GOD’S WORD AND COMMUNITY

September 30, Thursday

TWENTY-SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

      In the first reading we see how the Feast of Tabernacles, originally a harvest feast for wheat and vintage, was spiritualized into a feast remembering the exodus and the renewal of the covenant. The Word of God was read to the people. The word came as a source of great joy and stirred their hearts. Thus it helped greatly to build up the community.

      Few people are impressed by the fact that a bishop lives a life of poverty in a big palace or that priests or sisters are sober and restrained in their personal living when they use rich and powerful means and institutions to bring God to people. Missionaries, however dedicated and serving they may be, are not very convincing and have a hard time to build community if they import powerful means from outside. When Jesus sends out his missionaries to evangelize the poor, he wants them to be, like him, poor among the poor. True, evangelical poverty is an ideal not easy to attain. But does it still move us?

 

First Reading: Nehemiah 8:1-12

By the time the seventh month arrived, the People of Israel were settled in their towns. Then all the people gathered as one person in the town square in front of the Water Gate and asked the scholar Ezra to bring the Book of The Revelation of Moses that God had commanded for Israel.

So Ezra the priest brought The Revelation to the congregation, which was made up of both men and women—everyone capable of understanding. It was the first day of the seventh month. He read it facing the town square at the Water Gate from early dawn until noon in the hearing of the men and women, all who could understand it. And all the people listened—they were all ears—to the Book of The Revelation.

The scholar Ezra stood on a wooden platform constructed for the occasion. He was flanked on the right by Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, and on the left by Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.

Ezra opened the book. Every eye was on him (he was standing on the raised platform) and as he opened the book everyone stood. Then Ezra praised God, the great God, and all the people responded, “Oh Yes! Yes!” with hands raised high. And then they fell to their knees in worship of God, their faces to the ground.

Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah, all Levites, explained The Revelation while people stood, listening respectfully. They translated the Book of The Revelation of God so the people could understand it and then explained the reading.

Nehemiah the governor, along with Ezra the priest and scholar and the Levites who were teaching the people, said to all the people, “This day is holy to God, your God. Don’t weep and carry on.” They said this because all the people were weeping as they heard the words of The Revelation.

He continued, “Go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink; and share it with those who don’t have anything: This day is holy to God. Don’t feel bad. The joy of God is your strength!”

The Levites calmed the people, “Quiet now. This is a holy day. Don’t be upset.”

So the people went off to feast, eating and drinking and including the poor in a great celebration. Now they got it; they understood the reading that had been given to them.

 

Gospel: Luke 10:1-12

Later the Master selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go. He gave them this charge:

“What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands.

“On your way! But be careful—this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack.

“Travel light. Comb and toothbrush and no extra luggage.

“Don’t loiter and make small talk with everyone you meet along the way.

“When you enter a home, greet the family, ‘Peace.’ If your greeting is received, then it’s a good place to stay. But if it’s not received, take it back and get out. Don’t impose yourself.

“Stay at one home, taking your meals there, for a worker deserves three square meals. Don’t move from house to house, looking for the best cook in town.

“When you enter a town and are received, eat what they set before you, heal anyone who is sick, and tell them, ‘God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep!’

“When you enter a town and are not received, go out in the street and say, ‘The only thing we got from you is the dirt on our feet, and we’re giving it back. Did you have any idea that God’s kingdom was right on your doorstep?’ Sodom will have it better on Judgment Day than the town that rejects you.

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
you speak your word
and it challenges us
to give you a response.
You speak your word,
and it gathers together
those who are willing to listen.
Let it build us into a community
responsive to you in loyalty
and eager to follow your living Word,
Jesus Christ, our Lord for ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

The Mission

The Mission of Jesus was to show the true face of God to the world. He begins his work by forming a community of disciples. They apply a very simple method: to visit homes and begin with a simple greeting: “Peace be to this house!”. Although it appears simple, it is a huge gift, a gift the whole humanity is craving for. It is the gift of peace. The World stands in need of peace and that is exactly what is offered by Jesus.

The mission of the seventy-two disciples was to share this gift to the whole world. This early description of the mission journey of the disciples is a reflection of the missionary experience of every Christian in every age: the risen and living Lord sends not only the Twelve, but the whole Church to announce the Gospel to all peoples.

Christians have tried to build peace, but not always with the means suggested by the Master who wanted them to be “lambs among wolves.” Sometimes they preferred to resort to force, imposition, and intolerance. They were also immersed in power, like the kings of this world. We have not always walked—poor, meek, defenceless—alongside people in need of peace. We do not always walk like what Francis of Assisi has done —to have his name written in heaven.

The messengers are sent in pairs. This indicates that the Gospel is not left to the inventiveness of the individual, but is the work of a community. Who speaks in the name of Christ does not act independently, he or she is in communion with the brothers and sisters in the faith. The first missionaries after the ascension of Jesus —Peter and John (Acts 8:14), Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:1)— they paid attention to go two by two, and never alone.

In the Mission endeavour, the messengers go first to prepare the hearts of people for Christ. The task given to each apostle is not to represent himself, but to dispose the minds and hearts of the people to accept Christ in their lives. To fulfil this mission, the disciple must prepare himself : “Pray the Lord of the harvest” (v. 2).

Pay attention on this one important point: Prayer to the Lord of the harvest is not intended to persuade God to send laborers into His harvest but is intended to transform the disciple into an apostle. Prayer gives him balance, good disposition, inner peace; frees him from pride, presumption. It enables him to overcome opposition, disappointments, and failures; it reveals to him, moment by moment, the will of the “Lord of the harvest.”

 

Video available on Youtube: The Mission