by Fr. Tommy Lane
“Who are we?” The Psalm today (Ps 95) gives us the answer to that question. We belong to God. We are the Lord’s flock. Who are we? We are God’s people. The Jewish people became God’s Chosen People through the various covenants God made with them in what we call Old Testament times—covenants with Abraham and Moses. We, in New Testament times, became God’s people when we were claimed for God when baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” During Confirmation, God put his seal on our forehead when we were anointed by the bishop as he said, “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” In the past, baker’s put a seal on their loaves of bread showing the bread came from their bakery. The bread was their bread. (See John 6:27) We were sealed by God at confirmation and claimed for God at baptism. We belong to God.
Our Psalm today reminds us that we belong to God. It is prayed at the beginning of prayer every day by priests and religious. It begins beautifully reminding us to praise God:
Come, let us sing
joyfully to the Lord;
et us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully
sing psalms to him.
It is a beautiful way to begin every day; every day is another day to praise God. This is also the attitude to have as we come to Mass; we come to Mass to praise and thank God. That is what the word “Eucharist” means—thanksgiving. When we say we celebrate the Eucharist, we mean that we are giving thanks to God. We have come here today to praise and thank God. We make that praise explicit when we pray the Gloria at the beginning of Mass:
Glory to God in the
highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will.
We praise
you,
we bless you,
we adore you,
we glorify you.
The Psalm today continues to remind us of who we are:
Come, let us bow down
in worship;
let us kneel before the Lord who made us.
For he
is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he
guides.
However, the response to the Psalm today— “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:7-8)—is taken from a part of the Psalm recalling an unfortunate incident in Jewish history. It is a caution or alert to not allow it to happen again. We get a fuller account in the last part of the Psalm that we heard today:
Oh, that today you
would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted
me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
So, what happened? What is this all about? When the Jewish people were wandering from Egypt up to Canaan, they arrived at a place called Rephidim, a Hebrew word meaning “Place of Rest.” However, there was no water, and the people turned their anger on Moses, and he appealed to God. God answered Moses’ prayer and instructed Moses to strike the rock and water flowed out for the people. However, because of the extreme anger and complaining of the people—displaying their lack of trust in God when they should have known better because God had led them through the sea and provided for them up until then—Moses changed the name of the place to Meribah which means “quarrel” and Massah which means “testing.” (Exod 17:7) So instead of Place of Rest it became Quarrel and Testing. The people had a quarrel with God and tested God. Once again, this is the last part of our Psalm today:
Oh, that today you
would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted
me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
The Psalm is inviting us to remember who we are and not forget like the Hebrews in the desert when a challenge came their way. They should have known better and trusted in God to provide the solution as every time until then.
“Who are we?” The Psalm today gives us the answer to that question. We belong to God. We are the Lord’s flock. We were claimed for God at baptism and sealed with the Holy Spirit at confirmation. When we encounter difficulties in the desert of life between Egypt and Canaan, instead of turning our place into Meribah and Massah, Quarrel and Testing, can we keep our place Rephidim, Place of Rest?
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2023
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Twenty-Third Sunday of Year A
Brotherly correction and love of neighbor 2008
Second Reading Related: Homilies on helping others
stories about reconciliation helping others seeing God in others