Scripture Readings: Book of Exodus 19:2-6; Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans 5: 6-11; Gospel According to Saint Matthew 9:36-10:8
I’d like to begin with a story from the Jewish Hassidic tradition:
A man received a telegram telling him that a relative had died and left him some valuable property. He was to contact the rabbi for details. Excited, he went to the rabbi, only to be told that the relative who died was Moses and the valuable property left him was the Jewish religious tradition.
The first reading today speaks clearly about the covenant between God and His chosen people under the leadership of Moses. God offers to guide the chosen people to a great inheritance and the people agree to this, but in fact often fail in their part of the covenant. This calls to mind another story told by the rabbis of old:
God wanted to choose a people as His own, and various tribes presented themselves. God told them all: you must keep my 10 commandments. The first tribe said, “No problem, except for adultery—we can’t avoid that.”
The second tribe stepped forward and said, “We can keep your commandments, but stealing is our vice.” And so on and on with each people, presenting their excuses. Finally, a tiny band, afraid to ask, was asked by God: “Can you keep my commandments?” They said, “We can do it.” So God made a covenant with them, they became his people, he their God, and the next day the people broke all 10 commandments!
Despite this fact–and it’s the story of the human race–God never abandons his people, who are ever being invited by God to come to the waters and be refreshed, come to me and find rest (from the writings Saint Ignatius of Antioch).
This is how God operates, to which we say, “Thanks be to God,” for our human efforts are less than perfect and our frail attempts fall short of that total giving of ourselves in love of God and neighbor that Jesus calls us to.
Maybe this fact is behind the famous saying, “To err is human; to forgive is divine.” God is always ready to forgive our sins, and this is the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation: God became man, so that we might become partakers in divine life.
God could have given up on the human race, left us alone, forgotten our plight, and let us be ruled by sin, estranged from God, the source of genuine life and goodness. Instead, God decided to change the course of human history once and for all and make it possible to have friendship with God, which ultimately means a share in everlasting life.
Saint Paul is very clear about this in this Sunday’s passage from the letter to the Romans: “When we were still powerless, Christ died for us…in this God proves His love for us…we were reconciled with God by the death and resurrection of Christ…through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
This is indeed the Good News we long to hear, our consolation and strength, the source of our joy and confidence. Rather than abandon us, God chose and chooses to redeem us, to lead us from darkness to light.
From the origins of humankind there has been failure to recognize God, accompanied by a tendency toward separation from the source of life, and this tendency seems likely to go on till the end of time.
Nonetheless God continues to call us, to seek us out, and encourages us to return to the right path, assisting us by grace, to know our dignity and to remember our covenant with God.
We have sinned, but God continually is manifested as a God of love and pardon. The Gospel passage this Sunday opens with this same idea: “At the sight of the crowds, the heart of Jesus was moved with pity…for they were life sheep without a shepherd.”
In the choice of twelve apostles we find the Lord choosing very ordinary people, non-professionals we’d call them today, who had no wealth or special position in society. Jesus wanted ordinary people who could take on a special task and do it extraordinarily well. He chose ordinary people for what he could see them becoming: saints and undying witnesses of the Gospel message.
The Lord is calling us as well. We may feel inadequate or not up to the job, but God sees us for what we can become: disciples who are zealous for the kingdom of God and longing to share eternity with the Holy Trinity and the Communion of Saints.
Our dedication to listening to God’s word and will, revealed in the Church, in Scripture, in the Sacraments, in our superiors, in our prayer, is our response to the pardon and peace offered us by God, who has made a covenant with us that can be broken only by our free choices against God’s will.
Christ’s resurrection that we celebrate at each Mass is the hope of eternal life for all who are willing to follow the Redeemer, who came to call sinners, not the righteousness, to repentance and to the heavenly banquet where “exhaustless riches and unmeasured bliss” (from Dante, Paradiso) are ever poured out.
Abbot Christian Leisy, OSB