28/09/2023

There is always purpose in the Church's choice of readings from Scripture. 

The return of the Exiles from Babylon and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem is effected by IAMIAM through the worldly kingship of Darius. Haggai is inspired to silence the doubters by reminding them that although they have "laboured in the vineyard" the results have been meagre. They are commanded to place the rebuilding of the Temple before all projects aimed at their own material comfort.

The New Testament reading from Luke, is very short. In it the Herod, the son of the King Herod who slaughtered the Holy Innocents,  and who, even though he liked to hear the word of God as preached by John the Baptist, had had Jesus' cousin decapitated, is making enquiries about Jesus.

All sorts of rumours about the uneducated carpenter who was challenging the religious authority of the Scribes must  have been circulating around Herod's part of Palestine. For some, this Jesus was the long awaited "Messiah". For others he was a new ruler who would cancel the crippling debt of the poor. For some he was John the Baptist returned to life or maybe another of the Scriptural prophets.

Worldly living is always in the providence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can treat it as the only reality and act as did the returning exiles until awakened by the word of God delivered by Haggai. Jesus taught us that we are to discriminate between God and Caesar. "My Kingdom is not of this world". We can never accept the decrees of Providential Rulers in whose power we find ourselves to be, claiming for themselves authority that  belongs to God.

The early Christians refuted the Emperors who claimed to be gods. They were martyred. How do we live in our democracies that challenge every single one of God's precepts usurping for themselves an authority greater than God's?  We have no need to await an answer for Jesus' words; "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" are true for all time. The words are true but how am I to act them out?

Dear Lord, I know that I am of a generation that has been completely seduced by material success with a worship of our own bodies feeding our love for Mammon. Help us to recover our "delight" in you and accept that the salvation of the poor lies in our dedication to you and not in forgetting "your delight in us" by thrusting away your mercy. May Mary and all the saints continue to plead that our complacency in your worldly providence be shaken to its very core. Let us all be awakened to the need for holiness as that is your will for me and all other people i this world. Amen.