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.
