The disciples struggled to reach the realization that Jesus is God.
We’ve grown up with it – that Jesus is God – it’s cultural, we’re familiar with it, over familiar, but for them it was counter-cultural. It’s a claim that smashed both their religious and civil culture. For them it was nuclear ☢️
It’s an enormous claim, completely off the scale.
They knew from the healings, the miracles, that this man was unique – very special – but they struggled to get to the realization that he is God.
It was just too big for them. It’s huge.
But when they did grasp it that’s all they preached. The church at its beginnings preached nothing else. The early church just stood in front of people and said “Jesus is God!”
That’s why pagan practices disappeared. Once people grasped that Jesus is God there was nowhere else to go – there is nowhere else to go! If Jesus is God, why would they bother with other practices?
We’re part of a number of generations that have lost this realization in its original power, the personal transformative knowledge that Jesus is God.
This is the reason we’re seeing phenomenal growth in all sorts of different spiritual practices, even an interest in and a reappearance of some of the old pre-Christian practices in new forms.
We’ve lost the transformative knowledge that Jesus is God.
Luke 6:17,20-26 Happy are you who are poor, who weep, who hunger
Jesus focuses on his disciples, fixing his eyes on his disciples – not the crowd – he tells the disciples that they’re happy… if they’re poor! 😂 You couldn’t make it up 😂 What is that about?
When Jesus uses the word poor he means it very broadly – thus he uses other words like hunger and sorrow to broaden our understanding. He means anything that diminishes the self, breaks us down, anything that might lead us to a profound awareness of our need of God.
Our need of God is all important, no need of God will almost always mean no God in my life!
Thats the danger of wealth in all its forms – again he uses other words to broaden our understanding of wealth, always having our fill, always laughing. Wealth tends to insulate us from our need of God. Affluence is perhaps the greatest enemy of God in our time.
Not always mind, I know very wealthy people with a profound sense of their need of God but they’re mostly older people, people old enough to have known some level of poverty in earlier life, back in the day, and they’ve never really lost a sense that they need God. They’ve never really been completely insulated by their wealth.
But the next generation tends to be well and truly insulated. Again, not always, there are always exceptions.
Jesus says “they are having their reward now” meaning they don’t know anything else and might not… ever!
So, how will the wealthy recover the poverty, the hunger, the sorrow, that releases their need of God? How will they find a need of God if they’ve never really had it?
Hugely difficult 😣
As Jesus said: “Nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. The old is good enough he says.” Luke 5:39
Many years ago a parishioner, a CEO of a multi national, and a very wealthy man, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Mind you, he’d never completely lost his need of God… I’ve never forgotten his initial responses; he listed the stuff he dealt with every day, huge stuff he took in his stride, but added after each achievement; but I don’t know how to deal with this.
Over the next few months he fell apart, into shattered pieces, and then we slowly put him back together again. He literally became a new man, the insulation that his wealth gave him was torn away, quite violently, and he became very poor, as Jesus says blessed, because he now knew his need of God. There was nowhere else to go, nothing to hide behind, he was an empty vessel ready to be filled with God.
Sickness as a form of human poverty is always intended to expose, to release, to uncover our need of God. Failure can do it too, addiction, lots of stuff can do it…
Really Jesus is saying; nothing matters… only getting ourselves to him and unless we have a real need of God, a real need of Jesus we’re not likely to get there.
It was the disciples’ need of God, and the peoples’ growing need of God that had them on that level piece of ground half way up a mountain looking for Jesus in the first place.
Thus Jesus fixed his eyes on them and said: How happy are you who are poor – it’s brought you here to me – and yours is the kingdom of God.
Here we encounter God’s standard of Love ❤️. It is very, very high!
If we really let it in… it’ll stop our breath! Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly… and so on.
Jesus didn’t just say love your neighbour, he said love your neighbour as yourself 🤯😳. That “as yourself” changes everything.
How much do you love your kids? Love your neighbour that much!
Do you pamper yourself? Pamper your neighbour as much!
Do you believe you’re entitled to a certain standard of lifestyle – make sure your neighbour has that standard too!
Now, can you see God’s standard?
It is a much – much higher – standard than our general standard.
Few – if any – can measure up to it. So how can we be saved then? As Jesus said, “for men… this is impossible, but not for God; for God everything is possible.” Matt 19:26
So step back from these demands of Love ❤️ for a few moments and don’t look at them from our perspective, from the perspective of the demands it places on us. Look at them from God’s perspective.
Because it is among the best description you’ll ever find of the very nature of God and comes from the mouth of God incarnate, Jesus Christ.
God loves his enemies.
God will always do good to those who hate him.
God will always bless those who curse him.
To the man or woman who slaps God on one cheek, God will turn the other cheek.
To the man who’ll take God’s cloak, He’ll let him take his tunic too.
God doesn’t ask for his property back…
If this wasn’t so the earth would have gone up in a ball of fire 🔥 years ago.
God is Love, way, way beyond our understanding of love, and human love even at its very best, is a very dim reflection of the Love that is the Heart of God.
So, while the standard of love that God requires is very high, remember the very same standard is required of God too, otherwise he wouldn’t ask it of us – it is, in fact, the very nature of God and God cannot act any other way – and it will be this very high standard flowing from the heart of God that’ll ensure our salvation. God’s higher standard will always come to meet our lower standard…
That’s what it means to say that God loves his enemies and so on…
God – Love ❤️- will make up the difference between our low, lower standard and what is required to enter Heaven.
Finally, a cautionary note – none of this will happen without our – your – participation!
Luke 5:1-11 – They left everything and followed him
Peter is sitting beside Jesus in the boat and can hear every word as Jesus speaks to the assembled crowd.
We’re not told anything about what Jesus was saying but whatever he was saying, it was doing something to Peter.
Because when Jesus asked Peter to put out and drop the nets, Peter pointed out that he’d been fishing all night and caught nothing but then said; “but if you say so” – if you say so – “I will pay out the nets.”
Clearly as Jesus speaks he’s doing something to Peter but he’s doing exactly what he does to every human being when we really begin to hear 👂 him.
It’s the beginning of a radical shift in the focus of Peter’s life; his heart is beginning to be taken by Jesus but he’s not yet at the point where he loses interest in the focus of his life to date – but he’s on his way to it.
Suddenly, against all the evidence of a hard nights work, Peter has more, much more than he wanted when he set out for work – a massive haul of fish. But he’s no longer interested and he’s no longer interested because something better has appeared up close and personal. Jesus has got into him and the first fruit of Jesus really getting into him is… what?
He breaks down. Leave me Lord, I don’t deserve this, this is too much. He’s overwhelmed by the extravagance of God. It’s a beautiful discovery. Jesus is so beautiful, so extravagant with his love… The huge haul of fish is just symbolic of how huge Jesus’ love is… and Peter doesn’t want the symbol, he wants the real deal.
In places like this, so many people can’t even see the symbols never mind pass through to the real deal!
Thats what Jesus means when he speaks about people being dead 😵
In the face of God’s goodness and extravagance Peter understands, perhaps for the first time, his own misery, how utterly small he is…
The love of God for each one of us is real, it’s not an illusion but not enough of us know it.
We cannot really encounter Jesus and God the Father without also receiving in the same moment the sense of our misery – we’re so small, nothing, when we see ourselves in God’s light. When we truly meet Jesus and God it makes us look ridiculously funny… all this running around, everything needing to be bigger and better, all the stuff we think is important becomes quite trivial. Suddenly, most of all that we aspire to makes us look ridiculous, laughable.
We let go of what is taking our hearts only when something greater comes along, gets inside us, steals us away 🥰 but allowing Jesus to steal us away, that’s Heaven!
Nothing we have, nothing we think we have, will hold us when we really begin to encounter Jesus Christ.
It’s in part why nobody comes back from the dead, not because they’re dead, but because we are the ones who are really dead 💀 and they’re the ones really alive.
When the Baptist is asked about what the people should do he immediately points to justice… and repentance…
Justice is a basic ingredient in love. It is an expression of love.
If we try to live in a love without justice, what’ll happen? The love will break down or it’ll crucify us.
Justice is an essential part of God’s love, of the Kingdom of God, of Heaven.
This is so important on so many levels and for so many people, for us all.
And it is Good News.
It means that sickness and death do not have the last word.
The stroke, the cancer, the Motor Neurons, the MS, the disability, the dementia – whatever – does not have the last word.
But it also means that the tyrants in this world do not have the last word.
That the Hitlers of this world will not have the last word.
Think of the women who’ve disappeared in Ireland, think of their families, and their quest for justice but for whom the justice system is unable to secure a prosecution…
This horror will not be the last word and those responsible will not have the last word.
Think of the criminal gangs and their hired assassins – even if they escape justice by destroying every trace of evidence – that will not be the last word, they will not have the last word.
This Justice operating within God’s love ensures there’s a putting to rights, in ways beyond all human imagining – the closest human experience is the pain forgotten in childbirth when a child is born – a separating of sheep from goats, wheat from chaff… which is why Jesus always calls us to repentance…
Entering I became aware of several others… and I offered a very deliberate “hello everybody.”
Approaching Paddy, I deliberately enquired “how are you doing?”
Paddy was momentarily stunned. There was no reply, just a confused laugh which in words said “how can I be?”
It’s too big. Few standing in Paddy’s space will have had an experience that matches this devastation and it is near impossible to find words to express it.
Tears 😭 become our words…
Yet it is necessary to begin to name it… in time, of course, slow down man!
Even if it is a primordial roar of pain while collapsing on the floor.
It is so difficult to be in the presence of this devastation…
It’s like Paddy is on fire with pain and as you draw nearer and nearer you begin to burn… until that moment when you jump back… burned again!
I came away carrying a horrible unease… an anxiousness that just troubled me for the rest of the evening.
There was no relief.
A little of the pain that permeated and filled Paddy and the room we’d shared had entered me.
It was a room designed for the opposite – for light and space, for luminosity – and the room itself jarred with the darkness… the heaviness of our grief and loss.
It was early when I needed to sleep.
My body, ever faithful, and so often neglected, still protecting me.
Jesus makes his way to the Temple and calls the Temple “my Father’s house”
It’s not just another building however splendid – if it took 46 years to build it, it must have been quite magnificent. It doesn’t matter if it’s of architectural value, what matters to Jesus is that it’s “my Father’s house”
It’s personal, it’s God’s personal space… and Jesus feels they’re invading it… running amuck!
We’re not told why Jesus is so irritated but I think we can say confidently it’s because the worship of God has become secondary.
He gets annoyed and clears the place.
That he gets away with this indicates that they’re wary of him, that they sense he has authority, possesses authority, but they don’t know where it comes from.
In our era many have completely lost the sense of this space as the Father’s house, God’s personal space, not just the local church.
Many have also lost the sense that how we behave here could really irritate Jesus, really annoy Jesus!
This is so important to grasp – with God everything is personal.
What I find most striking about Pope Francis prayer for peace – 27th October 2023 – is his sense of our collective responsibility before God for peace in the world. Indeed, it is now something he is saying repeatedly. As he mentioned himself (or alluded to) this sense of collective responsibility for peace in the world (or the absence of peace) is the central message associated with many of the world’s Marian shrines.
Our collective responsibility for world peace is something that Pope Francis regularly highlights
A very strong message, indeed.
Full Text of the prayer – 27th October 2023 – below:
Mary, look at us!
We stand here before you.
You are our Mother, and you know our struggles and our hurts.
Queen of Peace, you suffer with us and for us, as you see so many of your children suffering from the conflicts and wars that are tearing our world apart.
This is a dark hour.
This is a dark hour, Mother.
In this dark hour, we look to you, and in the light of your countenance we entrust ourselves and our problems to your maternal Heart, which knows our anxieties and fears.
How great was your concern when there was no place for Jesus at the inn!
How great was your fear when you fled in haste to Egypt because Herod sought to kill him!
How great was your anguish before you found him in the Temple!
Yet, Mother, amid those trials, you showed your strength, you acted boldly: you trusted in God and responded to concern with tender care, to fear with love, to anguish with acceptance.
Mother, you did not step back, but at decisive moments you always took initiative: with haste you visited Elizabeth; at the wedding feast of Cana you prompted Jesus’ first miracle; in the Upper Room you kept the disciples united.
And when, on Calvary, a sword pierced your heart, Mother, by your humility and strength you kept alive the hope of Easter through the night of sorrow.
Now, Mother, once more take the initiative for us, in these times rent by conflicts and laid waste by the fire of arms.
Turn your eyes of mercy towards our human family, which has strayed from the path of peace, preferred Cain to Abel and lost the ability to see each other as brothers and sisters dwelling in a common home.
Intercede for our world, in such turmoil and great danger.
Teach us to cherish and care for life – each and every human life! – and to repudiate the folly of war, which sows death and eliminates the future.
Mary, how many times have you come, urging prayer and repentance.
Yet, caught up in our own needs and distracted by the things of this world, we have turned a deaf ear to your appeal.
In your love for us, you never abandon us, Mother.
Lead us by the hand. Lead us by the hand and bring us to conversion; help us once again to put God first.
Help us to preserve unity in the Church and to be artisans of communion in our world.
Make us realize once more the importance of the role we play; strengthen our sense of responsibility for the cause of peace as men and women called to pray, worship, intercede and make reparation for the whole human race.
By ourselves, Mother, we cannot succeed; without your Son, we can do nothing.
But you bring us back to Jesus, who is our Peace.
Therefore, Mother of God and our Mother, we come before you and we seek refuge in your Immaculate Heart.
Mother of mercy, we appeal for mercy!
Queen of Peace, we appeal for peace!
Touch the hearts of those imprisoned by hatred; convert those who fuel and foment conflict.
Dry the tears of children – at this hour, so many are weeping! – be present to those who are elderly and alone; strengthen the wounded and the sick; protect those forced to leave their lands and their loved ones; console the crestfallen; awaken new hope.
To you we entrust and consecrate our lives and every fibre of our being, all that we possess and all that we are, forever.
To you we consecrate the Church, so that in her witness to the love of Jesus before the world, she may be a sign of harmony and an instrument of peace.
To you we consecrate our world, to you we consecrate especially those countries and regions at war.
Your faithful people call you the dawn of salvation; Mother, grant that glimmers of light may illumine the dark night of conflict.
Dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, inspire the leaders of nations to seek paths of peace.
Queen of all peoples, reconcile your children, seduced by evil, blinded by power and hate.
You, who are close to all, shorten our distances.
You, who have compassion on everyone, teach us to care for one another.
You, who reveal the Lord’s tender love, make us witnesses of his consolation and peace.
Mother, Queen of Peace, pour forth into our hearts God’s gift of harmony. Amen.
You are our Mother, and you know our struggles and our hurts.
Queen of Peace, you suffer with us and for us, as you see so many of your children suffering from the conflicts and wars that are tearing our world apart.
This is a dark hour.
This is a dark hour, Mother.
In this dark hour, we look to you, and in the light of your countenance we entrust ourselves and our problems to your maternal Heart, which knows our anxieties and fears.
How great was your concern when there was no place for Jesus at the inn!
How great was your fear when you fled in haste to Egypt because Herod sought to kill him!
How great was your anguish before you found him in the Temple!
Yet, Mother, amid those trials, you showed your strength, you acted boldly: you trusted in God and responded to concern with tender care, to fear with love, to anguish with acceptance.
Mother, you did not step back, but at decisive moments you always took initiative: with haste you visited Elizabeth; at the wedding feast of Cana you prompted Jesus’ first miracle; in the Upper Room you kept the disciples united.
And when, on Calvary, a sword pierced your heart, Mother, by your humility and strength you kept alive the hope of Easter through the night of sorrow.
Now, Mother, once more take the initiative for us, in these times rent by conflicts and laid waste by the fire of arms.
Turn your eyes of mercy towards our human family, which has strayed from the path of peace, preferred Cain to Abel and lost the ability to see each other as brothers and sisters dwelling in a common home.
Intercede for our world, in such turmoil and great danger.
Teach us to cherish and care for life – each and every human life! – and to repudiate the folly of war, which sows death and eliminates the future.
Mary, how many times have you come, urging prayer and repentance.
Yet, caught up in our own needs and distracted by the things of this world, we have turned a deaf ear to your appeal.
In your love for us, you never abandon us, Mother.
Lead us by the hand.
Lead us by the hand and bring us to conversion; help us once again to put God first.
Help us to preserve unity in the Church and to be artisans of communion in our world.
Make us realize once more the importance of the role we play; strengthen our sense of responsibility for the cause of peace as men and women called to pray, worship, intercede and make reparation for the whole human race.
By ourselves, Mother, we cannot succeed; without your Son, we can do nothing.
But you bring us back to Jesus, who is our Peace.
Therefore, Mother of God and our Mother, we come before you and we seek refuge in your Immaculate Heart.
Mother of mercy, we appeal for mercy!
Queen of Peace, we appeal for peace!
Touch the hearts of those imprisoned by hatred; convert those who fuel and foment conflict.
Dry the tears of children – at this hour, so many are weeping! – be present to those who are elderly and alone; strengthen the wounded and the sick; protect those forced to leave their lands and their loved ones; console the crestfallen; awaken new hope.
To you we entrust and consecrate our lives and every fibre of our being, all that we possess and all that we are, forever.
To you we consecrate the Church, so that in her witness to the love of Jesus before the world, she may be a sign of harmony and an instrument of peace.
To you we consecrate our world, to you we consecrate especially those countries and regions at war.
Your faithful people call you the dawn of salvation; Mother, grant that glimmers of light may illumine the dark night of conflict.
Dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, inspire the leaders of nations to seek paths of peace.
Queen of all peoples, reconcile your children, seduced by evil, blinded by power and hate.
You, who are close to all, shorten our distances.
You, who have compassion on everyone, teach us to care for one another.
You, who reveal the Lord’s tender love, make us witnesses of his consolation and peace.
Mother, Queen of Peace, pour forth into our hearts God’s gift of harmony. Amen.
Matthew 20:1-6 Why be envious because I am generous?
Observing myself responding to this piece I notice how I’m drawn to the grumbling. I too experience this as unfair.
Then, as I slowly focus on the landowner, I realize that it would have cost him much less if he’d used my standard.
This guy doesn’t think like us or see things as we do. He’s got a huge heart.
Suddenly, I experience myself being drawn toward him but I also notice that as I move toward him and his way of doing things – his generosity – my heart is expanding, it feels much healthier, and as it expands it reveals to me how much smaller my heart was becoming as I identified with the grumbling, with our way of doing things.
I trust we all realize that this guy – the landowner – is the heart of God, the most beautiful and the biggest heart of all!
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