who God is and what God wants to do with us and for us, namely to change our poor human reality into something new, something greater, something divine. Whenever God touches us and begins to change us into his children, it is like drinking a really good wine. It fills overwhelming joy without the morning-after headache.
Jesus performed this first sign in the context of a marriage feast. He wants to change life and marriage from a purely human relationship into a sign and an experience of God’s faithful love for us, or, as St. Paul writes, of Christ’s love for the church. Paul talks of marriage as a profound mystery which “refers to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32).
This may seem to us a lot of pious talk with little relevance to the strains and stresses of family life today of which the bishops talked during the recent synod on the family. We have only to think of the refugees, many of whom live among us far away from their families, or of the couples who see each other only on weekends because of today’s working conditions. And yet, when married people give each other the promise to love and honor each other in good and bad times, they promise something only God can do: to love unconditionally.
But yet, this is precisely what humans most desire: unconditional love not because of looks, health, wealth or success, but for their own sake, for who they are. True love always entails an element of eternity as millions of love songs in every culture testify. Who will trust a partner who promises love till the end of the year? Unconditional love is also what every child wants and needs: a stable family and loving, reliable relationships. And when a relationship meant for life breaks for whatever reason, it involves a lot of pain and hurt for children and parents.
A commitment to another person always involves a risk, a risk we can take when we put our trust in a faithful God. But if we do not have the courage to take the risk of a definite commitment, we stay at the level of the changing waters of human love and miss out on the wine of God’s unconditional faithful love. Do we want to stick with the water or dare we go for the wine?
Fr. Wolfgang Schonecke MAfr
The Baptism of the Lord, January 10, 2016, Year C
Annunciations are common in the Bible: Gabriel announces to Mary that she will give birth to Jesus, the son of God. An angel announces to her husband Joseph who the child is. Then later we have the annunciation during the transfiguration: “this is my beloved son”. And when John baptized Jesus, there was a voice announcing who Jesus was. Biblical annunciations are literary devices, we do not have to take them literally. They are created by the authors to emphasize the meaning of the events. These stories help us understand the beliefs and theologies of our biblical writers.
Without annunciations we can assume that biblical personalities lived lives similar to ours. They would often ask why God placed them in particular situations. To make sense of a life, it usually takes a whole life. What is true for us, is also true for Jesus. It would seem that the historical Jesus originally conceived of himself simply as a disciple of John the Baptist. Yet John was arrested and became a martyr, so Jesus could no longer be John’s disciple. He took over John’s ministry, and became greater than his mentor.
The bible says that no one around Jesus and John would have realized the superiority of Jesus to John when the baptism took place. The view that Jesus was greater than John only came much later: John was “only” the messenger, the precursor announcing Jesus. This superiority of Jesus to John was eventually solidified by Jesus’ death and resurrection. Luke obviously inserted late first-century theology into a passage which speaks about events that took place 40 or 50 years before he wrote his gospel.
The passage from Isaiah (Is 40:1-5, 9-11) is a classic example: Isaiah begins to understand the uniqueness of his call only around the end of his ministry. Though he is certain that he is a prophet, it takes him a lifetime to realize how different he is from other prophets. He does not attack his contemporaries like most of his prophetic predecessors. Eventually he understands that even non-Jews will benefit from his ministry. It took a long time for Isaiah to discover the uniqueness of his call to be a prophet.
Is it possible that it also took time for the historical Jesus to discover his own uniqueness? I am convinced that this is the case! As we only “gradually” discover who we are, so did Jesus. Strange things happen when we begin to understand annunciations as literary devices. If we do so, we might actually be able to identify ourselves with certain individuals we had never dared to do before. If we see annunciations as a literary device, we might identify even with Jesus of Nazareth. Then a voice tells us: “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased”.
cf: www.fosilonline.com (Roger Vermalen Karban)
Fr. Wolfgang Felber SJ
Twenty years ago I literally worked in the vineyard. As I was a volunteer harvester for a monastery my working conditions were probably more comfortable than the ones of those who did it for their living. However, each morning we left our house when it was still dark and we started our journey back when it had become dark again. At home again I did not have any difficulties to get asleep. Since this experience I always sympathize with the workers of the first hour who complain: “These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.”
Many attempts have been made to explain the logic of the landowner’s behaviour. There is just one element which has convinced me. The Greek text of the parable does not speak of the “usual daily wage” (V 2 and passim) as our translation does, but of “one denarius”. From other texts we know that this amount of money was needed to feed a family of six persons just one day. The landowner’s decision to pay the latecomers as much as the others allows the latecomers to have their living for another day thus preventing that some of them fall into misery.
However, Jesus did not want to present a parable which teaches social generosity. If he had intended to do so, the landowner could have given the latecomers their wages after the payment of the others. Such a behaviour would not only have avoided the dispute with the workers of the first hour, it would have also followed Jesus advice, “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,” (Mt 6:3)
The arrangements of the payment procedure are a provocation, and I think the parable cannot be understood if the provocation is not seen or understood. Jesus wants to provoke but this time he does not aim at the Pharisees, the priests or other Jewish representatives, but at the labourers in the vineyard, i.e. the disciples and all Christ’s followers – us included.
By this parable Jesus continues his answer to Peter’s question, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” (Mt 19:27) Jesus direct answer seems to promise a special reward: “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Mt 19:28) However, after mentioning strives and persecution and their reward Jesus finishes by saying: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first,” (Mt 19:30) which is also the ending of the parable which Jesus tells directly afterwards.
Despite Jesus’ word of the twelve thrones one can doubt whether Jesus really thinks that the Kingdom of Heaven is a community with a social hierarchy and a privileged class. If there are any VIPs in the Kingdom of Heaven everybody is a VIP there. This abolition of social ranking is not just something which will be done in the future, but Jesus demands it from his disciples now: “As for you, do not be called 'Rabbi.' You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called 'Master'; you have but one master, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be your servant.” (Mt 23:8ss)
Consequently, the question must be: “If there is no special reward, why should there be a special commitment?” If those who rarely go to mass enjoy the same status in the Kingdom of Heaven, why should I go to mass every Sunday? Why should I give alms generously if the stingy gift of the egoist weighs equal? And lots of other fields can be found where the same question applies.
At this point we definitively have to leave the world of the parable because it is the world of business and its logic is give and take. Jesus message is: “Don’t think of God’s Kingdom in these terms. Otherwise, you misunderstand it.” We live out of God’s love and everything we get from God is founded in God’s love. However, as long as we live our relation with God in the same way as we live a business relation we are unable to understand His love. The more we enter the logic of love, the more we live our relation with God as a love relation the more we understand His love and His way of thinking. In this logic we work for the Kingdom of God not because we will get an outside reward but because doing so brings us closer to God. It follows the same logic as speaking to a beloved person. We do so to be in closer contact with the loved one but not to get some reward.
Christians are both: children of the Kingdom of Heaven and children of this world. Therefore, we are always tempted to think of God in the logic of this world, in the logic of business. The provocation of today’s parable may help to realize the times when we are following this logic. May we find in these moments the courage to ask the Lord to understand His logic better.
- Father Ralf Klein