Sunday reflections

Much like today, different gods and life philosophies were plentiful in the ancient Roman world. They were like different pearls, available for people to pick and choose which they liked and wanted to keep.

At first glance today’s gospel seems to draw a clear distinction between the wheat as the good crop and the darnel as the bad crop. The darnel was sown by the enemy while everybody was asleep. It was regarded as a toxic crop to be weeded out.

The Kingdom is a central theme of Matthew’s gospel. Today we begin a series of readings from Ch 13 in that gospel over three Sundays concerning Jesus’ teaching, in parables, about the coming of the Kingdom.

Failure, shame, regret, are just some of the burdens we’re all familiar with. ‘Speak with someone today’ says a website for women suffering from domestic violence and there’s a number to ring. Speak with someone, so that we don’t end up isolated, with no one to turn to.

When I was a young boy shopping with my mum, she would remind me when we entered a shop to look but not to touch. She would say, “Those things are expensive. They break easily.”

Our call to be “missionary disciples of Jesus” is based on the Exodus experience of the Jewish people. Yes, God enables the Jews to be liberated from slavery, but much more is at stake. God addresses Moses like an earthly king pledging to confer on Israel the dignity of a “priestly kingdom” and a “consecrated nation”. The Israelites, on their part, are called to pledge themselves to God’s law which is about to be given to them in the Ten Commandments.

Jesus had many meals with his followers. During those times of fellowship, Jesus shared his vision of God’s Kingdom and he called his followers to live, love and serve as one family. Of all their meals together, the one that stayed most in the memory of the disciples was the Last Supper.

“God is love,” says St John in a famous line. There has never been a more radical statement in the history of humanity. To understand its original contrast with the generally accepted accounts of divinity in the ancient world is to grasp afresh its revolutionary quality.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we hear that devout Jews from every nation had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Shavuot which commemorated the most important event in Israel’s history, the giving of the Torah (the first five books in the Hebrew Bible) to Moses at Mt Sinai.

Forty days after Easter, when we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection, today we celebrate his ascension into heaven and to the right hand of the Father. Artists throughout the centuries have imagined the scene: the disciples staring upwards as the Risen Jesus is lifted up before them and disappears into the clouds. Their last glimpse of him is his feet as he disappears from sight.