+ The underlying concept in today’s readings is that when God
appears to be loving, his people are fearful of him, mistrusting of him, afraid
of him. This is quite an absolute mystery. Why would anyone turn
away from love, why does anyone turn away from love?
The most obvious response
might be: the loved doesn’t feel worthy to be loved, the loved has very low
self-esteem, the loved has been loved and left behind before, the loved can’t
see beyond his own subjective viewpoint, the love has no real understanding of
who the lover is.
In this case the lover is GOD
THE ALMIGHTY, the all TENDER, the all COMPASSIONATE and FORGIVING Creator and
Sustainer of the Universe and Persons with everything that goes into being a
humanly conscious and aware creature who responds primarily to love, in order
to love.
In the first reading from the
Prophet Hosea, we see the Lord loving his infant family, Israel and Ephraim. He
is trying to see that they have what they need, and yet they keep turning away
from him, but he never turns away from them, and that he always has led them
with the strings of kindness and love. He fed them with what they needed!
In the gospel passage Jesus
instructs his disciples to offer this same kind of love, when they announce the
needed “heavenly food” of the arrival of God’s Kingdom in their midst – and he
is referring here to himself – Jesus is the Living Bread from Heaven, here to
offer sustenance, forgiveness and life eternal. Saying out loud: PEACE TO THIS
PLACE would be the test to see if the people in each town or house were even
capable of the slightest understanding of what this greeting means: if the
response is something like: “hey you can take your “peace” and shove it” – then
its off to neighboring towns and villages.
The world today is full of
nervous people who are desperately seeking after deep peace, deep trust, deep
love, and yes, eternal life. The government of our country is in a very bad way
and is providing the world-stage with the exact opposite: turmoil, chaos, lies,
hatred, bigotry, and looming present death to society and civilization as we
have known it.
And, so it is up to us, as disciples
of Christ this day, to announce the fact that the Kingdom of God, and of his
Christ and of their Spirit who is ultimately in charge of everything – is
growing very impatient with lack of response to the potentially catastrophic
results that could play out – if Christians and all others of good-faith and
conscience do not stand up and protest and demand change for the ultimate good
of everyone on planet earth.
If not us, then who will do
it???
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