Lectionary Reflection: Fifth Sunday of Lent

Readings:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Hebrews 5:7-9
John 12:20-33

Thoughts for your consideration: by Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, CP

JPIC concerns are universal ones, expressing themselves differently in particular settings.   Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation continually attract our attention.

They emerge in today’s biblical readings.  Jeremiah, the prophet, for instance, celebrates a new moment in the history of the Jewish people, by noting a major development in  their covenantal relationship to God.  Throughout their history they have had to renegotiate, usually unsuccessfully, a series of covenantal arrangements with God.  Humanity has never been able to execute these arrangements very well.  As a result, God was forever formulating another version of His relationship with us.  Today represents a new wrinkle in this age-old institution.  The covenant, from here on in, is no longer an external device or instrument, but it’s to be an internal phenomenon-something fashioned within the very flesh and blood of the human community.

In this highly creative gesture, God incarnates a token of justice between Himself and His people, enfleshing a hint of equality between Himself and the Jews.  Covenants are always efforts at equality between parties, like contracts.  But past efforts at this equality have been hard to come by. But this time, as Jeremiah graphically points out, it becomes an embodied achievement, as God refashions the very hearts of this people so that a semblance of equality is within them.  At long last, something approximating justice prevails in this new covenant.  The people’s self-esteem is uplifted.  A certain equality prevails between them.

JPIC further engages the day’s scriptures in the spelling out of peace (P).  We note this in the letter to the Hebrews.  We usually think of peace as a combination of well-being and harmony with others, providing a sense of serenity.  The author of this letter, in describing what Christ achieves through His sufferings, observes that they help Him achieve perfection, while securing salvation for us who believe in Him.  Salvation is appropriately described as a state of safety and security, or, in other words, an instance of the peace that is so meaningful to us all.  The letter to the Hebrews traces this elusive quality of life to the death of Christ for us on the cross, from where it works itself out into various segments of life.  The violence so visibly evident in the viciousness of crucifixion to the wood of the cross recalls the blood-letting practices of physicians long ago, which were credited with healing and saving results: salvation.  Faith helps us share in the saving procedure provided by Christ Jesus on the cross, offering the remedy of peace we desire for our corporate body.  By sharing this faith with others, we make this remedy available on a large scale, and so stem the spreading contagion of war and violence.

The integrity of creation is a not-to-be-overlooked element in the formula, JPIC.  This integrity is evident in the restorative cycle of nature around us.  Jesus reminds us, in the day’s gospel, to heed the role of nature’s rhythm in regulating our lives.  He points to the grain of wheat falling into the depths of the earth, and dying, then re-emerging.  He suggests this familiar process to the Greek visitors, inquiring of Philip about Jesus.  In doing so, He makes a point about the cyclical rhythm of nature, which death does not conclude.  Rather, death is part of a process enabling new growth to occur again.  Nature’s capacity to “come back to life” is its God-given charter that Jesus finds useful in offering a human counterpart of the cycle of life and death, to be so powerfully illustrated in His own death and resurrection.  The grain of wheat conveys Jesus’ message to the inquiring visitors, knowing they will appreciate it.  It conveys the message of our co-existence with nature as well as our life of faith in God.  How often Jesus would have been hampered in imparting His message to us without the opportunity to appeal to the skies, the earth, the depths of the sea, as explanations of His mission on behalf of His heavenly Father.

JPIC is a window opening into our lives, and into our faith in God.  As justice, it points out a semblance of equality with God gained through His covenantal arrangements with us (J); as peace, it traces our well-being and serenity to the blood-letting of the cross (P); as integrity of creation, it provides an incessant circle of death and life that describes our way to God (IC).  Justice, peace and integrity of creation can combine with prayer, fasting and almsgiving as Lenten practices helping us to celebrate the Easter event.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How often do you hear about our Church’s social teachings?
• What thoughts or feelings surface as you consider the acronym JPIC? How does a spirituality of JPIC help deepen your own relationship (contract) with God and Christ?
• How does a spirituality of JPIC help you reflect on the financial crisis and unfolding scandals that we hear about almost daily?