JESUS Sends Out The First Missionaries

"Go and proclaim this message: The kingdom of heaven is near.  Heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, cleanse the lepers, and drive out demons.  You received this as a gift, so give it as a gift.  Do not carry any gold, silver or copper in your purses.  Do not carry a traveler's bag, or an extra shirt, or sandals, or walking stick: workers deserve their living.

When you come to a town or a village, look for a worthy person and stay there until you leave.

As you enter the house, wish it peace.  If the people in the house deserve it your peace will be on them; if they do not deserve it, your blessing will come back to you.

And if you are not welcomed and your words are not listened to, leave that house or that town and shake the dust off your feet.  I assure you, it will go easier for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment that it will for the people of that town." - Matthew 10:7-15 

(The successors of the apostles will be missionaries like them.  They will not be primarily the administrators of an established Church, but living poorly among them the poor, they will establish new Churches.  This new chapter will speak of a mission, the major responsibility of a Christian community.) 

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Can A Mortal Be Just Before GOD?

"Then Job answered:

Very well I know that it is so.

But how can a mortal be just before GOD?

If one were to contend with HIM,

not once in a thousand times would HE answer.

HIS power is vast, HIS wisdom profound.

Who has resisted HIM and come out unharmed?

HE moves mountains before they are aware;

HE overturns them in HIS rage.

HE makes the earth tremble

and its pillars quake.

HE commands the sun, and it does not shine;

HE seals off the light of the stars.

HE alone stretches out the skies

and treads on the waves of the seas.

HE made the Bear and Orion,

the Pleiades and every constellation.

HIS wonders are past all reckoning,

HIS miracles beyond all counting.

HE passes by, but I do not see HIM;

HE moves on, but I do not notice HIM.

If HE snatches away, who can stop HIM?

Who can say to HIM, 'What are YOU doing?'

GOD does not turn back when angered;

before HIM Rahab's cohorts cowered.

How then can I answer HIM

and find words to argue with HIM?

If HE does not answer when I am right,

shall I plead with my judge for mercy?

Even if I appealed and HE answered,

I do not believe that HE would have heard."

- Job 9:1-16

(Job is upset before an inaccessible GOD.  The Creator's greatness does not console the one who suffers without being heard.  The misfortune of a single just one distorts creation.

Again, Job not only questions evil, but the very situation created by human existence with its freedom.  The GOD who made us free persons must also be a Person, and as long as HE does not speak to us, HIS silence may be interpreted as a refusal to dialogue and a proof of indifference toward us.

Can a mortal be just before GOD?  The same question is found in 4:17 and 22:2.  This guilt feeling and the opposite feeling of hostility towards GOD are two sides of the same truth: the human condition is unacceptable as long as GOD makes people who cannot find HIM.)

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JESUS Unwelcome In A Samaritan Village

"As the time drew near when JESUS would be taken up to heaven, HE made up HIS mind to go to Jerusalem.  HE sent ahead of HIM some messengers, who entered a Samaritan village to prepare a lodging for HIM.  But the people would not receive HIM, because HE was on HIS way to Jerusalem.  Seeing this, James and John, HIS disciples, said, 'LORD, do YOU want us to call down fire from heaven to reduce them to ashes?'  JESUS turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village." - Luke 9:51-56  

(After having recalled the actions of JESUS in Galilee, Luke begins the second part of his Gospel, where he brings together words of JESUS spoken on different occasions.  In order to preserve continuity in his account, he imagines that JESUS is giving these responses while on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem where the part of his Gospel will take place.

The first paragraph reminds us that between the two provinces of Galilee and Judea, there was Samaria.  Its people were Samaritans, non-Jews, and the two people really hated each other.  When Jews from Galilee were going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, every door was closed to them throughout Samaria.

It would seem that each time JESUS meets Samaritans, it is to teach us a new way of seeing those who do not share our faith.  Religions have often been aggressive, at times very violent, especially those religions that see themselves as a revelation of the only GOD.  This was already the case in the Old Testament.  JESUS is not part of such fanaticism, teaching us not to confuse GOD's cause with ours nor with the interests of our religious community.  There is absolute respect for those GOD leads by another road.  What a contrast with the legends of the past that this account awakens in verse 54 [see 2 Kings 1:9].

Here JESUS tells HIS apostles to be less impulsive: the Samaritans who refuse to welcome JESUS on this occasion are not guiltier than those who close their doors to a stranger.  Why destroy this little village, if by doing his they still had to look for a place in another village?  It was better to move on without delay.)

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Who Is The Greatest?

"One day, the disciples were arguing about which of them was the most important.  But JESUS knew their thoughts, so HE took a little child and stood him by HIS side.  Then HE said to them, 'Whoever welcomes this little child in MY name, welcomes ME; and whoever welcomes ME, welcomes the one who sent ME.  And listen: the one who is found to be the least among you all, is the one who is the greatest.'

Then John spoke up, 'Master, we saw someone who drives out demons by calling upon YOUR name, and we tried to forbid him, because he doesn't follow YOU with us.'  But JESUS said, 'Don't forbid him.  He who is not against you is for you.'" - Luke 9:46-50  

(Mark remarks that JESUS took a child in HIS arms: something unusual for people of that time since children did not count, and religious teachers only urged that they be well disciplined.  The model of religion seemed to be a serious man who did not laugh, did not run, did not look at people in lower positions, especially women and children.  Oftentimes, such a mentality is seen in those who criticize child baptism and first communion.

JESUS does not answer the apostles' question: Who is the greatest?  Because what matters is not to become great, but to be close to CHRIST.  In order to receive CHRIST, we must welcome HIM in the person of the little ones.)

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The Misfortunes Of The Rich

"So, now for what concerns the rich!  Cry and weep for the misfortunes that are coming upon you.  Your riches are rotting, and your clothes eaten up by the moths.  Your silver and gold have rusted, and their rust grows into a witness against you.   It will consume your flesh like fire, for having piled up riches in these the last days.

You deceived the workers who harvested your fields but now their wages cry out to the heavens.  The reapers' complaints have reached the ears of the LORD of hosts.  You live in luxury and pleasure in this world thus fattening yourselves for the day of slaughter.  You have easily condemned and killed the innocent since they offered no resistance." - James 5:1-6  

(The rich will lose all they have stockpiled through injustice.  Just as serious as having stolen from the salaries of workers and having condemned those who spoke of justice in the sin against hope.  "The last days already came, and you were looking for riches!"  The last days are those that began with the coming of CHRIST, with the kingdom already there.  James sees the second coming of the LORD as if it was imminent and it is the only way to rightly judge riches.

What was taking place in the poor civilization of James' time is happening again today.  The prosperity of a quarter of the world depends on the system that leaves two billion people in misery.

In our countries money destroys hope in the Christian meaning of the word; life is considered as a fortune to be enjoyed by oneself, without accepting responsibilities, beginning with the transmission of life.  Far removed from us, the safeguarding of our privileges involves, like a series of cascades, the unjust death of millions of people because of famine, oppression and wars.)

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Be Mindful Of Your Creator When You Are Young

"Rejoice, young man, in your youth and direct well your heart when you are young; follow your desires and achieve your ambitions but recall that GOD will take account of all you do.

Drive sorrow from your heart and pain from your flesh, for youth and dark hair will not last.

Be mindful of your Creator when you are young, before the time of sorrow comes when you have to say, 'This gives me no pleasure,'

and before the sun, moon and stars withdraw their light, before the clouds gather again after the rain.

On the day when the guardians of the house tremble, when sturdy men are bowed and those at the mill stop working because they are too few, when it grows dim for those looking through the windows, and the doors are shut and the noise of the mill grows faint, the sparrow stops chirping and the bird-song is silenced, when one fears the slopes and to walk is frightening; yet the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper is fat and the caperberry bears fruit that serves no purpose,

because man goes forward to his eternal home and mourners gather in the street,

even before the silver chain is snapped or the golden globe is shattered,

before the pitcher is broken at the fountain or the wheel at the mill,

before the dust returns to the earth from which it came, and the spirit returns to GOD who gave it.

Meaningless!  meaningless!  the Teacher says all is meaningless!" - Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:8 

(Be mindful of your Creator when you are young.  It will not be the time to turn to GOD when our strength and pleasures are over: "the beautiful woman has no more lovers, she has entered a convent."  Why remember our Creator?  Because this remembering, which little by little will become a presence for us, is one of the conditions of our joy.  The bitterness of old age does not affect those who have chosen GOD in their youth; at the end of their life, they can repeat the words of the psalm: I shall go towards GOD, the joy of my youth [cf. Psalm 43:4].)

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A Time For Everything

"There is a given time for everything and a time for every happening under heaven:

A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting.

A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.

 A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.

A time for throwing stones, a time for gathering stones; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.

A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for throwing away.

A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace.

What profit is there for a man from all his toils?

Finally, I considered the task GOD gave to the humans.  HE made everything fitting in its time, but HE also set eternity in their hearts, although they are not able to embrace the work of GOD from the beginning to the end." - Ecclesiastes 3:1-11  

(In this chapter, Ecclesiastes looks at all aspects of the human condition, one after the other, beginning with surest: death. 

So, if all that humans build must be destroyed, what is left to them?  That each of us must die, this we can accept, and it is not absurd if the world continues to be.  Instead, it is impossible to think that one day all must stop and forever die.

Yet this is the only perspective left to us from a materialist view of the universe.  There will not even be someone to remember that humans did exist, suffer and love: no one can face such an eventuality.)

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Vanity Of Vanities

"All is meaningless--says the Teacher--meaningless, meaningless!

What profit is there for a man in all his work for which he toils under the sun?

A generation goes, a generation comes, and the earth remains forever.  The sun rises, the sun sets, hastening towards the place where it again rises.  Blowing to the south, turning to the north, the wind goes round and round and after all its rounds it has to blow again.

All rivers go to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers come from, there they return again.

All words become weary, and speech comes to an end, but the eye has never seen enough, nor the ear heard too much.

What has happened before will happen again; what has been done before will be done again:  there is nothing new under the sun.

If they say to you, 'See, it's new!' know that it has already been centuries earlier.

There is no remembrance of ancient people, and those to come will not be remembered by those who follow them." - Ecclesiastes 1:2-11  

(All is meaningless!  Meaningless!  We are used to the ancient translation of this verse: "Vanity of vanities.  All is vanity!"  Actually, the first word of the book designates in Hebrew a wisp of straw.  It is without weight and flies away at the slightest breeze, like vanity, a nothing.  It is also what escapes our grasp: it is a future that is uncertain and illusory, or something which does not satisfy our spirit, on which we can build nothing; it is "disconcerting," it "has no sense."

This expression is repeated in the like a refrain, but with different meanings according to the context: that is why we have recourse to different translations.

There is nothing new under the sun.  The prophets had seen the world led by GOD toward a happy future.  Other cultures, however, had the notion that the world only keeps on repeating the same events, with kingdoms, wars, success and failure.  For them, nothing was happening which could give people the fulfillment of their desires.

With such convictions, a person might try to forget what is taking place in a world where all is illusion, but that is not the case of Ecclesiastes.  Like every good Jew, he is firmly rooted in reality; he lives at a time that is without conflict and also without prophets or great hope.  In such conditions, it is wisdom to ignore the illusions of activism.

Under the sun: these words will come back as a refrain: humans toil and pass as a shadow while the sun remains.  The sun is like an image of GOD who endures and who alone does things "with a view to eternity.") 

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JESUS Sends The Twelve On A Mission

"Then JESUS called HIS Twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to drive out all evil spirits and to heal diseases.  And HE sent them to proclaim the kingdom of GOD and to heal the sick.  HE instructed them, 'Don't take anything for the journey, neither staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and don't even take a spare tunic.  Whatever house you enter, remain there until you leave that place.  And wherever they don't welcome you, leave the town and shake the dust from your feet: it will be as a testimony against them.'

So they set out, and went through the villages, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere." - Luke 9:1-6 

(JESUS has begun HIS mission, HE forms and sends out missionaries.

Apostles mean "sent" and "mission" also means "being sent."  The FATHER has sent HIS Son to earth, and the Son, in turn, sends HIS apostles.  The FATHER sends messengers of HIS word, but HE also sends HIS Spirit to touch the hearts and minds of those who listen.  Through the Spirit they recognize the word of GOD in the poor preaching of these messengers who have received no great instruction.  The Spirit will give signs: healings and astounding graces supporting the witness of the missionaries.)

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JESUS' Mother And Brothers

"Then HIS mother and HIS relatives came to HIM, but they could not get to HIM because of the crowd.  Someone told HIM, 'YOUR mother and YOUR brothers are standing outside and wish to meet YOU.'  Then JESUS answered, 'MY mother and MY brothers are those who hear the word of GOD and do it'." - Luke 8:19-21  

(JESUS lost HIS relatives but found HIS true brothers and sisters.  When we commit ourselves to GOD's work, we discover new brothers and sisters and a mother, Mary, of whom the Gospel says, "Happy are you for having believed that GOD's promises would be fulfilled."  JESUS does not say, "HE is MY FATHER," for the FATHER is one and HE is in heaven.)

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