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. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning.
Today we celebrate the third Sunday in Ordinary time. The Opening Prayer Almighty ever living God, direct our actions according to your good pleasure that in the name of your beloved Son we may abound in good works through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the Book of Nehemiah, eighth chapter, second to the fourth verse, fifth and sixth verse, and eighth through the tenth verse. Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which consisted of men, women, and those children old enough to understand. Standing at one end of the open place that was before the water gate, he read out of the book from daybreak till midday in the presence of the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand.
And all the people listened attentively to the book of the Law. Ezra the scribe stood up on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion. He opened the scrolls that all the people might see it. He was standing higher up than any of the people. As he opened it, all the people rose. Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people, their hands raised high, answered, amen.
Amen. And they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the Lord, their faces to the ground. Ezra read plainly from the book of the Law of God, interpreting it so that they all could understand what was read. Then Nehemiah, that is His Excellency, and Ezra, the high priest scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people, said to the people, today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad and do not weep, for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. He said further, go eat rich foods, drink sweet wine, allot portions to those who have nothing prepared for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not be saddened this day for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength. The Word of the Lord. Responsorial psalm, your Words, Lord, are Spirit and life. A reading from the New Testament, from 1st Corinthians 12th, chapter 12, 30th verse brothers and sisters, as a body is one, though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we are all baptized into one body. Whether Jew or Greek, slave or free persons, we were all given to drink of the Spirit.
The body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended.
If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body the eye cannot say to the hand, I don’t need you. Nor again the head to the feet, I do not need you. Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and all those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we surround with greater honor. Our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God so constructed the body as to give greater honor to the parts that is, without it, so that there will be no division in the body.
But the parts of the body may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it. If one part is honored, all the parts share in its joy. Now you are Christ’s body individually parts of it. Some people God has designed in the church to be first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then mighty deeds, then gifts of healing, assistance, administration in a variety of tongues for all apostles, for all prophets, for all teachers, to all work mighty deeds. Do all have the gift of healing?
Do all speak in tongues? To all interpret the word of the Lord. Hallelujah. The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives. The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. Luke, first chapter, first through the fourth verse, fourth verse 14 through the 21st verse.
Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the Word have handed them down to us. I too have decided, after all investigation accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received. She has returned to Galilee in the power of the Holy Spirit. And news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogue and was praised by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went, according to his custom, into the synagogue.
On the Sabbath day, he stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind. Let the oppressed go free to provide a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down.
And the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing the Gospel of the Lord. Ram. St. Luke gives us a very interesting, clear picture of why we give such reverence to the Gospels, particularly the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Because I think the intention that you hear in Luke in this Gospel saying that I want to put together in a sequence that makes sense, a chronological sequence of the teachings of Jesus and how he revealed it over time so that you can really get a sense of what’s authentic in his teaching, what’s really there.
So after the council in the 60s, we took those words in a way to heart. And instead of just reading mostly from Matthew, as it was for centuries before that, we now read the full cycle. The first cycle is all of Matthew. The second one is all of Mark. And then the third cycle that we’re in now is all of Luke. And each one is different.
Each one has a slightly different perspective. And you know that Luke was a doctor, so it kind of makes sense. The image that he uses for the church is that of the body parts, something you’d be familiar with. But what is this part of the story we heard already that he performed a miracle that was out of the sequence of time that he expected. But what he was saying through that miracle of changing water into wine, that there’s some. Something new.
Something new has come. It’s as different as water is from wine. And the wine is a symbol of the blood of Jesus that would ultimately be poured out for us so that it’s all about forgiveness. So right away, it seems as the stories were being put together by Luke, he knew this great teaching. Jesus opened our minds and our hearts to a dimension of God that was, in a sense, hidden in the Old Testament. It wasn’t yet revealed.
It wasn’t that it wasn’t there in God, it was just that it wasn’t time yet to reveal it. What he’s revealing is an amazing disposition on the part of God, and that is his patience, his understanding, his compassion for those of us who break the law. And his only response, he said, that I’ve always had, but haven’t been able to express it fully, is, I forgive you. I will not let your sins separate me from you, nor should it separate you from me. One of the most devastating things about sin is not only that it is something that is negative and affects the sinner and the one that sin against, but it’s also something that tends to lead to separation, isolation. I’m not who I should be.
I’m ashamed I’m not part of the body. So let’s go back, you know, to the first reading and see how this all fits into what I believe. The church now trying to amplify what’s in the Gospel by choosing the other two readings, is trying to point out. So we start with Ezra. And Ezra is trying to explain to the people the beauty and the importance of the law. These are the laws that would tell people how they are supposed to act, so it rules their actions.
And so when he’s describing this, the setting is pretty amazing. Ezra, the priest, is up high above a position of authority. The people are laying flat on the ground, which is a symbol of humility, even the symbol of having to die to yourself in order to really follow the spirit of the law. But there they are, lying on the floor on the ground, and as they listen to all the things they’re supposed to do, instead of saying, yeah, I’ll do that, I’ll do that. That’s great, as long as I know I can do it. No, I think they were very much aware of their limitation to follow the law.
And so they’re just weeping. And one of the things that could make them sad is not just that they’re not going to be able to accomplish this, but also they knew that if they didn’t accomplish it, they’d be excluded, separated from the community. Nothing is clear in the Old Testament that that’s what’s happened with the law. The law, instead of being a Very effective tool in getting everybody to do what they’re told. Which somehow is not really the way to work with people telling them what they must do. Because when you tell them what must do and you give them a law, then the law can only do two things.
It can tell the person that they’re not guilty, they didn’t do anything wrong. The law protects the innocent, but it can only condemn the guilty. That’s all it can do. And along with condemning the guilty, if you understand the way they thought about sin in the Old Testament, the way we still think about it in a certain way inside of us, that when we sin, we’re not worthy of being a part of the community, and the community judges us and excludes us. In fact, it’s interesting. One of the symbols of sin in the Old Testament, the effect of breaking the law.
I should say the affect of breaking the law. It would be simply this. You would be a leper. And a leper is someone who is contagious and will always be separated from the community because they’re thought they’re a bad. I mean, that is a contagious disease, but it’s also a disease that distorts what you look like. It’s a very strange disease if you have it, and it will change your face so much that you’re not even recognizable as who you are.
It’s like it destroys your identity, who you really are. Perfect image of the way the law treats the sinner. So that’s the Old Testament. And now here is Jesus. He comes in to change that. And he said, I’m not going to get rid of the law.
But one of the things that’s so clear that shocked everybody is his seemingly disregard for the rules and the laws. But that was just an effect of the thing that he was really doing. He was saying something about the law that we had to understand. And what he’s saying is there’s two ways to deal with the law. One is the letter of the law, and the other is the spirit of the law. And so he comes and he says right away, when he’s in his hometown, he’s there and he describes himself.
I’ve walked into this town and what I’m filled with is the Spirit. I’m the anointed one, the Christ. And what he’s saying is, the Christ is the one who’s coming to open your eyes, to free you from that which imprisons you, and to take a burden off of you. So here’s the spirit of the law, the truth behind the law. The true reason for the law being reimagined by Jesus. And it was probably the one thing that was most difficult for people to grasp because their whole society had been built on the law being the requirement to be a part of society.
Be a part of society and church were the same thing practically. And so one of the things that’s really interesting about that is that when you look at the way in which laws operate when they’re dealing just with your actions, and as I said, they can only judge your actions if you’re guilty. And if you’re guilty, you’re condemned. But what’s so interesting about that condemnation is you’re considered to be automatically less than everyone else. And it had gotten so incredibly crazy in the Old Testament that anyone then that had a disease or was in trouble or was poor, or didn’t have any kind of seemingly blessed life, they were definitely cut out of the community. But then it was so intense, the cutting out, that no one in the community was ever encouraged to talk to the people that were out of the community to convert them or change them.
They would just stay away from them because they were contagious. They would ruin the integrity of the community. Think of that. It’s so frightening to me when you think of how that still lingers in us when someone fails, when someone doesn’t do what they’re called to do, they’re automatically considered as less than. And we’re talking about an action they’re doing, not necessarily their intention. Sometimes their intention is way off.
But there are so many people with an intention to do good that do wrong, and yet we treat them as if they are their intention. That’s what’s another thing about the law. It can’t do anything other than expose it and condemn it. So Jesus brings the spirit and what does it do? It heals. It opens our eyes to see something that frees us from the prison of self hate, self distrust and the community’s hatred and distrust of us and lifts an enormous burden off our back.
I’ve come to free those who are in prison, to open their eyes, to lift a burden off of them. The burden is the law. But the burden of the law is not in the nature of law itself, but it’s in the way they used it, not as a motive to do what was right. Well, they did use it that. But then big shadow of that was they also use it as a way of excluding people and cutting them out. You say, well, how unfair.
Well then look inside yourself. Because what I think is so fascinating is the way we treat others, is the way we treat ourselves. And that if that image lingers in us, that when we sin, when we do something wrong, there’s something wrong with us. If we make that same problem the law makes is saying you are your actions, then you’re going to feel something. It automatically tends to give you a sense of separation. And you look at the beautiful image of the doctor who’s talking about every part of the body is essential.
But the thing that he didn’t say, that maybe he didn’t even realize then, because we know it now in medicine, the body has an amazing capacity to heal itself. So if something’s bad in your body and immediately you cut it out with medication that masks its effects, or you operate and take it out, that may be necessary in some way, but it’s not the plan of God. The way that beautiful metaphor is used, the body has the ability to heal the sinner. You, your essence has the ability to heal that in you that you feel makes you so less capable of being a part of what God wants. What a gift to be freed from rejection, from judgment. And I guarantee you, whenever you’re feeling it working in your life against something that you feel you can’t get past or some dark secret you have, if anybody knew it, they would hate hate you.
Until you get rid of that, you can never welcome your brother and sister back into the community. Closing Prayer Father, you know us so well and you’d patience is beyond our wildest dreams. And somehow institutions and people that speak for your are not always as generous as you are and so help us to hear your voice always over all other voices. Your truth and your truth is sin is not the obstacle we have made it into. It is simply a part of the process that we go through in order to truly grow and become all that you call us to be. So fill us with your spirit, your mind, your heart, most especially as we deal with our own failings and our own faults, so we might deal with others in a way that truly brings life for all of us.
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. A listener supported program is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast, Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. 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 2020.
