14th Sunday of Ordinary Time (7/8/2007)

Homilist: Fr. Donald Brick

On the way driving I was traveling I saw on the outside of a church and I do not remember the name and I am glad I do not but it was advertising an on-going education program in the parish. Di-Vinci Code spirituality. Now I do not know how many have read the book. Please do not be ashamed. That book is anti-Christian and anti-Catholic. For a Christian church to advise a course on Di -Vinci code spirituality indicates that it has come a long way from our origins. Somehow we who are disciples of Jesus Christ would have any room in our lives for anything besides Him. This book is not about Him. Benedict XVI's book "Jesus of Nazareth" appeared in April. This book is about Jesus of Nazareth. The purpose of the book is to show that the figure of Jesus that is arrived at in this way is "much more logical and, from the historical point of view, also more understandable than the reconstructions that we have seen in the last decades. I hold," the Pope adds, "that precisely this Jesus -- that of the Gospels -- is a historically sensible and convincing figure."

In light of this fact I ask: What was the Pope supposed to do, compose yet another historical reconstruction in which all the contrary objections debate and combat each other? What the Pope chose to do was to positively present the figure and teaching of Jesus as he is understood by the Church, taking his point of departure from the conviction that the Christ of the Gospels is, even from the historical point of view, the figure that is the most credible and certain.

After these clarifications, let us turn to this Sunday's Gospel. It is the episode of the sending out of 72 disciples on mission. After having told them how they are supposed to go out (two by two, like lambs, without money), Jesus explains to them what they must say: "Tell them: 'The kingdom of God is at hand.'"

We know that the phrase "The kingdom of God is at hand" is at the heart of Jesus' preaching and is the premise of each of his teachings. The kingdom of God is at hand, so love your enemies; the kingdom of God is at hand, so if your hand is a scandal to you, cut it off. It is better to enter the kingdom of God without a hand than to remain outside of it with both hands. Everything takes its meaning from the kingdom.

There has always been discussion about what, precisely, Jesus meant by the expression "kingdom of God." For some it would be a purely interior kingdom consisting in a life conformed to the law of God; for others, on the contrary, it would be a social and political kingdom to be realized by man, even by struggle and revolution if necessary.

The Pope reviews these various interpretations of the past and points to what they have in common: The center of interest moves from God to man; it is no longer a kingdom of God but a kingdom of man, who is its principal architect. This is an idea of a kingdom that, at the limit, is also compatible with atheism.

In Jesus' preaching the coming of the kingdom of God means that, sending his Son into the world, God has decided, so to speak, to personally take in hand the fortunes of the world, to compromise himself with it, to act in the world from the inside. It is easier to intuit what the kingdom of God means than to explain it because it is a reality that transcends every explanation. John the Baptist preached this change, speaking of an imminent judgment of God. In what, then, consists the newness of Christ? The newness is entirely enclosed within an adverb of time: "now." With Jesus the kingdom of God is no longer only something "imminent." It is present. "The new and exclusive message of Jesus," the Pope writes, "consists in the fact that he says: God acts now -- this is the hour in which God, in a way that goes beyond all previous modalities, reveals himself in history as its Lord, as the living God."

From here flows that sense of urgency that is present in all of Jesus' parables, especially the so-called parables of the kingdom. The decisive moment of history has arrived, now is the moment to make the decision that saves; the feast is ready; to refuse to enter because you have just taken a wife or bought a pair of oxen or for some other reason, is to be excluded forever and see your place taken by others.

From this last reflection let us move to a practical and contemporary application of the message we have heard. What Jesus said to the people of his time is also valid for us today. That "now" and "today" will remain immutable until the end of the world (Hebrews 3:13).

That means that the person who today hears, perhaps by chance, Christ's word: "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; convert and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15), finds himself faced with the same choice as those who heard it 2000 years ago in a Galilean village: Either believe and enter the kingdom or refuse to believe and remain outside. Unfortunately, the first option -- believing -- seems to be the last concern of many who read the Gospel and write books about it. Rather than submitting themselves to Christ's judgment, many judge him.

Today more than ever Jesus is on trial. It is a kind of "universal judgment" turned upside down. Scholars run this risk above all. The scholar must "dominate" the object of the science that he cultivates and remain neutral before it; but how is one supposed to "dominate" or remain neutral before an object when it is Jesus Christ? In this case one must let himself instead be dominated by, and not be the dominator of his object.

St. Paul said, “Brothers and sisters, May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now after a life of being a missionary St. Paul has nothing to boast about except of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, which again is a sign of His love for us. “Though which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” The word that St. Paul uses here world the Greek word “cosmos” we use that word in English, the cosmos which is the world around us. For St. Paul, the word cosmos means the forces of the world that was opposed to the teachings of Jesus. St. Paul is saying through Jesus Christ I have crucified to all the things that are opposed to Jesus in the world. Then he goes on to say, “For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, it does not matter if one is circumcised or not only one that matters, the new creation. You might recall Easter because that is what Easter is about it is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and through our baptism into that mystery you and I have become part of the new creation. This is what it means to be a disciple in the world to live differently than those who are not yet of this new creation and part of the reign of God. To live faithfully to this reality every day and to witness to this reality by the truth of our lives and through that draw other people to Christ. He continues, “From now on, let no one make troubles for me; for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.” The Greek word for mark is stigmata and we know that word is used about mystics who received the wounds of Jesus in their hands side and feet. But this is not what it means here. We know St. Paul had been a missionary and he had been beaten several times and he had gone through ship wrecks, he was in prison many times, he was saying to the Christian community just look at the marks on my body you can see that I have suffered faithfully because I really believed this. Now can we as disciples of Jesus point to any mark on our body. I do not mean literally although there are some Christians who do have marks of suffering, but do we bear in our bodies a faithful witness of the Gospel of Jesus that truly makes us disciples so we can so to the world around us, from now on let nobody trouble me for I bear the marks of Jesus Christ on my body.

The kingdom of God was so important for Jesus that he taught us to pray every day for its coming. We turn to God saying, "Thy kingdom come," but God also turns to us and says through Jesus: "The kingdom of God is at hand, do not wait, enter!"