Thirtieth Sunday of the Year

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus boldly faces the lawyers out to trip him up. He reduces all 613 commandments in Israelite law to one word: love. We know not what these interrogators hoped Jesus’ answer when asked about the most important law. Jesus responded by quoting the Shema, which Moses taught Israel to hold central, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind’ (Dt. 6:4-5). He said it is ‘the greatest and first commandment’ (Mt. 22:38). But what does this love of God look like? How do we know we are living it? 

Twenty Ninth Sunday of the Year

A Prayer for Peace in Israel and Palestine
Rose Marie Berger Sojourners October 9, 2023

“They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain...” —Isaiah 11:9

God of Comfort,
send your Spirit to encompass all those whose lives
are torn apart by violence and death in Israel and Palestine.
You are the Advocate of the oppressed
and the One whose eye is on the sparrow.
Let arms reach out in healing, rather than aggression.
Let hearts mourn rather than militarize.

Twenty Eighth Sunday of the Year

Isaiah shares God’s vison of shalom for all people, of a new gathering of peoples. Matthew also intends to teach us something about this in terms of a just human community and a just future. It involves peace-making; caring for the poor and creation; helping the voiceless find justice; tending to the sick and dying, as well as sitting with messy people. 

Twenty Seventh Sunday of the Year

Jesus was warning his critics that the time was short for them to come around to collaborate with what God was offering through him. Pope Francis has issued similar warnings. He says we need ears that hear ‘both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.’ 

Twenty Sixth Sunday of the Year

Wherever we look, we see and experience inequity and injustice motivated by greed for land, money, and resources. We hear the UN Secretary General refer to our world as ‘boiling.’ We see mass migration and destruction. Today’s psalm raises the cry of a burdened people who throw themselves on God’s compassion and guidance. But are we listening? In Australia, the Philippines, and in the Amazon region, there is impoverishment, displacement. There is death for peasants, Indigenous people and environmental defenders. This is the ‘vineyard’ – our ‘Common Home’ –we are called to cherish, care for and nurture.