22 Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday, September 9, 2006

Scripture: I Cor.4:6b-15. Psalm 145:17-21. Luke 6:1-5

Paul is describing what the apostles of the Lord and he, too, as one of them, must undergo for the sake of the Lord whom they are proclaiming and witnessing to as the move from community to community. Most of them will give up their lives in martyrdom for speaking out that Jesus is Lord. Their love for God seen through Jesus words and life brings them to suffering and rejection on the part of many. They are beaten and persecuted, but God brings them to the Kingdom through their martyrdom. Worldly people look at them as fools and the scum of the earth. They are in the words of Paul, "Fools for Christ's sake." Their only hope was in God and they lived out the cries and anguish of the Psalms. Today, the Psalm response expresses their hope and trust in God: "The Lord is near to all who call upon him." Psalm 145:18. This reminded me of a new book we started to read in the seventh grade at St. William's in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was about several of the Roman martyrs who were sought out from a cave (catacombs?) and were witnesses to Jesus by giving up their lives for the Gospel. I was very impressed by their total gift of self and that is about the only thing I remember from our readings in gradeschool.

Jesus is defending his disciples against those condemning their actions of eating grain-heads of wheat on the Sabbath. Those who are ritualists rather than pastors judge by rules and miss the point of the Sabbath. Jesus has to point out to them that David, on a Sabbath, even went to the house of God and took the bread to feed his soldiers. This sacred bread was reserved for the priests. Jesus' authority came from within his heart and soul in conformity with the true spirit and interpretation of the Sabbath. He caps this off with a very strong and astonishing statement, " The Son of Man ( a title Jesus used for himself) is Lord even of the Sabbath." In another place he also says, "The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27-28).

The theme of the grains of wheat made me think of the Eucharist. I thank God that the bread of life and the cup of salvation are the daily gift of Jesus for us his modern disciples. I believe the Eucharist helps us to see the bigger picture of life and not to get lost in some of the nitty-gritty details that filter through the hours of each day. Amen.