Breaking the Word

1^st week in Lent, Monday – 07^th March 2022 — Gospel: Mt 25,31-46

Welcome Criteria

Today’s Gospel is about the final judgment. The focus of our being judged will not be based on how many times we went to the church, or how much we contributed, or how long we chanted prayers, or how many times we committed certain sins. The criteria for our being welcomed into the kingdom of heaven is how we treated the less fortunate and the needy. It is in our caring for, and serving of, others that we show our care and love for the almighty God. Jesus does not ‘need’ our love, yet it is our obligation to do so. God will continue to be God even without us loving Him.

However, those who are in need (the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the strangers, the sick, the imprisoned) do need us to care for them. They may only come to know that God loves them by our ministering to them in their time of difficulty. If we truly love God, we will love those whom God loves, especially those experiencing rough times. We manifest our unconditional love for God by unconditionally loving those who cannot pay us back. If we fail to care for those who need our attention, then we are being selfish. The selfish and self-centred are not invited into the kingdom of heaven. And not only are we being selfish, rather we are depriving others of an experience of the God who loves them.

1^st Sunday of Lent – 06^th March 2022 — Gospel: Lk 4,1-13

Keep his commandments in your heart

Filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit to the place of testing, Jesus overcomes the evil he faces by his reflective application of the truths of Scripture. The testing of Jesus in the wilderness (4,1-13) introduces major topics from Deuteronomy 6 & 8. The forty years of ‘God’s testing of Israel’ in the wilderness (Deut 8,2) reconfigures into forty days in which “Jesus ate nothing” (Lk 4,2). And God makes his purpose of testing very clear, “in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments” (Deut 8,2). This sets the stage for Jesus to “know by heart” the verses from Deut 6 and 8 so that he can recite them to the devil and resist its challenges.

When the devil is tempted to provide food for himself from a stone, Jesus counters with a quote from Deut 8,3, reminding Israel to trust in God’s faithfulness and protection. When he offers to give Jesus all the wealth and power of the world’s kingdoms in exchange for Jesus’ allegiance to him, Jesus replies with Deut 6,13, commanding God’s people to worship and serve Him alone. Finally, when Jesus is tempted to demonstrate his power by casting himself down from the temple, making a flashy display of his power and glory, Jesus responds with Deut 6,16, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”. In these testing, Jesus enacts the attributes of “knowing in one’s heart, remembering, and keeping” the commands which God gave to Israel in their wilderness (Deut 6,16; 8,2; 8,16). His response to the devil evokes the necessity not to exalt oneself but to humble oneself before God who gives food, progeny, and wealth to God’s people. Jesus also recontextualizes what it means to “observe the commands diligently” (Deut 6,1& 3). Since He “loves the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, and mind,” Jesus refuses to bow down and worship the devil, and he refuses to test God by throwing himself off the temple. But exhibits that he has God’s decrees and statutes ever in his heart, and abides by the Scripture at every moment of his life.