FOURTEENTH SUNDAY in Ordinary Time

1.                Summer time and the living is easy.. This line made famous by the musical Porgy and Bess., gives you the feeling of rest and relaxation as it should be. School is over and there is time to enjoy the long evening, the nice weather, Bar-b-q and hot dogs. It is a time for rest and enjoying life. However this seems very difficult for some people, they reason like this

if I rest                                      I do not work

if I do not work                          I do not make money

if I do not make money               I cannot get the luxury times I like

if I do not have these things        People will think I am a failure

2.       In the second reading, Paul calls this way of thinking the way of the Flesh. He contrasts the Flesh and the Spirit. However, Paul is not thinking of the Flesh as the source of certain sins like gluttony, drunkenness, adultery and such types. When he speaks of the Flesh and Spirit, he is speaking of two mind sets, two different sets of values, two different ways of thinking.

The flesh way of thinking is for material gains, possession, an easy life and the impression other people have of me. It is constrained by laws, regulations, but mainly by human respect. If I do not get caught it is OK. While the Spirit sets us free. We choose to live guided only by the law of God. You do not get angry, you do not get anxious, you do not get tense, because you know the Lord God is on your side.

3.       This brings us to the first reading. Once again the people are in captivity and they are seeking freedom.

       they want a king and leader. They have none

       they want to be free. But they are captured.

       furthermore Alexander the Great is making a name conquering lands all the way to India. Soon he will overrun their small land in between.

So Zecharian promises them a King. He will be triumphant and victorious. However, it will not be a King riding on a fiery horse, in armour and with a flaming sword in his hand. He will not come with 10,000 upon 10,000 soldiers behind him. Rather he will be humble and come riding on a donkey. This is the same reading we hear on Palm Sunday.

The image of a King riding on a donkey, is the picture of a King who is a Shepherd like King David. He will lead us to green valleys, and pastures, where we will find rest.

4.       This is the Rest that Jesus promises us in the Gospel. Come to me all you who are weary and heavily burdened and I will give you rest. But it means that we will have to change our mind set, our way of thinking, our values and all the things we want and desire so badly. These small victories, these shiny things that capture our mind and heart, will never totally satisfy us. Quite the contrary, it leaves us more restless in the long run. St. Augustine would say, “Our hearts are made for you O Lord and they are restless until they rest in you.”

5.        Jesus will bless the Father - very much like in John’s Gospel. “I thank you Father for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing it to mere children.  Children may want to stay up with the adults, but they know when they are tired and they are not ashamed to show it and they rest easily.

We too need to take time out and rest.. Not merely physically, but mentally as well. Leave things in the hands of God who cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. In the prayer after the Our Father, we say: Deliver us Lord from evil and grant us peace in our day - protect us from needless anxieties.  Do we really mean that ? Or are we to go back and reason the way we did at the beginning

       if I rest                            I do not work

       if I do not work                 I do not make money

       if I do not make money     I cannot get the luxury times I like

       if I do not have these things        People will think I am a failure.

6.       God does not need to rest, but the writer of the book of Genesis - the very first book in the Bible tells us: On the seventh day God rested. If God who does not need to rest - takes time off, then we who have been baptised in God’s name - must take even greater care to Rest. “Summer time and the living is easy.

The reason we do not rest is that we think that the World will come to a stop, if we stop working, if we stop worrying and taking care theat things move smoothly. I fall into that trap often enough, then I take a walk by the cemetery and think of how many people who thought the world could not carry on without them. They are peacefully lying in the grave and things still carry on.

As some wise person said: For goodness sake get a life. And if we want to live then we must rest. We must rest in the Heart of Jesus, who said to me come to me all who labour and are heavily burdened and I will give you rest. Perhaps we should put a note on the door:

Caution:                 CAUTION: PRIEST ASLEEP

                        GOD AT WORK