Jesus met all sorts of people, shared their dreams and despairs, dined and drank with them.
I think of a story about two teaching nuns shopping at a market on a hot day. Seeing the beer cooler, one nun said, “Wouldn’t a cool beer be refreshing?” The second replied, “Indeed, but should we be seen buying beer?” The other said, “I can handle it,” picking up a six-pack and heading to the checkout.
The nun explained to the cashier, “We use beer for washing our hair.”
Without blinking, the cashier placed a bag of pretzels with the beer, looked the nun in the eye, and said: “Pretzels to set your hair when you wash it with beer.” Now that’s a witty response.
In the book of Malachi, the author conveys his unhappiness with the religious leadership of Israel in the fifth century BC. Yes, the author acknowledges that they have rebuilt the temple, but scolds them for careless worship.
Malachi may challenge us to ask, what is true leadership? All of us are called to lead at different points in life: as professionals, business people, parents, citizens, volunteers. For me, leadership is about three Cs, character, courage to achieve something worthwhile, and a “can do” attitude.
The three Cs -- Character or integrity! Courage! “Can do” attitude -- will make the difference for the better.
St. Paul in his letter speaks about his fondness for the Christian community at Thessaloniki in Greece. Paul urges them to let the word of God be a guide to life, a message of hope.
In the Gospel, Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees because they say one thing and do another. They make impossible demands on ordinary people. Worse, they do everything for show, and want people to address them with titles. But Jesus says there is only one teacher: Jesus; and only one Father, God. Jesus then concludes: serve one another. Be the eyes and ears and voice and hands and feet of Jesus Christ to other people.
Paul's reminder that God speaks to us in the Bible caught my ear. Did you ever wonder if God is speaking to you? He does! The inspired word of God, the Bible, is a two-way conversation between God and us.
God authored the Bible in the sense that the Bible includes what God wants us to know about God, the universe and ourselves. But the human authors of the Bible were real authors. They employed the language, images, genres and worldviews they knew to communicate religious truths.
The Bible is not one book but a library: of prose and poetry, fiction and history, myths and legends, narratives and short stories, genealogies and sermons, parables and letters, songs and codes of law, blessings and admonitions, proverbial sayings and prophetic visions. In fact, the Bible was written over fifteen hundred years by at least forty authors.
The Bible ultimately is about Jesus. Paul informed Timothy that the sacred scriptures hold “wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Paul spoke to a society not unlike our own. People, Paul wrote, are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, crude, ruthless, bloated windbags and addicted to lust. But the followers of Christ are called to be different. “Remain faithful,” Paul writes, “to what you have learned and believed.”
The temptation is to place trust in money, education, job, health, family or friends. Nothing wrong with these things, but ultimately there is only one absolutely secure place to put our trust: in Jesus. He loves us unconditionally, and asks that we not only hear God's word but put God's word into practice.
Our spiritual appetite can only be satisfied in a relationship with God. And that's what Jesus made a reality through his death and resurrection.
Our global Catholic community is a biblical community of disciples in the sense that it acknowledges and proclaims the Bible as the word of God in human form. The scriptures point to Jesus as the definitive revelation of God to us. Yes, everything God wanted to do for us or say to us, God did and said in Jesus.
The Church Universal as a community of disciples is the instrument of the Spirit who guides us along the journey to eternal life: in the light of new challenges in new generations.
I conclude with a story about the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He was a wild young man, caught up in a movement for reform during the repressive reign of Tsar Nicholas I. Fyodor was condemned to be executed. As the prison guards took aim, a white flag was raised to announce that the Tsar had commuted his sentence to life imprisonment in Siberia.
In prison, Dostoyevsky read the New Testament from cover to cover and learned much of it by heart. He wrote, “I believe that there is no one...else like Jesus.” Yes, through the Bible, Dostoyevsky encountered the living Christ.
May we also encounter the living Christ through the word of God, the Bible.
