No disciple is above his teacher,
no slave above his master.
It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher,
for the slave that he become like his master.
This teaching of Jesus means that we aren't called to simply sit back and reap the copious fruits our teacher left for us. We must not sit passively like masters when our Lord himself came to serve. Instead we are called to follow in the way of the master, to become identified with him by our works and our way of life. But this means that those who despised him will likely despise us as well. We will have the same upsetting or off-putting aspects of our Lord, and will be similarly divisive and challenging. Yet how much more so for us who are imperfect sinners will the criticisms of the crowds seem accurate and applicable.
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul,
how much more those of his household!
Our temptation is to hear the word of God spoken in the dark and to then try keep it there, to only ever whisper it, and grow fearful when someone begins to speak it aloud. We are given a light for our lamp but we cover over it like houses during an air raid in order to keep ourselves safe from the world's hostility. Jesus knew we would face this temptation and so he said to his disciples:
"Therefore do not be afraid of them.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
Whatever in us is a genuine manifestation of the word of God, and a legitimate likeness to our master, will ultimately be unconcealable. The word of God wants to be known, desires to be shared and to bear fruit. Mercy simply cannot be held for oneself alone but must flow in order to be fully itself. So why struggle? Why resist the nature of the gift we have been given? Either we fail, hopefully, and the word goes forth from us, or we succeed in suffocating entirely the flame of love in our lives. Let us allow the fire of God's love to burn, even to the point of consuming us, for our God, who is love is (see First John 4:8), a consuming fire (see Hebrews 12:29).
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
We care much too much about temporary consequences when there are eternal ones at stake. We care too much about bodies and not nearly enough about the soul. When we do so we tend to drag down ourselves and others into that which is merely bodily such as we those goods we share with animals. Thus we see the world obsessed with power and pleasure and ourselves often chasing these idolatrous phantoms. When, however, our love is ordered toward eternal things, bodies are not neglected but elevated to a higher dignity, playing their part in our pursuit of our last end and our highest good.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
We fear that suffering is a sign that we are unloved. This makes suffering so much more difficult to bear than it might be if we realized how much we are loved even in the moments of our most profound pain. We are like children unable to see how a present difficulty is preparing us for a future good. But we in a mysterious way all things are working together to prepare us for a glory beyond compare.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (see Second Corinthians 4:17).
When we come to acknowledge that our suffering is not a sign of our failure, that it does not mean that love has ceased to work in our lives, we can shed our limitations and become free to follow the way our master, Jesus himself, first walked, and acknowledge him not only with our lips, but with our very lives.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
We can see God's providence at work at a human level on the story of Joseph. He and then later his family endured intense emotional pain and physical difficulty, but it was so that a greater good could be realized. For them that good was still merely temporary and physical, but for us it is eternal.
Even though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good,
to achieve his present end, the survival of many people.
No comments:
Post a Comment