Do we really want what Jesus is offering?
The first reading today paints a picture of the kind of God the Jews were expecting before Jesus - a God who will burn the evildoers, and one who heals the ones who revere Him. And who does not want this kind of a God? For everybody thinks their enemies are the evildoers and all we need to do to gain God’s favour is to worship him. But in the Gospel reading of today we have a Jesus who tells us what will befall those who follow him: ‘...they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. You will be betrayed even by parents and siblings, by relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name’. What is the point of such a God, who is going to make us go through the worst tribulations imaginable? Wasn’t the previous God, more the kind of God that would satisfy us - one who destroyed our enemies and kept us happy?
So the question we have to ask ourselves today is, do we want, or at least, are we willing to accept, what Jesus is offering? For it is true, as we know from experience that those who do stand up for good against those who do evil and those who do live like Jesus, often go through much suffering like Jesus, including opposition from their own families (see also Luke 12:51-53) .
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a good example of this. Right from her conceiving of Jesus outside of marriage and all the suffering that she must have faced, as a result, in her own community, her painful experience of finding no place in the inn to birth her child, to the ominous warning of Simeon that because of this very son of hers, a sword would pierce her own soul (Luke 2:34-35), to her running away with Joseph and the baby to Egypt to avoid Herod’s murderous fear of a prophesied King, to her fears for Jesus during his mission when she tried to pull him out and take him home (Mark: 3 21), all the way to the passion and death on the cross where she sees her scourged and tortured son hanging in ignominy, rejected by the very people he came to serve and save, it is clear that Mary’s fiat (her 'yes') to God, her faithfulness to God, resulted in something similar to what Jesus promised his disciples in today’s Gospel, namely terrible suffering. But, as today’s Gospel says, in her endurance, she saves her soul, which is another way of saying that it is through this that she fulfilled her own destiny, or became her fullest self. And the peace and fulfillment that such a way of living brings with it, is the only thing that Jesus is offering.
So we need to make a choice knowing fully well what we are choosing, when we claim that we want to be followers of Jesus. Not that we can always live like this, just as Peter and the other Apostles could not live as Jesus wanted them to live, till the time that they had a radical conversion that we celebrate on the feast of Pentecost. But are we at least trying, as the disciples tried, failing as they did, but still trying again - or have we ‘chosen’ to take another path, as Judas did, a path we believe will take us to the kind of God we see in the first reading?
Such a reflection on our lives may obviously raise many questions. for instance, when we choose to baptise our children, what is the real choice we are making? Of course, baptism of children (unlike the baptism of adults) is primarily an entrance into the community that chooses to live like Jesus, which forces us to ask the question: Are we part of a community that chooses to at least try to live like Jesus, with all that it may entail as today’s Gospel warns us?
Or again, when we bring up our children, and encourage them to go for their First Holy Communion, or when we encourage our young teenagers/adults to go for the sacrament of Confirmation, are we really teaching them that this is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus. And if we are not, if these ideas are far from our minds even, then we can reflect on whether such ‘sacraments’ which are defined as external expressions of an internal reality, are truly sacraments for our children, and for us who make up their primary community?
There is a story that St. Teresa of Avila was once on her way to found another monastery when suddenly, during a storm, she fell from her horse into the muddy ground during a storm. Having a quick temper, she exclaimed: “Oh my Lord! When will you cease scattering obstacles in our path!” To which the Lord replied: “Do not complain, daughter. This is how I treat my friends.” Teresa then retorted, "If this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder that you have so few".
First Reading: Malachi 4: 1-2a
See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.
For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray, for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them. “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes and in various places famines and plagues, and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance, for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and siblings, by relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.
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