Sunday, March 22, 2015

Saturday of the 4th Week of Lent, Cycle B - March 21, 2015

Saturday of the 4th Week of Lent
March 21, 2015    8:30am

 

Maybe the religious leaders in Jesus’ time sincerely thought they were doing the right thing in opposing and rejecting him.
To us, they appear close-minded and self-serving.
The question I ask is this.
How can we avoid making the same mistake they were making?
How can we avoid rejecting Christ in someone who is different from us and whose ways we do not want to look at or accept?
I am not sure, but I do see some ways to try to avoid what those religious leaders did and avoid rejecting Christ coming to us in others today.

First, we need to try to understand what others are saying and why they are saying it.
This requires that we dialogue, converse, question, listen well, respond, and then hear their response to what we said.
The religious leaders in today’s gospel did not do this with Jesus.
If we don’t do that, we may well be rejecting Christ.

Then we have to make sure we are dealing with the issue and not the person.
We have to stick to the faith issue or whatever the issue at hand is and not be demonizing the other as a person.
The religious leaders in today’s gospel were demonizing Jesus as a person and not weighing the validity of what he was saying or the goodness of what he was doing.
If we don’t do this, we may well be rejecting Christ.

And finally, we have to make sure that we are not benefitting by closing off to what another is saying or doing.
Are we benefitting in the sense of just staying comfortable in our own little status quo?
That is what the religious leaders in today’s gospel were doing.
If we do this, we again may well be rejecting Christ.


So, they are my thoughts provoked by today’s gospel and those who opposed Jesus and were closed to him and his ideas and ways.