THE BURNING BUSH: I AM HERE FOR YOU

July 14, Wednesday

FIFTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

      God reveals himself as “the one who is there for you,” for his people. God created people free. When people rob themselves or others from their freedom, God’s love is wounded. For God is totally committed to people, to their struggles and sufferings, to their precious freedom. When his people is not free, God is not free. He committed himself so much to our freedom that he sent Jesus among us to free us from sin through his death on the cross.

      Those open-hearted will understand Jesus and respond to him. To see God, to know that he is with us, to hear the message of the gospel, one must have the openness and receptivity of a child and be aware of one’s poverty. Salvation is given. Those who are filled with their own wisdom cannot hear or welcome him, for they try to conform God and the gospel to their own ideas, not theirs to God’s.

           

First Reading: Exodus 3:1-6,9-12

Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.

Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”

God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.”

Then he said, “I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”

Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.

“The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I’ve seen for myself how cruelly they’re being treated by the Egyptians. It’s time for you to go back: I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Moses answered God, “But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

“I’ll be with you,” God said. “And this will be the proof that I am the one who sent you: When you have brought my people out of Egypt, you will worship God right here at this very mountain.”

 

Gospel: Matthew 11:25-27

Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that’s the way you like to work.”

Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.

 

Prayer

Fire that burns without being consumed,
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
you are our God, the God of people.
Make us fully conscious
that you have committed yourself to us
irrevocably and without regret.
Continue with us your adventure of love,
keep liberating us today
from the evil in us and in the world,
and lead us to your land of lasting freedom
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Pride Vs. Humility

Today’s Gospel passage speaks of a thanksgiving prayer of Jesus. He thanks the heavenly Father, for revealing the mysteries of God to the ordinary people.

The scribes and the religious scholars and the temple authorities rejected Jesus – the mystery of God, while the simple, ordinary people in the villages accepted him. The self-proclaimed intellectuals had approached him to find faults with his words and actions; but the humble flocked to him listen to his message of comfort, acceptance and love. Jesus does not condemn wisdom and the intellectual power; what he condemns is the intellectual pride of the learned.

This passage closes with a self-introduction of Jesus: It is here Jesus explains his Mission – that he alone can reveal God to people and that he is The Son of God. “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” John the evangelist puts this in a different way, where Jesus tells, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn.14:9). What Jesus says is this: If you want to see what God is like, if you want to see the mind of God, the heart of God, the nature of God, and if you want to see God’s relationship with people –look at me!

As the saying goes, “It is the heart, not the head, is the home of the gospel.” It is not cleverness which shuts us out of the grace of God; instead, it is our pride. And it is not foolishness which makes us accept the message of the Gospel; rather it is humility. God’s mysteries are revealed to the childlike, those who look at everything with the excitement and openness of a child.

The problems in the community and in the Church begin to appear from the day we begin to develop the attitude of “I know it all,” and “No one needs to tell me.” This is a challenge for the pastors and leaders of the Church communities of our times – to keep aside our ego and pride and to be humble before the people of God.

The openness and wonder and not being judgmental are the qualities of children and the Gospel invites us to practice these virtues, or learn from the children. This requires humility. Humility brings us to the awareness that we do not have all the answers. This helps us to stand before the mystery of God, wrapped in wonder.

Video available on Youtube: Pride Vs. Humility