Feeling Jealous? or Feeling Jesus?
27th September, 2015: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Num 11: 25-29; Jas 5: 1-6; Mk 9: 38-43,45,47-48
Jesus gives us a lesson against feeling jealous. Feeling zealous is not Feeling Jealous. The first reading and the Gospel bring it out so clearly. The second reading points to the rest of the complications within feeling jealous, how it leads to greed and avarice and finally to perdition.
Today we are aware of the denominations fighting with each other, the various churches giving into a sense of unchristian rivalry, the infights within a parish community, clashes and stand offs on the basis of caste or region within the churches... are these truly part of a Reign feel?
The Reign Feel is God Centered... it was not Moses or Aaron or Joshua...it was God, the I AM who was leading the community. Zeal for the Reign would make us think in terms of God and not in terms of divisions and establishments.
The Reign Feel is Jesus Centered... I belong to Apollos, I belong to Paul, I belong to Barnaba...the early Church already had factions we come to understand from the preoccupations of the Apostles like Paul and James.
The Reign Feel is Other Centered... not calculating my gains, my possessions, my comfort and my luxury; it is not getting obsessed with what I can profit or what I can hoard for myself, not looking for the fame that I can have or making my name known allover!
The Reign Feel is also feeling J... not Jealous but Jesus...It is feeling Jesus: it is thinking like Jesus, reasoning like Jesus, choosing like Jesus and prioritising like Jesus!