Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
"The Kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 10:7b)
This simple statement was to be the content of the preaching and ministry of the disciples as Jesus sent the Twelve. The name "apostle" means "one who is sent." As I pondered this statement from this morning's Gospel, I wondered to myself about the message I would have entrusted to my followers. This thought led me to the realization that Jesus was practicing what he preached throughout the Gospel in this simple message.
One of the prevailing themes of the Gospel is something we have a difficult time practicing; namely, seeing the first as last and the last as first. We are constantly hammered with the notion of "getting ahead" in this world, of making our place in society, of climbing from anonymity to celebrity. We hang on the words of the various media who report on the so-called stars of our culture. Last night, for instance, we were captivated by the "All Star" baseball game which marks the middle of the baseball season. At the end of the game, one man was chosen as the MVP, the most valuable player. Would Jesus have championed the least valuable?
If there was ever a human being who deserves All Star status, it would be Jesus. Yet his simple message conveyed by his apostles is not about him. The message directs our attention away from him and toward the Creator, the Father. God is close at hand. God is imminent. God is lurking in the shadows waiting to be found. Jesus made no mistake about it. It was all about the Father, the Other, the one so often forgotten.
Hosea takes Israel to task for the fact that they have forgotten this fact. God has graced their land with abundance, but they have turned to other gods. God has been their protector, but they have erected sanctuaries for lesser beings. Their idolatry was a matter of thinking themselves self-sufficient, of failing to recognize that it was God's realm in which they lived, not their own.