Selling-point
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), July 6, 2014 – Zech 9, 9-10; Rom 8, 9. 11-13; Mt 11, 25-30
Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Rom 8, 9)
We are invited to a relaxing and renewing life together.
And we can approach without apprehension the one who invites us. He reflects his merciful and gracious Father. He is not intimidating. He is not a warrior king who comes demanding vengeance, but rather a royal Savior, just and meek, who rides on triumphant on an ass for the cause of truth and justice. His kingdom spreads throughout the world, not through military conquest, but through the promotion of justice and peace. Jesus eliminates instruments of war.
He does not reject anyone. Hence, we can present ourselves as we are, without pretenses. For Jesus sees the heart and welcomes besides the marginalized. His words and deeds clearly show his preferential option for the poor and simple people. They are the ones to whom he wishes to reveal his intimate and unique knowledge of the Father, in accordance with the Father’s disposition to reveal to them what he has hidden from the wise. Though he is firmer than the one who is not a reed swayed by the wind, the Lord’s Servant does not, however, break a bruised reed.
And we have much reason to feel at home with Jesus, those of us who: are anxious about things we need to live and which we can hardly attain in an atmosphere of poverty, unemployment, evictions and injustices; have succumbed to a fast-paced lifestyle; are harried by the lure of money, security and comfortable life; are worried about our salvation and multiply devotions that we cannot omit without feeling upset (cf. St. Vincent de Paul’s advice: Coste I 86; X 353), yet disregarding the indispensability of grace and of the vivifying Spirit. To us Jesus offers relief and rest.
The carpenter from Nazareth supplies us with a yoke whose selling-point, so to speak, is its quality of being easy and light. It is unlike the yoke traded today by those who take the place of those learned teachers who imposed on the people unbearable burdens which they themselves would not move even slightly, the same ones who complied scrupulously with everything except with the most essential.
It is because the responsibility Jesus teaches is not prescribed from the outside. He writes it rather in our hearts. We get infected with it from living with him, the meek and humble of heart. Imbued with his spirit of daring commitment to the Kingdom, we learn to put our absolute trust in God, to renounce all greed, to fulfill his mandate, “Do this in memory of me.” Thus are communion and unity represented and realized.
Ross Reyes Dizon
Tags: A Vincentian reading of the Sunday readings, Ross Dizon