Posts Tagged ‘Recognition’
Facing Shortcomings – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
Feast of St. James & St. John, Apostles
In the collect for today’s feast of St. James and St. John, we prayed: “Pour out on the leaders of your Church that Spirit of self-denying service by which alone they may have true authority among your people.”
I recall a line I love from Matthew chapter 7, when Jesus has concluded the Sermon on the Mount: “The crowds were astounded, because he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28-29).
Jesus was a humble person who actively shunned personal reward. He was a master at side-stepping the adulation of his personality if that adulation distracted others from the deep truths of the kingdom he came to reveal. His teaching style was holistic: the Gospels portray a person with tremendous sensitivity to how a few words or a simple gesture could communicate as much as or more than a lengthy discourse. What he said had such a ring of truth to it that it awakened a thirst deep inside his listeners for more – even if more was hard to understand and came at great personal cost. Read More
Recognizing the Lord – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
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Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Sirach 48:1-11
Matthew 17:9-13
The prophet Elijah is one of the great figures of the Bible, and straddles both the Old and New Testaments. In our first reading today from the Book of Sirach, we have this great paeon of praise for Elijah: ‘How glorious you are Elijah in your wondrous deeds’. There is also a profound hope that he would come again, to prepare the way of the Lord. This hope grows through the Hebrew scriptures, and culminates in the very last verses of the Old Testament, in the Book of Malachi: ‘Lo I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.’ And to this day, when Jewish families celebrate Passover, they leave a place at the table for Elijah, and at one point a son goes to the front door to see if Elijah has come.
In our Gospel reading from Matthew, the disciples Peter, James and John are coming down the mountain having just experienced the glorious Transfiguration of Jesus. At the Transfiguration they saw Elijah, as well as Moses, who were talking with Jesus. As the disciples walked down the mountain they questioned Jesus about Elijah. They wanted to know why Elijah had not come earlier, as promised in scripture, preceding the coming of Jesus. Jesus told them that Elijah had already come, but that people did not recognize him. ‘Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.’ John came preaching repentance and prepared the way for the promised Messiah. In this way, he was fulfilling the role of Elijah, but the religious leaders simply did not recognize him. They did not recognize him. The scriptures are full of this theme of failing to recognize the one who is in their midst; of not truly seeing; of spiritual blindness. Of course, Jesus’ enemies did not recognize who he was. Remember all those chapters in John’s Gospel, where the Pharisees keep asking him hostile questions about his identity. ‘Where are you from? Who is your family? How do you know so much – you’ve never been taught. You are not yet fifty; how have you seen Abraham?’ Finally, in chapter 8: 25 in exasperation, ‘Who are you?’ as the prologue to John puts it, ‘He was in the world, yet the world did not know him,’ Read More