Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production, Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. Share this program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we’re celebrating the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Opening Prayer O God, who caused the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise that amid the uncertainties of this world our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit God forever and ever. Amen.
The reading is from the Old Testament, from Isaiah 22:19 23 Thus says the Lord to Shebna, master of the palace, I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station. On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hakaiah. I will clothe him with your robe, gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the house of David on Laachim’s shoulder. When he opens, no one shall shut.
When he shuts, no one shall open. I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot to be a place of honor for his family, the word of the Lord Lord, your love is eternal. Do not forsake the work of your hands. I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with all my heart, for you have heard the words of my mouth in the presence of the angels. I will sing your praise. I will worship at your holy temple.
Lord, your love is eternal. Do not forsake the work of your hands. I will give thanks to your name because of your kindness and your truth. When I called, you answered me. You built up strength within me. Lord, your love is eternal.
Do not forsake the work of your hands. The Lord is exalted, yet the lowly he sees and and the proud he knows from afar. Your kindness, O Lord, endures forever. Forsake not the work of your hands. Lord, your love is eternal. Do not forsake the work of your hands.
A reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans 11:33 oh the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how inscrutable are his judgments, how unsearchable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Or who has given the Lord anything that he may be repaid for from him and through him, and for him, all things to him be glory forever. Amen.
The word of the Lord. You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. Hallelujah. The Gospel is taken from St. Matthew 16.
Jesus went into the region of Caesarea, Philippi, and. And he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of man is? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter said in reply, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus said to him in reply, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. The Gospel of the Lord.
Take the next few moments as we listen to this music to ponder the images and the thoughts that come to you as you listen to these readings. I’ve been around for a long time. I lived through the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, on to today. And I don’t ever remember a time in my life when I looked at my world around me and I see something that is always, I don’t know, frightening, disturbing, unsettling. And it’s just simply that it seems everywhere, the institutions and the people that we’ve trusted and long to be there for us, to help us to live a full, rich life, they seem to be wanting and authority seems to be misused. Truth seems to be a matter of opinion.
But more than all that, it’s just a spirit in the world that seems negative. And for the first time, I’ve heard people say something, well, maybe I’ll go to another country, or I don’t know if I want to bring children into this world. What’s missing? What’s the cause of this? I think the readings make it clear that there is something that God has given to every human being. It’s their authority.
It comes with the package of being human. You have influence. You make a difference to the people around you. You have power to bring them into something beautiful or to continue to feed something that robs them of what God has made this world into, what he wants it to be for them. So we see in this first reading from Isaiah very clearly that Shebna, he was a very powerful guy and he had just won a battle, but he never ever turned to God to ask God to help him do that. And what he ended up doing is basically achieving the goal of the battle.
He achieved it through violence and destruction. And when God looks at him and says, you know, you never called upon me. You never asked for my help, so I’m taking your power away from you. Shebna was so full of himself that he was building a beautiful temple so everyone would come and remember him as this great leader. And God said, I’m taking everything away from you. Your authority, your robe, your sash, everything.
And I give it to someone who will be more like a father. Not someone who has power over people, but someone who cares for people and will give honor to. To his family, meaning he will be respected. So we see very clearly that the work of God in our life, the power that he gives us, has a very clear focus. It is for others. For others.
If you look at the truth of the Old Testament, what we find in those beautiful stories, an intention on the part of God. He wanted to convince people that there was only one God. So monotheism was one of the basic teachings of the Old Testament. And then he added justice. There’s one God, and he stands for something that makes sense. Fairness, justice.
The good are rewarded, the bad are punished. It gave order. 10 simple rules. Connect with God and be there for other people. Treat other people as you would want them to be treated. Love them.
That’s the heart of the Old Testament. But all through that story, there’s something about a messiah. Something’s coming, something’s better, something’s more. And it wasn’t until Jesus comes into the world that we begin to understand the depths and the riches and the wisdom of who God really is. For we never really understood the mind of God until the coming of the Messiah. And we’re told in Romans.
And Paul recognizes this incredible new thing that has happened that he worries about his own people not accepting it, but this new thing that God has revealed through this figure. Jesus has a name. It’s called the kingdom of God. And a hundred times or more. In the New Testament, it says the difference with the Old Testament and New Testament is the Old Testament establishes, you know, justice and fairness and the presence of single God. But in the New Testament, there’s a work to be accomplished, there’s a thing to be done, and it’s called establishing the kingdom of God.
And in that kingdom, we are able to understand the fullness of what God has in mind for us. And the kingdom of God could be described very simply as everything that the world doesn’t seem to be right now because it’s not only based in justice, but something is added. Mercy, compassion, understanding. Those things are part of human nature, but they are not necessarily something that one can do without someone, something enabling them, increasing their capacity to do this. It’s like it’s taking them beyond their human nature. And so the foundation of the kingdom of God is believing in the way God has revealed himself through the life of Jesus.
And so the key to being in the kingdom is to believe who he is. Without that, it will never work. And so we have in the gospel a new authority being given to Simon. And what is necessary for Simon to be the one who could manifest then work for this new kingdom of God is the fact that he knew who Jesus was. That’s the key to know who Jesus is, because he is revealing who who God is. And when we understand who God is, we are the key to the kingdom.
We know that we have something that we know. And when it is lived, the kingdom is established. When it is disbelieved and ignored, we have chaos, disorder, fear, shame, anger. So what is it about this figure, Jesus, that is so important that we believe in if we’re going to establish the kingdom of God? We have a capacity to be understanding and compassionate. But when you think about what God is asking us to do, it is really an amazing thing.
Because we’re asked to believe that we have within us a power, the presence of God dwelling in your heart. And that experience of this loving God within us. If we use that as the main reason why we hope in the kingdom of God, if we believe it is being established through us and not because of us, it’s not that we have to become so perfect. We can still be filled with all kinds of weaknesses and faults and frailty. But at the same time, if we believe in our work of establishing the kingdom, God can use us because he knows that what he wants and what it’s going to take for the world to enter into a place of harmony and oneness and compassion and Empathy is out of our reach. Humans can’t do it.
All we can do is act as if, in a way. But when you think about it, Jesus came into the world to teach us that his life, everything he did, all the miracles, were because of something dwelling in him. It wasn’t him. He’s saying, I’m basically just like you. I’m a human being. But I have something that makes me extraordinarily effective.
I can open people’s eyes, I can open their ears, I can make them speak, I can get them to walk and to do things. I can drive out demons. And what did the people say? What did the Pharisees say about him? There’s a problem here. You know, it’s one thing that he’s talking ways about a world that, you know, we don’t understand.
But. But what are we going to do with the fact that he’s doing miracles? I mean, how can you write him off as somebody who doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Miracles. God using Jesus, a human being, to perform miracles. And what do they symbolize?
Freedom from evil, an integrity, a whole person making us into who we’re intended to be. What a gift to know and to believe that God will take you, take the gifts that you have that you are, along with all the faults and mistakes and, you know, stupidity of us. He’ll take that goodness that we are and use it not simply by making it the source of what happens, but allowing him to work through you as the source changes everything. It means that there is a power within every human being to go way beyond anything they could imagine they could accomplish. To believe that, to know that. So how would it work?
Like go around and say, you know, intend something that a miraculous event? No, no, you just sync your will with God’s. Think like he thinks. Act like you know he would act or you would hope he would act. And you’ll find that this power, then that is not just you, but God in you, will change people in ways you’ll never understand or even maybe even know. But it’s transformative to meet people who are angry and isolated and fearful and acting out the same kind of negative behavior when you look at them.
And if you judge them and condemn them, you’re just living in the kingdom of the world. But if you look at them and love them and want them to change and have patience with them and long to help them without having to argue with them or change their mind, but just you want that, you have an intention for that, your intention when you believe in God’s inner presence. You have that power of God in your intention. So think of it. If you want to condemn this world and judge it and and add more negativity to it, you have power to do that, authority to do that. But if you take another road and the kingdom of God becomes real to you, and you know that you have this gift to be able to give to other people and you believe that it is not dependent on you, but dependent on God.
And he has planned it this way so that life on this planet has real, real purpose. My purpose is to change it all. To not look at the world and condemn it, but to think I can change it. Not me, but God in me. But he won’t do it without me being the one who brings it into the world. It’s so interesting.
I’m not saying that God can’t do anything he wants, but think of it. If he’s waiting for us to be the ones that manifest the world that we would like to live in, that we want to live in, and we’re putting it out there, longing for it to happen, wanting to be a part of changing it, wanting to be a real key figure in this thing called the Kingdom of God. And then we’ll see it happen. We will promise. Loving those, caring for those who are filled with hatred and anger. We can change them just by intending that they see and hear and listen to the truth.
Everything depends on that foreign Father. Awaken in us the plan you’ve established for us. Help us to joyfully, enthusiastically participate in building your kingdom, knowing that it is the thing that everyone longs for and the only true source of joy and peace. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show.
Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2023 SAM.
