Inherit the Kingdom
Monday of the First Week of Lent
The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy…You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19:1-2, 18BC
“Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’” Matthew 25:34-36
Piety
Prophets of a Future Not Our Own[i]
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Study
There is a pretty stark contrast between the code of conduct in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Mostly, the passage from Leviticus focuses on what NOT to do (which is why I took an excerpt from the beginning and end). Matthew focuses on what we MUST do. What comes through loud and clear from both books is that LOVE IN ACTION is a critical component if we are to inherit the kingdom.
In the Hebrew Bible, it was the job of the king or ruler to meet the needs of the “anawim.” Social justice did not trickle down to the people in the pews.
The anawim of the Old Testament were the poor of every sort: the vulnerable, the marginalized, and socio-economically oppressed, those of lowly status without earthly power. In fact, they depended entirely on God for whatever they owned. The Hebrew word anawim (inwetan) means those who are bowed down.[ii]
Individually, these are the widows, orphans, and immigrants who looked to God for everything. For whatever reason (bad luck, bad karma or the accident of birth), they have experienced a life that isn’t fair. They don’t expect their rights to be respected. The widows and orphans of ancient Middle Eastern societies relied upon the local ruler to provide what the Lord did not. They are strangers to people who have “made it” in this world. They do not belong to the kingdoms of this world because the nations of this world haven’t accepted them. They are outcasts in the society of power, prestige, and possessions. The world pays no attention to them. The world cannot exploit them for anything because they have nothing.[iii]
The anawim live in total poverty. However, that also means that these people live in complete freedom. They are attached to nothing and no one, except God, their family, and a few people with whom they share life. They have eyes to see what is essential. They are not weighed down by the anxiety and hurry that often describes middle-class America.[iv]
Once we start to pay attention to the teachings of Jesus, the responsibility to care for the anawim shifts from the ruler and God to…us! As model parents, Mary and Joseph raised Jesus in the spirit of the anawim. He preached with moral authority instead of with temporal power, and the Sermon on the Mount paired with Matthew 25 make the ultimate counter-cultural statement.
Action
Maybe Lent can be a time to slow down, so we do not miss the opportunity to fulfill Matthew 25. We tend to be in a hurry going from place to place, task to task. We tend to love things. We care for our jobs, our cars, our houses, our retirement accounts and our careers more than the invisible homeless and unemployed whom we do not see due to social blindness. Societal values tell us to make something of ourselves in this world. That’s why we go to college and climb a career ladder. We are always afraid of falling off that ladder, failing off that ladder.
Getting into the Kingdom is not about filling any of those prescriptions for success. It’s not about our bank account nor our wardrobe. Our entry into the Kingdom is all about accepting the moral authority of Jesus on Calvary, not Madison Avenue or Wall Street or K Street or Hollywood Boulevard. Our entry into the Kingdom is about letting God into our hearts, our lives, and becoming our everything through service to others. If we crowd God out with all this other stuff, we will miss seeing God right next to us.
The Kingdom is not some far away goal. It is right here. It is right now. It is available to us in the present tense. It is a present and tangible reality if we but feed the hungry, greet the stranger, and care for those who are hurt.
[i] This prayer was first presented by Cardinal Dearden in 1979 and quoted by Pope Francis in 2015. This reflection is an excerpt from a homily written for Cardinal Dearden by then-Fr. Ken Untener on the occasion of the Mass for Deceased Priests, October 25, 1979. Pope Francis quoted Cardinal Dearden in his remarks to the Roman Curia on December 21, 2015. Fr. Untener was named bishop of Saginaw, Michigan, in 1980.
[iv] Ibid.
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