RECEIVING AND GIVING WITHOUT CHARGE

SUNDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME

Exod 19:2-6; Ps 100:2-3,5; Rom 5:6-11; Mt 9:36-10:8

The Kingdom of Priests

The difficulty of our Christian life does not consist so much in what we are to do, but in what we are not to do. Another way of putting this is that we are saved by grace and not by our own deeds. We have been nurtured in a world corrupted by sin and evil, where the self is exalted above God. Our conversion to the Lord involves unlearning the ways of the world and replacing them with the way of grace. The process is not easy, and was never meant to be easy, because it involves dying to self and living unto God. Christian virtues, as we reflected on last week, have a different principle from the natural virtues of this world. In the world, the strong man is praised and exalted because he can elevate himself while putting others down; he wields influence to win the admiration and adulation of others. But such is not the spiritual way of the Christian. We are rather called to put ourselves down in order to exalt the Lord. We are to put the Lord first in everything and remove or hide self in all things. We are to live no longer for ourselves, but for the Lord who loved us and died for our sake. He redeemed us from sin and evil that we may sing his praise everywhere with our lives.

Our redemption is surely a return to the original project of God; that is, to live and share the life and glory of God. It was never the plan of God for us to be independent of Him, but to be always in communion with Him. To make us in His image and likeness implies our having a rational nature and living on the principle of the Eternal Word of God. This is the reason God suspended our moral autonomy when he asked Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are to obey the word of God in our moral decisions and not act independently of God’s light. The plan of redemption of man after the original fall reaffirmed this dependency of man on God. We hear this in the words God spoke to Moses on the mountain. “Moses then went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Say this to the House of Jacob, declare this to the sons of Israel, “You yourselves have seen what I did with the Egyptians, how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. From this, you know that now, if you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you of all the nations shall be my very own for all the earth is mine.’”” The same problem that the Israelites had in belonging to Yahweh is what we are struggling with as we try to live as Christians.

By paying attention to the word of God as the carrier of the divine will, we become the people consecrated to doing His will. We become like Him when doing his will has become part of our nature. Just as a naturally virtuous man has his reason living in his various faculties or powers, especially in his will, a virtuous Christian has Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, living in his soul, mind, and will. The Incarnation of the Eternal Word made this indwelling possible. By taking our nature, he sacrificed it to God and made it a channel of grace to each one of us. By 'grace,' we mean, as we have explained previously, the presence of God with us, enabling us to accomplish His will. The sacrifice or death of Christ opened the way or channel of God’s presence within human nature and to individual persons. “We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men.” The presence of grace is established within us by his resurrection. As Saint Paul says in Eph 4:10, he filled the universe with his presence through his resurrection.  

Subsequently, his resurrected life makes God present to each human person. “When we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, we were still enemies; now that we have been reconciled, surely, we may count on being saved by the life of his Son? The divine presence is a given; what is wanting is our repentance and conversion to Him. This we must do daily, rejecting self-fixation to fix our attention on God. Our recognition of the divine presence keeps us joyful and full of praise for God. “Not merely because we have been reconciled but because we are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation.” The knowledge of our reconciliation would not come to us, but turning to God. We remain in ignorance of the sunlight until we open our eyes to the sun, to behold its rays and the beauty of the environment bathed in its rays.

Our Lord was therefore happy with the crowd who followed him. He decided to teach and enlighten them on the will of God, which is our salvation. “When Jesus saw the crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd.” Without the light of the word of God, forces of darkness harass and enslave us in sin and darkness. Our turning to God through His word brings us to His presence to enjoy the fullness of salvation. If we have come to know his saving presence, we cannot keep it hidden. The light must shine through us to others. It is in this sense that we have become a kingdom of priests, givers of divine gifts to others. “He summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and sickness.” So, what we are called to is the presence of God, to be aware of His presence in us. It is by being aware that we shine the light of His Word to others daily. “You received without charge, give without charge.” With the psalmist, let us be joyful in the Lord. “Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy.

Let us pray: O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our plea, and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace, that we may please you by our resolve and our deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.