Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm Tuần thứ 12 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm Tuần thứ 12 Thường Niên

Qua bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu nhắc nhở mọi người chúng ta rằng khi chúng ta xây nhà trên cát, nó cũng giống như việc xây dựng niềm tin của chúng ta vào sự lãnh đạo sai lầm và những lời tuyên bố giả dối. Đây là loại đức tin sẽ không kéo dài. Thay vào đó, để xây một ngôi nhà được vững chắc, bền lâu, chúng ta phải xây trên một nền tảng bằng đá chắc, có nghĩa là "nên xây dựng cuộc sống của mình vào Thiên Chúa," vì Thiên Chúa ví chính Mình như là "Đá Tảng". Ở đây, Chúa Giêsu nhắc lại những mối quan hệ trong giao ước giữa  Thiên Chúa với dân Israel tại Sinai. Bất chấp tất cả những gì đã xảy ra trong lịch sử của Israel. Thiên Chúa vẫn luôn luôn trung thành với giao ước.

            Chúng ta nên tránh xa những nhà lãnh đạo sai quấy, những người tìm cách dẫn đưa chúng ta đến gần với họ hơn là đến gần với Thiên Chúa. Ơn gọi của chúng ta cũng như các môn đệ,  là sống để làm theo ý muốn của Thiên Chúa và không ngừng xây dựng mối liên hệ giữa chúng ta và Thiên Chúa theo tinh thần của giao ước mới giữa Thiên Chúa và chúng ta. Đó là một cuộc sống biết dựa vào sự quan hệ với Thiên Chúa bằng niềm tin không thể sụp đổ, Với niềm tin vững mạnh vào Thiên Chúa  chúng ta sẽ chẳng còn sợ gì, cho dù là sức mạnh của bảo tố cỡ nào đi nữa, thì nó cũng không thể lay chuyển được chúng ta.

Reflection:

            In his sermon, Jesus tells the people that when we build our house on sand, it is like building our faith on false leadership and false claims. This type of faith will not last. Instead, to build our house on a rock, means to “to build one’s life on God,” since God is Himself is “the Rock”. Here, Jesus recalls the covenant relationship established by God with the people of Israel at Sinai. Regardless of all that had happened in the history of Israel, God has always remained faithful to the covenant.
We should avoid false leadership or claims that seek to lead us closer, not to God, but to the leader himself or herself. Our call as disciples is to do God’s will and to constantly build on the covenant relationship between God and us. A life build on this covenant relationship with God cannot fall, no matter how strong the forces against it.

June 25, 2020 (readings)

Thursday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Fr. John Bartunek, LC. Matthew 7:21-29

Opening Prayer: I lift up the eyes of my heart to seek your face, Lord. I open my mouth to speak out your praise. I believe in your goodness and your interest in my life, and so I come to you today full of hope. You will enlighten me. You will guide and strengthen me. You will never abandon me. I want my life to give you glory, to shine with your wisdom and love. As I turn to you, Lord, I humbly ask you to turn once again to me and fill me and heal me with your grace.

Encountering Christ:

1. A Shocking Surprise: Jesus explains that on Judgment Day when everyone’s eternal destiny is revealed, there may be some surprises. Some people who invoked him as Lord and even performed wondrous deeds in his name will hear him say: “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.” The key phrase is the first one: “I never knew you.” The very essence of salvation is a relationship with God. Jesus came to earth in order to re-establish the possibility of our living in friendship with God through him. God is interested in us as human beings. God wants us to live with him now and for all eternity in a dynamic communion of mutual knowledge and love. That’s what really matters. It matters even more than prophesying and driving out demons and performing miracles. We can, so Jesus seems to be telling us through this passage, so easily lose sight of what is essential and become thoroughly disoriented. We can become so enamored of our great deeds and achievements, that we cut ourselves off from simple friendship with Christ, which is the greatest thing of all. Jesus doesn’t want that to happen. And so he gives us this warning: “I never knew you…” Let us not get tangled up in understanding how someone could invoke the Lord’s name without actually living a real friendship with the Lord. Rather, let us pay close attention to our own life journey so that no matter how much we accomplish, we never lose sight of who Jesus wants us to be: his friends and companions now and for all eternity.

2. The Right Kind of Success: Success in Christ’s eyes is very different from success in the world’s eyes. In a certain sense, success in Christ’s eyes is measured precisely by how we respond to failures in the world’s eyes. Both the house built on sand and the one built on rock are bound to suffer storms. Something terrible–some kind of failure or disaster–is going to strike both of them. In the face of that storm, the house built on sand will collapse, and the house built on rock will endure. If we are putting our faith in Jesus and making our day-to-day decisions in accordance with his wisdom and grace, we are building our lives on rock. And so, even when persecution comes, or rejection, or any kind of suffering, we will be ready for it. And because we are anchored in Christ’s truth and love, we will stand strong in the face of it. That, in Christ’s eyes, is a success. Not vast amounts of wealth, not immense popularity, not power and pleasure—those things are secondary at best. They are not bad in themselves, but they will never fill our hearts with the stuff of lasting happiness. If we organize our lives seeking fulfillment in anything besides our relationship with Christ, eventually the storm will come and we will be sorely disappointed, maybe even for all eternity, if we don’t repent in time. And that is the only real failure we need be afraid of: “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

3. The Ball Is in My Court: Jesus leaves it up to us to determine our eternal destiny. He tells us clearly, unambiguously, that each one of us has a choice about how we will live our lives. We can build on sand or we can build on rock. We can decide to follow Jesus in the decisions we make on a daily basis, or we can decide not to. We should pause for a moment just to consider how awesome a gift our freedom really is. Even God himself will not force us to live life the way we are meant to live it. Instead, he gives us the capacity to choose the right path, and he does many things to try and convince us to make that choice, but he leaves us truly free to choose for ourselves. And we can’t just go through the motions. That’s what those who called Jesus “Lord, Lord” seemed to do. On the surface, they did everything to appear as if they were followers of Jesus. But they didn’t actually “do the will of [his] Father in heaven.” Wishful thinking doesn’t actually transform our lives. Making a good, though superficial, impression on others doesn’t actually transform our lives. Choosing to trust Jesus and so battling each day to think, speak, and act as he would have us is what gives God’s grace room to continue transforming our lives. Jesus wasn’t just pretending when he instructed us to pray by saying, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As one Baptist minister (G. W. Truett) once famously said: “Knowing God’s will is the greatest knowledge; finding God’s will is the greatest discovery; doing God’s will is the greatest achievement.” 

Conversing with Christ: I want to build my life on rock, Lord. I want to know your will and embrace your will every single moment of my life. I want to be content with only your will—what you give me each moment and what you ask of me each moment. Your will is the place I encounter you, the place where your love reaches out to me, the place where I show you that I love you by trusting in you. Teach me, Lord, to follow where you lead. Teach me to recognize your voice. May you alone, O Lord, be the whole quest of my heart (cf. Psalm 119:2).

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will take some time at the end of the day to speak with Jesus about how he sees the decisions and choices I made. I will listen to his voice in my heart to learn how I can be sure to build my life on the solid rock of God’s will each day.