Ritual Laws in Leviticus

Scripture – Luke 8:43-44

And a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years and could not be healed by any one, came up behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment; and immediately her flow of blood ceased.

Comment

Some atheists try to mock our faith by quoting Leviticus.

Some of their claims include “why can’t I own a slave or sell my daughter or eat shellfish” in order to suggest that we can pick and choose what in the Bible we should abide by.

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Background:

Touching lepers, corpses and menstruating women, especially, was thought to defile a person and make that person, too, ritually unclean. More generally, the Jews, especially the Pharisees, believed that they were defiled by any contact at all with a broad category of people defined as "sinners."

To explain what Jesus is doing in these healings of word and touch, Matthew employs a formula citation from Isaiah (see Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:4).

Source: Reading the Old Testament in the New- The Gospel of Matthew – lesson extract – http://www.salvationhistory.com/

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I recently came across an audio sermon which dealt with this topic quite well

Fr Barron elaborates on the event in Luke 8:43-44 or Matthew 9:20-22, as follows.

Everything they expected was reversed.

Jesus didn’t become unclean, she became clean

By healing her physically, Jesus effectively restores her to full participation in the community.

He is healing her at every possible level.

What is more important?

Jesus thereby implicitly puts an end to the ritual code of the Book of Leviticus.

By reversing the expectation of Leviticus that He be unclean, He is implying the identity of the New Israel (which is the Church) would not be brought about through ritual behaviours but by precisely through contact with Him.

Ancient Israel believed that by following the prescriptions in the Book of Leviticus and many others they would discover who they were.

Jesus is saying it is not in relation to the Book of Leviticus, it is in relation to Me that you will know who you are.

Source: Fr Robert Barron - Word on Fire audio sermon July 2012

Becoming Fit For Worship

Scripture Mark 1:42-44 - Becoming Fit For Worship

And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

And he (Jesus) sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, and said to him, "See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people."

Comment

Now from the time I was a kid passages like this one, the healing of a leper, in the Gospel of Mark had been interpreted along these lines.

There aren’t many lepers around today but there are a lot of people that we treat as lepers.

People who are social outcasts and pariahs.

Jesus is welcoming and inclusive toward the leper and so we should be welcoming and inclusive toward the lepers “symbolically speaking” in our society.

Now I have got nothing particularly against that way of reading the passage but I have heard that homily so many times.

I am also pretty sure that is not what a first century Jew would have been thinking about as he read this account in the Gospels or meditated on the Book of Leviticus.

What did it mean for someone in that time?

Leprosy frightened people in ancient times as contagious and mysterious diseases frightened people up until the modern period. But more than this, it rendered somebody unclean, ritually unclean and therefore incapable of engaging in the act of worship. It is not accidental by the way that the person doing the examining the patient in ancient Israel would be a priest.

The Book of Leviticus deals with the issue of leprosy. In chapter 13 we see these elaborate instructions on how a priest should examine someone to determine whether he or she had leprosy.

Why the priest? Well he was the person who was monitoring the whole process of Israelite worship, including the question of who could or couldn’t participate in the Temple worship. So that is the focus it seems to me of this whole question of leprosy.

Now flash forward to Jesus time. We have seen that one of the principle tasks of the Messiah of Israel was to gather the scattered tribes. To call together as one all those who had been scattered by exile, by warfare, by sin, by their own rebellion against God. The Messiah would call Israel together because only a gathered Israel could fulfil its mission of in turn gathering the tribes of the world, to what? The true worship of God.

Another task of the Messiah was to cleanse the Temple. To make Jerusalem again a place of rightly ordered praise and we see when Jesus comes into the city at the climax of His life He does precisely that. He interrupts the false worship in the Temple and He seeks to establish right praise.

Now in light of this it is very instructive to revisit many of the healings of Jesus. Think of the woman with the haemorrhage who had been sick for many years and finally reaches out and touches Jesus tassel and is cured. She isn’t simply complaining about her physical malady. The haemorrhage rendered her ritually unclean and hence unable to worship. Think of the woman who is bent over for many years and Jesus allows her to stand up straight. You see standing up straight was the attitude of worship. Bent over she was unable to give God proper praise. Think of the man in Marks gospel with the withered hand. It was the same problem, someone who is so physically deformed was ritually unclean and so the same is true of the leper.

Everyone knew the restrictions laid out in the Book of Leviticus. When this man begs Jesus for a cure he is not simply concerned about his medical condition. He was an Israelite in exile from the Temple. Hence, he was a very apt symbol of the general condition of scattered exiled wandering Israel. In curing him, Jesus was symbolically speaking gathering the tribes and bringing them back to the worship of the true God. He wasn’t just the marginalised in a generic sense, he was Israel incapable of right worship.

That is why Jesus says to the man after He cures him, “Go, show yourself to the priest”. In other words, go back to the temple from which you have been for so long exiled.

Go back to the place of right worship.

I am now going to propose that symbolically speaking the leper stands here, not so much for the socially ostracised, but for those of us who have wandered away from right worship. Those of us who are no longer able or willing to worship the true God.

What is so important about worship?

To worship is to order the whole of ones life toward the living God, and in doing so become interiorly and exteriorly rightly ordered.

When you worship the true God, you have ordered all the powers in you toward the true God.

You become the person you are meant to be.

Mind, will, imagination, body, energies, passions, everything in you ordered to God now become rightly ordered to each other.

More to it, when all of us worship the true God together, we become among ourselves rightly ordered.

We come together around the common praise of God.

To worship is to signal to oneself what ones life is finally about. When you worship you know what you are about, what you are for.

Worship is nothing that God needs.

God doesn’t need our praise, but it is very much something that we need.

Saint Augustine said “We can uncover the nature of a society very easily by asking this one simple question, “What do the people in the society worship?””

He said, in his great text The City of God, where he examined the Roman culture of his own time. He said that Rome had fallen precisely because it had worshipped the wrong god’s. God’s who were vain and petty and violent. So the people became vain and petty and violent. We become unto like what we worship.

Paul Tillich said the key to understanding a person is to uncover his ultimate concern, which is another way of saying what he worships.

What do you worship?

If it is not the living God, you have wandered into the land of exile.

You have become, in fact, unclean.

We become disordered if we worship pleasure, money, power, honour. The things held up by the culture.

You might say, “the Mass is tedious and boring. It doesn’t speak to me, that is why I stay away from it.”

So what! The Mass is not to entertain you, it is meant to order you.

It is meant to straighten you out. It is meant to cleanse and purify you.

The Mass is the place where Jesus even now continues to gather the Tribes around Him.

The Mass is the place where even now the Temple is cleansed.

The Mass is the place where we become rightly ordered in the presence of God.

Keep that in mind as you meditate upon this man who is now before the Lord and asks to be cleansed.

And God bless you.

Source: Fr Robert Barron – sermon Becoming Fit For Worship

The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal Son


Multiple commentary provided for this parable.
Insights divided into 4 parts

• Luke 15:1-3, 10-12
• Luke 15:12-16
• Luke 15:17-24
• Luke 15:25-32

PART 1

Scripture Luke 15:1-3, 10-12

[1] Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.
[2] And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them."
[3] So he told them this parable:
[10] Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
[11] And he said, "There was a man who had two sons;
[12] and the younger of them said to his father, `Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.' And he divided his living between them.

Comment

We are drawn into the story. Why should this be so?
I think it speaks so eloquently of who God is and how we get into right relationship to Him.

Who is God?
How do we get into a right relationship to Him?

It is important to attend to the opening lines of this passage.
We hear that tax collectors and sinners were drawing close to Jesus and that Pharisees and scribes were complaining about this.

Keep those two groups in mind.

Jesus had a magnetic power, especially for those who felt excluded from the love of God.
But He also stirred up resentment, precisely by the very graciousness of His style.
The parable is a portrait of Jesus and of these two groups.
In other words it is a portrait of Divine Love and two typical responses to it.
The response of the sinner and of the self righteously religious.

Lets look at the younger son, who symbolises the sinner.

The one in open rebellion against God. the younger son egregiously insults his father.
How? By demanding his inheritance immediately.
Maybe it doesn't strike us as so negative boy it would have struck a first century listener to the story.
In asking for his inheritance now, the son is basically telling his father "I wish you were dead".
You get your inheritance when the father dies, but to ask for it right now is basically to say I wish you were dead.
Can you hardly imagine a worse way to insult your father than that?

Well that father, oblivious to the insult, gives the son exactly what he wants.
The spiritual symbolism here is quite exact.

Many of us want the gifts of God.
We want existence, life , success, health, love but without a relationship to the giver.

We want those gifts but on our terms.
We want to make them our own possession.
That is why it is so powerful when the younger son says give me my share of the inheritance coming to me.
The Greek work for inheritance means" substance" in a more philosophical way, but it also means money.
The money that I can have and put in my pocket.
You see what he is doing - he is taking the gift of the father and turning it into his own possession.
Give me my share coming to me. Three times he says me, me, me.

But see this will never work spiritually.

Source: Fr Robert Barron www.wordonfire.org


In effect, the father impoverishes himself.
Notably, the son has not told his father what he is going to do with it.
Ostensibly, one could think that the son was looking to simply take responsibility of the family’s goods he would one day receive.
(Though, given the fact that son has basically declared the death of his father, his next actions are not at all surprising).
Yet, instead of sticking around and managing the family estate he has been entrusted with, he takes off with it!

Dr Michael Barber

PART 2

Scripture Luke 15:12-16

and the younger of them said to his father, `Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.' And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything.

Comment

These gifts come from a giver. They come from a transcendent source. When we wander away from that source, refusing to acknowledge the source, the gifts dry up.

The divine life only exists in gift form. God is the one who gives and that is precisely why the younger son wanders into a distant country (the cora macra) but in the Greek it means the great emptiness. That is exactly where you wander when you wander away from the source.

We hear that he squandered his wealth.
You see, the goods that you have from God when they are divorced from any relationship to the source they will dry up.
That is basic principle of spiritual physics.

When you grab the gifts from God, when you divorce them from the source, they will dry up.

Next we read, a severe famine struck that country. He hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him out to tend the swine.
What an insult for a Jew by the way. He longed to eat his fill on the pods on which the swine fed. In other words he become himself a pig.
But no one gave him anything.
How beautiful.

He is in the Cora Macra - the great empty place. More to it, a famine breaks out.
That is spiritual language about how we dry up and become lifeless when divorced from God.
In fact we become less than human.
One of the keys friends, is that little line at the end of this section – “but no one gave him anything”.

What land has he wandered into?

The land of calculation, of contract, of tit for tat.
I'll give you something, you give me something back.

But it is not the land of graciousness, of gratuitousness. Ahh that is where his father lives. That is his fathers country.

Source: Fr Robert Barron www.wordonfire.org


Not only does he abandon the family, he squanders what he received from his father on debauchery - i.e., “loose living” (Luke 15:13) and harlots (Luke 15:30).
It is interesting that here sexual immorality is linked with the lack of responsibility to family, but here we need to resist an interesting tangent.

Ultimately, the son finds himself without any money in a foreign land.
To make matters, there’s a famine.
He ends up with nothing.

He joins himself to one of the citizens of the country he is in (Luke 15:15) and ends up feeding his swine (Luke 15:16) - which were of course known as unclean animals (Lev 11:7; Deut 14:8; 1 Macc 1:47; b. B. Qam. 82b).

Even the food of the pigs looks good to him (cf. Luke 15:16).
The man has, in a sense, been reduced to the level of the swine - he is among them, one of the “unclean”.

By working for a foreigner, who in all likelihood does not honor the Sabbath command given to Israel, he is essentially completely cut off from his God, his family and reduced to servitude.
It is important to point out that when the famine comes “no one gave him anything” (Luke 15:16).

In fact, the only person who ever gave him anything was his father - the very person he has rejected.

The son opted for the people in this distant land over him, but now that he has run out of money, they have kicked him to the side of the road - or at least, to serve alongside the pigs.

Source: Dr Michael Barber

http://www.salvationhistory.com/blog/the_prodigal_son_new_life_sacramental_imagery/



PART 3

Scripture Luke 15:17-24

But when he came to himself he said, `How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants."'

And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, `Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, `Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to make merry.

Comment (3 insights)

The Father is not a blood-thirsty tyrant whose wrath is appeased by the suffering of Jesus.

He is the loving Father in the story of the Prodigal Son who respects his son’s freedom too much to force him to stay, or to send a posse after him once his sins led him to the brink of despair.

The Prodigal Son walked away in arrogance. He would himself have to travel the road back in humility.

Adam, Eve and all of us walked away in pride. We, their sons and daughters, would have to walk back in humility.
Trouble was, we couldn’t, so deeply had we been wounded by sin.
So God became man and walked the road for us, though it turned out to be the way of the cross.

Perfect humility.
Perfect love.
Perfect suffering.

Relentless and undeterred by every conceivable stumbling block and snare that hell could put in its way.
That is what redeemed us and paid the debt of our sins.

Source: Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio


At this point we hear that the man “comes to himself” (eis heauton erchosthai). Here Jesus uses an idiom that is found in non-biblical literature. The phrase here does not quite mean “repentance”. In sum, the man has simply “come to his senses” by realizing that his fathers’ servants are better treated than he is.

He therefore comes up with a plan.
He will go back and beg his father to take him back, not as a son but as one of his hired hands.

We should note this dichotomy between sonship and servanthood, because, as we shall see, it is key in the story.
The son realizes that he has renounced his sonship.
But even the servants of his father are better than he is in his present state.

You Can Go Home Again
He thus comes up with a good spiel, which he hopes will allow him to return to his father’s house. He plans to go to his father and say: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:18–19). He sets off for home.
His father, however, sees his son “while he was yet at a distance” (Luke 15:20).

It seems the father has been looking off into the horizon.
The sense one gets is that he was looking, just waiting, to see his son return.
One is reminded of the story in Tobit: “Now Anna sat looking intently down the road for her son. And she caught sight of him coming, and said to his father, ‘Behold, your son is coming, and so is the man who went with him!’” (Tob 11:5–6).

His father’s joy at seeing his son returning is immediately apparent. His acceptance of his son precedes his son’s request for reconciliation - a reminder that we do not need to somehow impress our heavenly Father in order to turn his attention towards us. God is always waiting for us to return to him - He loves us far more than we could ever ask him to love us!

In fact, the son isn’t even able to complete the carefully rehearsed speech he has prepared for his father. He says, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:21). Yet before he can finish the last lines of his prepared speech (i.e., “treat me as one of your hired servants”), his father exclaims, “‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found’” (Luke 15:22–24).

The son is not welcomed back into the family because of his own clever speech - in fact, the father takes him back even before he can fully get through it.
This is a reminder that salvation is a grace. As St. Paul says, “. . . no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).

Source: Dr Michael Barber


Having hit bottom, he decides to return home. And so it goes, and this is good news with many sinners.
Maybe many people listening (reading) this right now are finding them in this place.
You think you have entered the high life but divorced from God you have dried up.
Maybe you have been down that road for a long time, the path of self indulgence.

Perhaps you have reached bottom like the prodigal son.

Talk to anybody who is in a serious addition to sex, money, drugs, power and that is exactly the land where they have wandered into and they will inevitably hit bottom.

Notice too please, the young man has to decide to return.
God is love, right through. God is gracious love, that's true but this God, because He is gracious love always respects our freedom.
You see without freedom our lives wouldn't really be ours.
God doesn't want puppets. He wants friends.
It is decisive. It is absolutely indispensable in this process.

You have got to muster the freedom, the courage, the energy to turn back.
But here is the thing.
Grace floods in, the moment this happens.

Because all this time the father has been waiting and watching and the moment he sees his son he runs.

How embarrassing that was. An older man in this Jewish culture would sit. People would come to him. For the old man to run was embarrassing.

So our God full of grace. He embraces this young man.
He puts a ring on his finger and a robe on him.
God is lavishing his love.
He wants to bring us back into the circle of His grace and this grace is above all joyful.
It involves celebration.

"I have come to bring you joy and that your joy might be complete" That is what Jesus says and that is the attitude of the Father.
He gives and gives and gives.
All he wants if for us to receive that grace and then become ourselves a conduit of it.

That is what God wants.

Source: Fr Robert Barron www.wordonfire.org


PART 4

Scripture Luke 15:25-32


"Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, `Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, `Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!' And he said to him, `Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"


Comment

Now we get to the older son. Upon hearing that his brother has returned, the elder son refuses to go into the feast and welcome his brother back. His speech to his father is revealing: “‘Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!’” (Luke 15:29–30).

Notice that elder son describes his relationship with his father in terms of a servant—he, in effect, does not relate to him as a son but as a slave. He “serves”, and “obeys his father’s commandments”. Moreover, the reason for his service is not love but self-interest; he resents his father for not giving him anything. In a sense, the elder son, like the younger son, renounces his sonship for slavery.

He even refuses to identify his brother as his brother (i.e., “this son of yours”) - he cuts himself off from the family. He does not want to feast with his family but with “my friends”.

The father however refuses to cut his son off― ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” Just as the father is eager to reconcile with the younger brother, so too he continues to reach out in love to his other son, reminding him of his place in his house.

The elder son may cease to identify himself as a member of the family; the father, however, never ceases to call him “son”.

Source: Dr Michael Barber
http://www.salvationhistory.com/blog/the_prodigal_son_new_life_sacramental_imagery/


But as the party gets underway, the older brother we hear is out in the field.

Remember now the two audiences that Jesus is addressing.
This brother represents the scribes and the Pharisees.
He has stayed, in one sense, close to the father. He is not like his brother who demanded his inheritance now.

He is not like his brother who wandered far away but his attitude reveals that he is very far away indeed spiritually from his father. He might be close to him physically but he hasn't gotten him at all.

He broods with anger and resentment at the party thrown for this wasteful brother of his.
So just as the father went out to meet the younger boy, so he goes out to meet the elder.
Listen to older brother speak. It gives away the whole game.

Look, all these years I have served you and not once did I disobey your orders.
See how little he understands his father. Slaving and obeying are not the responses of one who has fallen in love.

He has not caught the fathers effervescent generosity but rather he construes their relationship as one of contract and calculation, slaving, working, obeying.

This is the religious person who is no fun at all. This is the puritan. The censorious critic. The self righteous Pharisee.
The one who is always sensitive to the illegitimate rewards other people are getting. The one who calculates and measures and weighs. That is the older brother.

Listen now to the father.

My son, you are here with me always. everything I have is yours.
There is the language of grace. If only the brother can hear it. Take the gifts I want you to have. Let them surge through you and become gifts for others and then you would be ready to join in the celebration.

Friends, here is the question - a good Lenten question:
Which brother are you?
Let this story wash over you. Move into the dynamics of the story.

Identify where you are spiritually.
Are you ready to enter in to the rhythm of grace?
Are you ready to respond to this Father who wants nothing more than for you to be fully alive?
If you are you have become a saint.

God bless you.



Source: Fr Robert Barron www.wordonfire.org



Reflection - The scandal of grace

Many of us, if we are honest, will admit to a feeling of empathy with the elder brother of the prodigal son (Lk 15). Here he is, the dutiful son, working hard year after year, doing all his father asks without complaint. "I never once disobeyed you." And for what? His renegade brother turns up after 'swallowing up your property with prostitutes', and is he punished? Not a bit of it. The red carpet is put out, the fatted calf killed and a huge party put on for him. 'Yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends,' he bitterly accuses his father.

In Rembrandt's painting, the elder brother stands with his back to his father. You see his anger, even rage, in his stiff posture, his stern unsmiling look. No way could he join in the 'Welcome back' celebrations for this blackguard of a brother.

His bitterness rises like bile and the image of the good and dutiful son cracks as resentment pours out of him. The unfairness of it. He has worked so hard all these years, sweated his life out, managed the property - and for what? When 'your son'- not, note, 'my brother'- returns after his fun and games, you, our father, welcome him with open arms.

With shocking clarity we see the joyless spirit of this responsible man. Yes, he did his duty, he was the 'good' son, helping his father. And all the while, unknown perhaps even to himself, he harboured a seething resentment. How dare his feckless brother come back, even to be a servant! But worst of all, how could his father open his arms to this wretch of a son? His anger boiled over and now, maybe for the first time, he disobeyed him and refused to join in the celebration, refused to share in the joy of his father.

"He welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Lk 12:2). This complaint of the upright scribes and Pharisees, dutiful keepers of the law, is what triggered off the story of the two sons and their father. The scandal of grace. The scandal of really, warmly, welcoming the sinner. No accusations. No pound of flesh. No punishment. 'Quick!' the father says to the servants. Quick. Don't delay. Don't judge. Quick - make him feel at home. Celebrate.

If we feel for the elder son is it because of an unwanted suspicion that under our veneer of goodness lurks a similar pharisaic persona? Little things give us away; our lack of joy, for example when a colleague gets the promotion we felt was our due. The way we smart when others don't appreciate all we do for them. The resentment that rises up when another is the life and soul of the party while we are left slaving in the kitchen. Whinging and whining, even though it is hidden under our 'lovely' smile, we shrivel and our hearts turn to stone.

Let us take a good look at the elder son this Lent. All the years he lived with this wonderful father and yet did not know him. Are we, with all our years of 'goodness' any better? How well do we know the Father? How well do we know Jesus, the beloved Son who will lead us to him? Can we believe the Father when he tells us, 'All that is mine is yours'? Will we believe him today?

Source: Sister Redempta Twomey is a Columban Sister living in Ireland

http://www.columban.org.au/publications/the_far_east/2009/the-far-east-march-2009/reflection-the-scandal-of-grace.html

All Religions Are NOT the Same – part 2

Scripture Colossians 1:15-17

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;
[16] for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him.
[17] He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Comment

Unless we talk about God, the spiritual life doesn’t make a lick of sense.

I addressed in my talk last week especially the critiques of God that are going on now in the popular culture and I offered three classical arguments for God’s existence.

Ok.
In the wake of that talk you might say “Well good, I think there’s a God, I believe in God”.

Now what is the next step?
“So what?”

At the heart of our tradition is the deep conviction that God did not remain in aloof transcendence but rather God spoke a Word.

He did it first by forming a people, Israel.
To the priests, prophets, kings and patriarchs of Israel God spoke in varied and fragmentary ways, His Word.

And then, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews puts it, in the fullness of time God gathered His whole word and spoke it entirely in this one Israelite, Yeshua from Nazareth. By the way, there is all the poetry, all the strangeness and drama of Christianity in that little phrase – God, the ground of being, the necessary reality, God who is the source of all the intelligibility of the world, the God I spoke of last week became one of us in this very particular first century Israelite - Yeshua from Nazareth.

There’s the Christian faith – the Word became flesh. St Paul says Jesus is the icon of the invisible God.
What’s God like?
What does God want?
How does God speak?
Look to Jesus.

Jesus is a portrait of Yahweh sprung to life (N T Wright)
That is why he is indispensible and central to spirituality.

How do we live in relation to God?
How do we respond to God’s word?
What is God’s word?
What is God’s intention?
The answer to all those questions is - Yeshua from Nazareth, this icon of the invisible God.
(to be continued)

Scripture Matt 7:28-29
[28] And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
[29] for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Comment - All Religions Are NOT the Same – pt 2

A lot of scholarship in the last 200 years has domesticated Jesus and rendered him relatively easy to understand.

You know:
“He is one philosopher among many”,
“He is like many of the other religious founders”
“He is a religious genius”
”Ethical example”

Ok, that makes him easier to understand, I’ll grant you, but it misses the heart of the Gospel.
At the heart of the Gospel is the presentation of a very strange figure.
Connected to this is the “re- Judaizing” of Jesus.
I want to Re-Judaizer Jesus and put him against that very rich, very Jewish background.

How did Paul describe him?
Yeshua Meshiach – Jesus the Messiah, in Paul’s Greek that becomes Iesous Christos – Jesus Christ
Jesus is the anointed one, the long awaited Messiah.

What did that mean for a first century Jew?
What did Peter and Paul and James and John, Jews all, what did they mean when they said he is the Messiah?
What do you find at the heart of all four Gospels?
What do you find implicit or explicit in the whole of the New Testament?

That Jesus spoke and acted in the very person of God.

That is what’s distinctive about him.
That is what’s strange and disturbing about him.

We think at times “that people way back then they believed that God becomes human. I guess they could understand that, we find it very hard.”
No. They found it just as hard as we do.

But the Gospels insist upon it over and over again.

Some examples chosen almost at random.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:
“You have heard it said love your friends and hate your enemies, but I say love your enemies”.

Ok, the content of that statement is breathtaking enough, but that’s not what they found most disturbing.
It is what he said first.
“You have heard it said …”
You have heard it said, where?
In the Torah.
Well the Torah, that is the Word of God.
That is the Word God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai.
There was no higher authority for a first century Jew than the Torah.

Rabbi’s, if they claimed authority, they took it from the Rabbi that taught them and the Rabbi who taught him etc going all the way back to Moses and the Torah. There was no higher authority.

And so when this Rabbi from Nazareth who says “You have heard it said in the Torah, but I say”, he is claiming authority over the Torah.
Who could do that except the one who is himself the author of the Torah.

Jesus said:
“You have greater than the Temple here”
That would have thrown them for a loop.

For Jews of Jesus time that was the greatest place they could possibly imagine and the best thing they had ever seen.
It was the dwelling place of God.
It was the centre and focus of the entire Israelite nation.
Here is this nobody Rabbi from Nazareth who says “you have got greater than the Temple here”
What is he saying?
“I am the privileged dwelling place of Yahweh”
He is declaring a lordship over the Temple.
(to be continued)

Scripture Matt 16:15

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

Comment

Jesus didn’t ask “What do people think of my teaching?” or “What impression am I making?”.
Reasonable enough questions.

He asked “Who do people say that I am?”

It would be hard to imagine another great religious founder asking such a question.

• The Buddha wouldn’t focus on himself, and I say it to his credit. He would say “There is a way I’ve discovered and I want you to know it”.
• Mohammed wouldn’t focus on himself, he would say “There is a revelation I have received and I want you to know it”.
• Confucious wouldn’t say it’s about me, he would say “There is a path that I’ve found and I want you to know it”.

Then there is Jesus who asks “Who do you say that I am?”

The whole Gospel really hinges on this point.

Jesus identity personally is what it is about, because throughout the Gospels He consistently speaks and acts in the very person of God.

In the Gospel of Matthew (10:37), Jesus says “Unless you love me more than your father or mother you are not worthy of me”.

You might imagine a religious teacher or religious founder saying unless you love God more than your mother and father, more than your very life or maybe unless you love my teaching more than your mother and father, but to say unless you love me than the highest goods in the world?

What if I were to say to you today “Unless you love me more than your mother and father, more than your very life, you are not worthy of me.” Well you would have me removed from the room wouldn’t you. You would call security.

Who could say that except the one who is in his own person the highest good.

How about this?

“Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away”.

Suppose I grab one of my books on display and held it up and said “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away”. Well you would think I had lost my mind and gone right around the bend.

Who could say it consistently and coherently except the one who is himself the eternal word of God.

Here is another one.
“They stand looking up at the Temple” For Jews of Jesus time that was the greatest place they could possibly imagine and the best thing they had ever seen. It was the dwelling place of God.

Jesus says “You have greater than the Temple here”
That would have thrown them for a loop.
The Temple was the footstool of God. It was where God dwelt on Earth.
It was the centre and focus of the entire Israelite nation.
Here is this nobody Rabbi from Nazareth who says “you have got greater than the Temple here”
What is he saying?
“I am the privileged dwelling place of Yahweh”

Jesus says to the paralyzed man “My son, your sins are forgiven” Right away the bystanders say “who does this man think he is, only God can forgive sins”

Now here’s the point.

Jesus compels a choice the way no other religious founder does.
Either you are with me or you are against me.
You see why, if he is who he say he is then we have to give our whole life to him.

If he is God then he must be the centre of our lives!

If he is not who he says he is then he is not a good man, he is a dangerous misguided fanatic.

Jesus, more than any other figure, more than any other religious founder, compels us to make a choice.

Source: Fr Robert Barron
“Who is Jesus and what makes him unique”
And Spirituality2of5 -Who is Jesus Christ and How Do We Find Life in Him.mp3

What is Significant About Christ’s Resurrection?

Scripture 1 Corinthians 15:17
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.


Comment
What is significant about Christ’s resurrection?
St Paul said "If Christ has not been raised our faith is in vain"
It couldn't be clearer.

Without the resurrection, Christianity collapses.
Sadly, in recent years too many theologians and spiritual writers have tried to domesticate the resurrection.
"Oh, it just means that the cause of Jesus goes on"
"It just means now we are going to bear His presence to the world"
"It means that we remember Him fondly"
"It means that He has gone to God"

You see, the trouble with this is that those things could be said about any great and admired figure.
The members of the Abraham Lincoln Society could gather and read Lincolns speeches and say "Lincolns spirit goes on"
or even
"We think Lincoln was such a good man that he must be with God"

Well heck, if that is all it means then Christianity falls apart and Christianity devolves into one more cult of personality.
"We remember this hero from the past"

The resurrection is not simply something that happens to the disciples.
It is something that happens to Jesus.

His Father raises Jesus from the dead and He shows himself bodily present to His disciples after His death.

Simply resuscitated?
No, the way Lazarus was or the way the daughter of Jairus was.
No.
Not simply resuscitated and returned to this world.

But Christ is transformed.
He has conquered death.
He now lives through the power of the Father and in the dimension of God but bodily present to His disciples.

I think that is what the resurrection means and that event took the disciples breath away. That event grabbed them by the lapels and shook them and sent them around the world with the message.

When St Paul talks about the Good News, the Gospel, that is what he means first and foremost.
Jesus is bodily risen from the dead.

Everything else in Christian life flows from it.

If Christ has not been raised then his death is the death of a good man.

Tragic. Sad.
Maybe we would write songs about it. Remember it fondly. Wasn't He a good man and done in by evil forces.

But raised from the dead we now see that Jesus is the one who has conquered death.
Raised from the dead we now see that Jesus is the one who has conquered sin.
And if you take those things away you take Christianity away.

That is why the resurrection is the hinge, it is the corner stone of Christian faith.

Source: Fr Robert Barron

Why did Jesus have to go through this terrible ordeal?

Scripture Matthew 16:21
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.


Comment

Why did Jesus have to go through this terrible ordeal?

What is the meaning of His death?

The question of Jesus death has echoed up and down the centuries.

Let me get at it this way.
Jesus comes as a warrior.

CS Lewis says Jesus came the way He did, a little baby born in a distant outpost of the Roman empire because he was being snuck clandestinely behind enemy lines.

Jesus came as God's own self but entering into a dysfunctional world, a sinful world.

Therefore as He emerged preaching and teaching and performing miracles and radiating the divine presence, He awakened opposition.
We hear that up and down the Gospels from the very beginning.
He's opposed.
Herod tries to stamp Him out and He has to go into exile.
From the minute He appears in the public scene, some cheer, others are opposed to Him.

It comes to His climax of course in the passion.
When you read these great passion narratives in the Gospels, it is as if though all forms of human sin and dysfunction come to meet Him.

We hear for example of the explicit betrayal by Judas.
That you would turn your back on your friend and mentor.

But you also see the more subtle forms of resistance and denial when Peter denies he even know Him and the other disciples fall asleep at His moment of truth.
That sloth in the presence of the good.

You also see the great disorder and injustice of the Sanhedrin.
You see Pontius Pilate who knows the truth but won't follow through on it.
You see the incredible brutality of the Temple guards and the Roman guards as they torture Him and then lead Him out to crucifixion.
You see something even most terrible in those who mock Him even as He hangs dying on this instrument of torture.

It is as though all of human darkness and all of human sin comes out.

It is as though He draws it out by His own goodness and His own perfection and the radiance of His life.

And He's overwhelmed by it. Jesus dies. He really dies.
Not just apparently. Not just as play acting. He dies. Crushed by the evil of the world.

Then in the resurrection, God's love conquers that evil.

He took it on but then in the resurrection what we see when Jesus says shalom to those who had abandoned Him.

He says peace to those who ran from Him, to those who had fallen asleep in His hour of need.
When He says shalom it signals that God's love and forgiveness can swallow up all of the sin of the world.

What you see in the Cross of Jesus is the sin of the world.

The author of life came, Saint Peter said, and you killed Him. That means all is not well with us.
It means you can see in the very wounds of Jesus the dysfunction of the world but now all that sin, all that dysfunction has been swallowed up. It has been conquered by the ever greater forgiveness and love of God.

And that is why in Romans, Paul can say I am certain that neither death not life, nor angels nor principalities... can separate us from the love of God.
Paul knows it because we killed God. We threw all the dysfunction of the world at God and God still loves us.

God can swallow that up in His forgiveness.
That's Christianity.
That's why the Cross of Jesus was necessary.
That's why the Cross of Jesus saves us.
That is why we hold it up on Good Friday and say there is the Cross on which hung the salvation of the world.
We know we are saved.

We are saved precisely through that terrible Cross.

Source: Fr Robert Barron

Luke 10:29-37 - The Good Samaritan

Scripture Luke 10:29-37

[29] But he (a lawyer), desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

[30] Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
[31] Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.
[32] So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
[33] But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion,
[34] and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
[35] And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, `Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'
[36] Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?"
[37] He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."


Comment
When we hear about the story of the Good Samaritan we think it is wonderful parable, it is about the moral life, it is about taking care of those who are suffering, even those who are our natural opponents or enemies.

Certainly, that story does have that moralising sense but the Church Fathers saw something and it is reflected in the Chartre Cathedral window in France which shows the story of the Good Samaritan and the story of the Fall of Man intertwined. They saw something at a deeper level and which is evocative of the great story of Christian faith. What I mean by that, is the story of our fall and of our redemption.

True hero of the parable of the Good Samaritan is Christ, symbolised by this outsider who had compassion.

Let us look at this story in light of this interpretive key.

How’s it begin?

A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

In the literal sense, even today people will tell you that the road to Jericho literally goes down and of course Jerusalem is built on Mount Zion but it is a dangerous twisting road.

In Jesus day it was full of robbers and threats.

Now lets read it spiritually.

This man goes down from Jerusalem.

Jerusalem in the Bible stands for heaven, peace, reconciliation with God. It is the City of the Lord, the Holy City.

He went down from there to Jericho. This is a spiritual symbol of our fall from Grace.

Jerusalem stands for our union with God on the Holy Mountain.

Jericho is the place of perdition, the place of sin.

This wanderer is everyone, all of us who have fallen from grace to sin.

Isn’t it wonderful too – he fell victim to robbers.

Christians, when we walk the path of sin, when we go from Jerusalem to Jericho we are robbed of our spiritual powers, our peace, our sense of purpose, our centeredness. When we walk the path of sin we are robbed of the life that God wants us to have.

More to the point, we are beaten up and left half dead, as this man was.

That is a wonderful spiritual symbol.

What has sin done to us?

It hasn’t killed us spiritually. We haven’t lost our image of God.

We haven’t lost our spiritual powers but we have lost the likeness unto God.

That is to say, we have lost our friendship with God.

Sin has literally beaten us up and left us half dead, unable to save ourselves.

Think of sin here, as a kind of quagmire.

A condition we have fallen into and we can not extricate ourselves from it.

In fact the more you struggle to get out of the quagmire or quicksand, the quicker you go under.

So this is a picture of us, all of us.

Spiritually lost, unable to save ourselves.

Beaten up and left half dead.

What happens next in the parable?

A priest happens to be going down that road and when he saw him he past by on the opposite side.

Likewise, a Levite came by and when he saw him he past by on the opposite side.

The priest and the Levite.

Two officials. Two representatives of the religious establishment of the time.

Important figures. Powerful figures.

Those who embodied for the Jews of Jesus time all that was best in their own tradition.

And they can’t save him!

I want to put the stress on can’t rather than won’t.

I think at the heart of this story is the claim that they can’t save him.

Christians, when we are caught in the grip of sin, we are in the quagmire of our spiritual dysfunction.

What can save us?

Nothing or nobody who is in the same quagmire with us.

If we were up to our neck in quicksand, the one person who can’t help you is the person right next to you who is up to their neck in the quicksand.

A basic intuition of the Bible is we all have sinned.

Saint Paul say that, we all have sinned and fall and short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous. Not one.

That means, we are all caught in the web, in the quagmire of this dysfunction.

I don’t care how exalted a poet you are.

I don’t care how insightful a scientist you are.

I don’t care how bold a social reformer you are.

You can’t save anyone from sin.

GK Chesterton said “we are all in the same boat and we are all sea sick.”

That is the human condition. We are all caught in it.

The fact that the priest and the Levite can’t save this man is symbolic of this fact.

Now is this all bad news?

The fact that the priest and the Levite can’t save this man is symbolic of this fact.

Now is this all bad news?

No, because now comes the saviour.

A Samaritan traveller who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight.

This outsider, this half breed.

Of course, the Samaritans were the descendents of those Jews that stayed behind during the exile and intermarried with non Jews.

So they were seen by Jews as second rate, as half breeds.

And this is the one who has compassion and gets down off his beast of burden and cares for the man who is left half dead.

Who is the only who can save us?

No one in the quagmire.

But listen now.

Only someone who is humble enough to into the quagmire with us and yet powerful enough to draw us out of it.

In other words, only that half breed, who is both human and divine.

Low enough to reach us, strong enough to rescue us.

Christians, this is the heart of our faith.

We are all in sin.

No one can save themselves.

We can’t save each other, but yet one comes who is both weak and strong enough, both low and high enough to save us.

And this is symbolised beautifully in this Good Samaritan, this half breed, this outsider.

He is the one who has compassion on him.

All of us are caught in the web of sin. We are all a kind of dysfunctional family. Nobody from within a dysfunctional family can save the family from the dysfunction because they are all too tainted by it. It is only when someone comes from outside of the dysfunctional family that there is a real possibility of resolution. So in our spiritual dysfunction of sin, we need an outsider - Christ, who is both divine and human.

He poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.

That’s terrific.

Oil and wine symbolises the whole sacramental life of the Church.

Oil that is used at Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders

Oil is the sacramental life of the Church, which is a participation in the being and power of Christ.

He pours wine into his wounds. That is the wine of the Eucharist.

When we drink the blood of Christ and we take His life into us.

The sacramental life of the Church is our way of participating in the salvation that Christ offers us.

Isn’t it wonderful how it heals us of our wounds?

What are the wounds of sin?

The darkening of the mind – we don’t see things right.

A weakening of the will – we choose all the wrong things.

Selfishness, violence, hatred.

They are all the wounds of sin.

What do the sacraments of the Church do?

They heal us. Christ pours these in and then He bandages the wounds.

You want to be healed.

Then He lifted him up on his own animal.

That’s a great detail.

He lifts him up and places him on his own beast of burden.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

What does Christ do?

He bears our burden.

Sin is a kind of burden. It weighs us down.

It keeps us from being fully alive.

We can’t lift it off our own shoulders.

We can’t save ourselves.

But the good news is, this one who is weak and strong enough has lifted us up onto his own beast of burden.

Christ bears our sin.

He bears the weight of our dysfunction and thereby saves us.

He takes away the sin of the world.

There is a wonderful final detail in the story.

Finally, he took out two silver coins and he pays the inn keeper to care for this man.

We speak of Jesus as Saviour.

We also speak of Him as the Redeemer – which comes from a Latin word which means “to buy back”.

Sin is a quagmire. Sin is a sickness. Sin is being wounded. Sin is also “being held for ransom”.

The ransom was paid.

We were imprisoned in sin but now in and through Christ that ransom has been paid.

We have been redeemed.

Bought back. Paid for.

And so in this story He took out two silver coins and He pays the innkeeper, liberating us from sin.

Christians, what sets up this story?

Remember it is the man who asks who is my neighbour?

Jesus said love your neighbour as yourself.

Well who is my neighbour?

In response to that question Jesus tells this story.
In light of this interpretation which I have given, which is a very old one, the neighbour is Christ.

He is the one who has emptied himself out of love for us.

He is the one who put us on His own beast of burden. Who paid us back.

Who emptied Himself that we might have life.

The whole point of the Christian life is to be a neighbour to others as Christ is a neighbour to us.

Everything else is commentary.

God bless you.

Source: Fr Robert Barron audio sermons www.wordonfire.org

Moses and Amalek - An Icon of the Church

Scripture
Exodus 17:8-13
8 1 At Rephidim, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
9 Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, "Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand."
10 So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
11 As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.
12 Moses' hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
13 And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Footnotes
1[8] Amalek: the Amalekites were an aboriginal people of southern Palestine and the Sinai peninsula. Cf Numbers 24:20

Comment

What is blocking a lot of people with their relationship to the church.
The number one problem I have found when talking to people outside the church and trying to get them to think about religion is the problem of religion and violence.

All of this has been exacerbated by the events of September 11, where some religious people performed this great act of violence. It stirred up a very old idea, namely that religion is irrational and therefore violent. If religious people disagree with each other and they can't make good arguments about their point of view, all they can do is fight.

Well, people who are influenced by this view now go back through the Bible and what do they find?
They find lots of examples of violence in the Bible where God seems to be commanding all sorts of terrible things. Many atheists know these passages very well. They can run right to them. Even for people inside the church this is a serious problem.

What do you do with these texts that seem to be pretty dire and pretty violent. God or God's people doing terrible things.

Let me give you one perspective on this.

Here is the principle.

The whole Bible, for a Christian, should be read from the standpoint of the Book of Revelation and I mean now a particular image within the Book of Revelation (Rev 5)

Up in the heavenly court and we see the Scroll which is sealed with seven seals.
The Scroll stands for the Scripture. You might say too it stands for all of history.
It is sealed with seven seals. That means it can't be read yet.
The question is heard then "who will open this Scroll?" and there appears a Lamb, a wounded Lamb and He is able to open the seals. Who is the wounded Lamb, standing as though slain?

That is Christ, the Son of God, the crucified Lord.

The point is, it is in light of the crucified Christ that we properly read the whole Bible. He is the one that opens the seals to the whole of Scripture.
That is why the worst thing you can do is take a passage out of context and say "that is what the Bible says".
The whole of the Bible should be read through the lens of the non-violent, crucified and risen Christ.

With that in mind lets go to a reading in the Book of Exodus that has to do with a battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites.
This is the period where the Israelites are making their way out of Egypt and they are coming toward the Promised Land but they are facing opposition.
It says "in those days Amalek came and waged war against Israel. Moses therefore said to Joshua "pick out certain men and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle".
The passage ends this way "and Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword"

A lot of opponents to religion know this passage and say "who is this God who is commanding basically this genocide against the Amalekites. Who are these so called holy people who are engaging in this war?"

Let's read it though in light of the Book of Revelation. Let's read it in light of Christ crucified.

Amalek, like the Philistines, like the Egyptians, like the Assyrians, like the Babylonians, like the Greeks and like the Romans stand in the Bible for all those powers that are arrayed against God.
Don't think of Amalek here primarily as an ancient middle Eastern tribe.
I mean if this is just a story about a skirmish against ancient middle Eastern people, why should we be bothered listening to it.
It is in the Bible precisely because it is teaching us a profound spiritual lesson.

Amalek, like all the other opponents of Israel, stand for hatred, violence, self absorption, racism.
It stands for all those powers that are arrayed against God.

What is the command from God?
You must eliminate this power.
You must engage Amalek in battle and destroy him.
Now you know what comes to mind is in a few books later in the Bible we have the command of Yahweh to Saul to put the ban on, again mind you, the Amalekites.
Putting the ban on someone meant you kill every man, woman, child and animal.

Why is Yahweh mad at Saul? Because Saul didn't put the ban, but kept some of the Amalekites for himself and in fact he kept the king of the Amalekites Agag.
Samuel the prophet comes forward. He's bitterly angry with Saul and then it says he hacked Agag to pieces.

Again, people will say what is this terrible violent text doing in the Bible and why is God it seems countenancing this activity.
Again, you have got to read it in light of the Book of Revelation.
You have got to read it in light of Christ crucified, who opens the Seals.

The Amalekites in that Saul storey stand for the same thing. They stand for all those powers that are arrayed against God.
What is Saul doing in that story?
He is not seriously engaging evil, rather he is playing with it.
You see friends, this is a really important theme.
Very often in our struggle with evil, we play around with it.
We battle it to some degree but then we keep a little bit for ourselves.

That is exactly now symbolically speaking what Saul is doing with Agag the king of the Amalekites. He is keeping a little bit of evil for his own purposes.

I will give you a couple of examples.
Suppose you go to your doctor and he has diagnosed cancer and you go in for surgery.
The doctor afterwards says "Don't worry about it, I got in there and I got about 90% of the cancer out"
Would you be satisfied with that?
Would you be happy with that?
Of course, not. 90%? I want you to eliminate the cancer because the cancer is going to come back.

Suppose a husband came to his wife and says "Honey I love you so much and our marriage is going so well and I want you to know that I am faithful about 85% of the time"
Would she be happy with that?

There are certain forms of evil and disfunction that simply have to be eliminated. They have to be opposed.
Saul put the ban on the Amalekites.
Now read it symbolically.
If it was an ancient story about an old battle, who cares?
But it is about us now.

Suppose somebody is in a 12 Step program struggling with alcoholism and they say to their sponsor "I am doing great I only take one drink a week", would he be happy with that.
No. You have got to eliminate alcohol from your life.
You have to put the ban on it.
You have got to hack it to pieces.

You can't play around with it.

So Israel battling it's enemies. Yahweh commanding Israel to put the ban on their opponents is not a capricious cruel act on the part of God.
It is a profound and sobering spiritual truth.

You see friends, that is the battle of the church up and down the ages.
That is the church's task.
We are the New Israel.
We must battle Amalek up and down the ages, which by the way is precisely what you find in the Book of Exodus.
That mysterious line "Israel must battle Amalek up and down the ages" (Exodus 17:16)

You see why would we be talking about this if it is an ancient middle eastern tribe? Who would care?
We are not battling some ancient middle eastern tribe but we are indeed, we today now, the New Israel we are battling hatred and violence and darkness and self absorption.

And our task must be of that of Moses and Saul, although Saul didn't obey that command.
We must put the ban on it.

With all this mind to look back on this story it starts opening up all sorts of interesting ways.
Moses says to Joshua, "pick out certain men and engage Amalek in battle

Well who are these now?
Think in terms of the church today.
There are certain people who are out there directly involved in the battle. Directly involved in the struggle.
They are battling against injustice, against hatred, against self absorption etc..
People directly involved in the battle.

But then we hear that Moses goes up on the hill and he holds his hands up in prayer and as long as he is holding his arms up the battle goes well.

Who is he?
All those members of the church now who are engaged in prayer.
Who supports the direct battlers, who supports the soldiers in their struggle but all those "prayers" in the church. I mean monks, I mean sisters, I mean priests, and I mean lay people who are dedicated to prayer.

But then we hear that Moses arms grow tired and so Aaron and Hur come along to assist Moses and they hold up his arms so that the battle goes well.
Who are they?

Well, who supports people in their prayer?
Think of all the donors and all the benefactors who make the work of monasteries and convents possible.
Who are these but those who are holding up the arms of the church as it prayers for those directly involved in the battle against Amalek.

You see friends, this is an icon of the church. It is a picture of what we are doing here and now.
So don't be put off by these ancient texts that seem at first blush so problematic especially in our post September 11 world with all this religious violence.
Think of it now in terms of the spiritual struggle.

Friends reread these text in light of the Book of Revelation, in light of the Lamb standing as though slain who opens the seals and then in your own way, according to your gifts and your own state of life enter in to this great struggle against Amalek and God bless you.

Source: Word on Fire - Fr Robert Barron
Sermon 510 - Moses and Amalek - An Icon of the Church

Genesis 1:1 - The Big Bang

Scripture – Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Comment

You really must read this article
** God and Modern Physics **


The Big Bang Theory
You don’t look at a book and assume it has no author.

Distinguished biologist Edwin Conklin, an associate of Albert Einstein at Princeton university, agrees with St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274AD) proofs for the existence of God when he said “The probability of life originating from an accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a print shop”.

God may have created the world through a “big bang” followed by millions of years of evolution, or He may have simply created everything at once in its current form. We do not know for sure.

What is certain, however, is that it is absolutely impossible to look at an intelligently ordered and beautiful creation and deny that an intelligent creator is behind it.

Source: Do I Have To Go by Matthew Pinto and Chris Stefanick


A feature of this “scientism” is the extremely disturbing assumption that science and religion are, by their natures, implacable enemies.

Thoughtful Christians must battle the myth of the eternal warfare of science and religion.

For example, the formulator of the Big Bang theory was a priest.

When I say that the Big Bang theory itself demonstrates that the universe in its totality is contingent and hence in need of a cause extraneous to itself, atheists think I’m just talking nonsense.

Source: Fr Robert Barron

****************

MORE DETAIL

Extract of Christian v Atheist Debate transcript

How did we get a universe?

Now for a couple of centuries there was a kind of scientific answer to this question that seemed to support atheism.

Namely the universe has always existed. There has always been a universe and there is no reason to ask how we got it.
It has always been there. The universe is forever.

However one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century is that this notion that the universe is forever is factually false.

The universe is not forever.
The universe had a beginning.
In physics, it is called the Big Bang theory.

In a sense, first there was nothing and then there was a universe.
Now if you think about this for a moment.
This idea that first there was nothing and then there was a universe actually was stated before.

Before the scientists figured it out, the writers of the first book of Genesis, a bunch of Hebrews, said ‘first there was nothing and then there was a universe’.
Interestingly, if you asked these ancient Hebrews if they did any scientific experiments to figure it out they would have said:

No, we didn’t do any experiments, God told us, this is how it happened.

You may say this is common to every other religion, but actually it is not.
In most other religions, they believe God (or god’s) fashioned the universe out of some other existing stuff.

The Jews were the first to say, in effect, the universe was made out of nothing.

What I am saying today is that modern science has discovered that the belief that the universe was made out of nothing is basically true.
Not only did the universe have a beginning, interestingly space and time had a beginning.
Scientists used to believe space and time was eternal.
And so if space and time are properties of our universe, it follows that the term ‘before’ only applies to our universe.

In other words, before the Big Bang there was no ‘before’.

Source: Dinesh D’Souza vs Dan Barker – The Great God Debate.mp3

Or put a slightly different way

Discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics in the last 70 years have rendered the theory that the universe is eternal as improbable.

According to the Big Bang model of the universe all matter, energy, space and time came into being at a point in time, prior to that point the universe simply did not exist.

This fact tends to be very awkward for the atheist.
An atheist proponent of the Big Bang theory must believe the universe came into being from nothing and by nothing.

No such difficulty confronts the Christian theist.

Since the Big Bang theory only confirms what he has always believed, namely in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Source: William Lane Craig debate

A More Scientific Response (news article extract)

As science develops and the so called “Big Bang” theory of the origin and existence of the universe becomes more refined, “it becomes less and less possible for other explanations (of the universe) to be scientifically viable.”

The theory, developed by the Belgian Catholic priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître, proposes that the Universe has expanded from a primordial dense initial condition at some time in the past (currently estimated to have been approximately 13.7 billion years ago), and continues to expand to this day.

The model, according to Fr. Spitzer, has been revised, refined and scientifically established to a point that any other theory of the origin and existence of the universe has become harder and harder to defend.

Fr. Spitzer quoted the 2003 experiments by three leading cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, who were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.

“Every single Big Bang model shows the existence of what scientists call a ‘singularity,’ and the existence of each singularity demands the existence of an external ‘element’ to the universe,” Fr. Spitzer said.

He quoted Roger Penrose, the world-famous English mathematician and physicist, who corrected some of the theories of his friend and colleague Stephen Hawkins to conclude that every Big Bang theory, including the one known as Quantum theory, confirms the existence of singularities. Therefore, said Spitzer, the need to find an explanation to the universe’s existence drives us to seek “a force that is previous and independent from the universe.”

“The concept at this point is clear: nothing is nothing, and from nothing, nothing comes, since nothing is... nothing!” Fr. Spitzer said, to explain the fact that contemporary astrophysics demands “something with sufficient power to bring the universe into existence.”

“It sounds like a theological argument, but is really a scientific conclusion.

“There is no way to ignore the fact that it demands the existence of a singularity and therefore of a Creator outside space and time,” he added.

According to Fr. Spitzer, “this theory has become so scientifically solid, that 50% of astrophysicists are “coming out of the closet” an accepting a metaphysical conclusion: the need of a Creator.”

“What can we conclude of this? First that the Creator is really smart... and second that it must be a loving one, because He could choose so many more violent and chaotic alternatives, that it really has to make you wonder.”

Fr. Spitzer explained that “all this information must be conveyed in a simple manner to our seminarians, our college and high school students, who are mostly ignorant of the powerful Theistic message of today’s astrophysics.”

Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J, PhD - philosopher and physicist

Source: 1-October-2009 -- Catholic News Agency





If current Big Bang cosmology is correct (and the evidence is very good that it is) then the entire space-time universe exploded into being out of nothing.

Therefore, the Cause of the universe would seem to have these attributes:



· spaceless because it created space

· timeless because it created time

· immaterial because it created matter

· powerful because it created out of nothing

· intelligent because the creation event and the universe was precisely designed

· personal because it made a choice to convert a state of nothing into something (impersonal forces don’t make choices).



Source: Frank Turek

Isaiah 6:8 - Here am I. Send me

Scripture Isaiah 6:8

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."


Comment

We are ready for mission.

We’re gathered, we’re healed, we’re sent.

Biblical religion is a mission religion.

In the Bible, when God appears, when God speaks, when God call’s, He sends people.

With Moses, he is addressed from the burning bush. He hears God’s name.

Moses doesn’t stay at the burning bush for the rest of his life.

God says Moses, I’ve got a job for you. My people are crying out in their oppression in Egypt. You go and liberate them.

Isaiah sees that vision of God in the temple. He doesn’t stay in the temple but rather he is sent out by God to proclaim.

God addresses Jeremiah. Jeremiah says ‘Lord, I’m too young, don’t ask me’

Don’t say you are too young, I’ve got a job for you.

Saul of Tarsus is knocked down – and then he is sent.

In the first half of life we set the agenda.

My will, my projects, my plans.

Fair enough. Ok.

But in the second half of life, when you are ready to get serious, the Holy Spirit will invade your life and revolutionise your life.



Source: Untold Blessings – 3 Paths to Holiness

Father Robert Barron – wordonfire.org

Scripture Matthew 14:12-13

And his disciples came and took the body (of John the Baptist) and buried it; and they went and told Jesus. Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.

Comment – Feeding the Five Thousand

This scene is recounted in all four gospels, which is very rare.

Jesus feeding the five thousand.

This event must have struck them with great power because it is so central in the Gospels and it is so central really in our tradition for artists, for poets and for preachers.

I want you to know something first.
How darkly this account begins.

The story opens with the news of the death of John the Baptist. In some ways Jesus is continuing the ministry of John – baptising and preaching repentance. So He has heard that this colleague of His has just been killed. Jesus withdraws.

Well there is something frightening here at the beginning. Something menacing and threatening.
I think those who have a Biblical mind would see in this all kinds of Old Testament overtones.

Christians, how often the prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament were threatened – whether it was Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Elijah, Moses.

Again and again those who speak the Word of God find themselves under threat from a sinful world.

So here is Jesus withdrawing after the death of John the Baptist.

Then, the people attracted by His power and charisma – the people come out by the thousands to look for Him and they find themselves with Him in a deserted place. Now, again for Biblically minded people, this large crowd of thousands of people in a deserted place calls to mind Israel having left Egypt in search of the promised land now finding themselves a bit adrift and lost in a desert place.

The threatened prophet.
The wandering people.
There are very very powerful Old Testament motifs as this story begins.


Scripture Matt.14:14-16

[14] As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick.
[15] When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves."
[16] Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."

Comment

How does it unfold?
Well, the disciples realise the problem.
Jesus has been healing and teaching this crowd in a deserted place and there are thousands of them.

Evening comes on and they say “Lord, dismiss the crowds, so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves”

Notice something here.
The movement of sin is always in the direction of dispersion.
The Greek word ‘diabollane’ from which our word ‘devil’ comes from (think of diablo in Spanish) – diabollane means to scatter.

Scattering is always the work of the dark power. Scattering is always the work of sin.

The disciples here in some ways maybe unwittingly, against their own best intentions, but nevertheless are speaking the language and words of sin.

“Lord, send them away, dismiss them so they can get some food for themselves”.

Everyman for himself. There is the voice of sin
What is the voice of grace?
Bearing each others burdens in love.
That is the voice of grace.

That is the voice of God’s kingdom.
That is the voice of God’s communion.

But this tendency to say ‘split them up, let everyman fend for himself’ is the permanent danger in the Church.

But Jesus as always is the voice of communion, compassion, together.

Listen to what He says.
There is no need for them to go away. Give them some food for yourselves.

First of all – no breaking up of the group.
Even when they are in danger. These people are threatened. They are in an isolated place and hungry.
There is no food available. They are in danger.

Our first instinct is to dispel the crowd, to disperse the crowd. Jesus says no, especially now we hang together, especially now we stay as one.

But then, that wonderful and deeply challenging instruction.
Give them some food yourselves.

Remember they had said ‘let them go and buy food for themselves in the villages. Let them go do it.
The Lord says ‘No’. In the communion of the kingdom of God we bear each others burdens in love.

We don’t say that’s your problem – it is our problem.
We don’t say that is your joy and I am jealous of it. No, we say that is our joy.
We are in this together.

You know what I hear often is
‘you know what the Church ought to do is’
‘somebody ought to take care of this’
‘here’s what they should do’

Well, in all these cases it is someone in the church abdicating responsibility.
We are the Church, we are the people of God.
Well good, but there is a responsibility attached to that.
That means you just can’t say ‘there is a problem, now you take care of it.

The Lord says ‘you give them something to eat’
You do something to solve this problem.

Scripture Matt.14:16-21

[16] Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."
[17] They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish."
[18] And he said, "Bring them here to me."
[19] Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
[20] And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
[21] And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Comment

God loves dispensing His providence through secondary causes.
God gives us the privilege of participating in His own providence.
You do something about it.
You take the steps needed.

There was an old principle – See, Judge, Act

That is all contained, I think, in this beautiful command of Jesus – ‘You give them something to eat.’

Now what do the disciples do?

They say, ‘Lord, all we have got are five loaves and two fish. There are five thousand people here not counting women and children’

So we are supposed to do something?
We have got five loaves and two fish!
Now explain that one to us.

What does Jesus say?

Give them to me and then He multiplies them in such a way that every person is fed and filled and in fact there are twelve baskets left over.

Spiritual lesson

You give what you have, even if it is very little, to Christ and it will be multiplied.

You give Christ your mind, your will, your energy, your compassion.
Even if they are very small.
Even if it is only you and a couple of friends.
You give it to Christ and you will find that the whole thing becomes multiplied for His purposes.

Jesus wants us to cooperate with Him and we do it by giving the little that we’ve got and we will be shocked and surprised to find the effect that it has on the world.

What is the worst thing we can do?
It is to hang on to even the little we have and then say to the rest ‘you go fend for yourselves.

No! Even give away that little pittance and you will be surprised what Christ can do with it.

Do you ever think Christians, that every major movement began small.

For example think of Mother Teresa.

This nun in her thirties who left the relative comfort of her high school where she was teaching and she walked into the worst slum in the world and simply began caring for those who were dying.

What if some said to her ‘we have to do something about this crisis in Calcutta’ she would have said who am I to address it?

Well she didn’t say that.

She just went and began caring for the dying.

Soon she was joined by her former students and then her friends and then by admirers and now the Missionaries of Charity – the order she founded covers the whole world and their works have been of enormous power in transforming the world and in serving Christ and His Church.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.

It begins very small but in time it grows into this great tree and the birds of the air make their nest in it.

The kingdom of God is like a boy giving five loaves and two fish to Christ Jesus and watching it grow.


Source : Fr Robert Barron –audio sermons wordonfire.org