The Reign Perspective

WORD 2day: Saturday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 2, 2022: Amos 9: 11-15; Matthew 9: 14-17

The times are dull and dreary, the situation is grim and gloomy, the future seems bleak... this is how the situation was explained by the readings all this week and these are not feelings totally strange to us... with the pandemic still lurking round the corner and the ongoing war situation and all the socio-political turmoil that is created out of nothing! But can we be so negative and hopeless?

Christian hope is that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. The last word is always the Lord's. Amos, who has been pronouncing such vehement warning all this while, comes out with a hopeful projection of the future today. In fact some scholars say, that this part of the text could be actually an interpellation into Amos' text...it does not sound Amos they say!. However, the readings today point to the fact that things can and will change for the better. There will be plenty, there will be justice flowing like river and righteousness like an overflowing stream, in short, there will be the Reign of God established for sure!

But, we should be prepared for it. We should be prepared to have a new mindset, a totally new perspective, an absolutely different value system! Cosmetic changes will not work...patchworks will not be sufficient...little additions here and there, simple deletions at places will not suffice... these adjustments will only make the situation worse, more confused and totally disoriented. What will help is only a radical transformation in Christ. It is what St. Paul would say, 'do not be conformed to this world, instead be transformed in Christ Jesus' (cf.;Rom 12:2); 'those who are in Christ are a new creation' (2 Cor 5:17). 

And for this we have put on the mind of the Christ (cf. Phil 2:5) and that is a radically new mindset, a totally new perspective, an absolutely different value system: namely, the Reign perspective!