Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord this week on Sundays with Bishop Ken, our guest, Father Pete Gaspini, shares today's gospel with us, followed by one of Bishop Ken's homilies.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark.
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, which is the first of all the commandments?
Jesus replied, the first is, hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
The second is, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.
The scribes said to him, well said, teacher. You are right in saying, he is one, and there is no other than he.
And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.
And when jesus saw that, he answered with understanding. He said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God.
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
The Gospel of the Lord today's readings give us a good example of the developmental nature of God's relationship with us.
To put it another way, these readings reveal the law of growth that is written into our lives.
Growth is neither standing pat nor junking the past and starting over. Growth is organic development with both continuity and newness.
Notice the law of growth as it is evident in the preaching of Jesus.
He took the basic summary of the law that had been expressed centuries earlier, and he developed it. He didn't throw it aside, and neither did he stand pat.
He developed it, expanded it, let it grow.
He took the old law, you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and so on. And he linked it with love of neighbor.
From now on, he said, we must realize we cannot love the Father unless we love the father's entire family.
Elsewhere in the gospel, we see jesus widen our understanding of who our neighbor is.
For the Israelites, it meant a fellow Israelite.
Now Jesus tells us it includes everyone. And that was the point of the parable of the good Samaritan.
Written into the relationship between God and the human race is this law of growth.
His revelation does not come to us fixed, finished, and complete, but instead moves from seed to growth, from beginnings to development.
God's dealings with us are the opposite of producing a new car.
A new car comes off the assembly line, finished and complete. It can only acquire bumps, scrapes, rust, deterioration at a certain point, you either sell it or junk it. You throw it away and get a new one.
Sometimes we think that God's relationship with us should be dealt with in that way.
Some feel that it was fixed and finished and there is nothing else to do.
Others think that it is totally worn out and should be thrown away instead of either of those, we have the law of continually expanding growth.
You could take that theme of continual growth and develop it with various directions.
Today, I would like each of us to apply it to ourselves.
Our relationship with God began a long time ago and should be marked continually by the law of growth.
It is not all that easy for us to accept that.
Americans particularly have a feeling that once we reach adulthood, we are something like a new car, and we enjoy the prime of life for a brief span, and then it is all downhill.
That is not true. That is a distortion that comes largely from our image of professional athletes.
In reality, we were created by God. As developmental people, we were called to a life of continual growth.
Earlier stages of growth, such as infancy, childhood, adolescence, are more predictable and often more intense.
That should not lead us to believe that these are the only stages of growth.
Life is meant to be a great adventure until the day we die. We are a pilgrim, people constantly journeying, constantly being called, invited by God to new horizons.
Sometimes we find that hard after a while, when we have our life in hand, we want to stand pat.
In greek mythology, there is the story of King Kronos.
He became king by killing his father and taking over the Throne.
It dawned on him after a while that one of his children might do the same thing.
And so, as each child was born, he destroyed it. Having established his own life, he wanted no threat from new generations.
We have to be cautious about developing the same attitude. We have to listen to each new generation, and we have to be willing to grow. That involves risks, and it takes courage. But it is much better than a life that would simply be a treadmill, living out our days in boredom, looking back to a time of life that once was and never will be again.
The law of growth, written into each human being and written into our relationship with God, should give us a sense of joy, hope, and exhilaration to our life.
Each time we read scripture, we should be open to learning more and discovering something new. Each time we pray, we should be attentive to a new invitation from God.
We neither reject our past nor stand pat upon it.
Instead, called by God, we go forth to the great adventure of life.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us today. If you like this week's reflection subscribe on your favorite podcast platform for daily reflections during the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lenta, and Easter, subscribe to the Little Books app found on the Apple or Google Play Stores. The podcast is brought to you free of charge from Little Books. To help support our ministry, please consider donating by clicking on the Donate button now. And of course, why not tell a friend about this podcast? Sundays with Bishop Ken is produced by Little Books of the Diocese of Saginaw. For more about little books and great resources for the whole family, visit littlebooks.org.
