“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

GospelMT 22:34-40

GospelLK 24:13-35

That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them,
“What are you discussing as you walk along?”
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in these days?”
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”
They said to him,
“The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over
to a sentence of death and crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels
who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb
and found things just as the women had described,
but him they did not see.”
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, “Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered together
the eleven and those with them who were saying,
“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”
Then the two recounted
what had taken place on the way
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.”

GospelJN 4:5-42

Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.”
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
—For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—
Jesus answered and said to her,
“If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘
you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself
with his children and his flocks?”
Jesus answered and said to her,
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her,
“Go call your husband and come back.”
The woman answered and said to him,
“I do not have a husband.”
Jesus answered her,
“You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’
For you have had five husbands,
and the one you have now is not your husband.
What you have said is true.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;
but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her,
“Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You people worship what you do not understand;
we worship what we understand,
because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”
The woman said to him,
“I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ;
when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
Jesus said to her,
“I am he, the one speaking with you.”

At that moment his disciples returned,
and were amazed that he was talking with a woman,
but still no one said, “What are you looking for?”
or “Why are you talking with her?”
The woman left her water jar
and went into the town and said to the people,
“Come see a man who told me everything I have done.
Could he possibly be the Christ?”
They went out of the town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.”
But he said to them,
“I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
So the disciples said to one another,
“Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me
and to finish his work.
Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’?
I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.
The reaper is already receiving payment
and gathering crops for eternal life,
so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’
I sent you to reap what you have not worked for;
others have done the work,
and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him
because of the word of the woman who testified,
“He told me everything I have done.”
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word,
and they said to the woman,
“We no longer believe because of your word;
for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

OrJN 4:5-15, 19B-26, 39A, 40-42

Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.”
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
—For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—
Jesus answered and said to her,
“If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘
you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself
with his children and his flocks?”
Jesus answered and said to her,
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.

“I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;
but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her,
“Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You people worship what you do not understand;
we worship what we understand,
because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”
The woman said to him,
“I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ;
when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
Jesus said to her,
“I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him.
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word,
and they said to the woman,
“We no longer believe because of your word;
for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

Be on guard for the times when we are too confident about who God is.

Right before this story in John’s Gospel, Jesus was rejected by the Pharisees in the temple. He is unwanted and excluded.

And so Jesus approaches the one who is unwanted, excluded, and marginalized – the man who was born blind.

The poor seek and find refuge with the other poor; the excluded with the excluded.

We see that the disciples are talking about the blind man, but they do not attempt to enter into a relationship with him.  He is a nobody, without a voice.  No one seems to care about his hopes and needs.

People with disabilities are still sometimes treated as nobodies, or as second class citizens.

The disciples ask the question that every culture asks: why is someone born with a disability?

Even today, the questions remain.  Why us?  What have we done? Why is God punishing us with illnesses and disabilities? What have I done to God that he would send me a catastrophe like this?

We often feel that if people have success, wealth, and good families, that this is a sign they are blessed by God.  Failure, broken relationships and bad health are signs of something wrong, something bad in our lives.

But Jesus says: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him!”

Each of us is born so that God’s work may be accomplished in us.  Each one of us has been created by God and for God.  Each one of us has a vulnerable heart and yearns to love and be loved and valued.

Each one of us has a mission. Disabled or not.

Jesus reveals that this man born blind was made for love- as well as me and you!

St. Paul confirms that, reminding us that people with disabilities are chosen by God too!

In the first letter to the Corinthians he says: God has chosen the foolish of the world to shame the so-called wise.  God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame strong. God has chosen what is low and despised, people who are nobodies, in order to reduce to nobodies those who are “somebodies,” so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

That is very similar to the Copernican Revolution, which moved the center of the universe from Earth to the Sun.

We used to say that we should do good for the poor, disabled, in need.

But it is they who are poor, disabled, or ill who are doing good for us.

The people we are healing all in fact healing us.

They call us to love, they are awakening in us what is most precious: compassion.

Jesus calls himself  the Light of the World in the context of the man’s blindness.  He spit and mixed his saliva with clay on purpose.  This had great meaning, for when God made Adam, he made him of spit.  Jesus is acting like God of the Old Testament: he gives the blind man new eyes and sight.

He is not just the Messiah, or just a prophet – He is God!  He is doing it on the Sabbath.

The Pharisees fail to realize this because of their tunnel vision; they call Jesus a sinner, and call the blind man a sinner, too – that he was born in sin, which caused his blindness.  But they are so wrong.

Jesus is teaching us the difference between true sight and true blindness.  Jesus’ physical actions, miracles and manifestations are meant to point us toward the ones that are more invisible.

It is far better to be disabled, to be blind and ill and to live in the light of God’s mercy, love, and tenderness.

On the Sabbath day, which is Sunday for most of us, consider visiting the sick and shut-in.  Stop by the nursing home or hospital.  Perhaps make time for someone you know, maybe even a friend, relative or neighbor who is disabled.  The sick and suffering need you, but as the Gospel story tells us, we will receive blessings and graces from the least likely of places.

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert

to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry.
The tempter approached and said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
command that these stones become loaves of bread.”
He said in reply,
“It is written:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God.”

Then the devil took him to the holy city,
and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,
and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
For it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you
and with their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
Jesus answered him,
“Again it is written,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,
and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
At this, Jesus said to him,
“Get away, Satan!
It is written:
The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve.”

Then the devil left him and, behold,
angels came and ministered to him. GospelMT 4:1-11

The three promises the serpent told Eve were lies.

(1)  You won’t die.

Lie!  There was no death before.  It came as a result of the sin of our first parents.

(2)  You will be like God.

Lie!  They were already like God.  Perfect.  Holy.

(3)  Your eyes will be opened and you will know both good and evil.

Lie! So what is wrong with it?  By that same time, so we would live in a world having good and bad things.  Satan doesn’t say, “I want you to live in a bad, stinking, evil world,” because we would never choose that.  He offers this: “live in a world with evil and good.  Don’t choose only good, don’t choose only evil.”

Satan opened our eyes to evil.  God told Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit.  But Eve listened to Satan, and began to look on the fruit in a new way.  What was made by God as bad, she started to see as pleasing to her eyes, good for food.

Why do we choose evil?

It’s awful, harmful, terrible, and disgusting.  But it appears to be something good.  It tastes good, just like the forbidden fruit.

God opened our eyes on good. He says not to look at evil.  Don’t take the bait.  Satan says to take it, take both good and evil.

None of us is totally evil or totally bad.  Every one of us has a lot of good as well as a lot of evil within us.  Satan wants us to have both, good and evil.  When Jesus was spending forty days in the desert, the devil offered Jesus all the power on earth, and that the kingdom of this world could all be his – if Jesus would only bow before him.

We can say how much good Jesus could do having everything under His control.  The world says that He missed a great opportunity to bring peace and justice to the world.  Poor Jesus.  The one bow didn’t mean a lot.  One bow.

How often do we place Him into categories like this?  I could do so much more good for others, but there’s this one small thing I want to do for myself.  It’s no big deal!  In the comparison of the good I can achieve . . . no, but that is a lie.

You will know good and evil.  This is a lie, and a challenge.  It’s in our blood.  We don’t want to lose anything from our lives.

The big question is: do I want to acknowledge anything that is evil?  Do I want to allow both good and evil to exist in my life?  Do I want to desire only good and holy things, people, deeds, and events? Or, do I want both?

There is no true happiness with both.

It comes from the serpent, the father of all lies.  Our hearts are permanently restless until we rest in God.  We will never find happiness, peace, joy, or fulfillment until we put everything on God and reject anything that is not from God.

Here, life begins.  Real living.  When you face up to the lies you’ve given into, and reject those behaviors or lifestyle choices, you aren’t losing anything.  The serpent wants you to feel as if you lost the choice between good and evil.  But by accepting God’s invitation to know only what is good, that is where our Christian life starts.

It may begin with a decision in your head.  And it may take months, years, or even decades for it to reach your heart.  But this is the only way to go.

What do you want?

I pray for myself, and I pray for you, that God will help me to reject all evil in my life.  Help me, Lord, to see where I am compromising my life with evil.  Father, give me strength, courage, and the desire to reject it always.  Cleanse my heart, mind, and soul O Lord.  Amen.

With the Inauguration of a new President this week, the Church offers a worldwide prayer for unity among Christians.  We pray that what we have in common may be made visible; and we pray that we don’t let our differences stop us from working for Christ’s kingdom, to bring help to those in need.

I’m glad I’m not John the Baptist.  His message that we should repent, that God is our king and Jesus is Lord might not come out as effectively with me.  When my brothers from Poland visit me, or when I am home with them, the same disagreements we had growing up seem to come out.  They do not always share the faith with me.  As a priest, I could say to them, “repent from your bad ways, because if you don’t, you’re going to hell” – but that is not my place.  My job is to demonstrate Christ’s love and how He is working in my life and the lives of people I know.

I see Tallassee as a very special town. I have never experienced such good relationships between different churches. Here in Tallassee, we are able to overcome differences and focus on what is important — people in need of material and spiritual assistance.

As a result, ACTS (Association for Christians in Tallassee for Service) is bringing help to hundreds of people every month.  Why?  Because everyone –no matter what church denomination —  is supporting it.

But we all know very well that unity is not an easy thing.

Just look in our own homes. How difficult is it to find agreements in our families? Everyone’s visions, goals and priorities so often seem to be so different and, in fact, against each other.

Unity begins with my efforts to better understand another person.  And we must work to understand another’s motivations, desires, needs, fears, or ambitions.

Unity continues with letting other people come before me.

Unity grows when I believe in other people. It comes when I believe in their good intentions, good hearts and when I’m ready to give something of myself from my territory for the sake of another person, or for the common good.

Even if I’m right, I don’t have the right to demand of others that my “right” is always the only “right”.

The paradox is that when we are willing to lose something, we gain often much more. That’s the logic of love. It is the love which is the first commandment of Christ; the Love which is most difficult to live by.

Jesus showed us the fullest meaning of love.  He lost everything for us! We didn’t deserve it, and we cannot pay it back. And as nice and uplifting as singing about Jesus’s love for us can be, walking the walk is not nearly as exciting.

In fact, it’s something similar to when He carried the Cross for me and you.

Maybe it is time for you to reach out to someone with whom you are in a disagreement.  Maybe it is time to forgive offenses done to you long ago. Maybe it is time to reunite with family members that go to a different church.

Whatever it is, we cannot do it without God’s help!

Heavenly Father, you sent your Son to reunite us with You. Give to me from His Spirit so I, too, may strive for more unity and forgiveness in my life. In Jesus’ name we pray!  Let all God’s people say, “Amen.”