Children call their male parent “father” even though Jesus said, “Do not call anyone on earth father.” Instructors in school accept the title “teacher” even though Jesus said, “Avoid being called teachers.” And yet, through these rather strong imperatives, Jesus did want to teach us an important lesson. He wanted to instruct us that we may give to no one the place in our lives which belongs to God.
We are all children of our parents. Some of us have been blessed in the parents we have, and quite honestly some have not. Ultimately, however, we must look to heaven to find the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and who has become our Father too. We cannot allow anyone to take God’s place in our lives. We all have teachers from the moment we were born, during all our years in school, when we got a job, and really throughout our entire lives.
God, speaking through the voice of Malachi His prophet in the first reading of this Sunday, proclaims, “A great King am I.” Can any person of faith deny that? And yet God demands an answer to His question: “Do you accept that you must not put anyone in My place as Your sovereign Lord?”
Our circumstances are not very much different from those of the people to whom Malachi preached his message. They had returned from exile in Babylon only to find their homeland populated by a people who did not share their religion or their values. The situation was a challenge to the faith of both the priests and the people. That is why Malachi preached to them with such great urgency.
And this why the Gospel of this Sunday has great meaning for us. We live in a country which is motivated primarily by individualism, materialism, and consumerism, not by the values of religion. Most people may say that they believe in God but the temptation in our country is to live as if God didn’t exist. That temptation is real for us. And yet the Church should be and is our heaven, our spiritual home here on earth. Here we pay heed to Jesus, our teacher, as we listen to His words proclaimed in Sacred Scripture. We follow His teaching by praying to God as “our Father,” not only in the Lord’s Prayer but throughout the Mass. Here too we should find people with whom we share the same values in life, people who support us in our faith and people whom we are willing to help in their time of need. The Jews returned to a land which seemed foreign to them. We should never feel our of place in a Catholic church. We should find in each other dedicated people who want to live according to the values which Jesus, the Son of God, has given us.