Word to the Wise
Sunday, October 21, 2007 - Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
[Exodus 17:8-12; 2 timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 8:1-8]Proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teching.
A simple thought might help us with the theme of persistence that seems to be present in all our Sunday scripture today. If early Christians and those who came after them were not persistent, I doubt I'd be writing these words nor would you be reading them! In short, the preaching of the gospel and the living of the gospel require continual effort. Jesus' parable concerns one of the most vulnerable classes of people in his society: the widows. The fact that this woman was addressing the corrupt judge means she had no male family member to help her. She would be in dire straits. Persistence is her principal weapon because she is publicly confronting the judge who is aware of his eroding reputation. He is losing face because this lady keeps after him. Does not God have greater honor and will not God respond to the faithful? That's what Jesus invites us to ponder. There is an additional element, however, which is the community. Honor is a value because the whole community takes on the judge through the widow. If his reputation suffers, he will lose his position in the community! They are all watching him! In the scripture from Exodus, Aaron and Hur enable Moses to persist in keeping his arms raised to assure victory for the army of Joshua against Amalek. St. Paul exhorts Timothy to persist in his ministry. All of this comes, it seems to me, under the word, "encouragement." If we think of persistence simply in terms of will power in one individual, we forget that we as community play a role. How often it is the experience that we are enabled to persist because a friend, or team or parent, spouse, etc. encourage us! In the parable of the Judge and Widow, the community plays the role of encouragement in more than one way. When we think today about persistence, we might ask how we enabled someone to do just that. AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
74 ms
4
