Become Slaves of God

October 22, 2009

Thursday of the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, ⁵ and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:22-23

I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Luke 12:49-50

Piety

Father, take down the obstacles which block our path to you and that impede your love from reaching us. Help us to accept the sacrifice of your loving son Jesus as the way to live once again in holiness, united with you. With the new life you grant to us, help us use that life for the benefit of all but especially to transform the lives of the poor. Amen.

Study

“The wages of sin is death.”

First, our sins result in the sacrifice of Jesus to sanctify us. Death to Christ for our sins means that we have given up trying to overcome the obstacles to our friendship with Jesus. Yet God never gives up.

Second, though, is our own death – metaphorically if not actually. If we do not submit to the purification of the baptism of fire that Jesus delivers, then we will physically die to God and to other believers …even though we might go on in life, our friendship and relationship with God and the Church will be dead, will be over like the death and separation experienced by the Prodigal Son or the rich man, Lazarus.

Paul’s letter to the Romans celebrates what we have inherited due to Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf when we accept our role as “slaves of God.” If we have faith, then we have been freed from sin by the purifying fire that Jesus freely delivers.

We don’t want to change any more than Jesus wants to die on the cross. Even though the divine part of Jesus’ nature wishes that the baptism of fire which will conquer sin was already engulfed, the human part of Jesus dreads the pain that is to come to his physical body. As much as God wants to free us from our sins, Jesus expresses the human anguish for the painful death that he knows awaits him.

Much of what follows in Luke’s Gospel from this point forward unites Jesus with the suffering of the people he touches and with other people who are outcasts and sinners. Such suffering is the precursor to the suffering which will come in the passion and crucifixion. Out of this identification with suffering and repentant sinners, Jesus urges all of us to change. “If you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!"

To spur us to change, Jesus often invokes imagery of a garden in the coming chapters of Luke’s gospel (mustard seed, fig tree, etc.). These pictures also allude to the garden that awaits Jesus in Gethsemane before he stands trial…the Garden where we see this anguish pouring forth from Jesus in blood.

Finally, Jesus also predicts that we will share his anguish because of the wages of our sin as families are torn apart between those who do heed the call to change (“believers”) and those who do not. The notes in the New American Bible for Romans 6 explain: “Through baptism, believers share the death of Christ and thereby escape from the grip of sin. Through the resurrection of Christ the power to live anew becomes reality for them, but the fullness of participation in Christ's resurrection still lies in the future. But life that is lived in dedication to God now is part and parcel of that future.”

Action

October is Mission Month for the Catholic Church and missionaries around the world will benefit from special collections taken up this month.

Maryknoll Lay Missioners join the church in celebrating this month. Maryknoll Lay Missioners (MKLM) is a Catholic organization inspired by the mission of Jesus to live and serve in economically poor communities in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, responding to basic needs and helping to create a more just and compassionate world.

These lay people make up one of the three separately operated and funded entities of Maryknoll Missioners. The three distinct branches of Maryknoll Missioners – Maryknoll Fathers & Brothers, Maryknoll Sisters, and Maryknoll Lay Missioners – are each separately funded and depend on unique donors for support.

Visit their website at http://www.mklaymissioners.org/index.php and considering supporting one of these missionaries or a favorite missionary of your own choosing.