11th Week, Ordinary Time, Thursday, June 17
2 Cor
11:1-11 / Matthew 6:7-15
Beware of false prophets; They teach a different gospel.
Charles Colson was a top aide to President Nixon in the 1970s. He was convicted of involvement in the Watergate scandal and imprisoned. While in prison, he had a religious conversion. Today he is a free man, going about the nation preaching a kind of grassroots Christianity.
Colson
speaks out, especially, against those TV preachers of the far right who are
preaching a "prosperity gospel"— a gospel that "honors excessive
wealth as a sign of God's favor and leaves the poor to fend for
themselves." Joe Willis
Colson
protests their thesis that if you live the Gospel, God will reward you with
money and success. Colson says, "God doesn't want our successes. He wants
us.
***
How do we
interpret Jesus' words: "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter
the kingdom of God"? Lk 18:24 Jesus said, "Where your treasure is,
there also will your heart be." Lk 12:34
***
Paul pleads
to the Corinthians to remain faithful to Christ, who had chosen him to be his
apostle and had sent him to Corinth.
***
What actually happened no one knows. It must have been very serious. The last part of this letter is one big outburst of uncontrolled anger. Paul does not like what he does. He calls it "a little foolishness from me". He asks his readers - and that includes us - to tolerate it. We gladly do. It is consoling for us to see that great saints had weaknesses.
The saints
above, the saints we love are bathed in heaven 's glory. The saints below, the
saints we know are quite a different story. Paul is for us the saint above. One
fact, however, is charitable: he never names his adversaries. We do
not know who they were. But his attack is more vehement. In the Old Testament,
God's people are called by prophets: the bride of God. Paul will use the
expression bride of Christ. Here he accuses his adversaries of having seduced
the bride. That is strong.
***
In the words of Jesus, Matthew gives us today a catechesis on prayer. The reason and basis of our prayer should not only be merely that we need something and we should not think that our prayer is more powerful when we use a stream of words. We pray because Jesus asks us to and because we have trust in our Father who knows what we need even before we ask him. In our prayer we should also place first things first: God and his kingdom, which is manifested and communicated to us by bread, forgiveness and protection.
All prayers
turn around the two poles: praise and petition. In the Lord's prayer, every one
of the seven petitions contains a praise of the Father, one aspect of what God
means for us, and every praise leads to a petition, prayer for what could make
one a good man. Every petition tells us what God wants us to be. The holiness
of God manifests itself more and more to us. We are fully taken up with God.
The more he reveals himself, the greater he is for us, the more we become one
mind and heart with God. In him we are safe and secure. He gives us all we
need. His demands on us we cannot escape. What he demands is for our good. Yet
we often fail but find him merciful and powerful to protect us from all evil.
There is the danger that even this prayer becomes babble unless we give it
spirit and life through our meditation. Neither will we pray rightly until we
stand before God, with all our brothers and sisters and ask God to share his
glory with all of us and pray for our bread and forgiveness of the sins of us
all.
***
Prayer
Lord our
God, you know what we need even before we can ask you. We are sure of this on
account of the human experience of Jesus your Son, who was one of us. And so we
pray you: Don’t take it amiss when we use too many words to cover the emptiness
of our hearts, and teach us through your Spirit in us to ask for the things
that matter, you and your kingdom, that will last for ever and ever. Amen
