Reminded of the mission

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the role of the Spirit in providing the influence to Love according to our mission as followers of Jesus.

Lead by the Spirit

In the First Letter of John, the Spirit informs us of our heritage as sons and daughters of God who are called to Love as modeled by the Son.

 * [4:13–21] The testimony of the Spirit and that of faith join the testimony of love to confirm our knowledge of God. Our love is grounded in the confession of Jesus as the Son of God and the example of God’s love for us. Christian life is founded on the knowledge of God as love and on his continuing presence that relieves us from fear of judgment (1 Jn 4:16–18). What Christ is gives us confidence, even as we live and love in this world. Yet Christian love is not abstract but lived in the concrete manner of love for one another.1

In the Gospel from Luke, the Spirit is with Jesus as He proclaims His mission and its connection to the prophecy of Isaiah.

 * [4:18] The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me: see note on Lk 3:21–22. As this incident develops, Jesus is portrayed as a prophet whose ministry is compared to that of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Prophetic anointings are known in first-century Palestinian Judaism from the Qumran literature that speaks of prophets as God’s anointed ones. To bring glad tidings to the poor: more than any other gospel writer Luke is concerned with Jesus’ attitude toward the economically and socially poor (see Lk 6:20, 24; 12:16–21; 14:12–14; 16:19–26; 19:8). At times, the poor in Luke’s gospel are associated with the downtrodden, the oppressed and afflicted, the forgotten and the neglected (Lk 4:18; 6:20–22; 7:22; 14:12–14), and it is they who accept Jesus’ message of salvation.2

Rev. Richard Gabuzda comments that the remaining days of the Christmas season provide an opportunity to receive more deeply the Good News that in Jesus we have become adopted daughters and sons. He believes that to the extent that we “remain” there, we can be assured that the mission to which we are called will bear much fruit.

 All of us have a mission in life, no matter what our particular vocation.  Sometimes we are more aware of its particularities than at other times. Whatever this mission may be, it cannot be discovered unless we first discover our identity in God.  Knowing ourselves as Beloved Sons and Daughters provides the key, the place from which our mission flows.3

Don Schwager quotes “Christ brings hope of release from spiritual bondage, “by Eusebius of Caesarea, 260/263-340 AD.

 "'The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me' (Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1). Clearly this happened to those who thought that the Christ of God was neither a mere man nor an unfleshed and unembodied Word who did not take on a mortal nature. Instead they say he is both God and human, God in that he is the only-begotten God who was in the bosom of the Father, and man... from the seed of David according to the flesh (Luke 1:32). Thus, God the Word, who through the prophecy has been called Lord, speaks out this prophecy that is preeminent among other promises: 'I am the Lord, and in the right time I will draw them together'... "Taking the chrism in the Holy Spirit, he, chosen from among all, appears as the only-begotten Christ of God. And the verse 'he has sent me to proclaim good news to the poor' (Luke 4:18), he fulfilled in that time when he 'was preaching the kingdom of heaven' and explaining the beatitudes to the disciples by saying, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God' (Matthew 5:3)... And for those nations then imprisoned in their souls by the invisible and spiritual powers he preached release to his newly encouraged disciples... Therefore, he preached release to the prisoners and to those suffering from blindness who were those enslaved by the error of polytheism, and he creates a year that is acceptable, through which he made all time his own year. And from the passing years of humanity he provides days of created light for those close to him. He never kept hidden the age that is to come after the perfecting of the present. For that age will be a time much on the Lord's mind, being an age and day of requiting. For he will grant a change of fortune or a year of favor to those struggling in the present life." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 2.51.5)4

The Word Among Us Meditation on 1 John 4:19–5:4 notes that as the author of 1 John tells us, we can love because God first loved us. We can forgive because God has first forgiven us. And we can care for each other because God never stops caring for us.

Friar Jude Winkler recalls the vertical and horizontal aspects of our faith as he notes the Love of the First Letter of John for God and our neighbour. The addition of commandments in this letter is a point of deviation from the single Love of God and neighbour commandment of the Gospel of John. Friar Jude notes the omission of the celebration of vengeance of the Lord in Jesus citation of the text from Isaiah.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, continues looking at the way Jesus used the Scriptures with some specific examples.

 He omits troublesome verses with which he does not agree, as when he drops the final half verse from the Isaiah scroll when he first reads in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:18-19). The audience would be familiar with the final line of Isaiah 61:2: “to proclaim a day of vengeance from our God.” Yet Jesus ends earlier with “proclaims the Lord’s day of favor.” There he goes again, light and easy with the sacred text! Good Protestants would call that “selectively quoting” and pious Catholics would call it “cafeteria Catholicism.”5

The inspiration of the Spirit provides guidance as we come to understand our mission and how to trim the troublesome attachments we may have to culture and comfort as modeled by Jesus radical interpretation of sacred text.

References

1	(n.d.). 1 John chapter 4 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved January 10, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/1john/4
2	(n.d.). Luke, chapter 4 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved January 10, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/4
3	(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved January 10, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
4	(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved January 10, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
5	(2019, January 4). Daily Meditations Archive: January 2019 - Daily Meditations Archives .... Retrieved January 10, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/01/