The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with our Baptismal anointing as priest, prophet, and leader to accept the “bitter” in our environment as the starting point for our action to move toward the better.
In the reading from the Book of Revelation, the Angel with the Small Scroll presents a call to prophecy.
* [10:9–10] The small scroll was sweet because it predicted the final victory of God’s people; it was sour because it also announced their sufferings. Cf. Ez 3:1–3.
* [10:11] This further prophecy is contained in chaps. 12–22. (Revelation, CHAPTER 10, n.d.)
Psalm 119 praises the Glories of God’s Law.
* [Psalm 119] This Psalm, the longest by far in the Psalter, praises God for giving such splendid laws and instruction for people to live by. The author glorifies and thanks God for the Torah, prays for protection from sinners enraged by others’ fidelity to the law, laments the cost of obedience, delights in the law’s consolations, begs for wisdom to understand the precepts, and asks for the rewards of keeping them. (Psalm 119, n.d.)
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus Cleanses the Temple.
* [19:45–46] Immediately upon entering the holy city, Jesus in a display of his authority enters the temple (see Mal 3:1–3) and lays claim to it after cleansing it that it might become a proper place for his teaching ministry in Jerusalem (Lk 19:47; 20:1; 21:37; 22:53). See Mt 21:12–17; Mk 11:15–19; Jn 2:13–17 and the notes there. (Luke, CHAPTER 19, n.d.)
Sarah Schulte-Bukowinski can empathize with Jesus absolutely losing it in the Temple. Yes God’s promise is richness and delight, my inheritance, my counselor, more precious than gold and sweeter than honey. But these very images from today’s Psalm119 bring painfully to mind the words of another Psalm 13. “How long, O Lord” will your face be hidden?
As we head towards the end of the liturgical year with this coming Sunday’s Solemnity of Christ the King, I am keenly aware that these tensions are not new. Advent will draw me even more deeply into this “already and not-yet” nature of the Kingdom. Trite but true is that I have only a very small part to play in work that is not my own, and certainly not on my timetable. It helps to think of Jesus feeling this same strain as he looked at the beloved Temple, seeing the difference between what should be, and what really is. (Schulte-, n.d.)
Don Schwager quotes “The home of sanctity,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"God does not want his temple to be a trader's lodge but the home of sanctity. He does not preserve the practice of the priestly ministry by the dishonest duty of religion but by voluntary obedience. Consider what the Lord's actions impose on you as an example of living... He taught in general that worldly transactions must be absent from the temple, but he drove out the money changers in particular. Who are the money changers, if not those who seek profit from the Lord's money and cannot distinguish between good and evil? Holy Scripture is the Lord's money." (excerpt from EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 9.17-18) (Schwager, n.d.)
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 19:45-48 comments that Jesus sat publicly among his people and taught them the mysteries of the kingdom. He wasn’t concerned that his detractors were watching for a reason to condemn him. All he wanted was to feed his sheep and lead them to the Father.
This is what Jesus wants to do for you. Every day, he wants to meet with you. To speak to you through his word. To lift you up as you pray. To lead you to a deeper relationship with his Father. And sometimes, to reach you, he has to turn over some tables. He doesn’t want you to miss your visitation. Can you make space for him today?
“Jesus, thank you for visiting me every day. I want to make room for you. Clear out the clutter in my heart!” (Meditation on Luke 19:45-48, n.d.)
Friar Jude Winkler comments on how the visionary is told to take and swallow the Scroll of the Word which is sweet but becomes a bitter judgement on the people resonating with texts in Ezekiel. It was necessary for pilgrims distant from Jerusalem to exchange Roman currency and purchase sacrificial animals to worship in the Temple. Friar Jude reminds us that some leaders then and now become furious when we attempt to upset the established order.
Dr. Barbara Holmes expands the quest for justice and liberation to a cosmic level.
We are one, and our wars and racial divisions cannot defeat the wholeness that lies just below the horizon of human awareness…. Diversity may not be a function of human effort or justice. It may just be the sea in which we swim. To enact a just order in human communities is to reclaim a sense of unity with divine and cosmological aspects of the life space. As Hebrew Scripture scholar Terence Fretheim suggests, the “Let us” discourse in Genesis [1:26] is a statement of the community of God. God is creating and ordering the universe, but does not do it alone. [2] (Holmes, n.d.)
We invoke the insight of the Spirit as we ponder how to reach the “better” in our lives and our relationships with others and our environment.
References
Holmes, B. (n.d.). Our Cosmic Context. CAC Daily Meditations. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/our-cosmic-context/
Luke, CHAPTER 19. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved November 22, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/19?
Meditation on Luke 19:45-48. (n.d.). Word Among Us. https://wau.org/meditations/2024/11/22/1134686/
Psalm 119. (n.d.). Bible USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/119?14
Revelation, CHAPTER 10. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved November 22, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/revelation/10?
Schulte-, S. (n.d.). Daily Reflection Of Creighton University's Online Ministries. Creighton University's Online Ministries. https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/112224.html
Schwager, D. (n.d.). All the People Hung upon His Words. https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2024&date=nov22
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