A Homily - The Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

First Reading - Hosea 6:3-6 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 49(50):1,8,12-15

Second Reading – Romans 4:18-25 ©

Gospel Acclamation  - Acts 16:14

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 4:18

The Gospel According to Matthew 9:9-13 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

You will find the way in faithfulness, you will find it in direct proportion to the trust you place in the providence of the divine. The way is not found through burnt offerings and animal sacrifices.

God, the creator of the universe, God is not blood thirsty, and our relationship with God is not transactional. When we speak of the divine economy we are not speaking of debits and credits, God’s love is not reflected on a balance sheet.

When we speak of the divine economy we are talking about the distribution of God’s promise throughout God’s household, from: oikos, oikonomia. When we are speaking of the God’s household, we are speaking of something that is coextensive with the created order, in God’s house there is no place where God is not, and in everyplace where God is, God is present fully.

Be mindful.

God desires that we be merciful and loving to one another.

God does not intervene in our lives, either to punish or to praise. We live with our crimes and their consequences, they cannot be absolved because what is done cannot be undone, but they can be resolved by the spirits of compassion and mercy, and in their resolution the consequences of our crimes bend toward the good, and what is good in us lives forever.

Know this!

God has no desire for animal sacrifice. God does not eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats, God does not savor the smell of their smoking entrails; God never did and God never would.

Honor God with acts of humility, kindness and compassion, sing God’s praises if you are moved to do so, but honor God with love.

Understand that Jesus was not put to death “for” our sins, he was put to death because of them. He did not suffer and die for our justification, but to show us that even a convicted criminal such as he, who died such an ignominious death, who was hung on a tree, to show us that as he is justified so are we. This is not so that we can argue the legal grounds for a theory of atonement, but so that we can such matters aside.

Remember.

God is with you, God hears you.

Consider the Gospel reading for today.

The purpose of the good news is to give comfort to the poor, and to free those in bondage.

If you are a teacher of the faith and your ministry is not pointed to this end, then you are failing in your duty. If you use the words of Jesus to shame the poor or to justify ignoring them, to mistreat the prisoner or the captive, then you have abandoned the way and you are not a follower of Christ.

The reading for today is pure distillation of mythological tropes common among the Hebrew people. It carries forward some a set of theological themes that were very important in the first century. It clearly situates the early Jesus Movement within the context of Rabbinical Judaism, which is otherwise known as Pharisaical Judaism.

In the reading for today Jesus is presented as a Pharisee, he is a Jew of the Synagogue, his followers address him as Rabbi, and the central concern among the actors in the text: Jesus, Peter, James and John, concerns the expectation that Jesus will rise from the dead.

In ancient Judaism, only the Pharisees taught the resurrection of the dead.

Beyond these immediate concerns the writers of Mark’s Gospel were interested in conveying the message that their teachings were in alignment with the traditions of their people. They depict Jesus as another Abraham, who, like Jesus was visited by divine messengers, they show him changed-exalted, as Moses was changed on the mountain; furthermore, they show him being given the endorsement of Moses and also of the prophet Elijah.

This trope is a concrete expression of the faith, that the teaching of the Jesus movement was in alignment with the Patriarchs, the Law Giver and the Prophets.

They demonstrated how Jesus” life reflects the history of the people, and that him the story of the covenant is complete.

Be mindful.

This is the message that today’s pericope intends to convey, and it is a fiction, these events never happened, they are a literary invention. It does not transmit a historical truth about the Life of Jesus, but rather a historical truth about what people believed concerning Jesus roughly fifty years after his death.

First Reading - Hosea 6:3-6 ©

What I Want is Love, Not Sacrifice

Let us set ourselves to know the Lord; that he will come is as certain as the dawn his judgement will rise like the light, he will come to us as showers come, like spring rains watering the earth.

What am I to do with you, Ephraim?

What am I to do with you, Judah?

This love of yours is like a morning cloud, like the dew that quickly disappears.

This is why I have torn them to pieces by the prophets, why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth, since what I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 49(50):1,8,12-15

True reverence for the Lord

Our God comes openly, he keeps silence no longer.

 Alleluia.

The Lord, the God of gods has spoken:

  he has summoned the whole earth, from east to west.

God has shone forth from Zion in her great beauty.

  Our God will come, and he will not be silent.

Before him, a devouring fire;

  around him, a tempest rages.

He will call upon the heavens above, and on the earth, to judge his people.

“Bring together before me my chosen ones, who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice.”

The heavens will proclaim his justice; for God is the true judge.

Listen, my people, and I will speak;

  Israel, I will testify against you.

I am God, your God.

I will not reproach you with your sacrifices,

  for your burnt offerings are always before me.

But I will not accept calves from your houses,

  nor goats from your flocks.

For all the beasts of the forests are mine,

  and in the hills, a thousand animals.

All the birds of the air – I know them.

  Whatever moves in the fields – it is mine.

If I am hungry, I will not tell you;

  for the whole world is mine, and all that is in it.

Am I to eat the flesh of bulls,

  or drink the blood of goats?

Offer a sacrifice to God – a sacrifice of praise;

  to the Most High, fulfil your vows.

Then you may call upon me in the time of trouble:

  I will rescue you, and you will honour me.

To the sinner, God has said this:

Why do you recite my statutes?

  Why do you dare to speak my covenant?

For you hate what I teach you,

  and reject what I tell you.

The moment you saw a thief, you joined him;

  you threw in your lot with adulterers.

You spoke evil with your mouth,

  and your tongue made plans to deceive.

Solemnly seated, you denounced your own brother;

  you poured forth hatred against your own mother’s son.

All this you did, and I was silent;

  so you thought that I was just like you.

But I will reprove you –

  I will confront you with all you have done.

Understand this, you who forget God;

  lest I tear you apart, with no-one there to save you.

Whoever offers up a sacrifice of praise gives me true honour;

  whoever follows a sinless path in life will be shown the salvation of God.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,

  as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

  world without end.

Amen.

 

Second Reading – Romans 4:18-25 ©

Nothing Shook Abraham's Hope or Belief

Though it seemed Abraham’s hope could not be fulfilled, he hoped and he believed, and through doing so he did become the father of many nations exactly as he had been promised: Your descendants will be as many as the stars. Even the thought that his body was past fatherhood – he was about a hundred years old – and Sarah too old to become a mother, did not shake his belief. Since God had promised it, Abraham refused either to deny it or even to doubt it, but drew strength from faith and gave glory to God, convinced that God had power to do what he had promised. This is the faith that was ‘considered as justifying him.’ Scripture however does not refer only to him but to us as well when it says that his faith was thus ‘considered’; our faith too will be ‘considered’ if we believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, Jesus who was put to death for our sins and raised to life to justify us.

 

Gospel Acclamation  - Acts 16:14

Alleluia, alleluia!

Open our heart, O Lord, to accept the words of your Son.

Alleluia!

 

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 4:18

Alleluia, alleluia!

The Lord has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Matthew 9:9-13 ©

It is Not the Healthy who Need the Doctor, but the Sick

As Jesus was walking on, he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.

  While he was at dinner in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.’

 

The Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)