HOMILY: Today’s gospel – good news for the anawim or “have-nots” (11:5) – invites a number of responses. We might respond to the image of the yoke, a farming implement for working cattle, a symbol of Wisdom/torah/teaching. We might respond to the image of Messiah as co-worker. We might respond to the theme of rest or sabbath …
HOMILY: Jesus said: “Every religious scholar who has become a student of the kindom of heaven is like the head of a household who can bring from the storeroom both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52).
HOMILY: Jesus the Teacher, we might imagine, sometimes surprised his disciples with a pop quiz. He probably tried to make it helpful and enjoyable. So, let’s imagine a multiple-choice quiz for conscientious disciples.
HOMILY: Matthew’s Jesus speaks of division and even accepts a certain responsibility for division: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.” Before commending a Spirit on the side of human frailty and faith: “You who lose your life [as personal project/possession] for my sake [in the Spirit of love] will find it [as renewed promise/communal gift].”
PRAYERS: Intercessory prayers.
HOMILY: It’s common for me to find, as I prepare to lead worship or preach, that a particular image will strike me and add grist to the mill of my thinking.
These two images are from Facebook this week. I follow a group called Unique Trees, and I’m often delighted by what people notice and post.
HOMILY: Our readings present major themes: faith and trust, universal blessing, creative community, desire and promise of healing. Each theme, a window on a world in crisis, reveals figures of frailty and fidelity, religious observance, prophetic hope.
HOMILY: Andre Rublev’s 15th-century Icon of the Holy Trinity is a treasure of Russian art, a treasure of Russian Orthodoxy, and a treasure of Christian faith. Already we are thinking in threes.
PRAYERS: Pentecostal prayers.
HOMILY: The Jewish Pentecost (or Shavuot) is a celebration of the fruitfulness of the land, blessed by the sun, rain and “wind/breath” of God. It is also a celebration of God’s giving Torah (good teaching) to a newly liberated people – 50 days after the Passover, 50 days after the Exodus.
In the church, we celebrate how the Spirit or “wind/breath” of God has “in-spirited” human beings – Jews and Gentiles – to live “highly” of themselves. The work of the Spirit is that all creation, including human beings, radiate Christ.
