🙏 SUNDAY INSIGHTS - THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 🙏

First Reading - Exodus 19:2-6 

Second Reading - Romans 5:6-11 

Gospel - Matthew 9:36-10:8

There is a legend about a little fish who overheard fishermen say that a fish needed water to live. The little fish became worried and started hunting for water. He swam from creek to river to the seven seas. Finally, he met a big, old fish who saw how worried the little fish was and asked what the trouble was. The little fish explained that he was looking for water because he heard the fishermen say that a fish cannot live without water. The big fish laughed and said, “O little fish, why are you worried? Don’t you know that you are in the water all the time?” — It is time for us who have been on the Church rolls from infancy to wake up and realize Whose we are. Then we will know who we are and in Whom we have our being. We need to awaken to the fact that we are children of God by grace through Baptism, and as children of God we have a mission in life.

The readings of today remind us about our same responsibility that we are entrusted with a mission to proclaim Christ in our own way.

In today’s first reading God overturns that class distinction. In the instruction given to Moses, God wants all the members of His chosen people to be a kingdom of holy priests. God expects a whole holy nation to join in worship, not just a few holy members to perform sacred duties for the rest. God says that all His people are special, set apart, and holy, and that they should pay attention to their exalted position. A religion in which all the members are to be holy was a stunning innovation. This teaching was last repeated for Catholics at Vatican II, in “The Constitution on the Church,” Chapter 5, “The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church,” paragraphs 39-42. Hence we have no right to divide ourselves into the holy group and the ordinary group and reserve holiness only to the priests and the religious.

Paul, in the second reading, eloquently reminds the gathered community of Romans that God has gone beyond all limits in loving them. Paul’s point is that we were quite unworthy of the gift God gave us in Christ. Notice all the expressions of this unworthiness: “helpless, ungodly, still sinners, enemies.” It’s the contrast between our unworthiness and God’s gracious generosity that is so remarkable. Paul argues that Jesus served and taught and healed and died for those who were sinners because they were essentially God’s people, God’s special ones, the holy nation, the ones set apart. As Jesus walked the streets and taught the crowds, he saw in each of them a sacred and holy child of God.

In the gospel, we see Jesus was moved with compassion at the world’s pain and suffering, sorrow and grief, physical and spiritual hunger, isolation and loneliness, bewilderment and confusion. The Greek word used, esplanchnithe, expresses a compassion that springs from the deepest part of one’s being, heartfelt compassion. Jesus’ compassion for the crowds was based on his perception that they were “harassed and helpless.” Jesus uses two images to describe the common people of those days, namely, sheep without a shepherd and an abundant harvest in need of workers. The Pharisees saw the common people as chaff to be destroyed and burned up. But Jesus saw them as a harvest to be reaped and saved. He realized that volunteers were needed to teach and heal the people because “The harvest is great, but the workers are few.” and the people were “bewildered and dejected, like sheep who have no shepherd.” (I Kgs 22:17; Jer 23:1-6; Ez 34:1-10; Mi 5:2-4). Jesus calls us to pray for common laborers in his Church. While God can use talented people, most kingdom-work is done by ordinary, nearly anonymous, behind-the-scenes disciples. The “sheep without a shepherd” are called the “the lost sheep of Israel,” a phrase used by Moses when he transferred his authority to Joshua. This was a common image for Israel in the Old Testament (eg. Nm 27:17, 2 Chr 18:6). Priority was given to Jewish evangelization because Jesus realized that the most effective evangelistic strategy was first to try to reach those with whom the evangelizer already had something in common.

Jesus prayed before he chose the twelve apostles from among his disciples asking his heavenly Father, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (Is 6:8). Then Jesus chose them, called them apostles, appointed them to be with him and sent them to villages and towns before he visited them as heralds to prepare them to receive his “good news.” They were given his authority to love which included involvement in liberating people from the powers which oppressed them, whether physical or spiritual. The first instruction was: “Do not go out on the road to the Gentiles, and do not enter into any city of the Samaritans.” This meant that they could not go north into Syria, east into the largely gentile Decapolis, or to south into Samaria. God wanted His Chosen people to hear the Gospel first. Besides, the apostles were not well-trained for preaching to the Gentiles. Thirdly, as a wise commander Jesus limited his objectives and refused to diffuse and dissipate his forces.

“Freely you have received;” says Jesus, “freely give.” A Rabbi was bound by law to give his teaching freely and for nothing. The Rabbi was absolutely forbidden to take money for teaching the Law which Moses had received without cost from God. Jesus’ instructions mean that the man of God must show by his attitude to material things that his first interest is God. But Jesus adds that the workman deserves his sustenance. Although a Jewish rabbi was not expected to accept payment, it was considered at once a privilege and an obligation to support a Rabbi, if he were truly a man of God. What Jesus really means is that a man of God must never be overly concerned with material things. At the same time the people of God must never fail in their duty to see that the man of God receives a reasonable support. Missionaries are to depend on the local hospitality of “worthy” (10:11) people, i.e., those in favor with God, and to “greet” (10:12) them with the peace of God.

Dear friends, people can be sick in body as well as in mind. As Christian’s sharing Jesus’ mission, we can bring healing and wholeness to people with whom we come into contact. Although we cannot raise the dead, we can help people to recover interest and a zest for living. People can be physically alive but dead in many other respects. Cleansing the lepers means rehabilitating and bringing back fully into our communities all those who, for one reason or another, are marginalized, rejected, despised — ostracized on the basis of race, nationality, marital status, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. In our day, demons act through all those suffocating and enslaving forces which dominate, manipulate, and restrict our freedom to live in truth and love. They include many elements of our contemporary society: the pressures to conform to what is in fashion, whether it be in clothes, activities, food, or drugs of all kinds, both prescribed and non-prescribed, and to bend to the active and attractive tendencies to hedonism, extreme individualism, greed, addictions, and violence of all kinds which mark the modern world, particularly in the West. Our abortion/euthanasia/divorce/litigation culture of death is simply one of the symptoms and effects of all this. We have to start by casting out these demons from our own hearts first before helping others to true liberation.

Every thing we have is a gift of God. God’s gifts to us are literally priceless, and the rest of these is Faith. All these gifts are meant to be used freely and liberally for the benefit of all. We are not in the business of sharing our Faith for the money or the admiration it brings. To paraphrase President John Kennedy: “Ask not what others can do for you; but what you can do for others.” But God’s freely given gifts must be used with care and responsibility. Exercised wisely, they can bring great joy and peace in life. They can be a means to care for others. We must always remember that our good works, the things in which we take pride, ultimately find their source in Christ, not in us. What gifts, both material and spiritual, have we received from God? How have we passed those gifts onto others? How have we thanked God and given Him the glory for those gifts? The passages from Matthew’s Gospel present us with a challenge: to pass along the graces we have received. Jesus gave his followers this key to evangelization. (For details confer CCC - 2006-2011).