Saturday
of the 4th Week of Lent
March 12, 2016 8:30am
Maybe the religious leaders in
Jesus’ time sincerely thought they were doing the right thing in rejecting Jesus.
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 just because they think or act differently or look different from us?
I am not sure, but I have two
ideas that may be helpful.
First, we need to try to understand
what others are saying and why they are saying it.
This requires that we have a
respectful conversation: that we listen, question, respond, and then listen
again to 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.
And 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 person.
The religious leaders in today’s
gospel were demonizing Jesus and not sincerely 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.
So, maybe these two simple guidelines
will help us to avoid doing what the religious leaders do in today’s gospel.
