Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Building a community is hard work and it's not always pretty. Sometimes, the members of that community hurt one another. The church is no exception, despite being the visible Kingdom of Jesus on earth. Because it's sometimes hard to love one another, Jesus gave us this radical command to forgive. It may not always seem fair, but we are putting ourselves in the hands of the one who has forgiven us even more.

Jesus came to lift up the lowly, not cheer on the powerful. The rich man and Lazarus is a story illustrating that. The powerful of the day certainly didn't need any help. In a Kingdom where the first would be last and the last would be first, Jesus always stood with those who were already last.

Pentecost (the story of which is found in Acts 2) is the final piece of God's new play with Jesus's coming: the Holy Spirit descends on his people. This is God's affirmation that the Church is caught in the very spirit of the Trinity. Because of Pentecost, we know that God remains with us, even though Jesus did not remain in bodily form.

Jesus has spent a lot of time talking about the poor attitudes of the religious leaders, now he gives them a glimpse of what a good attitude would look like. If their eyes weren't set on power, perhaps they might see better those around them. And if those people were given some discipling, perhaps they would become members of this new Kingdom that Jesus talked about. This could be a great gift, certainly worth celebrating as much as finding something lost.

Jesus sure didn't mind making things awkward! Invited to a meal where it was almost certain that people would have been looking to sit in the place of honor, he talks about the futility of doing so. It's interesting to think about the host, a Pharisee, quietly going around telling people to move somewhere else, and Jesus calling out the action as an indication of a heart not tuned to the ways of Jesus. Do you think he ever got invited back?

What does it take to be saved? Jesus talks about those who thought they would be, but were still cast into darkness at the judgement. He has been hitting the religious leaders pretty hard, and certainly this applies to them. They were literally the people whose houses he had eaten, and who had encouraged him to teach for show. Generally, though, entering the Kingdom through the narrow gate is to do nothing less than the Jesus way itself, and he is the narrow way.

Jesus is pronouncing some pretty clear judgements on the religious elite of his day, the "fig trees" that had received extra care because they were in the special "vineyard" of God's leadership. Unfortunately, they were not doing their job as fruit bearers for God's cause, and chose instead to use their status for personal gain. This is not the way things must be in the Kingdom of Jesus, and he has no patience for those who work against his cause.

Is Jesus out to start fights? Our God is about unity and harmony, so that's definitely not the primary goal of the gospel. But the Gospel can be difficult for some, and will be rejected by others. In those cases, the people in Jesus's day were not to abandon their newfound faith, but to hold to it. While this wasn't the easy path, this is the way that the Kingdom found its place.

With all the talk Jesus did about Kingdoms, it must have been difficult to separate people from ideas of riches and power. Neither of those were what Jesus came to provide. As he laid out the extreme differences between riches in the world and riches in his Kingdom, there must have been a few scratches of the head. Does he really want us to do that?

It seems like Jesus is being unfairly harsh on the entire group of religious leaders, but he does so with good reason. These are the religious leaders who have been speaking on God's behalf, and the people understood their mandates as being straight from God. Jesus needed to correct both the administration of the Law and the leaders themselves, because the selfish and power-hungry approach of the religious leaders was out of line with that of the Kingdom of Jesus. Of course, he also wanted them to be part of that Kingdom. Leaders like Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Paul got it. In all likelihood, those three were part of a much larger group.