Scripture Reflection - October 28
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Readings: Ephesians 2:19-22; Psalm 19; Luke 6:12-19
Today is a feast of the apostles Simon and Jude. It seems there is no trace whatsoever of them outside of the New Testament and no word of them anywhere after Pentecost, not even a mention of their efforts to proclaim Christ, or whether they were actually martyred or not.
Now Christ and Paul describe us, among other things, as servants, disciples, workers, apostles, children, and heirs. That is quite an array of roles and identities, but all emphasizing certain aspects of the people of God.
Paul's Letter to the Ephesians today describes us as the "household of God". Then it uses another metaphor for the Church, “a building”. But that building becomes the “holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for the Lord.”
While all of these words and phrases describe who we are as disciples of Jesus, some suit us more than others at certain times in our lives. Our roles or identities can change in the faith community, but the description that remains unchanged is that of children. That’s the one I like the best: it is the closest one for all of us to our human experience, namely, we are children of God. The place where we relate best to the God-made-man is in the humanity which we share with Him.
In the section of the Gospel of Luke today, “Jesus went out to the mountain to pray”: then he called his disciples and chose twelve of them. And what a motley crew they were! Each very much their own person, with their special gifts, with their blessings and their blemishes. Yes, and all called to become alive in the same way, with the same life, filled with the same Spirit.
And like all children, each of us is different in how we live out the lives we are given, in how we use the gifts that God has graced us with. Maybe a few of us will be remembered: most of us will be the Simons and the Judes, the “multitudes who come to hear him and to be healed, the true apostles who choose to respond to the Love (God) that gave us life or, as the Psalmist says, the ones whose “message goes out through all the earth”.
Blessings.
Fr. Brian