More

Commentary on Matthew 14:1-12

Our reading is about the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among four of his sons. One of them, the Herod of today’s Gospel (also known as Herod Antipas), is called a “tetrarch”, meaning that he was the ruler of a fourth part, or a quarter of a territory.

Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD, that is, all during the life of Jesus and beyond. He is the same one who wanted to see Jesus, and whom Jesus called “that fox”. He is the one to whom Pilate sent Jesus during his trial. His rather painful and loathsome death is described in Acts (12:20-23). Although only a tetrarch, Matthew calls him ‘king’ because that was his popular title among the Galileans and also in Rome.

It seems that, by all accounts, Herod was a nasty man and, as revealed by today’s story, a weak and highly superstitious one as well. It is striking that, even today, many seemingly powerful people are made insecure by superstition (for example, needing to wear the same ‘lucky’ business suit or only drive or ride in a particular model of car).

Herod was hearing extraordinary things about Jesus and he came to the conclusion that Jesus was a reincarnation of John the Baptist whom he had executed for reasons he knew very well to be totally wrong. Now here was John’s spirit come back to taunt him, for he had killed God’s servant. This leads to a retelling by Matthew of the events which led to John’s death.

John, who was no respecter of persons, had openly criticised Herod for taking his half-brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, as his own partner. This was in clear contravention of the Mosaic Law. Herod’s fault was not so much in marrying a close relative, but for taking her as his wife when Philip was still living and, at the same time, putting away the wife he already had.

It was already an extraordinarily incestuous family. Herodias was a granddaughter of Herod the Great and therefore a niece of Herod Antipas. First, she married another uncle, Herod Philip, who lived in Rome. He was a half-brother, from a different mother, of Herod Antipas. It was on a visit to Rome that Herod Antipas persuaded Herodias to leave her husband for him. This, of course, was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law:

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. (Lev 18:16)

Herod, doubtless under pressure from Herodias, had wanted to rid himself of the embarrassment John was causing him, but was afraid to do anything because, in the eyes of the people, John was a prophet and spoke in the name of God.

Herodias got her chance on the occasion of Herod’s birthday. Knowing her new husband’s weaknesses, she got her daughter to dance in his presence. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the daughter was known as Salome. She later married her granduncle, another Philip, and a son of Herod the Great who ruled over the northern territories. He is mentioned by Luke.

Whether the dance was lascivious (as old Hollywood movies have suggested) we do not know, but Herod was greatly taken by the performance. In the presence of his courtiers and very likely having drunk too much wine, he promised the girl he would give her anything she wanted, even half his kingdom. Under the prompting of her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist delivered on a dish. Herod was clearly appalled and also afraid, but he had made his oath in the presence of a large number of people. He could not go back. John was decapitated and his head delivered as requested. His disciples came and buried the body and then went to tell Jesus.

There are echoes in this story of Jesus’ own death. He also died because of the moral weakness of Pilate, who gave in to the threats of the Jewish leaders for the sake of his own career. Jesus’ death, too, was the result of blind hatred. And when he died his disciples arranged to have him buried.

Undoubtedly John was a martyr. He died as a witness to truth and justice in the service of God. Herod, on the other hand, put expediency and his own convenience before truth and justice. He was in an immoral relationship with a woman and he gave in to what he felt would be the criticism and perhaps the derision of others. He had indeed made an oath, but it was one that, in the circumstances, he was obliged not to observe.

With whom do I identify more? John the Baptist, the fearless champion of truth and justice? Or Herod, the vacillator, the one who compromised truth and justice because of pressure of opinion and his own personal interests? I am sure all of us can think of times when we compromised with what we knew was the good or right thing to do and took the line of less resistance.

John is an example to us of integrity. And like him, we have, each one of us, been called in our own way to be prophets, to be spokespersons for God’s way. It may not always be easy.

More

Commentary on Jeremiah 26:11-16,24

Today we have a continuation of yesterday’s reading about the reaction to Jeremiah’s prophecy about the future fate of the Temple and Jerusalem. We saw yesterday how Jeremiah had been arrested by the religious leaders after he had warned that the Temple and Jerusalem would be reduced to ruins if the people did not change their ways. His words sounded sacrilegious to his hearers, and now judgement is being passed on him.

In a verse that comes between the two passages, but not in either reading, we are told that the leaders of Judah were told of the situation and held a formal trial at the New Gate of the Temple. The priests and prophets told the leaders and the people gathered round that Jeremiah deserved to die because of what he had said against the Temple and the holy city. His accusers pass sentence on him even before Jeremiah has had a chance to defend himself.

When Jeremiah does get the opportunity to speak, he says that everything he told them came directly from the Lord. They were not his own thoughts. Once again he tells them that they have only to change their ways and submit themselves to God’s law and the threatened disaster will not take place. Jeremiah is in their hands and he says they can do what they like with him. But if they execute him, they will have innocent blood on their hands:

…for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.

This statement produces a division between the court officials and the people over the religious leaders, the priests and the prophets. The former say that Jeremiah does not deserve to die because what he has said he has spoken in God’s name.

What happens next in the passage is not contained in our reading (see Jer 26:17-23). First, some of the elders remind the people that the prophet Micah had made prophecies very similar to those of Jeremiah, but he was not condemned to death. Micah had said that:

Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the mountain of the temple a wooded height. (Mic 3:12)

But then we are told of another prophet by the name of Uriah, who was preaching the same message as Jeremiah. When the king wanted to eliminate him, he fled into Egypt, but he was pursued, brought back, executed and dumped in a common grave.

However, Jeremiah was rescued from certain death by some high-powered intervention. Ahikam, son of Shaphan, was a highly-placed official, a scribe in the court of King Josiah and always well-disposed to Jeremiah. He was also the father of Gedaliah, who would become governor of Jerusalem after its destruction in 586 BC, and would also befriend Jeremiah.

Here we have an example of how the prophet’s integrity is rewarded, although it might not always turn out like this. Whatever the consequences, Jeremiah had to speak out what he believed was the Lord’s message. Quite unknown to him, circumstances worked in his favour and preserved his life.

This is an example of one’s life being in the hands of the Potter. Jeremiah would die when his time had come and not before. Neither he nor anyone else could change that. Clearly, Yahweh had some more work for him to do.

For us it is the same. In our lives, too, God’s Providence can work in strange ways and use very unexpected instruments. Let us today count our blessings and recall how many times God’s love has been experienced through surprising and unexpected interventions.

More

Commentary on Jeremiah 26:1-9

Today’s reading from Jeremiah is in historical or biographical form. Some believe these passages may come from the prophet Baruch. It tells of Jeremiah’s discourse to the people warning them about disasters which will come unless they change their ways. His message will not be well received by the priests and people.

The scene takes place at the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. The Hebrew term indicates the beginning of his first official (calendar) year as king, rather than the time of his immediate succession. This places it in the year 609-608 BC. Jeremiah is told by Yahweh to go to the temple court, perhaps near what was called the New Gate, and to speak to all those who had come from the surrounding countryside of Judah to worship. He is to say exactly what Yahweh has told him. Through his prophet, Yahweh promises that, if they listen to Jeremiah and change their ways, he will not bring disaster on them.

The Lord’s warning comes in the clearest language. If each person listens and turns back from their evil ways, the Lord may repent of the “disaster” he planned to inflict on them. On the other hand, if they will not observe the Law and listen to the words of his prophet, the Temple will end up like Shiloh, and the city of Jerusalem will become a curse word among the nations of the earth.

Shiloh was an ancient shrine, which was now in ruins. The sanctuary there was apparently destroyed by the Philistines. In the first book of Samuel we read:

…Israel was defeated, and they fled, everyone to his home. There was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured…
(1 Sam 4:10-11)

Jerusalem, says Yahweh, will meet the same fate.

Not surprisingly, this message did not go down well with those who heard it. The priests and prophets seized Jeremiah and threatened him with death. The phrase they used described the ultimate penalty for those who seriously violated the law of Moses. The ‘prophets’ here are those false prophets who gave upbeat prophecies putting unrealistic hopes in the people’s minds and glossing over their wrongdoings.

All were horrified and enraged that the Temple should become deserted like Shiloh and the city. These were absolutely unthinkable ideas. How could God allow such a thing to happen?

But it would, and very soon. And it would happen again about 40 years after the death of Jesus—never to recover. St Augustine had similar feelings when he saw Rome (for him the centre of the world and its civilisation) fall to the ‘barbarian’ invaders.

Once again we see the dangerous vocation of the prophet. He is blessed with a special insight and he can see where the behaviour of people is leading them. He gives warnings, but they fall on deaf ears. Even worse, they are rejected and the prophet is seen as someone to be gotten rid of as an enemy. But the prophet has no option but to continue speaking out.

What makes the matter more complex is that there will be confusion between true and false prophets and often the beguiling messages of the latter will be listened to. Careful discernment is needed to distinguish the genuine prophet from those who either lull us into complacency or, on the other hand, tell us that “the end of the world is nigh”.

More

Commentary on Matthew 13:47-53

We come to the seventh and last of the Parables of the Kingdom in this discourse. Of course, we need to remind ourselves that Jesus did not speak them one after the other as they are presented here. They are the work of the author’s editing, putting matters with a common theme into one place.

Today’s Kingdom parable points to the end of time. There will come a time for the end of the Kingdom on earth, and then those who belong and those who do not will be clearly distinguished and separated from each other. That is something which cannot and should not be done now as the parable of the weeds indicated.

When will that end be? Of course, we do not know—fortunately! But one thing we do know is that our own end will come in a relatively short time, even if we live to be 100. And when that happens, it will be clear to God, if not to others, whether we are leaving this world ‘inside’ the Kingdom or ‘outside’ it, that is, whether we are with God or against him.

How can we make sure we are in the right place? By making sure that I get confession and the ‘last sacraments’ before I die? Don’t bet on it! The best guarantee is to enroll in the Kingdom today and every day, to live, with Christ’s help, in the way he has shown us. If we do that on a day-to-day basis, the future will take care of itself and there is no need to worry.

The whole discourse is then brought to an end by Jesus asking his disciples if they understand what he has been saying, and they say they do. Jesus then gives a description of the truly learned disciple. He is a “scribe”, an interpreter of God’s Word, who can bring from his storeroom “what is new and what is old”, someone who has both the wealth of the Old Testament, as well as the vision of the New.

The Jerusalem Bible comments:

“This picture of a ‘scribe who has become a disciple’ sums up the whole ideal of the evangelist and may well be a self-portrait.”

The author of this Gospel is clearly a Jew who has become a Christian.

As Jesus said earlier, he had not come to destroy the traditions of the ‘old’ Hebrew covenant, but to fulfil it with a new covenant. He would equally reject those who abandoned the Hebrew tradition, as well as those who rejected the new insights which he brought. This is a process which goes on today in the Christian faith. There is a continuing and creative tension between what has been handed down in the past, and the new understandings which arise with changing circumstances. We all have to be both conservative and progressive at the same time!

More

Commentary on Jeremiah 18:1-6

Today, Jeremiah visits a potter. Three chapters, of which today’s reading is the beginning, consist of lessons that God taught Jeremiah at a potter’s workshop. The date is believed to be before 605 BC. The message is clear: as the potter has total control over his clay and makes of it what he wills, so is the Lord master of his people. They are like clay in his hands.

Once again we see how the prophet uses a symbol from daily life to give a message about God’s relationship with his people. (Remember on Monday of this Week 17, we had the image of the loincloth.)

The Jerusalem Bible makes the following comment:

The time of this enacted parable is before 598 BC, since the great disaster (the exile into Babylon) has not yet taken place. Symbolic gesture had accompanied the preaching of the earliest prophets, of Samuel for example, or Ahijah of Shiloh, and of the false prophet Zedekiah. This procedure was not simply a dramatisation of the spoken prophecy: it was a pre-enactment of the event threatened or promised, in such a way that the event itself became as inevitable as the gesture was irrevocable. (edited)

The same phenomenon recurs among the ‘writing’ prophets. Hosea’s whole mission is inextricable from a symbolic action which in turn is his private predicament, namely, his difficult marriage. With Isaiah, the symbolic gesture is found less frequently (see Isiah chapter 20 and the symbolic names he gives to his children).

Jeremiah performs, or interprets, many symbolic actions: the almond tree and the pot; the hidden loincloth (though this seems only to have been enacted in vision); the potter; the jug; the figs; the yoke; the buying of the field. To this list we may add that his life itself is a symbol and that his sufferings (though he gives this no emphasis) identify him in advance with the nation itself about to suffer, and make him foreshadow the suffering servant of Yahweh.

Later, Ezekiel was to perform more symbolic actions (see Ezekiel chapter 4): the brick ‘besieged’; the rationed food; the hair; the mime of the exile; the pot; and the two sticks. He too, like Hosea, interprets his personal experience symbolically: his illness, his wife’s death, his dumbness and recovery.

Symbolism of this kind is also found in the New Testament, for example, the fig tree cursed by Jesus and the prophecy of Agabus in Acts (21:11) in which, by a symbolic gesture, he prophesies the future arrest of Paul.

In today’s reading Jeremiah is told to go down to the potter’s house. It was probably situated on the slopes of the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near what was known as the Potsherd Gate (perhaps because broken and discarded pottery was piled there).

The prophet sees the potter working at his wheel. The wheel consisted of two horizontal stone disks. Both were attached to an upright shaft, one end of which was sunk permanently into the ground. The potter would spin the lower wheel with his foot and work the clay on the upper wheel which was also turning.

Jeremiah noticed that if the vessel being made turned out wrong, which happened often, the potter would start all over again to get exactly the shape he wanted. It is worth noting that the Hebrew word for
‘going wrong’ (i.e. “spoiled”) here is the same as that describing the ruined loincloth in Monday’s reading.

The message is then given. Can God not do with his people just as the potter does?

Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

It is an image found elsewhere in Scripture. And the Hebrew word for ‘potter’ is translated elsewhere as ‘Maker’ with reference to God.

The lesson tells us a number of things. First, that man proposes, but God disposes. We can make as many plans as we like in our lives, but in the end, we are always the subject of forces totally beyond our control. This applies to all, rich and poor, powerful and weak.

Second, this does not mean that we are to go through life passively and fatalistically and just let things happen to us. We cannot just write off things as “fate” or say that “I am an unlucky person”.

Finally, what it does mean is that we are to actively seek what God wants from us in life, and to actively accept what clearly is his will for us. Life and freedom and peace consist in making God’s will and our will to be in perfect harmony. I want what he wants. As Paul puts it, writing to the Romans:

Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? (Rom 9:21)

God may be a potter, but he is a good one and wants to produce the very best product possible. For that, though, he needs my cooperation. I cannot make life in the way that I want it, but by allowing myself to be moulded by him, I can be all that I can be.

More

Commentary on Jeremiah 15:10,16-21

The call of Jeremiah is renewed. We have today the third of Jeremiah’s so-called ‘confessions’, in which he bares his soul to God. It includes two responses from the Lord, of which part of one is included in today’s reading.

Jeremiah is experiencing a spiritual crisis half-way through his ministry and is feeling very sorry for himself. Here, God, far from issuing sympathetic noises, tells him to get his act together and to stop his orgy of self-pity. He calls Jeremiah back to a new conversion and renews, in almost the same words, the commands and promises of the prophet’s original call. (For a helpful picture of Jeremiah and his difficulties, see the Introduction to the Prophets in the New Jerusalem Bible.)

The tone is set by the opening words:

Woe is me…

The reason for Jeremiah’s moaning is that he has become, as a prophet, a source of strife and dissension. He regrets that his mother gave birth to him to have to face such problems in his prophetic calling. He sees himself merely as a source of strife and division everywhere.

He says:

I have not lent, nor have I borrowed…

And yet he has all this trouble, everyone is against him. We know how lending or borrowing money can be a serious source of friction and even violence between lenders and borrowers.

The people causing him so much trouble are those he is accusing of being unfaithful and disobedient to God, but they are being allowed to get away with it. Where is God’s protection for his prophet? In case his God is not aware of what he is going through and who is the real cause of his troubles, he says:

…know that on your account I suffer insult. (Jer 15:15)

He says It does not make sense, because he has been so faithful to God and his Law:

Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart…

He had made God’s word and God’s law his very own; he had assimilated them into his very being. For he had been called in Yahweh’s name; he belonged to Yahweh in a special way.

He never had anything to do with “merrymakers” (‘scoffers’ in some translations), the rich and the arrogant who felt they were above any law, including God’s. They were those who mocked at and rejected the message he brought. Under God’s constraint, he held himself aloof:

…under the weight of your hand I sat alone…

This means that he never married and he had few friends because, “with [God’s] hand” on him, he felt that that was part of his calling. Part of his loneliness was his distancing himself with indignation at the sins of Judah. The prophet’s lot can be a lonely one.

Why, then, does he have to suffer such continuous pain from a wound that will not heal?

…you are to me like a deceitful brook,
like waters that fail.

God has become for him a treacherous brook, whose waters are inconstant. Jeremiah here, with a hint of sarcasm, accuses God of being undependable, in contrast to the Lord’s own earlier description of himself as a “fountain of living water”. Earlier (see Thursday of Week 16), Yahweh had said:

…my people…
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water… (Jer 2:13)

Yahweh then replies to Jeremiah’s ‘confession.’ The Lord commands Jeremiah to repent, then encourages him and renews his call. If Jeremiah is willing to return then God will happily take him back into his service. But there is a condition. He must speak ‘noble’, not despicable thoughts like those he has just been uttering:

…you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,
you shall serve as my mouth.

Only then can he truly act as the spokesperson of God. Those negatives thoughts will come back to him, but he must not go back to them.

If he follows the Lord’s command, then the Lord guarantees that he will be strong enough to face any opposition from the people:

…a fortified wall of bronze…

But there is no promise that life will be any easier. On the contrary:

…they will fight against you,
but they shall not prevail over you…

Why?

…for I am with you
to save you and deliver you…

And this is a solemn pledge “says the Lord.”

Persecution and rejection are almost inevitable for anyone who takes a prophetic stance in the Church or outside it. The prophet, by his or her calling, calls into question the conventional wisdom of a society or church.

It is the role of the prophet, not so much to tell the future, as to point out the direction in which the community should be going—what it should be doing and what it should not be doing, and what the consequences of its actions are likely to be.

Sometimes the prophet, in order to be heard, may speak in very clear and blunt language. This is not likely to enhance his popularity with those who become the object of his attacks or criticisms!

Jesus told us to love unconditionally and to forgive forever, but he never, never said that we would be loved in return. On the contrary, he said that among the ‘blessed’ would be included those who suffered persecution for the sake of the gospel.

Jeremiah does not seem to have understood this fully. He felt that because of his loyalty to God he should have been protected by God and respected by the people. He told God this in no uncertain terms. In reply he was told that, as a prophet, he would continue to be scorned and rejected, but that he would be given the strength to carry on. We cannot expect anything different.

More

Commentary on Matthew 13:36-43

Today we have an interpretation of the parable of the wheat and the weeds (or darnel). Matthew begins by telling us that Jesus left the crowds and went to “the house”. This is the nameless place where Jesus is at home with his disciples. As suggested earlier, it is the place for the ‘insiders’, those who are close to Jesus in the sense of following him and accepting his way; it is also a symbol of where communities of Christians gathered in the early Church. Here Jesus is alone with his own disciples, away from the crowd.

His disciples ask for an explanation of the parable about the wheat and the weeds. Likely enough, what follows is less the actual words of Jesus than a reflection of the early Christian community applying the parable to their own situation. The parable, which basically makes one point, is now turned into an allegory where each part has a symbolic meaning of its own:

• The sower is Jesus himself
• The field is the world
• The good seed represents the subjects of the Kingdom
• The weeds are the subjects of the evil one
• The enemy who sowed the weeds is the devil
• The harvest is the end of the world
• The reapers are the angels

Whereas in the original parable, the emphasis seems to be on the necessary and unavoidable coexistence of good and bad within the Christian community, the emphasis here is more on what will happen at the end: the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the good.

Let us pray that we may be found among the good seed of the Kingdom. We do that by opening ourselves fully to Jesus our King and Lord and following the way he asks us to follow.

More

Commentary on Jeremiah 14:17-22

This passage was written during a period of death and famine in Jerusalem preceding the Babylonian captivity in 587 BC. It is also a response to Yahweh’s anger against false prophets who are raising expectations among the people that they are not going to experience “sword” and “famine”. In fact, they are going to experience that and more. Jeremiah, as a true prophet, will not raise such expectations, but however unpopular his words, will warn them of what is coming, and why. This won’t make him very popular; real prophets seldom are.

As written, however, today’s passage is another lovely reading full of compassion and tenderness. There is no anger in God’s words today against his people. Rather he is presented as deeply upset over their sufferings. Through the prophet, God says:

Let my eyes run down with tears night and day…for the virgin daughter of my people is struck down with a crushing blow…

The “daughter” is Jerusalem. Everywhere God sees people in the countryside killed by the sword, and in the city sick with hunger. Even the prophets and priests, who would normally be supported by the people, are reduced to foraging for food “throughout the land [about which they] have no knowledge”. All are at their wits’ end.

Jeremiah then expresses his own distress at what is happening and wonders what the Lord is doing about it. He asks:

Have you completely rejected Judah?
Does your heart loathe Zion?
Why have you struck us down
so that there is no healing for us?

It is the cry of a people deep in despair at their never-ending sufferings and who lament:

We look for peace but find no good,
for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.

At the same time, the prophet acknowledges that his people are in no way innocent. They have brought their own tribulations on themselves:

We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord…
for we have sinned against you.

But the prophet reminds the Lord that they are his own people and, for his own Name’s sake, he prays that they not be rejected:

…remember and do not break your covenant with us.

Their suffering and shame somehow reduces the glory of their God, especially in the eyes of Gentiles. Who could honour a God who allows his people to suffer in this way?

But it takes two to make a covenant, and its observance depends on both sides keeping their promise. He is their God, but they are his people and must show it by their behaviour. This they have miserably failed to do.

The prophet concludes by appealing to the unique power of their God:

Can any idols of the nations bring rain,
or can the heavens give showers?

We remember the challenge that Elijah made to the priests of Baal about breaking a drought (see Exod 18:25-29). Only Yahweh can bring the longed-for rain:

Is it not you, O Lord our God?
We set our hope on you,
for it is you who do all this.

We see here, on the one side, the picture of the tender God who cares so deeply for his people. This was all so graphically illustrated by the life of Jesus, our God incarnate. We must never forget it.

On the other side, during times of tragedy, pain, loss or distress it is easy for us to wonder if our God really does care, when he allows such terrible things to happen to us or to our loved ones. But it is precisely at such times we need to be aware of the closeness of God’s love to us. His love for us was most clearly shown as Jesus hung dying in terribly agony and shame on the Cross. Paul writing to the Romans said:

He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us… (Rom 8:32)

And Jesus himself cried out:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34)

The words died on his lips and were followed by total acceptance when he said:

It is finished. (John 19:30)

And he surrendered his life into his Father’s hands. That was the moment of supreme love, the moment of new life and glory.

More

Commentary on Matthew 12:14-21

Jesus is becoming a figure of controversy.  We saw yesterday how he was accused by Pharisees of condoning the breaking of the Sabbath on the part of his disciples.  Far from apologising, Jesus defended his followers and implied that he himself was greater than the Law.  Immediately afterwards he went to a synagogue and, in spite of a challenge about healing on the Sabbath, went ahead and cured a man with a “withered hand” (Matt 12:9-13). At the end of this story, Matthew says:

But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. (Matt 12:14)

He was seen as a severe threat to their authority—and this is where our reading begins today.

Jesus was fully aware of their plotting and so he disappeared from sight for a while.  We should be clear that Jesus did not go out of his way to confront and attack people.  Still less was his behaviour deliberately designed to create trouble for himself. There are people like that; they go out of their way to make trouble for others and for themselves.  Jesus never behaved in such a way.  He did not want to attack or be attacked by people.  He did not deliberately engineer his own sufferings and death, quite the contrary.  So now, as things get hot for him, he withdraws for a while.

At this point, Matthew (remember, he is writing for a Jewish readership) shows how Jesus’ behaviour corresponds to a prophecy in the Old Testament—something he does a number of times in his Gospel. He quotes the passage from the prophet Isaiah (42:1-4), and it shows Jesus as full of the Spirit of God campaigning for justice for peoples everywhere. 

He is the servant whom God has chosen, “in whom my soul delights”.  He is no demagogue shouting from a soapbox:

He will not cry out or lift up his voice
or make it heard in the street…

He moves around quietly and, at the same time, is tolerant and understanding of the weak. His behaviour is described as gentle and kind, so that:

…a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench…

We, too, are called to live and proclaim the gospel without compromise, but to do so without any taint of arrogance or bullying. At the same time, we need to show patience and understanding for those who are not yet ready to answer Jesus’ call.

More

Commentary on Micah 2:1-5

Today we have the first of three readings from the prophet Micah. Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah, but we know nothing of his life except that he came from an obscure village in the foothills of Judah.  Like the other prophets, he attacked those who exploited the poor, merchants who cheated, corrupt judges, priests and prophets.  The cities of Jerusalem and Samaria were particular targets.

The verses we read today are directed mainly against rich landowners who are oppressing the poor.  According to the prophet, they lie in bed wondering what their next money-making move will be. Micah, however, describes their plans as plotting evil and planning mischief, as those:

…who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!

As soon as dawn breaks, they get up to put their plots into action.  The rich, exploiting classes continue to get rich at the expense of the poor because they control the power structures of their society:

They covet fields and seize them,
houses and take them away…

Covetousness alone was a violation of the tenth Commandment.  Land monopoly, also denounced by Isaiah, was a chronic vice in Judah.  To protect the poor against it, a man’s inheritance, his ancestral property, was supposed to be inviolate.  According to the Law, land was the permanent possession of a family.  But the wealthy, in their greed, were enslaving poor landowners for their debts and thus taking over the land in payment. (We saw something of this when Queen Jezebel engineered the death of Naboth as a way by which the king, her husband, could have the vineyard he coveted; see the reading for Monday of Week 11 of Ordinary Time.) And then they would take over the house as well, presumably as collateral for a debt that had not been repaid.  In this way, the already rich landowners could increase their ownings with the least outlay (and the greatest injustice).  It all sounds so contemporary!

But the prophet warns that they are not going to get away with their exploitation of the poor and weak for long:

Now, I am devising against this family an evil
from which you cannot remove your necks

Little do they know that the invader is about to strike and carry off everyone, both rich and poor, into bitter exile:

On that day [the rich]
shall take up a taunt song against you
and wail with bitter lamentation
and say, “We are utterly ruined;
the Lord alters the inheritance of my people;
how he removes it from me
Among our captors he parcels out our fields.”

Micah says that oppressing classes, the monopolists, will be excluded from the division of the land in the restored kingdom:

Therefore you will have no one in the Lord’s assembly
to allot you a piece of land.

They will be cut off from all the promises of the covenant people. “To allot you a piece of land” is an allusion to the initial distribution of the land of Palestine among the Israelites when they entered the Promised Land.  The appropriate punishment of those greedy for land will be loss of their land to their enemies, a loss that will be irrevocable.

But in “the Lord’s assembly”, in the Kingdom that is to come—that Kingdom of justice and peace—there will be a true sharing out in which all will get their due share.  However, there will be no share for those who greedily tried to monopolise all material wealth into their own hands and brought suffering on the poor and needy.

Our societies today are no strangers to the exploitation of the poor by the already rich.  It can be one individual against another, one society against another, one nation against another, or even one continent against another.  Sometimes, such exploitation may even be according to the law and be defended in court, but the injustice remains.  In spite of unprecedented prosperity, we live in a world of scandalous inequality.  Let us always work to change it.