Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 100

...although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to little ones.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the Father...

After a long campaign, the Lord arrived in Jerusalem, "meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass." The populace had heard of his coming and, fulfilling Zechariah's prophecy, they greeted him with ecstatic joy, 

Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion,

shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!

See, your king shall come to you;

a just savior is he...

The Roman and Jewish leadership, however, were less than ecstatic. The Lord represented change to them. If time marches at a steady pace from day to day, history sometimes lurches forward; and they feared this disturbing Galilean might unbalance their uneasy control. They were sure that nothing good could come of it. 

The Lord knew their anxiety and made no attempt to relieve it. But the harassed, faithful, expectant people of God greeted the Messiah with delight.

God's merciful authority is like gravity. It seems to be the weakest force in the universe, and yet its reach is infinite and irresistible. A child can defy gravity by jumping up and down, or by throwing a ball in the air, but the most powerful rulers, governments, and corporations must finally fall to earth. No one and no thing can resist God's will forever. 

If Jesus's entrance on a mule seemed ridiculous to the powerful in Jerusalem , it nonetheless signaled the end of their power. They could resist neither his justice nor his mercy. 

And so the Lord enters Jerusalem and the temple; his Holy City and his sacred shrine. He signals the end of every empire, Roman, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, British, Russian, or American. 

But Jesus calls for no revolution, because revolutions change nothing. When powerful are humiliated and the lowly become powerful in a corrupt system only the faces change. Their essential values -- avarice, greed, distrust, suspicion, and infidelity -- remain unchanged. 

Saint Paul tells us today about the new way of life for those who belong to God. This is neither a revolution nor an evolution. It is a revelation: 

You are not in the flesh;

on the contrary, you are in the spirit,

if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Our values are God's as Jesus reveals them to us. God's people, living in God's spirit, no longer crave power or control. They have no need to manipulate money, people, or systems. They are not running in a rat race or struggling to survive a zero-sum evolutionary game. 

Rather, they believe in a God who provides for his people when they live by his principles of honesty, generosity and hospitality. If they are threatened, the sea can open a watery canyon to swallow their enemies. If the desert appears dead and barren, in the morning it flourishes with water from a rock and manna from the sky. How this happens we do not know, nor do we need to know, but the explanation is simple. The Lord provides for his people. 

The People of God – be they descendants of Abraham or disciples of Christ – will not disappear. Empires rise and fall but the Church remains; its people are faithful; its history, unbroken; its worship, constant;  and its doctrine, intact. The gates of hell cannot prevail against us.  

God’s people know who they are. Our baptism signified a metaphysical change.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,

 “Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (a character) of their belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all Baptism cannot be repeated.” 

As God renamed Abram to be Abraham, and Sarai to be Sarah, he gave us our names; and those who call us by name honor the One who called us his own. 

Because we are God’s people, we go the extra mile to close gaps, to let go of resentments and debts. We want to forgive, and we seek reconciliation. We create partnerships and teams. Catholics recognize cultural differences because we belong to every race and nation, and speak every language on earth. We honor history, traditions, and  experience; and cultivate wisdom. We accept compromise as a step in the right direction without demanding total surrender from anyone. 

These things are hidden from the wise and the learned, but revealed to little ones. Ignored, snubbed, and disrespected by the elite of this world, they wait on God’s irresistible, gravitational forces of mercy and justice to vindicate their confidence and prove their fidelity. On that day,

He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim,

and the horse from Jerusalem;

the warrior's bow shall be banished,

and he shall proclaim peace to the nations.

His dominion shall be from sea to sea,

and from the River to the ends of the earth.