We’ve been hearing from Paul’s letter to the
Romans these last several weeks. Paul felt the call to be the evangelizer to the
Gentiles, to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to all, but in today’s passage, Paul appeals specifically to the Jews, to his
own people. Paul was not only a Jew, but, specifically, he
was a Pharisee. And he approached the
Pharisees in the book of Acts by announcing, “Brother, I am a Pharisee, the son
of a Pharisee.” Paul knew from where he came, and he spends
several chapters in his letter to the Romans addressing the Jews as the Chosen
People in the history of salvation. Paul expresses a sense of sadness and melancholy because the
Jews had been offered salvation in Christ first before any other people, and
they had rejected that offer.
The Pharisees make an appearance in today's Gospel as well. They keep on trying to trap Jesus, scrutinizing
his every move. Jesus tries to explain to them that it is not bad
to do a good act for someone on the Sabbath, that it is not breaking the spirit
of God’s law.
God calls out to us no matter who we are –
whether we and our ancestors have lived in the same town for generations, or
whether we are newly arrived to a place.
It does not matter if we were born into Christianity and have always had
a strong relationship with God, or if this is something new for us. Maybe we’ve been going through the motions of
our faith for a while, and maybe this is the best we can do right now. No matter where we are on our journey, our faith
calls out to us, and God hopes for us to respond. We are all brothers and sisters in
Christ.
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