Promise and practice to protect

A theme today from the texts of Roman Catholic Lectionary is the promise to protect.

Promise to protect

In the 6th Century BCE, the Prophet Ezekiel accepts the mission to speak truth to the first exiles from Jerusalem in Babylon about consequences and commitment of God to them.

* [3:3] As sweet as honey: though the prophet must foretell terrible things, the word of God is sweet to the one who receives it.

In the Gospel from Matthew, Jesus calls us to become as children who are protected by God and who should receive our full attention if they wander from the community of believers.

* [18:10–14] The first and last verses are peculiar to Matthew. The parable itself comes from Q; see Lk 15:3–7. In Luke it serves as justification for Jesus’ table-companionship with sinners; here, it is an exhortation for the disciples to seek out fellow disciples who have gone astray. Not only must no one cause a fellow disciple to sin, but those who have strayed must be sought out and, if possible, brought back to the community. The joy of the shepherd on finding the sheep, though not absent in Mt 18:13 is more emphasized in Luke. By his addition of Mt 18:10, 14 Matthew has drawn out explicitly the application of the parable to the care of the little ones.

Kimberly Grassmeyer reflects that Jesus called us to love our neighbors as ourselves and, in this reading, to humble ourselves and become like children.

I don’t believe he is asking that we forego the responsibilities and seriousness that accompany adulthood.  But I do believe that he is imploring us to not become so cynical and sinful that we can no longer engage with and appreciate God’s creation through the innocent, trusting and joyful eyes of a child.
Jesus is also asking us, through his parable of the shepherd, to never give up on our ‘strays’ – those around us, young and old alike – who venture away from their faith.  God doesn't desire that anyone be lost, and it is our charge to remain hopeful, trusting, and joyful in our faith so as to inspire others and find our place in God's Kingdom.

Don Schwager quotes “What it means to become a child of God”, by Epiphanius the Latin (late 5th century).

"Here the Lord not only repressed the apostles' thoughts but also checked the ambition of believers throughout the whole world, so that he might be great who wanted to be least. For with this purpose Jesus used the example of the child, that what he had been through his nature, we through our holy living might become - innocent, like children innocent of every sin. For a child does not know how to hold resentment or to grow angry. He does not know how to repay evil for evil. He does not think base thoughts. He does not commit adultery or arson or murder. He is utterly ignorant of theft or brawling or all the things that will draw him to sin. He does not know how to disparage, how to blaspheme, how to hurt, how to lie. He believes what he hears. What he is ordered he does not analyze. He loves his parents with full affection. Therefore what children are in their simplicity, let us become through a holy way of life, as children innocent of sin. And quite rightly, one who has become a child innocent of sin in this way is greater in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives such a person will receive Christ." (excerpt from  INTERPRETATION OF THE GOSPELS 27)

The Word Among Us meditation on Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14 reminds us that children are living in the present moment.

If we become too preoccupied with “doing,” we end up missing out on the grace of just “being” in the present moment. What’s more, when “doing” becomes our primary focus, we risk thinking that our value comes from what we do rather than who we are.
Think about children: they receive the love of their parents because they are their children! Yes, parents appreciate what their children do, but their love is based on who they are. When love is based on “doing” alone, a child can grow up less secure and with more emotional needs

The Post by Franciscan Media is a reflection on Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Saint of the Day for August 14. Father Kolbe’s death was not a sudden, last-minute act of heroism. His whole life had been a preparation. His holiness was a limitless, passionate desire to convert the whole world to God. And his beloved Immaculata was his inspiration.

A prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He relished walking along the ranks. “This one. That one.”
As they were being marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the line.
“I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.”“Who are you?”“A priest.”
No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The commandant, dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Fr. Kolbe to go with the nine. In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked, and their slow starvation began in darkness. But there was no screaming—the prisoners sang. By the eve of the Assumption, four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. Fr. Kolbe was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.

Friar Jude Winkler observes that Ezekiel models that we must preach the Word of God. We have to do what's right even if it costs us. We have intermediaries as guardian angels who call us to conversion and to act in certain ways. Leave the 99 to go after the lost? The 99 are not feeling abandoned but they thrill that the shepherd goes to people who are sisters and brothers for whom we want salvation.

John Piper, founder and teacher of desiringGod.org, thinks John Calvin’s careful observation about the Matthew 18:10 text about guardian angels is exactly right.

The interpretation given to this passage by some commentators, as if God assigned to each believer his own angel, does not rest on solid grounds. For the words of Christ do not mean that a single angel is continually occupied with this or the other person; and such an idea is inconsistent with the whole doctrine of Scripture, which declares that the angels encamp around (Psalm 34:7) the godly, and that not one angel only, but many, have been commissioned to guard every one of the faithful. Away, then, with the fanciful notion of a good and evil angel, and let us rest satisfied with holding that the care of the whole Church is committed to angels, to assist each member as his necessities shall require. (Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, on Matthew 18:10)

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, wonders if conservative Christians are afraid of the word yoga because they are in fact afraid of concrete orthopraxy! They prefer to strongly believe things but have very few daily practices or yogas that would allow them to know things in an experiential or “real” way.

The summary belief in Hinduism is that there are four disciplines, yogas, toward which different temperaments tend to gravitate. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit for the yoke which unites the seeker with the Sought. Hindus believe that all four yogas can lead one to enlightenment; in other words, there are at least four foundationally different ways of praying and living in this world.

Scott Geminn quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a discussion of the importance of concrete orthopraxy.

Ultimately, education in the faith isn’t just about orthodoxy it’s also about orthopraxy. Yes, it’s about right belief but it’s also about right practice.  Jesus wasn’t referring to himself when he said, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and do it” rather he was saying that blessedness has every bit as much to do with belief as it does with practice.  It’s also why his brother James said, “Faith without works is dead.” Faith is fed by works and vice versa. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his seminal work the Cost of Discipleship, “He who believes, obeys; and he who obeys, believes.”

The preparation we make through prayer and practice to build and protect truth, beauty and the sacred that is experienced as imago Dei in all people.

References

(n.d.). Ezekiel, chapter 3 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/ezekiel/3
(n.d.). Matthew, chapter 18 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/18:1  
(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved August 14, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
(n.d.). Meditations - The Word Among Us. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from https://wau.org/meditations/
(n.d.). Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe – Franciscan Media. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-maximilian-mary-kolbe/
(2017, April 4). The Surprising Role of Guardian Angels | Desiring God. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-surprising-role-of-guardian-angels

(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archives - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/

(2017, March 22). Losing My Orthopraxy | A Foolish Way. Retrieved August 14, 2018, from https://afoolishway.com/2017/03/22/losing-my-orthopraxy/