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Commentary on Luke 12:54-59

Today we have two inter-related pieces of advice from Jesus. It is striking how simple and down to earth are the examples which Jesus uses to illustrate his teaching.

Here he takes the common phenomenon of the farmer reading the sky to forecast the weather. With experience, one can become very accurate, at least in the short-term, forecasting by observing the colour and shape of the clouds, the direction and strength of the wind and so on. The wind from the west came from the Mediterranean and so brought rain. The south wind blew from the desert and so brought hot weather.

First, Jesus asks his listeners, if they are so good at reading the weather signs, why are they not equally good at reading the signs that are taking place before their very eyes:

You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

They were now in the messianic age. Jesus has been performing one sign after another through the power of his teaching and the authority that he brings, through the healing of the sick, the feeding of the hungry, the calming of storms, the liberating of people from evil forces and so many other miraculous events.

Yet, the people do not seem to be able to see the clear hand of God in what he does. They follow him with curiosity to see what they may be able to get for themselves, but very few commit themselves to following him as disciples.

Second, he asks them:

…why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?

He urges them to solve issues here and now instead of dragging their opponents to court only to find they lose the case and end up in jail.

If that is wise advice in everyday life, how much more important to be ready when we come to face the Judge of judges? If we do not settle our affairs now, in the future it may be too late. Linking this with what has already been said, it is time for us to read the clear signs of God’s call coming through Jesus and to respond by a change of heart and behaviour (Greek, metanoia). Then, with no evidence to incriminate us, we will have nothing to fear from the Judge on that day of reckoning and accounting.

Bringing all this down to a more earthly level, we might say that in our own time, we live in an age that is litigation-crazy. In many situations, both sides often end up the losers (but not their lawyers!). The bitter aftermath can last for years.

There may be times when recourse to a court is the only way to see justice done, but very often, disputes are best worked out between the parties involved. For example, for many, the pain of marriage breakdowns can be vastly increased by litigation, and can be a source of long-lasting bitterness, especially where the arguments are over large—or even small—amounts of property.

As Christians, we need to develop a real sense of justice as shown by wanting the best for all concerned. Forgiveness and reconciliation should be a high priority for us. There should be no place in our lives for sheer vindictiveness or, perhaps worse, simply a desire to make someone suffer more cruelly than we have.

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Commentary on Ephesians 4:7-16

Today, we continue Paul’s plea for unity in the churches. He moves on to speak of the gifts or special graces which have been given to each member of the community:

…each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

In Greek, ‘grace’ is charis (from which comes ‘charism’, and ‘charismatic’). It is a totally gratuitous gift from God which we have in no way earned by our own efforts. As we shall see, these gifts are given to ensure the better service of the whole community.

Paul quotes from Psalm 68 and, following rabbinic style of interpretation, applies it to Christ. He focuses on two phrases: “when he ascended on high” and “he gave gifts to his people”. He uses the text to point to the resurrection and triumphal ascension of Jesus, which was followed by the outpouring of the Spirit on his disciples. The intervening phrase, “he made captivity itself a captive”, may apply to the spiritual enemies that Christ overcame on the cross.

Paul then comments on the Psalm with the observation that, if Christ “ascended”, it could only mean that he had first “descended” to the “lower parts of the earth”. This could mean either that Jesus had come down to earth (“the Word became flesh and lived among us”—John 1:14) to dispense his gifts before ascending into glory, or it could refer to his visiting the dead in Sheol between his death and resurrection. The first interpretation would seem more appropriate in the context. In either case, the one who formerly descended is now the one who ascends above all the heavens to fill all things.

According to the Jerusalem Bible:

“By ascending through all the cosmic spheres and taking possession of them all one after another, Christ becomes the head of the whole pleroma or total cosmos and makes the entire universe acknowledge him as ‘Lord’.”

It is this Lord of all who has given gifts to his people. And what are these gifts? The list Paul gives is not exhaustive and is not intended to be. Only some of the more important gifts are named.

These include the gifts to be:

Apostles: they are the twelve ‘foundation stones’ of the whole Church, but also including some other key founding members, like Paul himself.

Prophets: these are the people who pass on a special message from God relevant to a particular need or situation. Their role is regarded as very important and they are always listed immediately after the Apostles. While the Apostles are concerned with the handing on and conservation of the traditional beliefs, the prophet’s role is to make sure that the Church is faithful to its mission and responding to real and current needs.

Evangelists: their role is to proclaim the Gospel and invite others to know and accept Jesus as their Lord, and to become members of the Christian community. While the other gifted people helped the church grow through edification, the evangelists helped the church grow by augmentation.

Pastors and Teachers: these are the ones who take pastoral care of the community and who pass on and explain the message of the Gospel to the members.

In general, Paul limits his list of charisms to those individuals who are concerned with passing on the Gospel message because they are the most relevant in the present context.

The purpose of being endowed with these gifts is clear: it is so that all the “saints”, the baptised Christians, join together as one in the work of service to the whole community, to build up the Body of Christ. Of the particular “saints” Paul mentions here, some seem to be missionaries and other teachers, but they may include all the faithful in so far as they all help to build up the Church.

It is very clear that the gifts are not meant for oneself, but indicate the area in which each one is called to make a contribution to the life of the community.

The desired result of all this is clearly expressed by Paul:

…all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

“Unity of the faith” refers to the Christians’ common conviction about Christ and the doctrines concerning him.

“Knowledge of the Son of God” means that unity is not just a matter of a loving attitude or religious feeling, but of truth and a common understanding about God’s Son. It also implies a personal knowing of Jesus, and not just a knowing about him.

“Maturity” in the context of the reading does not refer primarily to the individual Christian. The sense is collective. It can be taken as referring to Christ himself, the New Man, the archetype of all who are reborn, or else (and this sense is to be preferred) as referring to the total Christ, i.e. the whole Body, made of the Head and the rest of the Body (see Jerusalem Bible).

United by a common faith by which we pool our Spirit-given gifts for the service of all in the community and grow in our knowledge and understanding of Jesus our Lord, in time we become the “full stature [i.e. ‘perfect human person’] in Christ” (anthropos), sharing the maturity and perfection of the Risen Lord himself. This ‘perfect human person’ is not to be seen individualistically; rather it refers to the way in which the whole community becomes identified with Christ as his Body.

The gifts, then, are not to be, as sometimes happened, bones of contention and division (“I am for Paul… I am for Apollos…”). By their diversity and complementarity they are to be agents of greater unity.

And that brings us the second half of today’s reading. Paul begs the church(es) not to be immature, not to be like impressionable children who get carried away or tossed ‘to and fro’ by the latest religious fad thrown at them by hacks and charlatans. The image suggests the instability of those Christians who are not firm in their faith.

Such people are so easily:

…blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming…

Then, as now, there were many distorted teachings that would easily throw the immature off course. While some of these false teachers may be convinced of what they say, others may be deliberately misleading and even evil.

It is clear that Paul, by speaking in this way, was referring to situations that had actually arisen. And indeed the Christians of the day (as in our own) were constantly being led astray by the religious practices of their pagan neighbours and the eccentricities of some of those within the Church itself.

Instead, by always “speaking the truth in love”, Paul says we shall grow in all ways into Christ. It is a wonderful phrase, but not always easy to carry out. We must be unbending in our commitment to truth, never willing to compromise on it, while at the same time reaching out in love and care to all—including those who see a different truth or who are clearly disloyal to the truth.

If we Christians had always been faithful to that principle, there might not have been the split of the Reformation and many people over the centuries, believed to be heretics, might have remained within the fold.

As well, by adhering to this principle of truth spoken in love, we:

…must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…

This is the test. Does my grasp of, and living of, the Truth as I understand it lead me to a greater maturity, to becoming someone who more and more grows into the image of Christ, a person full of grace and truth?

Paul concludes the passage with a wonderful image of our spiritual growth:

…we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

This is a truly beautiful picture of unity in diversity which Paul envisages for the church. It is the image of a group of people who share one faith in Jesus as Lord, who acknowledge their origin from one common Father, who are identified by their having been baptised into the community in the name of Jesus, and who have a common goal to build each other up into a community of love with the ideal of the perfect humanity of Jesus as their goal. At the same time, each one has a different calling to make their own distinctive contribution to the building up of the community.

They do this by teaching each other about the Gospel message and its meaning for their lives, by praying together and, above all, by celebrating the Eucharist together. At the same time, each member has been endowed with a particular gift by the Spirit. The gift (charis) indicates the specific role that each one has, to contribute with others to the building up of the community.

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Commentary on Luke 13:1-9

Catastrophes or accidents which take people’s lives constantly force people to ask, Why? or Why them? Why did that young mother die giving birth to her child? Why did that young father die of cancer and leave behind a family struggling to survive? Why did my father die at the age of 66 while my mother lived to be 92?

Today, Jesus mentions two apparently recent incidents in which lives were lost. In one case, Pilate, the Roman governor, had some Galileans executed in the Temple precincts. It is not clear as to why; perhaps the Galileans had violated some Roman regulation about public order. In the other, eighteen people were killed when a tower in Siloam, inside the south-east section of Jerusalem’s wall, fell on top of them. There is no other record in history of either of these two events. However, the first is regarded as typical of Pilate’s administration.

The New American Bible carries the following note:

The slaughter of the Galileans by Pilate is unknown outside Luke; but from what is known about Pilate from the Jewish historian Josephus, such a slaughter would be in keeping with the character of Pilate. Josephus reports that Pilate had disrupted a religious gathering of the Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim with a slaughter of the participants and that on another occasion Pilate had killed many Jews who had opposed him, when he appropriated money from the temple treasury to build an aqueduct in Jerusalem. (edited)

It seems that some people at the time were saying that this was a punishment of God on these people for moral wrongs they had done. Jesus disagrees:

Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

Jesus asserts:

No, I tell you, unless you repent you will all perish as they did.

The sins of the victims were not the cause of their death, but they are certainly warnings to the rest of us to see if we are ready for such a certain eventuality. And Jesus goes on to illustrate his meaning with a parable:

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’

The story can be linked to what Jesus has just said. In a sense, the people he has been talking to are like fig trees that have not borne fruit. The three years mentioned in the story may refer to the length of Jesus’ own ministry. However, they still have a chance to turn their lives around, a chance which was not given to those who had died in those two incidents.

We, too, are being given a chance—for a day? A month? Several years? The fact is that we have no idea. What is clear is that there is no time to waste; we have to start today. For God, the past is not what counts or the future, but only the present. As long as I am with him now, I have nothing to worry about.

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Commentary on Ezekiel 24:15-24

In today’s reading, the death of the prophet’s wife becomes a symbol of how the people are to respond to the loss of their Temple. God warns Ezekiel that he is going to lose his wife, the “delight of [his] eyes”, through sudden illness and death. She would be taken away in “one blow”, some swiftly fatal disease, perhaps some form of plague.

However, when it happens, Ezekiel is to display none of the traditional forms of mourning, but is to suffer his loss privately. He is not to mourn or weep. He is to “groan quietly” in the silence of his own heart, not to lament the dead. He is to keep his turban fastened (it was normal for the mourner to uncover his head and put dust on it). He is to keep his sandals on and not to cover his beard (a gesture of shame or uncleanness). Nor is he to eat the customary bread, perhaps referring to a funeral meal in which neighbours would take part as an expression of sympathy and commiseration.

That very evening his wife died and Ezekiel told the people what he had been instructed to do. Not surprisingly, the people wanted to know the meaning of this rather unusual and unfeeling behaviour. Ezekiel then passes on the message that God had given him for the people.

The beloved sanctuary of God, the Temple: “the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and your heart’s desire”, is about to be desecrated, i.e. burnt down by Nebuchadnezzar. When it happens, the people are to do what Ezekiel did after the death of his wife. This does not mean that the citizens of Jerusalem are forbidden to lament their sins, but that there will simply be no time for mourning; the catastrophe will be too sudden and cataclysmic. Many, in fact, will simply be cut down by the Babylonian invaders. It will be the punishment for the people’s immorality and idolatries.

Ezekiel and his behaviour over the death of his wife are to be a sign for the people:

Thus Ezekiel shall be a sign to you; you shall do just as he has done. When this comes, then you shall know that I am the Lord God.

It is not the Temple they are to mourn for, but for themselves and their failure to recognise that Yahweh is Lord. The loss of a building is something far less significant than the loss of their own integrity and wholeness.

Obviously, there is no teaching here to discourage people from mourning the loss of loved ones. Rather, the lesson is that we can become so focused on these losses that we fail to see how much should be mourned in our own lives because of our repeated failures in our relationships with God and our living neighbours.

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Commentary on Ephesians 2:12-22

Today’s First Reading is a lovely passage in which Paul shows how Christ brought together the two groups—Jews and Gentiles—and made them one people, reconciling them with God and with each other. After speaking of the salvation that has come as a total gift to both Jews and Gentiles, Paul moves on to the mutual relationship that now exists between the two groups. Former enemies have become brothers and sisters in Christ and now form one seamless community. He is speaking here especially to the gentile Christians.

Today’s passage is summarised by the New American Bible:

“The Gentiles lacked Israel’s messianic expectations, lacked the various covenants God made with Israel, lacked hope of salvation and knowledge of the true God (vv 11-12); but through Christ all these religious barriers between Jews and Gentiles have been transcended (vv 13-14) by the abolition of the Mosaic covenant-law (v 15) for the sake of uniting Jew and Gentile into a single religious community (vv 15-16), imbued with the same holy Spirit and worshipping the same Father (v 18).  The Gentiles are now included in God’s household (v 19) as it arises upon the foundation of apostles assisted by those endowed with the prophetic gift (Eph 3:5), the preachers of Christ (v 20; see 1 Cor 12:28). With Christ as the capstone (v 20; Is 28:16; Matt 21:42), they are being built into the holy temple of God’s people where the divine presence dwells (vv 21-22).”

In the verse preceding the beginning of our reading today, Paul reminds the gentile Christians that they were rejected by the Jews as unholy outsiders. He implies that in some respects it was a false division. “Gentiles by birth” were called the “uncircumcision” (a term of rejection) by those who called themselves the “circumcision”, which ironically represents something “made in the flesh by human hands”. In other words, one group of people was rejected by another on the basis of a physical operation on the body.

More seriously, however, the Gentiles before their incorporation into the Christian community were without Christ and:

…aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise…

These covenants include those made by God with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and others. In a dramatic phrase, Paul speaks of the the Gentiles:

…having no hope and without God in the world.

That is, the Gentiles were without the hope of a Messiah—up to this a hope confined to the people of Israel—and without the true God. Instead they relied on false gods and man-made idols. Unfortunately, that can still be said about many people in our world today, and perhaps most of these can be found in so-called ‘developed’ societies.

But with the coming of Christ, all that has been changed. Those Gentiles who “once were far off” (i.e. from the Jews), have now been brought close by the sacrificial blood that Jesus poured out on the cross. This was the new covenant which embraced not only Jews, but all those, of whatever origin, who would approach the cross in loving surrender. In Christ, there is now just one people.

Jesus has become the peace that binds the two formerly hostile groups together:

For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us…

This is a reference to the wall in the Jerusalem Temple which separated the court of the Jews (to which only they had access) from the court of the Gentiles (open to all). In fact, there were several dividing walls in the Temple—separating Jews from Gentiles, Jewish men from women, priests from people, and the Holy of Holies from all—accessible only to the high priest once a year. All of these divisions are demolished in Christ. These walls (like all such walls) were a striking symbol of much deeper divisions.

Christ also destroyed:

…the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances…

Much of the Mosaic Law, of course, sets moral standards which were not changed by the coming of Christ—standards recognised by people everywhere. However, under the name of their Law the Jews had arrogated to themselves a privileged status which set them above and apart from the “strangers and aliens”. In particular, they looked down on those who did not observe the rituals of the Law as ‘unclean’. Many of these rituals have little to do with moral behaviour as such.

Religion should never be a source of division although, if it is to be true to its convictions, it will stand out as different and challenging, but never exclusive or divisive. Too often in our own days, we Christians have been guilty of the very things of which Paul accuses his fellow-Jews.

God’s plan, on the other hand says Paul, was to create in Christ “one new humanity” out of the two formerly opposed groups. “Humanity” here translates the Greek word anthropos (‘anqrwpos), which means a human person and has no gender connotations. The word for a male is aner (‘anhr) and the Latin equivalents are homo and vir. (Significantly, our Creed says that in the Incarnation Jesus became a homo*, not a vir—Jesus is primarily a Person sharing his humanity with both men and women.)

As described in the Jerusalem Bible:

This “new humanity” is the prototype of the new humanity that God recreated in the person of Christ, the second Adam, after killing the sinfully corrupt race of the first Adam in the crucifixion. This New Adam has been created “in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24), and he is unique because in him the boundaries between any one group and the rest of the human race all disappear. (edited)

This new “humanity” is the whole community, the whole Body, now consisting of both Jews and Gentiles, together with Jesus as its Head.

This reconciliation or peace was brought about by Jesus dying on the cross as the eloquent witness of God’s immeasurable love for peoples everywhere, irrespective of race, social status or gender:

…thus putting to death that hostility through it.

This hostility was replaced by the ‘good news’ (gospel) embracing both Gentiles (who had been far from God) and Jews (who had always been nearer to him). Through the cross Jesus united all in one body, which refers both to the physical body of Jesus that was executed by crucifixion and the Church or ‘mystical’ body of Christ in which all are reconciled.

In a beautiful Trinitarian phrase, Paul concludes the paragraph with:

So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Jesus is the Way for peoples everywhere, the Way to Truth and Life.

In the final paragraph today, Paul speaks of the effects of the hostility—the walls between Jews and Gentiles—being broken down and being replaced by peace. He says:

you [Gentiles] are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God…

The phrase “household of God” means ‘family’ (familia in Latin), which in ancient times included the whole household—the extended family of parents, children, close relatives and also servants and slaves.

Changing the image, Paul speaks of the Church as a building of which the Gentiles are now fully a part:

…built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone…

The New Testament prophets, together with the Apostles, are the witnesses to whom the divine plan was first revealed and who were the first to preach the Good News. The Church then is founded not only on Christ, but also on the Apostles and prophets:

…the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

The Gentiles, with the Christian Jews, are progressively being built into a house where God himself lives.

Paul emphatically makes two points here. First, he shows how, in the Christian community, Jews and Gentiles have come together in unity and peace as God’s people in Christ. All former barriers are removed. (In his Letter to the Galatians, he also included free people and slaves and men and women as all fully equal in the Christian ‘family’.)

Second, the Church is the new Temple of God. The temple is no longer a physical building of bricks and mortar, but a community of people united in faith and love with Christ as Lord and to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ:

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. (Matt 18:20)

Rome and St Peter’s could be removed from existence and every Christian church building in the world could be wiped off the face of the earth, but as long as even a handful of people can sincerely gather together in the name of Christ and the Gospel, God’s temple, the place where he lives, continues to be. In the Church that Paul knew there were no church buildings. The communities gathered in each other’s homes. There are still places in the world today where Christians have no other option except to meet in this way, often in secrecy and in fear of persecution.

Let us try to be more aware of Church as primarily the community of believers rather than as the buildings which we use for our gatherings. Furthermore, the ‘house were God lives’ is not static. As Paul indicates today, it is constantly being built up. It is a living entity which can be growing or dying. That depends on each one of us. Let every one of us work together at building up the part of the Church entrusted to our care.

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*Incidentally, the ‘homo’ in ‘homosexuality’ is a different word altogether. It is from the Greek homos (‘omos), meaning ‘the same’. Hence, it refers to sexuality between people of the same gender, be they masculine or feminine.

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Commentary on Luke 9:46-50

Following on Jesus once again telling his disciples that he was going to be “handed over” to suffering and death, we were told in our previous reading that they did not understand what he meant. It did not make sense to them.

Now, almost as an indication of how far they were from Jesus’ thinking, they began arguing among themselves which one among them should be seen as the greatest. Why should they be arguing about this? Was it because, whatever difficulties they had in accepting what Jesus had said about his future, they were wondering what was going to happen after Jesus had been taken away from them? If they were to remain together as a group, which of them would be in charge?

Perhaps Peter was already beginning to think that he should be the one. Perhaps some of the others felt it should be one of them. But Jesus, who, of course, was not present during these sensitive discussions, was well aware of what was going on. He took a child and put it in their midst, saying:

Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me, for the least among all of you is the greatest.

It is interesting that the greatness is to be seen in the child rather than in the one who ‘welcomes’ the child. The child represents all who are vulnerable and weak and powerless. To ‘welcome’ such persons is to treat them with the utmost dignity and respect and to accept them and lift them up.

In Jesus’ eyes, such little people are truly great because, to those who have eyes to see, they are the ones in whom we can especially meet Jesus and love and serve him. St Francis of Assisi, who kissed the leper (a particularly daring thing to do in his time), or St Teresa of Calcutta, tenderly picking up a decaying, barely living body off the street, knew this well. To find Jesus in such a person is to make direct contact with God himself.

Jesus himself will reach the peak of his own greatness when he hangs dying and helpless on the cross. This is the lesson the disciples will learn to see and accept in time. We have to keep working on it too, because it does not come easily to any of us.

The second part of today’s Gospel points to another area where the disciples have to change their outlook. John, the brother of James, who both come across in the Synoptics as somewhat hotheaded (they had the nickname “sons of thunder”), tells Jesus they saw someone driving out devils in Jesus’ name. They had told the man to stop because he “does not follow with us”. Perhaps there was also an element of jealousy, because in Mark’s Gospel (9:14-29) we are told that the disciples were unable to drive out an evil spirit from a boy.

Here we have something of the arrogance of the insider, of the elitist. John and his companions felt that the exorcism of evil spirits in the name of Jesus was something only they were allowed to do. Jesus did not agree. Jesus tells them:

Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.

In doing so, he enunciated this principle for them to follow.

It is a constant temptation among more devout religious people to set themselves apart from ‘others’. It can happen to bishops or priests or religious. It can happen in a parish to members of the parish council or some parish group—a prayer group, charismatics, the liturgy committee or whatever.

We can find ourselves developing a two-tier community of ‘us’ and ‘them’. We can find ourselves looking down on those who come in late for Mass and hang around the back door, or who only come occasionally, or maybe even only turn up at Christmas.

Even more, we can be tempted to set ourselves apart from non-Catholic and non-Christian groups. We can fail to see God working in all kinds of people, religious and non-religious, atheists, agnostics and people who apparently do not believe in anything.

Of course, as Christians, we do have a distinctive understanding of life and its meaning coming from the teaching and life of Jesus and it should not be compromised. But at the same time, we do not have a monopoly on the truth—no one has. The full Truth is beyond all of us. We are all searching.

Still less do we have a monopoly on good works. God can and does use any person to build the Kingdom. And it is our responsibility to work hand in hand with such people. Ultimately, our aim is not to promote our Church, but God’s work and God’s plan for the whole world.

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Commentary on Job 1:6-22

After Proverbs and Ecclesiastes we now move on to another ‘wisdom’ book and one of the most profound, the Book of Job. The book is named after its central character and deals with the problem of the suffering of the innocent. It is regarded as a literary masterpiece, although the author is unknown.

Job, a good and upright man, but also a very wealthy one, suddenly loses all his wealth—including his property and his family. He himself suffers from a serious skin disease, and he is reduced to sitting miserably on an ash heap.

Yet Job never complains against God. Later, when some friends, Job’s ‘comforters’, come to sympathise, he protests his innocence, for such afflictions were usually seen as punishment for sinful behaviour. Nevertheless, Job does not complain against God. Yet he curses the day of his birth and longs for death to bring an end to his sufferings. Yet all throughout, he maintains an attitude of acceptance and trust in God, one that is strengthened by his suffering.

The overall lesson is that even good people may suffer greatly in this life, and this can be a test of their faithfulness. Nor is it possible for the human mind to grasp fully the thoughts of God and to understand why things happen the way they do. So the book in general deals with a problem which is still a source of great puzzlement and contention: How can God allow a good and innocent person to suffer?

Today’s reading sets the scene for the long dialogue which forms the main part of the book. The opening verses of the book, which we omit in today’s reading, present us with a man of great wealth and with a large and united family, as well as being a man who is very close to God.

One day, we are told, when the “heavenly beings” came into the Lord’s presence, Satan came along with them. These “heavenly beings” are superhuman creatures who make up God’s court and council and are understood to be the angels. Satan was originally a general name for an evil being, but later became a proper name and here plays a role similar to the serpent in Genesis, as a tempter to sin.

There is then a dialogue between God and Satan (who is also called the “Adversary” or “Accuser”). God, taking the initiative, throws down a challenge. He asks Satan if, in his wanderings around the earth, he had come across God’s good servant Job, a man whose like cannot be found anywhere. ‘Servant’ indicates someone with a special relationship to God and is used of people like Moses and David and, later in Isaiah, for the “suffering Servant” who is a pre-figurement of Jesus.

Satan replies:

Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.

Satan boldly accuses the man God commends—he says Job’s righteousness, in which God delights, is self-serving. This is the core of Satan’s attack on God and his faithful servant in the book.

God takes up the challenge:

Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!

Satan is given an almost free hand to do what he wants, but his power is significantly limited by the greater power of God. The question now is: Will Job curse God to his face? If Job does not, the ‘accuser’ (Satan) will be proven false and God’s delight in Job vindicated.

We are now brought to the house of Job’s eldest son where all Job’s family are dining together. One by one messages of disasters begin to come in. First, an invasion of Sabaeans have carried off Job’s herds of cattle and murdered his farm workers. All his herds of sheep and their shepherds are then struck by lightning. Again, a group of Chaldeans take off all Job’s camels and murder their drivers. Finally, Job is told that a hurricane has caused the house of his eldest son to collapse on his whole family, killing them all. In effect, his family and future generations are wiped out.

The Sabaeans were predatory nomads, probably southern Arabians from Sheba, whose descendants became wealthy traders in spices, gold and precious stones. Later in the book Job refers to them as “travelling merchants” and associates them with Tema, which lies nearly 600 km south-east of Jerusalem. Chaldeans were a Bedouin people until circa 1000 BC, when they settled in southern Mesopotamia and later became the nucleus of Nebuchadnezzar’s empire.

Job is left with nothing. How will he respond? Will he curse God or at least complain and ask why these things are happening to him?

In fact, he goes into a penitential mode, tearing his clothes and shaving his head. Perhaps these things are a sign of his sinfulness for which he needs to repent. There is no sound of complaint, but rather of total acceptance of what has happened to him:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Everything he had was a gift from the Lord and now they have all been taken back. Job’s faith leads him to see the sovereign God’s hand at work, and that gives him repose even in the face of calamity.

In fact, in the long dialogues which follow with his friends, Job will show that acceptance of what has happened to him does not come so easily. But through it all, he never questions the justice of God; it is just that it is so difficult to understand.

We can see that the problems we have with the sufferings of the young and the innocent are nothing new. These questions become perhaps even more painful and meaningless when many try to solve the problem by removing God from the picture altogether. But that does not solve the problem and does not take away the pain. If there is no God, if we convince ourselves that all is simply the result of chance, then why does the sense of wrongness still assert itself? In a world of pure chance there can be no absolute truth or falsehood, no objective right or wrong. Things just happen in a totally mechanical way.

Taking away God does not solve the problem because ultimately he is the source of the problem—as Job recognises. Somehow, the answer is only to be found in a God who is full of love and compassion, in a God who allows his own innocent Son to suffer terribly and die in agony. Somehow the answer has to be found there in the Suffering Jesus. Many have discovered that the way out is not the removal of their pain, but in being able—together with Jesus—to go through it. Pain can destroy, but it can also heal.

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Commentary on Job 9:1-12,14-16

In today’s reading Job responds to Bildad of Shuah, one of his friends and comforters. Basically, Bildad had said that punishment of the wicked is as certain as the laws of nature. There is an implication that Job’s misfortunes are somehow the punishment for his wrongdoings.

Job agrees with this in principle and does not claim that he is sinless. Still, he does wish to have an opportunity to prove that at least he is not guilty of the kind of sin that would bring down on him such terrible misfortunes as he has experienced. He will make serious complaints against God’s treatment of him, but he never abandons his God nor (as Satan foretold) does he curse him.

Much later in the book (chap 42—Saturday’s reading) it is implied that Job persevered, but in these earlier chapters he does so with impatience. We talk about the ‘patience of Job’, but the book is really concerned with his perseverance and refusal to rebel against God. “You have heard of the endurance of Job”, says the Letter of James (5:11).

In today’s reading Job admits that God is all-powerful:

…how can a mortal be just before God?

His speech is filled with the imagery of the courtroom: “answer him”, “argue with him”, “innocent”, “plead”, “Judge”, “summon[ed]”, “pronounce me guilty”, “judges”, “court”, “charges…against me”, “witnesses”. Job strongly argues his innocence, but he feels that because God is so great, there is no use in contending with him. Job’s innocence does him no good. The reason is that God:

…is wise in heart, and mighty in strength…

Job then sings a hymn to the overwhelming power of God over his creation; he is the Master and there is no other. He moves mountains and performs countless wonders. But Job feels no blessings from all this. These actions simply speak of an unchallengeable power. Job does not yet see that God’s power is controlled by goodness and justice (see Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount about the universality of God’s love, Matt 5:45). At this point, however, Job cannot see clearly that God’s power is controlled by goodness and justice. He sees simply a God who can do what he likes when he likes and against whom the creature has no redress.

The power of God is illustrated in the ways he can overturn mountains and move the earth so that it shakes on its pillars. The ancient world believed that the earth was a flat surface supported underneath by great pillars. Earthquakes, too, must have been a truly frightening experience (as they still are for us today, but we at least now understand their cause). Later in the book, the earth will be described as suspended over nothing (Job 26:7).

God can control the rising and setting of the sun and the shining of the stars. He alone made the vast heavens and “trampled the waves of the Sea”.

The Jerusalem Bible comments:

“In the Babylonian cosmogonies, Tiamat (the Sea) cooperated in the birth of the gods and was then conquered and subdued by one of their number. The imagination of the people, or of poets, seized on this story: Yahweh became the conqueror who then set Chaos in order and ever after held the Sea and its monsters in control.

Canaanite texts describe the goddess Asherah as walking on the sea (or sea-god) to subdue it. So, in the same way, God ‘treads on the waves’ to control the boisterous sea.

It is the same God who made the vast constellations in the skies—the Great Bear (Plough), Orion and the Pleiades. Although the ancients did not understand fully the nature of heavenly bodies they were overawed by their size and mystery and their movements, which were often believed to influence events on earth. There was more astrology than astronomy. They would have even been more overawed if they had known the true size and extent of the heavens.”

This hymn to the vastness of the universe, all made by an all-powerful God, only makes Job feel worse. He wishes to argue his innocence, but he feels that because God is so great there is no use in contending with him. Job’s innocence does him no good. There is no use asking God, “What are you doing?” He is answerable to no one:

How then can I answer him,
choosing my words with him?

For God is both judge and jury:

Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him;
I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.

Job is obviously not yet clear about what is happening to him.

He acknowledges God’s absolute power over him, but at the same time, questions whether it justifies the situation he now finds himself in. Like his friends, he is still largely of the conviction that the good are rewarded and the evil punished in this life. It is the challenging of this very belief which is at the heart of this book.

The pain and the suffering of the good are not signs of God’s displeasure at all. They can in time be seen positively as signs of grace and God’s love steering us into a deeper relationship with him. Other more impersonal happenings are often simply the effects of the forces of nature (physics, chemistry and biology), and it is not reasonable to expect God to interfere with these.

This is the move from passive fatalism to a positive and welcoming acceptance of whatever way God comes into our lives. Sickness and death are not the ultimate evils; sin, the absence of truth and love, is.

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Commentary on Luke 9:57-62

Today’s passage has to be seen in the light of yesterday’s Ordinary Time Gospel (Luke 9:51-56). Jesus has reached an important stage in his public life and mission. He is now irrevocably on his way to Jerusalem and all that that means for him—and us.

But he does not want to go alone. His whole purpose is to have people go with him. Already there are his disciples, but there will be more. Today we see three ‘candidates’ coming forward with a lot of good will, but Jesus makes them aware of what following him really means. Their responses to Jesus’ remarks are not given so we do not know whether they became followers or not. The point Luke is making is to show what following Jesus entails.

The first says very generously that he will go wherever Jesus is going. Jesus answers:

Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

These words of Jesus indicate not poverty or indigence, but freedom. To follow Jesus fully one needs to be free, not to be tied down by anything and not to be anxious about having or not having things.

There is no evidence that Jesus was poor in the sense of being deprived of the necessities of life. He did not own a house, but it is never even hinted that, by necessity, he had to sleep out in the open air. He belonged to a group of people who more than willingly shared what they had with him.

The second man from today’s Gospel was actually invited by Jesus to be a follower. But he asked first to be allowed to go and bury his father. This does not mean that his father had just died and he wanted to attend the funeral. It is more likely that he wanted, as a dutiful son, to wait for his father’s death before going off with Jesus.

But that is not good enough. The call of Jesus transcends needs of family, tradition and culture. The needs of the living outweigh those of the dead. His father might not die for years; what was the man supposed to do in the meantime?

Once we are aware of Jesus’ call the only time to answer is now. In spite of that, we should not read these lines too rigidly. Clearly, for example, there would be times when one would want to be present at the death of a parent, especially to provide support for the grieving spouse. That would be in total harmony with respect for parents and love for the neighbour. But the man in the example is in a totally different situation. He is talking about an event in the future whose time and place are not known.

Finally, another would-be follower asked first for permission to go home and say goodbye to his family. It was similar to a request made by Elisha when he was called to succeed Elijah as prophet (1 Kings 19:19-21). Elijah’s answer was, “Go ahead.” So what we have here seems a very reasonable request, but it is rejected by Jesus who says:

No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Like Jesus himself turning his face towards Jerusalem and all that it means for him, once the decision has been made to serve God and his people, there can be no turning back.

Again, the words of Jesus should not be taken literally. Read in that way, they would be totally at variance with the loving and compassionate quality of Jesus’ character. The point that is being made in all three examples is the absoluteness, the unconditionality that is required in the following of Jesus. It is a theme which is emphasised more than once in Luke’s Gospel. We cannot be fence-sitters, to have our cake and eat it too. Being a follower of Jesus can never be a part-time affair. It is all or nothing. At the same time, the demands of agape-love are always there. It is a matter each time of discerning where the truly loving act lies.

If we are honest, a lot of us are like these men in our following of Christ and in the living out of our faith. We do have our material wants (distinct from needs); we feel we cannot live without ‘our little comforts in life’. Today, let us pray today for a high degree of freedom in being able to accept unconditionally God’s will for us. To have that freedom is one of the greatest blessings and graces of our life.

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Commentary on Job 19:21-27

Job asks his ‘comforters’ for some genuine compassion, saying:

Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!

His body is covered with sores and his family destroyed. He is not sure yet why this has happened, but the words of his friends do not seem to be of much help. He asks them:

Why do you, like God, pursue me,
never satisfied with my flesh?

It is bad enough having God do these things to him without them aggravating the situation.

And then, in stark contrast to what goes before and follows after (not in our readings), in the very depths of his misery, Job bursts out in a marvellous statement of faith and hope. According to the NIV Bible, it is:

“…probably the best-known and most-loved passage in the book of Job, reaching a high point in Job’s understanding of his own situation and of his relationship to God.”

So strongly does he feel about what he is going to say that he would like it to be inscribed in stone so that it would survive his death and endure until the day when his vindication will take place. Job says:

For I know that my vindicator lives…

‘Vindicator’ or ‘Avenger’ translates the Hebrew word goel, a technical term in law. It is frequently used of God as the saviour of his people and the avenger of the oppressed; early rabbis also used it of the Messiah. In the Latin translation of St Jerome (the Vulgate) the word is translated ‘Redeemer’. The word seems analogous to the title given in the New Testament to the Spirit—the Paraclete (parakletes)—which means someone who comes to protect you and stand by your side, such as a defence lawyer in court.

Job now in deep faith awaits his God to come and vindicate him before his friends, who have condemned him as a sinner and wrongdoer. The Jerusalem Bible comments:

“Job, slandered and condemned by his friends, awaits a Defender who this time is God himself. Job still believes his happiness to be lost for ever and his death to be at hand: when God undertakes to avenge his cause, it will be after his death. Nonetheless Job hopes to witness this and to ‘see’ his vindication. In 14:10-14 he had envisaged the possibility of a temporary shelter in Sheol, and here it would seem that he is counting on a brief return to earthly life to see his vindications accomplished; in this he is prompted by his faith in a God who can bring men back from Sheol. Job’s faith thus momentarily defies mortal horizons in his desperate need for justice; it prepares us for the explicit revelation of bodily resurrection…(see 2 Macc 7:9).”

Job expresses his confidence that ultimately God will vindicate his faithful servants in the face of all false accusations.

Job’s words of faith and hope are probably best known to us in the famous aria from Handel’s oratorio the Messiah, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, although ‘Redeemer’ or ‘Vindicator’ here, with the hindsight of the New Testament, has a meaning going far beyond what Job is saying.

God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. He will “stand upon the earth” as judge. And that will be the moment of Job’s justification. Job expects to die from the physical afflictions of his body, but “then in my flesh I shall see God”. God will be close to him and perhaps he will even be able to return to earth for a short period.

In spite of his sufferings, Job knows in his heart they are not the result of his sin, and that his basic innocence and goodness will be finally recognised by his being brought face to face with the one who will vindicate him.

Job’s great hope should be the basis of our faith, too. We too know that our Avenger, our Vindicator, our Redeemer in the person of Jesus Christ lives, and that he has gone ahead of us so that we can share with him the life that no one can take from us.