The 14th Sunday In Ordinary Time, 2020
Today's short gospel passage from Matthew gives us something really precious -- a beautiful insight into the joyful heart of Jesus.
In Mark’s gospel from which Matthew copied this account, we read of Jesus responding with joy as the disciples, buoyant with enthusiasm, return from their first mission of spreading the Good News of the Gospel and healing those who were sick or lame.
It is out of this joy that Jesus begins his prayer: “I bless you Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children!”
Jesus enjoys the simple goodness of his own band of followers, and he prays, “I bless you, Father!”
Dear Reader,
Allow me say to you that you also give Jesus joy; and out of that joy he offers his prayers to the Father. You give Jesus joy through the simplicity and genuineness of your humanity – your faith and faithfulness, your hope and trust, our desire to love as Jesus has loved you, and your willingness to forgive as Jesus has forgiven you.
It is important that I say this to you because it is the truth!
*****
Let me go a little further into this prayer of Jesus: “No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
I pray that Jesus will choose me as one to whom he will reveal the Father and I pray for you too in the same way – that all of us will come to know the Father through Jesus.
At the end of his life, Jesus will say to the Father, “I have finished the work you gave me to do. I have revealed your name.”
Remember the Last Supper story in John where Philip says to Jesus, “Jesus, show us the Father and that will be enough!”
Jesus responds with consternation, “Philip have I been with you so long and you still do not know me. To have seen me is to have seen the Father.”
I pray that we, in and through our faith, have really seen Jesus:
- seen his compassion and wisdom, - - seen his kindness and simplicity,
- seen the heart of him in his life and ministry – for in that seeing we see the Father.
Remember how Moses, while on Mt. Sinai was overcome by the grandeur of the moment. He wanted to see the face of God!
He was told to hide his face in the cleft of a rock while God passed by!
And yet, with that back view, he exclaimed;
“Yahweh, Yahweh, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness, for thousands he maintains his kindness, forgiving faults, transgressions, sin.”
Moses only got a back view as God passed by.
In Jesus we see the face of God, and know why Moses exclaimed as he did.
*****
Returning to our gospel reading for today, we read that Jesus expands his vision to the people of the villages whom the disciples have just ministered to, and also out to us, inviting all to come to him – the weary and the burdened – and to learn from him, for he is gentle and humble of heart.
He rests in the Father’s heart and that is the source of his peace. He invites us also to come to him so we too can know that peace which he says he gives to us and leaves with us.
In response to these words of Jesus, I would just like to suggest to you, as I do to myself, that we allow this prayer of Jesus and his invitation to come to him to sink deep within us so we may feel and experience the power and loving concern that Jesus has for each one of us.
It is real and actual, as though it is only now today that he is saying this prayer and offering us this invitation.