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Commentary on Genesis 21:5,8-20

At last God keeps his promise and Sarah, old though she is, bears her one and only son, the son through whom the promises to Abraham and his descendants will be kept. Abraham himself is exactly 100 years old.

The child Isaac grew and on the day that he was weaned Abraham threw a large feast. Weaning took place in the ancient Near East between the ages of two and three. However, when Sarah saw her son Isaac playing with his half-brother, Ishmael, the son of Hagar, the maidservant, she became very angry (while there is an impression in the story that Isaac and Ishmael are the same age, Ishmael would have been in his mid teens by this time). Sarah had not forgotten how Hagar had mocked her for sterility and not being able to give Abraham a son. She was also afraid that, if the brothers got too close, it would affect Isaac’s share of the inheritance. In fact, Isaac will get everything.

The word ‘playing’ here is another allusion to Isaac’s name, where the verb means ‘to laugh’ or ‘to play’. She tells Abraham to get rid of both Ishmael and Hagar. She does not want Ishmael to share any of the family inheritance with Isaac.

Abraham was very unhappy with this because he saw Ishmael as a real son whom he loved. But also according to law and the customs of the day the arbitrary expulsion of a servant girl’s son was forbidden and, especially as in this case, where the father is the head of the household. However, God tells Abraham to follow Sarah’s demands because Isaac and only Isaac is to be the father of future descendants.

At the same time, Ishmael, the son of the slave woman, will become a patriarch in his own right as a token of honour for Abraham, his father. God tells Abraham:

As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.

On the following day, Abraham sent Hagar off with her son and a supply of bread and water—in view of Abraham’s wealth only minimal provisions. She left with her boy and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. When the water ran out, she put her son in the shade of some bushes and then went to sit down some distance off. She prays:

Do not let me look on the death of the child.

And she wept. It was the second time she had received this treatment. The boy too must have been crying because an angel spoke to Hagar from heaven:

Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy….Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.

‘God has heard’ is a play on the meaning of Ishmael’s name. When Hagar opened her eyes, there nearby was a well. She filled her waterskin and gave the boy to drink. And now, says Genesis:

God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow [i.e. an excellent huntsman].

In the next verse, not part of the reading, we are told that Hagar found an Egyptian wife for Ishmael. We remember that Hagar too had been brought from Egypt by Abraham. But this marriage only confirms Ishmael and his descendants as outsiders and leaving the field to Isaac.

We are seeing here, of course, the evolution of the Israelite people told through the eyes of the sacred authors. Certainly not everything in this story would meet with our approval today, neither the mockery of Sarah’s barrenness nor the sending away of Hagar. We are dealing with a much earlier society where many of the values which we take for granted had not yet developed in people’s consciousness.

But we also have to acknowledge that these values have not been appropriated by everyone in our own societies. We have only to think of the millions of people who have been driven from their homes and are without even the basic necessities of living. Most of these situations are the result of human (inhuman) behaviour.

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Commentary on Revelation 22:1-7 Read Saturday of Week 34 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

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Commentary on Isaiah 61:1-2,10-11; 1 Thess 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28 Read Sunday of Week 3 of Advent (Year B Alternate Commentary) »

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Commentary on Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66,80

He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. (John 1:7)

John the Baptist played a unique role in the history of God’s people. He acted as the bridge between the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. He basically belongs to the former, but was present at the beginnings of the latter. At the same time, he died before Jesus had completed his work, and before the Church came into existence.

Jesus praised his greatness, but also said that even the least in the Kingdom was greater than he. Although he knew and proclaimed Jesus as the one for whom all were waiting, and the thongs of whose sandals he was not worthy to loose, he never saw Jesus as his Risen Lord, a privilege granted to the very least of the baptised.

His primary title is Precursor. His mission was to go ahead of the Messiah and proclaim his coming. As he said modestly himself, Jesus must increase while he himself must decrease. The success of his mission would eventually make him redundant. And that is still the role of the missionary today—to plant the church and then withdraw, leaving it in the hands of the new local community.

Many parallels
Today we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. In Luke’s Gospel, there are many parallels between the birth of John and that of Jesus. Both births were announced in advance: in John’s case to his father Zechariah, and in Jesus’ case to his mother Mary.

The birth of John was a special blessing to his parents, who were already advanced in age, and particularly to Elizabeth. So when the birth took place, it was a special occasion of rejoicing among relatives and neighbours. When they:

…heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her…they rejoiced with her.

In this time, everyone thought it was a shame for a woman not to give a child, especially a son, to her husband.

In accordance with custom, the child was circumcised on the eighth day after birth. This ritual showed that the child belonged to God’s own people. It was also the day on which the child was officially named. Also in keeping with their culture’s traditions, it was expected that the child would be called Zechariah after his father. But Elizabeth interjected to say that he should be called John. This came as a surprise as there was no one of that name in the family.

The father was then consulted. Because he had doubted the angel’s words at the announcement of his son’s conception, Zechariah’s ability to speak had been taken from him. He was possibly also deaf, because the people communicated with him by signs. He replied by writing on a tablet:

His name is John.

This was the name the angel said should be given to the new-born child. This act of obedience on the part of Zechariah resulted in his speech coming back and his glorifying God, and as a result:

Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea.

The whole event was clearly understood as a direct intervention of God. And people began to wonder about the child in front of them. They asked:

What then will this child become?

All the circumstances of his birth indicated that he was no ordinary child and that God had a special mission for him.

In the desert
In words similar to those used of Jesus, we are told that the boy grew up and matured. Probably his elderly parents died while he was young and he went to live in the Desert of Judea, which lies between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. And it was there, along the banks of the River Jordan, that he began his public preaching. He would have been about 30 years of age, the same age as his cousin, Jesus.

His calling to serve the Lord is expressed in the passage from Isaiah in the First Reading:

The Lord called me before I was born;
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.

His unexpected birth was revealed to his father and his name given to him.

He made my mouth like a sharp sword…he made me a polished arrow…

John was an effective prophet and herald. The reading also implies the suffering and frustrations that were part of John’s life. In the end he was thrown into prison and, on the whim of Herod’s illegitimate wife, executed. But his life was not in vain. He became, in the words of the reading:

…a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

John was the last, and in some ways the greatest, of the Hebrew Testament prophets. As the preface for today’s Mass says, he was chosen:

…from all the prophets to show the world its redeemer, the Lamb of sacrifice.

It was he, who in John’s Gospel, points out Jesus to his disciples as the “Lamb of God”.

Apart from preaching a message of repentance and conversion to the large number of people who came to hear him, he:

…baptised Christ, the giver of baptism, in waters made holy by the one who was baptised.

He is presented as a man of total honesty and integrity. Perhaps it was this which attracted so many to come and hear him. And because of this, he ultimately lost his life when he denounced King Herod, who had married his brother’s wife. He was:

…found worthy of a martyr’s death, his last and greatest act of witness to your Son.

A model for all of us
John the Baptist’s life has a special meaning for all of us. We are, through our baptism, also called to be precursors of the Lord. Our baptism imposes on us an obligation to share our faith and to give witness to the Way of Jesus, both in word and action. There is no other way by which the average person can come to know and experience the love of Christ.

It is well put by Paul, writing to the church at Rome a long time ago:

…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom 10:13-16)

In that sense, we are all called to be ‘preachers’. Our lives individually and collectively are meant to send out a message and an invitation—an invitation to come and join us and share our experience of faith, love and fellowship.

If we are honest, we know that we do not do that nearly enough and, in fact, often give an opposite message altogether. As the philosopher-unbeliever Nietzsche said:

“If they want me to be Christian, they will have to look as if they are saved.”

The signals we send out as individuals, as families, as parish, are really the only way that people who are searching for meaning in their lives may be led to find that meaning in the gospel. Let us ask John the Baptist today to help us by the way we live our lives to clear a path which will draw people closer to knowing and experiencing Christ.

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Commentary on Luke 9:1-6

As we move on to chapter 9, we have left out a number of stories in chapter 8—the calming of a storm on the lake, the healing of a demoniac, the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of a woman with a haemorrhage. However, these are dealt with elsewhere in our readings from the other Gospels. We are now moving into a turning point in the public life of Jesus and in his relationship with his disciples.

This is, in fact, the third tour of Galilee by Jesus. On the first tour he was accompanied just by the four fishermen he had called first—Peter, Andrew, James and John. On the second, all the Twelve were with him and on the third, he was alone after sending out the Twelve on their own mission.

We begin the reading today with Jesus sending his chosen Twelve on their mission. It is the first time he has sent them out on their own without his being with them. Basically, they are to do exactly as their Master does. They are given power over evil forces and to heal sicknesses. They are also to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom.

They are to travel in total freedom and so are not to bring anything with them which would make traveling more difficult:

Take nothing for your journey: no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.

It is understood that the people will support them in return for the services they render. It is expected that hospitality will be extended to them in the traditional way of the Middle East.

And they are not to be choosy about where they are received:

Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there.

And, in places where they and their message and their services are not welcome:

…as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.

This was a symbolic act which the Pharisees practised when they left an ‘unclean’ gentile area. In this case, the act signifies that people are rejecting not just the disciples, but God himself, whom they bring with their message and their healing.

So they departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.

It really was the beginning of the Church. And it was the work of making the Kingdom a reality, God’s will being done on earth.

The same mission is entrusted to each one of us, although it will obviously be adapted to our life situation. We are called, individually and in community, to proclaim the gospel by word and lifestyle. We are called to help liberate people from negative forces and addictions of all kinds that can enslave. We are called to be sources of healing and wholeness, and for this we do not need to be part of the medical profession. We are called to live lives of simplicity, using only those things which we need for life and work and rejecting all superfluity and luxury. As we have already noted: the really rich are those whose needs are the least. It is a message our consumer world needs to hear and see.

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Commentary on 1 John 2:18-21

Today we look at the ‘fourth condition’ for ‘walking in the light’.* This calls for us to be on our guard against ‘antichrists’.

The writer tells his readers:

Children, it is the last hour!

It is the last hour in the sense of being that period between the death and resurrection of Jesus and his Second Coming in glory and judgement. The early Christians believed that the Second Coming would happen within their lifetime. They believed that they were living in the ‘last hour’, and one of the signs would be the appearance of anti-messiahs and false teachers. However, by the time this letter was written towards the end of the 1st century AD, that expectation was already being modified.

Nevertheless, it is a warning that we need to take seriously. Our planet as we know it may continue for thousands of years (although some believe we are doing our best to prevent that happening!), but what is much more relevant is that the ‘last hour’ of each one of us is not far away. Some of us will go on to a ripe old age and slip away when we have reached the fullness of our time, but others will have their lives cut short by sickness, disease or some other unforeseen happening. The warning today is timely.

Before that final day, the letter warns that “now many antichrists have come.” It is a term found only in the First and Second Letters of John. However, both Matthew (24:24) and Mark (13:22) speak of “false messiahs”. Speaking of the ‘last days’, Mark quotes Jesus as saying:

And if anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘Look! There he is!’—do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear… (Mark 13:21-22)

In the Second Letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thess 2:3) there is mention of “the lawless one”. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew and the Book of Revelation speak of several persons rather than just one.

The First Letter of John seems to make a distinction between an ‘antichrist’ who comes from outside the community (personified in the Roman emperors who persecuted the church), and those false teachers who come from inside. The Church has always been, and always will be, attacked from without and within.

“Antichrists” in the plural are linked to all those who are spreading false teaching about Christ and the gospel within the community. And their presence is, says the letter, an indication that the ‘final hour’ is already on its way. However, many of these have since left the community, an indication that they never really belonged. Those who stay:

…have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge.

In other words, they are genuinely in touch with Jesus and with God. The ‘knowing’ is based on personal experience and not simply on a set of ideas.

As Christians today, we are constantly bombarded from within and without by people who, wittingly or unwittingly, are trying to undermine the vision of the Kingdom which Jesus passed on to us. We should not be surprised at this. It was foretold again and again in the Gospels and the New Testament. And we have to admit that some of the accusations thrown against us are true. Many, however, are trying to undermine our central mission. What is important is how we respond. The only way we can respond is, through word and action, always to speak the Truth in love. The passage concludes:

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth.

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*The first part of John’s Letter describes four conditions for ‘walking in the light’. See 1 John 1:5—2:28.

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Commentary on Mark 2:18-22

The disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees fasted. It was a sign of a deeper commitment to the service of God. Then, how come the disciples of Jesus were not fasting? In their defence, Jesus speaks a kind of parable. A wedding feast is no time for the attendants of the bridegroom to be fasting. It is a time for joy and celebration. Jesus is clearly the bridegroom and his disciples the attendants. A time will come when the bridegroom will no longer be visibly with them—then will come the times when fasting will be appropriate.

Jesus continues with another image. No one uses a piece of new, strong cloth to patch an old garment. At the first sign of stress, the new patch will pull and tear the weaker, old cloth. Similarly, no one puts new, fermenting wine in old, used wineskins. When the new wine ferments and expands, the old skins have no more stretch and will burst. The skins are ruined and the wine lost.

In both images Jesus is saying that he and his teaching, and the Way he is proposing, cannot be judged by the old, traditional standards. Jesus has brought about a radical shift in the ways we are to relate to God and to each other. The traditional ways, identified with the Pharisees and with John the Baptist, were basically those where loyalty to God was expressed through strict observation of laws and external practices of commitment, like fasting. The Way of Jesus is quite different. It is primarily interior, rather than just exterior. It is ultimately rooted in relationships based on love, a love that always seeks the well-being of the other. If we judge what Jesus does by the old ways, we will have difficulties. We need, as Paul says:

…the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2:16)

This is still relevant in our Church today. There are many who still are living their Catholic life with the Pharisee mindset. Many decades now after the Second Vatican Council, there are still people who have not understood the radical shift in thinking that was introduced. In the liturgy, for instance, the changes in some places are often just cosmetic—only on the surface. There are people who still ‘go to Mass’ (note the expression) with basically unchanged attitudes or understanding. Others try to cling to the ‘old days’—Tridentine Masses, continuing to eat fish on Friday, following old devotions (some of which border on the superstitious). There is still a good deal of individualism and ‘saving my soul’, or staying in ‘the state of grace to get to heaven’ mentality.

There are people who still see sin as primarily the breaking of laws and rules, rather than as a breakdown in loving relationships with God, with others and with self. It is possible to be perfectly ‘orthodox’, affirming the doctrinal teaching of the Church to the last detail, and yet be devoid of love in the way one’s life is lived, and showing very little concern for the needy of this world. Sad to say, Pharisaism is alive and well among Christians. But it is like trying to force the ‘new thinking’ of Vatican II into the ‘old wineskins’ of past behaviour.

The new wine of Jesus’ teaching needs to be contained in new wineskins. And some of the problems of the Church in parts of the world where Christians are falling away can be traced to our unwillingness to let go of old wineskins.

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Commentary on Mark 12:13-17

Possibly in response to the parable of the wicked tenants which we read yesterday, a delegation comes to confront Jesus. Their composition is rather unusual, but proves the ancient saying that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. It would be hard to find two groups more ideologically opposed than the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees set the highest standards in their observance of the Law. They were highly patriotic and strongly anti-Roman. The Herodians, on the other hand, were seen as rather lax and not particularly devout. And they had the reputation of being a little too cosy with the Roman colonial powers. In normal circumstances, these two groups would never be seen in each other’s company. But now they had a common opponent in Jesus. For Jesus was seen, depending on how he was interpreted, as challenging the Law on the one hand and as a potential rallying point for anti-Roman sentiment on the other.

The confrontation is carried out with a good deal of subtlety. It begins with shameless flattery:

Teacher, we know that you are sincere and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with truth.

In fact, every word of this is absolutely true and would that it could be said of every one of us! In their book, however, it means that Jesus is a very dangerous person and, indeed, people like Jesus have run into trouble all through history, not least in our own days.

Having, as they imagined, totally disarmed Jesus by their positive approach, they smoothly slip in the knife. One can almost hear the blandness and feigned innocence with which they ask their question:

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

It sounds to us a very straightforward question, but it was, in fact, one of the most politically sensitive issues of the day. And of course, it was a trick question.

If Jesus said it was permissible, then he incurred the wrath of every Jewish patriot, most of all the powerful Pharisees, who deeply resented the presence of the Roman power on their land. If he said it was not permissible, then he could immediately be denounced by people like the Herodians to the Roman authorities for subversion. In either case, he would lose.

Jesus, of course, immediately sees through their deceit. He asks to be shown a denarius, a coin roughly equal to a day’s wage. It was a Roman coin and it carried the head of the emperor, Caesar Augustus. Pointing to the image, Jesus asks whose head it is and he is told it is that of the emperor. Jesus said,

Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.

His enemies “were utterly amazed at him” and reduced to speechlessness with no comeback. It was an answer that said everything and said nothing. It said everything because no one could quarrel with it; it said nothing because it did not decide in any way what belonged to God and what to the emperor.

The whole scene, of course, reflects a serious problem besetting the early Church. How much allegiance did they owe, as Christians, to the temporal power, especially one where the emperor was seen as having divine prerogatives or was openly persecuting Christians? There were clearly limits to the allegiance they could give. This resulted in waves of persecutions and large numbers of martyrs dying rather than compromising their faith.

The problem of how much allegiance Christians owe to temporal powers is still a live issue for us today. It concerns the question of separation of Church and state and how that is to be interpreted. It concerns the way we—both electors and elected—vote when sensitive moral issues are at stake.

In one sense, God has a total claim on our allegiance. There is nothing which does not belong to him. Nevertheless, society, through its legitimate authorities, also has a claim on our allegiance. It can make demands on us in asking us to contribute, e.g. through taxation, to promoting the overall well-being of our whole community, especially of those who are in need.

As Christians, we cannot simply isolate ourselves from the political arena, that is, the area in which the interests of the citizenry are discussed and managed. The political arena is inseparable from issues of truth and justice, and there is no way that Christians, who are committed to building the Kingdom, cannot be concerned about the welfare of their fellow citizens. “The Church should not dabble in politics,” say some. No, it should not dabble; it should be deeply involved in every important moral and social issue.

Nevertheless, the words of Jesus remain our guiding principle: we give to God what belongs to him and we give to society what it has a right to ask of us—our cooperation in making it a place guided by the principles and values of the Kingdom. To do anything less is to fail to give everything to God.

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Commentary on Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14

Today we come to the fourth of the five discourses which are the distinctive characteristic of Matthew’s Gospel. This one focuses on the Church (and is called the “Discourse on the Church”), the Christian community, and in particular the relationships among its members.

The reading begins with Jesus asking the question:

Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

By implication, this question is asking about the greatest in the Christian community—a sign of the Kingdom.

Jesus answers the question very simply by putting a child in front of his disciples. To become the greatest is to become a small child.

Why? Children have many precious qualities. They are born free of prejudice and they are totally open to learning. It is these qualities, which we tend to lose as we grow up, that we need to enter the Reign of God. We need to be totally open and free of prejudice when it comes to listening to God, and to allow ourselves to be fully teachable, malleable and flexible. Then we will be ready to receive everything that God wants us to have, and to become everything God wants us to become. Furthermore, to welcome a person who has these qualities in Jesus’ name is to welcome Christ himself.

From that the Gospel moves on to another related consideration. It skips a passage which deals with those who cause others to fall into sin and the kind of punishment such people deserve. Instead, it moves from children to the “little ones”. The “little ones” are not just children, but the weaker ones in the community, and they may be adults. But they are the ones who can very easily be led astray by the bad example which others give. And there are severe penalties for doing this (which are mentioned in the omitted passage).

This is emphasised by the parable of the lost sheep. God is compared to a shepherd who has lost just one sheep out of a hundred. When he finds it again he is happier than over the other ninety-nine which have not strayed. As such, the Gospel concludes:

So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

How terrible, then, if one of us is responsible for someone’s being separated from God forever! Sadly, sometimes it feels like that happens quite a lot in our society and in our Church.

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Commentary on Luke 12:1-7

After his confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus now turns to the crowds. We are told that they were gathering round him by the thousands, so densely packed that they were trampling on each other. Clearly they were hungry to hear a man who had spoken in such extraordinary and daring ways to their religious leaders.

But Jesus begins by speaking first to his own disciples.

Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy.

The fermenting characteristic of yeast is seen by the Jews as a corrupting agent. That is why they only use unleavened bread at the Passover.

The corrupting agent in the Pharisees was their hypocrisy. On the outside they pretended to be what they were not on the inside:

Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known.

It can mean that the hypocrisy of the Pharisees will ultimately be laid bare. In contrast, the followers of Jesus must practice transparency. And although much of the teaching that the disciples receive is in private, ultimately all will have to come out into the open.

The Church is not a secret society, although it has its ‘mysteries’, its special teachings and rituals, which are only fully understood by those who are ‘inside’. The Church is of its very essence evangelical. Its purpose is to share the vision of Christ with the whole world. This is crucial to the setting up of the Kingdom, the accepted reign of God in the world.

Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.

This, of course, will involve dangers. The gospel will be resisted; it will be seen as a dangerous threat to other views of life. Christians will die and, in fact, thousands have sacrificed their lives simply because they were followers of Jesus.

But physical death is not the worst enemy—it is the consequence of living. It is an end we will all have to face one day, sooner or later, one way or the other. But Paul says:

I will show you whom to fear: fear the one who, after killing, has authority to cast into hell.

Only God as the Supreme Judge has this power. Of course, the only person God “casts into hell” is one who has chosen to separate himself or herself definitively from God.

Hell (in Hebrew ge-hinnom meaning the ‘Valley of Hinnom’ or ge-ben-hinnom, ‘Valley of the Son of Hinnom’) refers to an area situated to the southwest of Jerusalem. In the time of the kings it had been the centre of a cult in which children were sacrificed (see 2 Kings 23:10 and Jeremiah 7:31), and hence was seen as a place of abomination. The Hebrew is transliterated into Greek as gaihenna, which appears in some translations of the New Testament as gehenna.

The punishment of sinners by fire after death first appeared in Jewish apocalyptic literature, but the name gehenna for this punishment only appears in the New Testament. The term is only used in Matthew, Mark, the Letter of James and here. The word is not to be confused with Hades, which was a general name for the place of the dead.

The one we are really to fear is the one who can make us deny Christ and all that Christ means, and to die in a state of denial. But whatever threats hang over us, we are not to fear. We have the example of many before us who have gone to their deaths in peace and without hesitation. They knew they had no other choice: either death or Truth. Jesus says:

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

So our duty is clear: to proclaim the good news of the gospel with openness and integrity and not to fear the consequences. We are not alone.