Sunday 27 A – 2023
Is 5:1-7
Phil 4:6-9
Mt 21:33-43
When you become member of a club, you agree to follow certain rules, you make a financial contribution, and in return, you expect to get certain benefits. The Church of Christ is very different from a club, but there is nevertheless something similar. We become its members by faith in Christ and by receiving the sacraments of initiation – baptism, confirmation, and Holy Eucharist. We take on a number of duties – such as the commandments of God and of the Church. In return we get benefits. These are quite extraordinary. Just think, for instance, that we become children of God; we are called to holiness by the grace of God; and we are made heirs of the resurrection and life eternal. We have a certain hope for the future, and, in the present time, we have peace.
At least, we should have peace. Saint Paul in the Letter to the Philippians reminds them that they should be without worry: “Have no anxiety about anything”. It is so natural for us to worry about so many things that we need to hear it a second time: “Have no anxiety about anything”. Really? How shall this be? Saint Paul continues: “In everything let your requests be made known to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving”. Prayer is a Christian privilege. We know the good God, I mean the only true God, and we have a direct line to Him through His Son in the Spirit. If anything is a problem – little or big – our first reaction should be to pray. Often, though, we begin by trying to sort out things by ourselves; we usually fail and we begin to worry; and finally, we turn to God. This is not the right attitude. Saint Paul invites us to turn to God from the start. In our most important as well as in our ordinary needs, we must turn to God as soon as we realise our need. The Our Father teaches us to ask for ‘our daily bread’. Turning to God in any need is the attitude of the Christian, because we know we have a Father. Just as a child cries out to his parents as soon as he needs anything or feels any discomfort or danger, we, too, must learn to turn to our Father. We should do it quickly, with utter simplicity and, says St Paul, ‘with thanksgiving’. Of course, we know that our Father will not let us down. He cares for us. He knows our needs better than wzourselves. He likes us to turn to Him, though, not because this flatters His omnipotence, but because it shows that we acknowledge Him as our Father, that we trust His loving mercy, that we have no doubt whatsoever that He will sort things out in our best interests. That is why we can give thanks before we have received what we pray for. “Thank you, Father, for you are indeed my Father, our Father”.
When we have thus prayed, again: ‘No worry’. On the contrary, we have to let “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, […] keep [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus”. Pray and be at peace. Pray and let God’s peace be given to you. Pray and let the unfathomable peace of God take possession of your heart and mind. Again, what an extraordinary promise! Our peace will not come from the fact that we have a reasonable hope that things will unfold smoothly. In a sense, it will not at all be our peace, the fragile peace we reach when we have arranged things in a satisfactory way to obtain a certain result. It will be God’s peace, the one famously taught to this country by St Julian of Norwich. “All will be well” because God holds all things together in His wisdom, His love and His power. God’s vision of the world and our history, including even all that seems contrary to His plan, is totally reconciled, totally peaceful. There is in God a deep peace which nothing can trouble: neither human sin, nor even Christ’s cross. If Jesus were not at peace on the Cross, if He were not in the peace of His Father, how could He reconcile us with Him? How could He offer the sacrifice of peace?
In this time of wars in Ukraine, Armenia, Israel, Nigeria, Congo and, alas, so many other places in the world, let us open our minds and our hearts to the peace of God which is our privilege. If we try to do it as well as we can, if we look to God to give us the precious gift of inner peace, the “God of peace will be with” us. This is the privilege offered to all members of the club – to all the children of the Father.