|
What are your chief worries?
Family? Job? Does worrying help any? Or has it become so much a part of
your life that you don't know how to stop any more? What good does
that worry do for you? Has it helped solve any problems? Perhaps
you need to consider who is in charge of your life, anyway.
In today's gospel the people in the Capernaum synagogue recognized
something new in Jesus. They were so amazed that they asked one another,
"What is this? A new teaching with authority." What did Jesus say that
had such an impact? He described a whole new relationship with the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For Jesus, God was not the terrifying God
of the Exodus. Instead God was loving Father.
Jesus taught his disciples and anyone who would listen about the
Father's love. Today we hear the reaction to his teaching. It made
people stop and take notice. Even the demons recognized there was
something new in the ministry of Jesus.
The same power that was at work in Jesus has come down to us today
through the apostles and disciples of the Lord. It works in us through
the Holy Spirit, we received in Baptism, and whose power was confirmed
in us at Confirmation. That power enables us to call God our Father. In
Jesus we have become the sons and daughters of God, co-heirs with Christ
to the kingdom of the Father.
It remains our decision, whether or not to use this power. We can become
disciples, journeying with Christ and learning from him to share his
life in the Holy Spirit. We can accept the challenge to become
evangelizers, men and women who bring Christ to others by the way we
live our lives in service for him. We can become stewards of Christ and
treat the whole treasure of our lives as the Father's gift to be
cherished, used wisely and returned to God with an abundant harvest
through Christ our living Lord.
|
