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Commentary on 2 Corinthians 8:1-9

Paul now moves on to a very different topic, namely, the question of collecting funds to help poorer communities, especially that of Jerusalem.

We are told in Acts that the church at Antioch in Syria sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem with material relief (Acts 11:27-30). Later, Paul organised a relief project for Jerusalem among the churches he had evangelised and founded. Chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians contain what seem to be two letters about this. In them, Paul not only urges the churches to give help, but also lays out the deeper meaning of this exercise. It is both an act of charity and an expression of unity between the churches.

The first 24 verses of chapter 8 (of which we only read the first 9 today), form a letter of recommendation for Titus and two companions, who are not named. The letter is written from Macedonia (Thessalonica and Philippi, churches to which Paul addressed letters, were in Macedonia, a province lying north of Greece). The letter begins, as we see in today’s reading, with some ideas on sharing and equality in the Christian community. Paul’s ideas on relieving people in need had been planted when Paul was with the community in Philippi, but now he is expanding them to include help from several churches together to the mother church at Jerusalem.

In writing to the Corinthians, he presents them with the example of the Macedonians as a model of what ought to be happening in Corinth. In encouraging the Corinthians to be generous, he puts before them the extreme generosity of the churches in Macedonia.

We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia…

The central theme of his message is expressed by the Greek noun charis, which is usually translated as ‘grace’, but also by terms like ‘favour’, ‘gracious act’, ‘gracious favour’ and such.

‘Grace’ can be described as ‘the experience of being loved by God’ or ‘God’s love tangibly experienced’. It may come as a direct gift from God, or through another person or through some blessing which comes into my life. A closely related term is eu charis tia, normally translated as ‘thanksgiving’, that is, thanksgiving for the ‘graces’ received from God in so many ways but especially in the saving work of Jesus:

…for during a severe ordeal of affliction their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

Three key words appear in this sentence:

• “Ordeal” or ‘test’ (dokime): suggests being tried and found genuine.
• “Abundant”: a word containing the idea of overflowing and excelling.
• “Generosity”: the word haplotes has nuances which include both simplicity and sincerity. Here it designates singleness of purpose that manifests itself in generous giving.

The Macedonians have asked Paul insistently that they wanted to offer what they could spare, and even more than they could afford, in order to express their solidarity with their Christian brothers and sisters who were worse off than themselves. Paul emphasises the spontaneity of the Macedonians and the nature of their action. In this they were showing a true Christian spirit, where the community’s resources are shared with those in need (the Corinthians do not seem to be quite so spontaneous and seem to need some pushing).

The idea that there should be rich churches and poor churches was unacceptable and contrary to the spirit of the Gospel:

…they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us…

On the deepest level, their attitude is one of self-giving and solidarity with their brothers and sisters. Through his colleague Titus, who is in Corinth, Paul hopes that the Christians there will match the generosity of the Macedonians and even more:

…we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you.

Apparently Paul had sent Titus to help with organising the collection.

The Corinthians are rich in many things, Paul tells them, perhaps with a taint of flattery, but he wants to emphasise that their wealth will not be complete until they are also rich in giving:

Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.

He is not ordering them to give but, by giving the example of the Macedonians, is offering them a challenge and a test of the genuineness of their faith and love.

In the concluding verse of today’s reading, Paul offers the Corinthians the example of Jesus in a beautiful turn of phrase which we could do well to pray over today:

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

There are scholars who think this is a reference to Jesus’ pre-existence with God (his ‘richness’) and to his incarnation and death (his ‘poverty’), and they point to the similarity between this verse and the passage in the Letter to the Philippians:

…though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness… (Phil 2:6-8)

Others interpret the wealth and poverty as succeeding phases of Jesus’ life on earth—his sense of intimacy with God and then the desolation and the feeling of abandonment by God in his death:

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

In either case, we think of the words of Isaiah:

…by his bruises we are healed. (Is 53:5)

In our own time we may again reflect on the life of someone like St Teresa of Calcutta, who enriched many of us through her poverty and her freedom from any personal possessions.

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Commentary on Mark 12:35-37

In the face of the confrontations he has been experiencing Jesus now lays claim to his true identity. It had long been the belief among the Jews that the Messiah would be a descendant of the family of David. (On the other hand, the Samaritans saw the Messiah coming through the prophetic line; see John 4.)

Jesus, we know from the genealogies the Gospel gives us, was of the family of David. But today he affirms he is more than just a descendant of David. He is in fact David’s Lord. In the Gospel, Jesus quotes from Psalm 110, and we need to remember that David was believed to be the author of all the Psalms, themselves words inspired by the Holy Spirit.

In the Psalms, David says:

The Lord [God] says to my lord [the Messiah],
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Ps 110:1)

Jesus, then, is saying two things to his opponents:

1. Jesus, the descendant, is the Lord of his ancestor, King David, and he is the Messiah-King who will sit at the right hand of God. He is, then, also the Lord of those who are challenging him.
2. God promises that he will crush all the enemies of the Messiah-King.

The argument used in this reading could hardly be used today, as we have a better understanding of the authorship of the Psalms than people had in Jesus’ time.

Nevertheless, there are many other elements in the Christian Testament which lead us to the same conclusion: Jesus is Lord of all. We should ask ourselves: Does my life give testimony to that belief?

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Commentary on Luke 21:20-28

Jesus continues his warnings of what is to come. It is a blending of what is going to happen to Jerusalem and of the end of all things. The images are mainly biblical and apocalyptic, taken from Old Testament prophecies and not to be seen as an accurate description of what is actually going to happen some 40 years later. The sign that the end was near would be Jerusalem’s being surrounded by armies accompanied by the “desolating sacrilege” (see Matt 24:15). Nevertheless, it is true that Jerusalem was encircled by the armies of Rome. The safest place to be was in the surrounding hills, not in the city, which was reduced to rubble.

Jesus is emphasising not so much the actual events, but rather their cause—the faithlessness and corruption of so many for which destruction was the inescapable outcome. So he calls them the “days of vengeance”, a time of punishment not indicating God’s revenge, but the natural result of evil and corruption, warnings of which the Scripture, especially the prophets, are full. See, for example, Isaiah 63:4; Jeremiah 5:29; Hosea 9:7; and especially, Daniel 9:26-27:

Desolations are decreed. He [King Antiochus] shall make a strong covenant with many [faithless Jews] for one week, and for half of the week [three and a half years] he shall make sacrifice and offering cease, and in their place shall be a desolating sacrilege until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator.

The Temple was desecrated by Antiochus from 167 to 165 BC. The “desolating sacrilege” perhaps refers to an inscription placed on the portal of the Temple dedicating it to the Olympian Zeus. All of this, of course, was to be repeated. And in many ways, has been repeated again and again—recall, for example, the statue of a nude woman set up as a deity in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris during the French Revolution.

What follows from verse 23 is more relevant to the destruction of Jerusalem:

Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days!

It will be a time of great distress. Many will be cut down and others will be led away into captivity to pagan territories (the Romans liked to parade their prisoners in a victory march in Rome). The holy city itself, its Temple in ruins, will be trampled on by Gentiles—a fate it still experiences.

This will happen:

…until the times of the nations are fulfilled.

For, as Paul indicates in his letter to the Romans (11:25-29), it is the Gentiles who have taken the place of the Jews as the bearers of the Good News and the builders of the Kingdom. But Paul believed that the age of the Gentiles would only end with the return of Israel and the reconciliation of all in Christ Jesus as Lord. It is an indefinite period, and it is still in process. Our God is an all-inclusive God, and a patient God.

Finally, Jesus speaks of various cataclysmic and apocalyptic signs to signal the end of time. They are typical biblical phenomena and not meant to be taken as exact foretelling of events. They conclude with Daniel’s vision:

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.

It is not intended to fill people with fear and trembling, except perhaps those who have lived wicked lives.

But for the disciples, the loyal followers of Jesus, it is a time to:

…stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

As we saw in yesterday’s Gospel, sufferings and tribulations are part and parcel of living the Christian life to the full. Our message and our vision is a ‘sign of contradiction’, a beacon of light to many and to others a threat to be radically uprooted.

But for those who have tried to live by the vision and values of the Gospel, for those who have tried to seek and find Jesus in all the people and events of their lives, who have spent hours with him in intimate dialogue, it is the time of their final liberation, a time when there will be no more sorrows, no more tears, no more hardships, no more disappointments. Rather, they will be entering an unbroken time of love and intimacy, of freedom and peace, of joy and consolation. So, as we approach the end of another liturgical year, we do so on an upbeat note.

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Commentary on 1 Samuel 17:32-33,37,40-51

Today we read part of the famous story of David and Goliath. Today’s reading goes back to another source for the story of David. In this story, David has not yet been anointed king. Rather, today’s exploit will be one of the factors leading to his being chosen as both successor and replacement for Saul.

Earlier on (not in today’s reading) we are told of the awesome sight of the fully-armed Goliath, a giant of a man who was the champion of the Philistines. Day after day he challenged the Israelites to send out one of their men to take him on in single combat. There were no takers.

It was about this time that Jesse sent his youngest son David to the battlefield to bring food to some of his older brothers who were with the army. David himself is still too young to fight and is a shepherd at home. It is while he is with the army that he sees Goliath come to taunt the soldiers of Israel and they are all too afraid to take him on.

It is then—the beginning of today’s reading—that David approaches Saul and offers to challenge Goliath:

Let no one’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.

Saul, who at this time does not actually know David, is very much against a young boy taking on Goliath and says:

You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.

But Saul does not take into account the power of Yahweh who will be on David’s side against the infidel.

David’s confidence is in the Lord. This will be an essential qualification for a king who will rule in God’s name, a qualification which stands in strong contrast to Saul’s loss of faith. David, too, appeals to his experience as a shepherd, where God had protected him from predatory lions and bears attacking his sheep. “Go then,” says Saul. After all, David is the only one at least willing to take on the giant, even if the odds seem overwhelmingly against him.

And so, with Saul’s blessing, David goes forth. In his hand he bore his shepherd’s staff, the symbol of his coming role as shepherd and protector of God’s people. He picked some suitable stones from a nearby wadi. These stones were usually round and smooth and somewhat larger than a baseball or cricket ball. When thrown by a master slinger, they could travel at more than 150 km an hour.

Goliath came to meet him with his shield bearer and armed with a sword, spear and scimitar. He mocked when he saw the young, handsome and virtually unarmed boy coming out to challenge him (earlier Saul had offered his armour to David, but it was so heavy he could not walk in it!). Goliath is almost insulted to be facing a mere boy and mocked him:

Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?

To be regarded as a dog was one of the lowest forms of debasement. We remember Jesus asking the Syro-phoenician woman whether it was right to give the children’s food to dogs, an insulting term used for Gentiles, who like scavenging dogs made no distinction between food that was clean and unclean. He then curses David and his ‘gods’. To the polytheistic Philistine, the Israelites, like him, believed in many gods. He threatens to leave David as food for carrion birds and other wild animals wandering the desert.

But David is not cowed. Goliath comes against him armed to the teeth, but David says:

You come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

To insult God’s people is to insult God himself and:

…the Lord does not save by sword and spear…

David’s reliance is totally on his Lord. And it will not be David who will be feeding the birds and animals, but Goliath, thereby giving proof that Israel has an all-powerful God. And this battle is not David’s or the Israelites’, but God’s.

The two then approach each other. Before Goliath knew what had happened, David had armed his sling with a stone, aimed skilfully, and struck the giant in the centre of his forehead. Goliath fell to the ground. David then drew the giant’s sword from its sheath and beheaded him.

The upshot was that the Philistines were thrown into confusion and fled with the Israelites in pursuit. The day was a great victory for Israel and it was the beginning of David’s rise as leader of his people.

The story proves not so much the courage and skill of David, but the protection of God who was choosing him to be the leader of his people. It was a dramatic message to Israelites and Philistines alike. It can happen to us, too, that we find ourselves capable of taking on challenges which we believed were well beyond us.

Let us remember the words of Paul:

I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:10)

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Commentary on Revelation 1:1-4; 2:1-5

As we come to the end of the liturgical year, these two weeks will be devoted to readings from the Book of Revelation (also called Apocalypse). This is probably the book of the New Testament which causes the most puzzlement to many Christians. Its strange, obscure language seems outrageous and difficult to make sense of. For Christians of some denominations, it is an endlessly fertile ground for all kinds of speculation and interpretation about what is going in our world today.

Although it claims to be written by someone called “John”, it is not now believed that this is John the son of Zebedee and one of the 12 Apostles. Nor is the author necessarily to be identified with the writer(s) of John’s Gospel and the three Letters of John. Most probably he was a Palestine-born Jew who had fled into exile, a prophetic figure known to the churches in the Asia Minor region of what is today western Turkey.

There is conflicting internal evidence about the date of writing of the Book of Revelation. Many have come to the conclusion that it was composed in stages over a considerable length of time. The early section on the letters to the churches is also thought originally to have been a separate document. In any case, it is believed that the book was written during a period of persecution for the Church. Whether that was a systematic persecution by the Roman authorities (e.g. over insistence on worship of the emperor as a sign of loyalty), or simply the result of harassment by Jewish and non-Christian neighbours, is not clear. But the purpose of the book is to boost morale and hope in God for a brighter future that will certainly come.

What causes most difficulty is the apocalyptic style, also found in parts of the Old Testament, most notably in the book of Daniel, but also in the prophecy of Ezekiel (and, not surprisingly, these books are regularly quoted in Revelation). This style uses a great deal of symbolism, some of it rather bizarre to our way of thinking, as it promises the punishment of enemies and a glorious future for God’s people.

There is no way a contemporary reader can make any sense of this book without the help of a good commentary. Even then, some of the symbolism is still lost to us. At the same time, we should not be put off nor concentrate our attention too much on the difficulties of the symbolism. Some of the most beautiful spiritual passages in the whole New Testament can be found in this book, and some of them will appear in our readings. Unfortunately, they remain hidden to many people who are put off by the general language of the book.

Today’s reading consists of two parts: part of the prologue to the book, and part of the first of seven letters to churches in the region.

Prologue
The book begins by stating its purpose and intent. It is a “revelation”. This is a translation of the Greek word apokalypsis from which we get the other English title of the book ‘Apocalypse’. It is a revelation coming from Jesus Christ and directed to his “servants” concerning events which are going to take place among God’s people. These servants may be fellow-prophets of the author, or may include evangelists and martyrs, or simply all the baptised in the community.

The receiver of the revelation calls himself John, and the message, whose veracity the author guarantees, comes from an “angel”. The word ‘angel’ means ‘messenger’ (from the Greek angelos), so it may indicate someone sent by Jesus, or the Messiah himself sent by God the Father. The word ‘angel’ appears more than 70 times in Revelation.

Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

In essence, this is the first of seven beatitudes which are spread through the text of Revelation.*

The word ‘blessed’ is also translated as ‘happy’, or ‘fortunate’, but means much more than being in a good mood. The Greek adjective makarios includes also the idea of being blessed with good fortune. Not only the present, but a future, enduring happiness is also implied.

Fortunate are those, then, who listen to the author’s “prophecy”. ‘Prophecy’ is less a matter of forecasting future events than of communicating a message or teaching from God. That teaching may include a warning about the way God’s people are misbehaving, but it can also be a message of hope for a brighter and happier future—one much needed by those hearing this message. The reason for the hope is that the “time is near”—that is, the day of Jesus’ return.

Let us, too, listen to what this book has to say. Although it was written at a particular place and time in the history of the Church, it continues to have a message valid for every age.

Letters to the seven churches
The author (‘John’) now addresses seven churches or communities in seven different cities in the Roman Province of Asia (present-day western Turkey). These churches were located about 80 km (50 miles) apart from each other, and formed roughly a circle around the city of Ephesus on the coast. The cities which gave their names to these churches are: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. We will just read sections from the letters to Ephesus, Sardis and Laodicea. It seems the whole text of Revelation was sent to each of these churches (see Rev 1:11). But it also seems that this section of Revelation began life as a separate piece of writing because, unlike the rest of the book, it is not apocalyptic in style.

John begins with an address and a greeting which makes use of many Old Testament allusions suggesting the glorious return of the King-Messiah and his future reign over God’s people in fulfilment of the promise made to David. This is essentially what the whole book is about. Only part of this greeting is included in our reading.

He opens with a traditional form of greeting, wishing the churches:

Grace to you and peace…

He only uses the word “grace” (charis) twice in the book, while Paul uses it more than 100 times in his letters. ‘Grace’ is that gratuitously-given love of God as experienced in our lives.

The greeting comes from:

…from him who is and who was and who is to come…

This is a common title in Jewish literature developed from the words spoken by Yahweh to Moses from the burning bush: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14-15).

The letters are more like proclamations from a Persian king or Roman emperor in that each follows the same pattern and, unlike the rest of the book, are highly didactic.

Each proclamation consists of seven common characteristics:

1. destination;
2. the command to write;
3. the archaic “thus says” formula (“these are the words of”);
4. titles of Christ (largely based on the vision in Rev 1:9-20);
5. the “I know” narrative;
6. the proclamation formula (“let anyone who has an ear listen”); and
7. the victory formula (“everyone who conquers” and similar phrases).

Moral exhortation, usually absent from apocalypses, permeates these proclamations. The general pattern in the letters is commendation, complaint and correction.

Although the letters are clearly addressed to specific churches in Asia Minor, some see in the seven letters a preview of church history in its downward course towards the tepidity of the church at Laodicea. Others interpret them as characteristic of various kinds of Christian congregations that have existed from John’s day until the present time. And certainly, each local church today could do well to see whether what is said here applies to them.

What is significant in these letters is that they reveal churches which have both their strengths and their weaknesses, quite similar to the situation in our own day. The Church has never, at any stage in its history, been anything but flawed. And it will never be otherwise.

Letter to the church at Ephesus
Our reading now jumps to chapter 2 and takes up the letter to the Christian community at Ephesus. It is presented, not as a personal message from John, but as a message from God, which John is simply handing on. It is addressed “to the angel of the church in Ephesus.” Here the word angel may mean the personification of the prevailing spirit of the church.

Ephesus was the biggest of the seven cities and capital of the province. The message comes from:

…him who holds the seven stars in his right hand [the Son of Man], who walks among the seven golden lampstands [the seven churches]…

The phrase reminds us of Jesus’ admonition that the Christian community be like a lamp on a lampstand (and not hidden away) to give light to those around it (see Matt 5:14-16).

Following a pattern found in all the letters, John begins by praising the Ephesians. He commends the way they have endured hardships in living their faith and praises their exposing of false teachers posing as apostles. This could refer to a group known as Nicolaitans. They belonged to a now unknown Christian sect in Ephesus and Pergamum. They may also be connected with a ‘Jezebel’ and her followers mentioned in the letter to the church at Thyatira (see Rev 2:18-28).

However, John also regrets that the Ephesians now show less love than before. This includes both their love for Christ and their love for each other. He concludes by exhorting them to go back to their first fervour:

Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first.

They should remember the earlier sinful state from which they had come, and return to the high standards they had set themselves at the time of the first conversion.

John tells them:

I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Their “lampstand” here refers to their status as a Christian community. If they continue as they are now, they are no longer shining the light of Christ to the world around them.

We, too, can point to the heroism of our predecessors in maintaining the faith through many trials and sufferings. It is because of them that we have the faith today. But in these easier times, our commitment to Christ and the Gospel can weaken. It is not difficult to drop out, and no one will be very shocked. People do not care very much whether we are “religious” or not.

We have lost much of that vision which inspired our predecessors, but it can be recovered. It needs to be recovered if our church is to be truly a lampstand giving light to its surroundings.

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*For convenience, the complete list of seven Beatitudes are given here. However, only one of them, the 6th, appears in our liturgy readings.

The seven beatitudes in Revelation are:

1. Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. (Rev 1:3)
2. Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord. (Rev 14:13)
3. Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed [with the teaching of the Gospel], not going about naked and exposed to shame. (Rev 16:15)
4. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (Rev 19:9)
5. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. (Rev 20:6)
6. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. (Rev 22:7)
7. Blessed are those who wash their robes [keep his commandments] so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. (Rev 22:14)

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Commentary on Esther C:12,14-16,23-25*

Esther, a Jewish woman and queen to King Assuerus (Greek, Xerxes) of Persia, used her influence to avert a massacre of her people by the Persians. As she prepared to enter the presence of the king she made the prayer in today’s passage.

She prays to God to stretch his protecting hand over his people and to help her, particularly in the task she has to do. She acknowledges her weakness and that, without God’s help, there is nothing she can do. But she, so to speak, reminds God of the promises he made long ago to his chosen people, chosen as a “lasting inheritance”. It is a prayer of pure petition.

She knows that she and her people are totally in God’s hands. She does not threaten or try to manipulate God or bargain with him. She leaves the outcome entirely to him.

We are encouraged by today’s Gospel to ask, to search, and to knock as a way of acknowledging our total dependence on God. At the same time, whatever we ask for, like Esther, we leave the outcome totally in his hands. As Jesus prayed in the Garden:

Father…not my will but yours be done. (Luke 22:42)

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*The text references for this passage from the Book of Esther vary from Bible to Bible. The citation above is from chapter C in the New American Bible (Revised Edition). The Book of Esther consists of an original Hebrew text with a later (but still pre-Christian) text in Greek added. Non-Catholic Bibles tend to omit the Greek text as apocryphal. Today’s reading comes from a part of the Greek text.

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Commentary on Genesis 15:1-12,17-18

Today we read about the first of the formal covenants between God and Abram and later between God and the Israelites. It begins with a general promise from God in a vision to Abram:

Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.

“Shield” here signifies ‘King’ and “Do not be afraid” is a phrase repeated again and again throughout Scripture.

But this does not reassure Abram. He has heard these promises already, but so far nothing has happened. What good are all God’s blessings if Abram remains childless and without an heir and has to bequeath his property to his steward, Eliezer?

You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.

It is known that in Mesopotamia, a childless man could adopt one of his own male servants to be heir and guardian of his estate.

But God reaffirms his former promise:

This man [Eliezer] shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.

He tells Abram to look up at the night sky and try to count the stars, if he can. His descendants will be just as numerous. It is said that on a clear night 8,000 stars can be seen in a Middle Eastern sky but, for most people, it means a number beyond counting. And, in spite of the unlikelihood of that happening:

…he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

It is an act of trust in a promise which, from a human point of view, could not be realised. God then acknowledges that Abram’s act of trust is worthy of reward based on his “righteousness”, namely, on his integrity and humble submission to God, which makes a person pleasing to God.

Much later, Paul will use this text to prove that justification before God depends on our faith and trust in him and not on the external observance of the Law. At the same time, because Abram’s faith was the source of his carrying out God’s wishes, James in his Letter cites the same text to show that faith which does not result in good behaviour is ‘dead’ (James 2:14-26). There is no contradiction here: we do not ‘earn’ salvation by the ‘good works’ we do or by observing regulations and laws, but a genuine commitment in faith to God and his teaching naturally overflows into acts of love and care for others. Paul, then, makes Abram’s faith a model for all Christians (see Rom 4:1-25 and Gal 3:6-9).

As an encouragement to Abram, God reminds him that:

I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.

But again, Abram is not fully convinced. He is living in this land, but how can he be sure that he will gain full possession of it?

Abram is then instructed to prepare to offer a sacrifice. He is told to bring animals from his flocks:

Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

At three years an animal was regarded as ritually mature.

The animals were cut in two and arranged with each half facing the other; the two birds, however, were not cut. Birds of prey came down on the dead animals, but Abram drove them away. As the sun set, Abram fell into a kind of trance and “a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him”—a sure sign of the awesome presence of God coming down on him.

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking brazier and a flaming torch passed between the two rows of animal offerings. As often in Scripture, the smoke and fire represent God’s presence. Although the text does not mention it, Abram may also have walked between the two rows of split carcasses, although it could be that God alone, as the one initiating a unilateral agreement, walked between them. As the Bible and also contemporary inscriptions make clear, agreements were sometimes ratified by walking between the divided pieces of animals. While they did so, the contracting parties would call down on themselves a fate similar to that of the slaughtered beast, if they should fail to keep their word. Here the two partners to the agreement are God and Abram, although the chief initiator and implementer is God.

The covenant consisted of a promise to Abram to give him land in perpetuity—”from the river [or ‘wadi’ in some translations] of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates”. It was this covenant which would both guarantee Abram’s possession of the land he was occupying, and also be a sign that the promise of an heir would be fulfilled. We are very close now to that happening. It is this total trust of Abram in God’s promise which will be retold again and again down the ages and on into the New Testament (see Paul’s letters and the Letter to the Hebrews).

In Jesus, of course, we have a new covenant and it is for us to be part of it. Let us pray for faith and trust like that of Abram, when against all hope he continued to hope.

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Commentary on Romans 8:1-11

Paul continues to discuss the conflicting forces that we find in ourselves—that of the “flesh” and that of the Spirit of Jesus Christ:

…there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

Those who are truly in Christ Jesus, not just nominally by saying so, but in a way that influences their behaviour, can never be under condemnation. The law of Christ’s Spirit is life-giving. When one lives under the “law of sin and death”, one is living under a system that sees sin everywhere, that focuses on punishment for every violation, irrespective of motive. Paul says:

…what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us…

All the Law could do was to demand external observance of its stipulations. This was not life-giving; in fact, it could have the opposite effect. It could not be an inward source of salvation and wholeness. The Law was powerless because it depended solely on one’s own efforts to observe it. As we can see in the case of the Pharisee, it could lead to a superficial and external ‘holiness’ which only concealed the corrupt influences of the flesh actively at work. Jesus spoke cuttingly of “whitewashed tombs”—bright and clean on the outside and full of corruption within.

Christ the Son of God, however, was sent by the Father and took on exactly the same human nature as every sinner so that he might, as one of us, sacrifice himself in love for us and thus remove the sin and alienation from our human nature. God became Man that man might share in the divine life. That is what we mean by calling Jesus the Mediator, the Pontifex (Latin, meaning ‘bridge-builder’); he linked together what had become broken by the sin of Adam. Man, formerly carnal, is now, through union with Christ, spiritual, sharing in the Spirit of Christ.

Now, in Christ, we can fulfil the Law’s requirements by walking:

…not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

God’s aim in sending his Son was that believers might be enabled to embody the true and full intentions of the law. And, in Christ, the Law can be summed up in one single sentence:

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
(John 13:34; see also Gal 5:14)

In keeping that commandment, everything else is taken care of. Note that God is not mentioned in this commandment, but that is the point; the only way I can effectively love God is by loving him in and through those around me.

People then can be divided into two kinds: those who live according to the ‘flesh’ and those who live according to the Spirit:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

Those who live according to the instincts of sinful human nature look forward to nothing but death. This is a disordered human nature opposed to God, because it does not and cannot submit to God’s law, and so can never please God. But those who are in the Spirit can look forward to life and peace.

The Roman Christians, however, are not living by their natural inclinations, but in the Spirit, who has made his home in them. Paul says:

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Even the body of a Christian is subject to physical death, seen as the consequence of sin (death came with the sin in the Garden, just as life comes from him who rose to life in a garden—see John 19:41 and 20:8-9,15). But because of being ‘justified’ (made ‘righteous’) by the grace that comes from faith in Christ, the Christian’s spirit is alive with an unending life. The body is doomed to physical death and can be the instrument of spiritual death also, but the Spirit is life, a power of resurrection.

Paul concludes:

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

The final resurrection of the Christian, spirit and body, is intimately dependent on that of Christ.

It is by the same power and the same gift of the Spirit, that the Father will raise them to life in their turn. This operation is already being prepared: a new life is making the Christians into sons in the likeness of the Son himself, and they are being incorporated into the risen Christ by faith and baptism. It is important to note that the word “flesh” in this passage means much more than the body. The body in itself is not bad, as some philosophers in Paul’s time maintained. For us, the body has been sanctified by the Incarnation, when God’s Son took on a human body and redeemed us through it.

‘Flesh’ also refers to what we might call today our ‘lower instincts’, the tendency, sometimes seemingly irresistible, which we have to follow urges which are selfish and self-centred, which want to satisfy our appetites, be they for food, for sex, for possessions, for anger, revenge, jealousy or violence. Left to ourselves we are likely to follow these instincts, often mistakenly thinking that our happiness lies there. But total indulgence in any or all of these leads only to personal degradation and self-destruction.

All that Paul says we can verify by our own experience. When we let our lower instincts guide us we know that, although there may be temporary pleasure and satisfaction, they are dragging us down—spoiling both our inner peace and the quality of our relationship with others, not to mention distancing us from God. It is difficult, if not impossible, to lead that kind of life and be people of prayer. On the other hand, when we—however patchily we do so—really try to live out the gospel spirit in our relationships with ourselves, with others and with God, we know that we experience a deep-down satisfaction which increases our sense of freedom and peace.

The chances are that most of us are not altogether in the flesh or altogether in the Spirit, but somewhere in between. Some are more in the flesh and give the odd salute to the Spirit, e.g. by doing the absolute minimum that their ‘religious obligations’ require. Others are trying to live fully in the Spirit, but know that from time to time, the flesh asserts itself. That is no great harm. It helps us to realise that we do not make much progress without God’s help:

…because apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

But if we keep at it, that is, if we keep ourselves open to the influence of the Spirit, we will experience that the power of the Spirit does become dominant and living in the Spirit becomes easier and the seductions of the flesh become easier to resist. To do this, though, we do need to keep in contact with the ways in which the Spirit comes to us, e.g. through our participation in the life of the Christian community, its prayer life, its evangelising life, its sharing of its resources with those in need, its sacramental life and its constant listening to the Word. These are the essential channels by which the Spirit flows into our hearts and help us to live in Christ.

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Commentary on 1 Maccabees 1:10-15,41-43,54-57,62-64

During this week we take readings from the First and Second Books of the Maccabees. These are among the latest of Old Testament writings. The First book of Maccabees was originally written in Hebrew, but we only have the Greek translation now; second Maccabees was written in Greek. They date from about 100 BC, not long before the birth of Christ. Although they deal with the same period of history, they are clearly separate books written by different authors. They are not part of the Jewish canon and are not included, except as ‘apocrypha’, in Protestant bibles.

The first book is mainly historical and covers events between 175-134 BC, including a successful revolution by the Jews. The second book is less concerned about history and covers a shorter period than the first book. Our readings will alternate between the first and second books.

The period we are covering follows the death of Alexander the Great. As the opening of 1 Maccabees indicates, the territories conquered by Alexander were divided among his officers and noblemen, who appointed themselves kings in their own regions.

From these there emerged a “sinful root”, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, son of King Antiochus (175-164 BC). He was the younger brother of Seleucus IV and son of Antiochus II. The royal epithet Epiphanes (‘who reveals himself in splendour’) indicates the king’s claim to be the earthly manifestation of the Greek god, Zeus. He had been among hostages handed over to the Romans by his father in 189 BC, after his defeat at Magnesia in Sipyle.

Antiochus IV became king in the 107th year of the “kingdom of the Greeks”. This refers to the Seleucid era which began in Syria in the autumn of 312 BC (when Antioch was supposed to have been founded) and in Babylonia in the following year, 311 BC.

It was at this point, according to 1 Maccabees, that a group of “renegades” (literally, ‘breakers of the Law’) emerged among the Israelites with the purpose of leading the people astray. They began urging the people to merge with the surrounding Hellenistic peoples on the grounds that by separating themselves they had had nothing but trouble. They began making propaganda among their fellow-Jews, urging them to break down the barriers that divided the Jews from the surrounding peoples.

This proposal met with a favourable response on the part of many, and some of them approached Antiochus, who gave them the authority to practise gentile customs. One of the signs of change was the building of a gymnasium, which was a feature of every Greek city. Many of the Jews “made foreskins for themselves” (i.e. disguised their circumcision) because men were always naked in the gymnasium and circumcision was peculiar only to the Jews. The nakedness which was no problem to the Greeks was a source of discomfort to the Jews (think of Adam and Eve in the garden after their sin). It is likely that other behaviour obnoxious to the Jews, such as homosexual behaviour, would also take place there. The statement that some “abandoned the holy covenant…joined with the nations and sold themselves to do evil” may even imply that some of the Jewish men and women practised prostitution.

The New Jerusalem Bible comments:

”Religion, the Law and ancestral custom isolated the Jews as a foreign community inside the oriental world which had been unified and hellenised since Alexander’s conquest. Assimilation by the new culture offered material benefits, but could not be achieved without breaking down the barriers which safeguarded the integrity of the Jewish faith. At this point, the innovations were not yet identified with the idolatrous practices which the king was to impose seven years later, but they increased the opportunities for taking part in such rites; and here lies the underlying theme of the two books of Maccabees. This movement among the hellenising Jews was sure of support from Antiochus Epiphanes, a devotee of Greek culture.”

Antiochus now began to reveal his real intentions. After invading Egypt and defeating Ptolemy its king, he moved against Judah and sacked Jerusalem. He rebuilt the City of David and filled it with Jews allied to his Hellenistic ways. He then issued a proclamation ordering all ethnic groups in his kingdom to renounce their customs and accept his religion.

Our reading picks up the story at this point. On the 15th day of Chislev in the year 145 of his dynasty (which corresponds to 8 December 167 BC), Antiochus erected the “desolating sacrilege on the altar of burnt offering” in the Temple at Jerusalem. This was an altar to Baal Shamem or the Olympian god Zeus which was erected on the Jewish altar of holocausts in the Temple. A greater and more humiliating sacrilege could not be imagined by any Israelite. It was not unlike French revolutionaries placing a naked woman as Venus on the high altar of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

Altars to Antiochus’ gods were also erected in other towns of Judah and incense offered at the doors of houses and in the streets. Again, for the Jews, there was only one altar and that was in the Temple. Incense too would only be used in Temple liturgies. Books of the Law, meaning copies of the Pentateuch containing the Law, were seized and burnt.

However, not all the Jews accepted this situation. There were those who stood their ground and refused to comply:

But many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts not to eat unclean food.

Many of these paid for their courageous resistance with their lives:

They chose to die rather than to be defiled by food or to profane the holy covenant, and they did die.

Once again, the suffering of the people is at least partly attributed to their own former sins:

Very great wrath came upon Israel.

It will be the beginning of a bitter struggle to preserve Jewish integrity in Antiochus’ kingdom.

As Christians we can face similar problems although they may vary a great deal in intensity. There are strong pressures on us to conform to the prevailing cultures of our society which involve paying worship to various idols such as materialism, consumerism, sex (with its various ‘recreational’ offshoots), success, status, power and the fashion of the moment.

Among Christians some have taken all this culture on board and subscribe to it as did some of the Israelites in our reading. Most of us would have to admit that we are infected in varying degrees. It is not easy to walk a truly Christian path through our societies and, if we do, we can expect criticism, resistance and abuse, even violence.

Like the Israelites, though not in exactly the same way, we need to keep away from everything that is unclean or tainted with falsehood, greed, hate or violence. The covenant we have made with the Lord is to follow his commandment of unconditional love at all times and with every person.

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Commentary on Matthew 13:10-17

Today’s passage continues from the Parables of the Kingdom and forms an interlude between the parable of the sower and its interpretation. Jesus is asked by his disciples why he speaks to the people in parables. The implication is that he does not speak in parables to his own disciples.

It would be possible to interpret Jesus’ reply as meaning that he speaks clearly to his disciples but to the people in riddles because they are outsiders. This would seem to contradict the purpose of speaking in parables, which is to use helpful and familiar images in order to lead towards a better understanding of a deeper message (the parable of the sower is a good example).

The Jerusalem Bible sees it somewhat differently:

“Those who saw so dimly could be further blinded by the light of full revelation. Jesus, therefore, does not reveal with complete clarity the true nature of the messianic kingdom which is unostentatious. Instead he filters the light through symbols; the resulting half-light is nevertheless a grace from God, an invitation to ask for something better and accept something greater.”

It seems that we are dealing here again with the difference between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The ‘insiders’ are those who give Jesus a ready hearing. Naturally, they are more open to hearing about the ‘mysteries’ of the Kingdom and to assimilating what they hear. The ‘outsiders’ on the other hand, are precisely that because they have closed minds; they are not ready to listen.

In the particular context of Matthew’s Gospel, those who refuse to listen are those who have rigidly bound themselves within the confines of the Mosaic Law and who refuse to listen to the message of Jesus. His message is a “fulfilment” as well as being a radical restatement of the Law and the proclamation of a totally new covenant in the person of Jesus as Messiah. Or, as the Jerusalem Bible puts it:

“The ill-disposed will even lose what they have, namely, that Jewish Law which, without the perfection Christ brings to it, is destined to become obsolete.”

This gives meaning to the words which Jesus uses. Speaking of the ‘insiders’ he says:

For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

Those who have opened themselves to the Word of God will find themselves evermore enriched, while those who have not even begun to accept the Word will end up in even a worse situation than they are now. Similarly, those to whom the parables are addressed:

…look but do not see, listen but do not hear or understand.

This happens, not because the parables are difficult, but because the hearers are not prepared to listen. In fact, they are, one might almost say, watered down and easily digestible versions of the full message.

And Jesus quotes words of Isaiah (9:13) which are not meant to be understood as God deliberately blocking his Word from reaching people as this would not make any sense. The prophet is better understood as speaking in a strongly sarcastic tone:

You will indeed listen but never understand,
and you will indeed look but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes,
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.

That is where the issue lies. If we are prepared to see and to listen, it will mean a radical change in our lives, in our attitudes, in our values and priorities, in our relationships. Many are not ready to have their lives turned upside down. They prefer to remain blind and deaf.

On the contrary, Jesus says to the ‘insiders’:

But blessed are your eyes, for they see [i.e. understand and accept], and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it [i.e. listen, accept and carry out].

And to the extent that we have become ‘insiders’ with Christ, we too are deeply blessed. But we do need to be sensitive to our own tendencies not to see or not to listen because of our unreadiness to go all the way in our following Jesus, or in our reluctance to let go and make the changes in our lives he is asking of us.