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Commentary on Matthew 23:1-12

We begin today chapter 23 of Matthew which consists of a severe indictment of the Pharisees and scribes by Jesus. This is not to be taken as a blanket condemnation of every individual Pharisee and scribe, because we know that many of them were good people. One outstanding example is Gamaliel who appears in the Acts of the Apostles as a man of justice and integrity. As well, Nicodemus, “who had at first come to Jesus by night” (see John 3), and Joseph of Arimathea who asked Pilate to allow him to take down the body of Jesus’ for burial (see John 19:38), were also both Pharisees.

The passage certainly reflects some of the conflicts which arose between the early Christians (especially those who were Jews themselves) and those Jews who were opposed to the Christian Way, who saw it as a heresy and who often subjected the Christians to verbal and even physical attacks and harassment.

What Jesus is attacking is not so much a particular people as certain attitudes of mind. And these attitudes can be found just as easily within the Christian community of that time and every period since then. We should listen to Jesus’ words, then, directed not so much to abstract Pharisees and scribes, but to ourselves. It is for our benefit and reflection that they have been included in the Gospels. The Gospels are written for us and to us; they are not historical diatribes against certain people in the past.

Jesus first of all emphasises that as people in authority and experts on the subject, the scribes and Pharisees should be listened to with respect and they should be obeyed when they teach. But Jesus says that their behaviour—their example—should not be followed:

They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.

They have no hesitation in drawing up rules which are difficult for people to carry out, but they do absolutely nothing to help in their implementation. The Church has not always been without guilt in this kind of thing, even in our own day. Nor have civil legislators or other people in authority, including parents of families or teachers in schools, been without fault. This is the double standard, where people set the rules which they themselves do not keep: “Do as I say, not as I do” or “Do it because I tell you to do it.”

Secondly, the Pharisees are attacked because everything they do is to attract attention to themselves. But it is all on the outside. What we call today ‘image’. Their phylacteries were bigger than others’ and their tassels huge. The phylactery was a small box containing some of the central words of the Law. It was worn on the arm or the forehead, a literal interpretation of the exhortation in Exodus:

[The law] shall serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the teaching of the Lord may be on your lips, for with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt. (Ex 13:9)

There were four tassels, sewn at each corner of one’s cloak.

The message given is clear: “We are better; we are holier.” But it is a sham because it is all on the outside. That said, when it comes to ‘image’, our contemporary world has nothing to learn from the past.

They also expect special attention to be given to them: the first row in the synagogue, places of honour at banquets, special honorific titles. Sad to say, we have seen this not infrequently among church clerics in our own lifetime. We see it daily among our politicians, business leaders, our media personalities. They are not only given these things, they expect them as a right. It is the VIP syndrome and often it is pathetic: the private jet, the executive lounge in the airport, the special table in the restaurant, the limousine from the hotel and other such luxuries.

Even ordinary people become slaves of an image: the brand label on the clothes they wear, the places where they live, the cars they drive, and all the other consumer baubles with which they surround themselves. None of these things, says Jesus, makes a person great.

The greatest is the one who serves, that is, the person who uses his or her gifts for the benefit of others, whose whole life is dedicated to making this world a better place for others to live in. That is the type of person to whom such trappings are totally irrelevant.

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Commentary on Ruth 2:1-3,8-11;4:13-17

Our second and final reading from Ruth describes the outcome of the goodness and loyalty of this widowed and childless outsider to Naomi, her widowed mother-in-law. There is a combination of pure coincidence and God’s over-riding Providence in the unfolding of the story. God is ultimately behind everything that happens to us.

First we are told that in Bethlehem Naomi had a kinsman, called Boaz, who was related to her deceased husband, Elimelech. And he was well off. ‘Boaz’ probably means “in him is strength”. Boaz is included in both genealogies of Jesus (Matt 1:5; Luke 3:32).

One day, Ruth asked Naomi for permission to go and glean ears of corn in the footsteps of a man who would allow her to do so. As a foreigner and a young woman on her own, she could be quite vulnerable in the harvest fields. Nevertheless, she is willing to take the risk in order to provide for her mother-in-law, who has no other resources. Later, Naomi will return the favour by putting Ruth cleverly in the way of her future husband (see Ruth 3:1-5). Naomi gave her blessing for Ruth’s request.

According to the Law, the poor had this right, but its exercise depended on the goodwill of the owner of the property. The law of Moses instructed landowners to leave what the harvesters missed so that the poor, the alien, the widow and the orphan could glean for their needs. Gleaning was a work which was normally done by women. It was also a way for the landless poor to pick up any grain that got left behind (recall that the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples because they were picking heads of wheat…it was not because they were stealing, but because they were doing it on a Sabbath; see Matt 12:1-2).

So Ruth set out to glean in the fields behind the reapers. As chance would have it, she was led to a piece of land belonging to a man called Boaz, who was of the same clan as Emilech, Naomi’s late husband. It looked like chance, but divine providence was at work.

At this point, adding some omitted verses will bring a fuller understanding of today’s passage. Apparently by chance, Boaz himself arrived just then and greeted the reapers. And, seeing Ruth, he asked a servant to whom this woman belonged. In the east every woman ‘belonged’ to someone, father, husband, brother, master. He is told that she is the Moabitess woman who came back from Moab with Naomi. She had asked for permission to glean what the reapers left behind, and the servant says that she has been working non-stop from dawn till now.

In today’s reading, Boaz speaks to Ruth and tells her to continue gleaning in his field and not to go anywhere else. She is to stay close to Boaz’s other work women and to work close behind them. Boaz’s men have been forbidden to molest her in any way. It was customary for the men to cut the grain and for the servant girls to go behind them to bind the grain into sheaves. Then Ruth could glean what they had left behind. Furthermore, Boaz tells her that, if she is thirsty, she can get water from the pitchers the servants have prepared. Ruth then falls prostrate before Boaz and says:

Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?

She is surprised at his kindness. In the eyes of many, perhaps most, Ruth would be the lowest of the low—an unknown person, a foreigner and a widow. But Boaz tells her that he knows her story, how good she has been to her mother-in-law since her own husband’s death, and how she has left her own parents and her native land to come and live among a people of whom she previously knew nothing. Ruth’s commitment to care for her desolate mother-in-law remains the centre of attention throughout the book.

We now move to the end of Ruth’s story and also of the book. The conclusion of the story balances the introduction (Ruth 1:1-5).

1. In the Hebrew both have the same number of words;
2. both compress much into a short space;
3. both focus on Naomi;
4. the introduction emphasised Naomi’s emptiness, and the conclusion portrays her fullness.

Boaz has now decided to make Ruth his wife. In doing so, he is also honouring the memory of his kinsman, Emilech. By marrying his kinsman’s widow he ensures that Emilech’s line will continue through him. And, when Boaz and Ruth came together as man and wife, Yahweh was instrumental in their having a son.

And the women said to Naomi:

Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.

The baby son is seen as a redeemer for Naomi, who now knows that she will be cared for in her old age. Even in our own day, this may be a major concern for parents who do not have social welfare to take care of them in their old age. It may be felt that only a son can do it; a daughter will be lost by marrying into another family.

Since seven was considered a number of completeness, to have seven sons was the epitome of all family blessings in Israel (‘…more to you than seven sons…’). Ruth’s selfless devotion to Naomi receives its supreme accolade in this statement. There could be no higher praise.

Then Naomi took the child, held him to her breast and it was she who looked after him. Such an action was understood as an adoption ritual, also used by other peoples in the ancient Near East. The barrenness and emptiness of Naomi is at an end. The son is almost as much hers as it is Ruth’s.

In fact, because Ruth is an outsider, the child is spoken of as the grandson of Naomi. Naomi is the child’s legal mother just as Elimelech is his legal father. Through Ruth, the aged Naomi, who can no longer bear children, obtains an heir in place of her son, Mahlon. And it was the women of the neighbourhood who gave the child its name—Obed. ‘Obed’ means ‘servant’, i.e. servant of Yahweh. He will be the father of Jesse, who in turn will be the father of David.

The dutifulness of Ruth and Boaz thus makes Naomi the ancestress of King David. But there is another point of universal interest: it is a foreigner, Ruth, who is also the ancestress of David and through him of Christ. The Gospel will call attention to this. In fact, in his genealogy of Jesus, Matthew will mention Boaz and Ruth as ancestors but not Naomi.

Through Ruth’s ‘alien’ blood, the House of David is linked to peoples outside that of Israel. Jesus will be the King of the new Israel, which will embrace peoples of all kinds. His Gospel will be for “all nations”.

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Commentary on Matthew 22:34-40

Matthew’s Gospel is building up to its climax. The continued confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders is leading to the final showdown. It had been described symbolically in the parable we heard yesterday.

This parable is followed in Matthew by three encounters where Jesus’ opponents try to wrongfoot him by showing him to be in opposition to the Law. There is the famous scene where he is asked whether it is right to pay tribute to Caesar or not. The question is put in such a way that, no matter what answer he gives, he will say the wrong thing. This is followed by the Saduccees, who did not believe in the after life, bringing up what they thought was an insoluble problem for those who did believe in the resurrection of the dead.

In both cases, Jesus dealt expeditiously with his questioners and left them with no comeback.

Today we read of a third encounter. The Pharisees, who were very pleased that the Sadducees had been silenced by Jesus, now had their own challenge for him. They asked him:

Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?

This was a much-discussed question among the experts. There were more than 600 laws and it was common to ask which ones were of greater importance than others.

Jesus responds very quickly, not by using his own words, but by quoting from the Books of the Law themselves. And his answer contains not one, but two laws:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Deut 6:5)

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Lev 19:18)

They both have the word ‘love’ in common. It is important to be aware that the word translated ‘love’ here is the verb agapeo, from which we get agape; it is not phileo. Agape can be described as an intense desire for the good or the well-being of the other. Philia, on the other hand, implies friendship and affection. We are not asked to have affection for each other, only to work for the good of the other, no matter what that person is like.

And, from the Gospel (see Matt 25) we know that not only are these two commandments similar, they are complementary and inseparable. In other words, it is not possible to love God and not love the neighbour and vice versa.

So Jesus is, strictly speaking, answering their question about the “greatest commandment” (singular). The greatest commandment is simultaneously to love God and neighbour. And, in Luke’s Gospel, the identity of the “neighbour” will be clearly shown, although it is also in fact clearly indicated later in Matthew’s Gospel:

I was hungry…thirsty…just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters…you did it to me. (Matt 25:35-40)

Jesus says:

On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

In other words, the whole of the Old Testament teaching is linked to these two laws. The Law was contained in the Pentateuch, the first five books of our Bible; the Prophets included both the major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) and the twelve minor prophets, as well as the so-called ‘former’ prophets—Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. Also included were the Wisdom books.

Jesus is saying that as long as one is truly loving God and neighbour, the rest of the Law will take care of itself. There may even be times when such love will transcend and override the requirements of some laws. No truly loving act can ever be sinful.

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Commentary on Ruth 1:1,3-6,14-16,22

We move on today to a very different piece of Scripture, the short book of Ruth, which consists of just four chapters. (In Catholic versions of the Bible, only two other biblical books bear the name of a woman, Judith and Esther. The Book of Judith is not present in Protestant Bibles.) We will just have two readings from this lovely work which follows immediately on the readings from Judges.

Introducing the book, the Jerusalem Bible says in part:

“Although its action is placed in the period of the Judges (Ruth 1:1) the book does not form part of the deuteronomic corpus which runs from Joshua to the end of Kings…The main purpose of the book is to show (2:12) how trust in God is rewarded and how God’s goodness is not restricted by frontiers. That a woman of Moab should be privileged to become the great-grandmother of David gives a particular value to this narrative; nor is there any reason to doubt its historical foundation.”

The New International Version Study Bible makes this comment:

“The story is set in the time of the Judges, a time characterised in the book of Judges as a period of religious and moral degeneracy, national disunity and general foreign oppression. The book of Ruth reflects a temporary time of peace between Israel and Moab (contrast Judges 3:12-30). Like 1 Sam 1–2, it gives a series of intimate glimpses in the private lives of the members of an Israelite family. It also presents a delightful account of the remnant of true faith and piety in the period of the Judges, relieving an otherwise wholly dark picture of that era.”

The book (and our reading today) tells the sad story of Elimelech, a man from Bethlehem in Judah. It was the days of the Judges, and the area was hit by a famine. Because of this, he had to move to Moab with his wife, Naomi, and his two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, and there they settled. Bethlehem lies south of Jerusalem, while Moab was a tribal region on the east side of the Dead Sea and hence gentile territory.

The time of the Judges was probably from around 1380 BC to about 1050 BC. By setting such an edifying story in this period, the author calls to mind a time in Israel’s history noted for its apostasy, moral degradation and oppression. The famine mentioned here is not recorded in Judges. Bethlehem, in Judah, will be David’s hometown and, as descendants of David, Joseph and Mary will go to Bethlehem to be registered (see Luke 2:4). Bethlehem means the ‘house of bread’, but right now there is no bread there.

The names are not those of real people and have been chosen mainly for their meaning. Emilech means ‘my God is king’, while Naomi is ‘my fair one’. The two sons, who die relatively young, are called Mahlon (‘sickness’) and Chilion (‘pining away’). Their two wives are called Orpah (‘she who turns away’) and Ruth (‘the beloved’). Naomi and Ruth are the two ‘lovely’ people in the story. Their names are a literary device to describe their characters, similar to the names given in John Bunyan’s Christian allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress. Ruth is one of the four women listed in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. The others are Tamar, Rahab and Bathsheba (Matt 1:3,5-6).

After they moved to Moab, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi a widow with her two sons. This is the first blow. Each of her sons married local Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, and the prospect of continuing the family line remained.

The Moabites were descended from Moab, who was the son of a liaison between Lot and one of his daughters (Gen 19:36-37). (As the story from Genesis tells us, both of Lot’s daughters slept with him while he was too drunk to know what was happening.) Marriage with Moabite women was not forbidden to Hebrews, though no Moabite—or his sons to the 10th generation—was allowed to “enter the assembly of the Lord” (Deut 23:3).

Then, after about 10 years, both Naomi’s sons died and she was now left without her husband or her sons. Nor did her daughters-in-law have any sons to support them. Namoi’s emptiness is complete. Without her husband and now her sons, she has only two young daughters-in-law, both of them foreigners, and both childless.

It was a complete kenosis or ‘emptying’. In those times, the lot of the widow could be a very sad one with no means of support and little chance of remarriage. All three women had become outsiders and rejects. They were of no more interest to their husband’s family, and a disappointment to their own.

Naomi then decided to leave the Plains of Moab and return to Bethlehem with her two daughters-in-law, having heard that God had visited his people and the famine was over. The ‘visit’ here is a way of expressing God’s blessing and favour on the place. It is just one point in the story where God’s control of events is recognised. Bethlehem, “the house of bread”, now has bread once more. There seems to be a mutual echoing between the famine in Bethlehem and the emptiness of Naomi and her daughters-in-law. The end of the famine foreshadows the end of the emptiness.

So, together they all set out for Judah, Naomi’s homeland. However, on the way, she urged the two daughters-in-law to go back to their homeland. They had a better chance of finding husbands there than in Judah, but they were reluctant to leave her. Then, with many tears, Orpah agreed to go back to her native place, but Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi, one outsider offering to take care of another. While Orpah left reluctantly and only after the urging of Naomi, her departure highlights the loyalty and selfless devotion of Ruth to her desolate mother-in-law.

Naomi still urged Ruth to go back with her sister to her own people and her gods (the chief god of the Moabites was Chemosh). But Ruth asked Naomi not to force her to leave or to prevent her staying with Naomi. She will accompany her mother-in-law into a future that shows no promise for either of them.

She expresses her feelings beautifully, in poetic form:

Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people
and your God my God.

Whereas Orpah returns to Moab and its god Chemosh, Ruth chooses Yahweh’s territory and his people; in doing so she will have no other God but him.

Ruth is now doubly an outsider: she does not belong to the family of Naomi’s husband and she is a gentile Moabite who has left her native land. Her loyalty to her husband’s mother—a loyalty that was not expected and which transcended tribal and religious boundaries—is one of the qualities for which Ruth is admired as an especially good woman. Indeed, Ruth is seen as very much a person for our time. Ruth also anticipates the gospel teaching that, before God, there are no outsiders.

And so, the author tells us, that was how Naomi returned home to Bethlehem with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess from the Plains of Moab. The author keeps reminding the reader that Ruth is a foreigner from a despised people:

So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

The arrival in Bethlehem, just as the renewed fullness of the land is beginning to be harvested, is an early hint that Naomi’s emptiness will be ended and she will be filled with joy again. The reference to the barley harvest also prepares the reader for the next major scene in the harvest fields.

Commentary from the NIV Bible tells us that:

“Harvesting grain in ancient Canaan took place in April and May (barley first, wheat a few weeks later). It involved the following steps:

1. Cutting the ripened standing grain with hand sickles—usually done by men;
2. Binding the grain into sheaves—usually done by women;
3. Gleaning, i.e. gathering stalks of grain left behind;
4. Transporting the sheaves to the threshing floor—often by donkey, sometimes by cart;
5. Threshing, i.e. loosening the grain from the straw—usually done by the treading of cattle, but sometimes by toothed threshing sledges or the wheels of carts;
6. Winnowing—done by tossing the grain into the air with winnowing forks so that the wind, which usually came up for a few hours in the afternoon, blew away the straw and chaff, leaving the grain at the winnower’s feet;
7. Sifting the grain to remove any residual foreign matter;
8. Bagging for transportation and storage. Threshing floors, where both threshing and winnowing occurred, were hard, smooth, open places, prepared on either rock or clay and carefully chosen for favourable exposure to the prevailing winds. They were usually on the east side—i.e. downwind—of the village.”

As mentioned, one of the special significances of this story for us is that Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David, who was from Bethlehem, and hence also an ancestor of Jesus and one of the four women mentioned by Matthew in the family tree of Jesus.

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Commentary on Matthew 22:1-14

In our readings we have jumped from chapter 20 to chapter 22 and read another Kingdom Parable, not unrelated to yesterday’s, about the workers in the vineyard.

Yesterday it was a question of resentment at God’s generosity to latecomers in his Kingdom. Today it is rather sadness over the Jewish leaders’ refusal to accept Jesus as Messiah and Lord. The parable is a kind of potted history and is more like an allegory than a parable.

The king (God) gives a wedding banquet (the happiness of the Messianic age) for his son (Jesus the Messiah). But when he invites people (the Jews) to attend, they refuse to come and make all kinds of excuses. Others actually attack the king’s servants and messengers (the prophets and the early Christian evangelisers).

The king became angry and:

…sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

This is surely a reference to the Roman army under the emperor Titus which sacked and destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. The Temple, the heart of Judaism, was also destroyed and plundered and has never since been rebuilt. Today an Islamic mosque stands on the site.

Because the invited guests will not come, the servants (the Jewish disciples of Jesus) are instructed to go out and bring in anyone they can find:

Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

All are called—both the good and the sinful.

The climax of the story at first seems somewhat unfair. People have been pulled in from highways and byways, and now one is condemned for not wearing a wedding garment! But the parable has in fact moved to the final judgement. In fact, Matthew may be combining what were originally two original parables into one.

The wedding garment clearly stands for faith and baptism combined with a lived-out commitment to the gospel, something necessary to be accepted into the eternal happiness of the Kingdom.

As Jesus says at the end:

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Many were called and invited to attend the banquet, but more than that was expected of them. They had to answer the call by saying an unqualified ‘Yes’ to Jesus. Being baptised and having the label ‘Christian’ or ‘Catholic’ is not enough. We have also to live out in our lives and relationships what we claim to believe in.

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Commentary on Judges 11:29-39

If anyone was looking forward to the story of Samson and his betrayal by his girlfriend, Delilah, during our readings from the Book of Judges, they are going to be disappointed. Our last reading from the book is, in many ways, a very disturbing one and one wonders why it was chosen. It reflects a rather primitive and superstitious society where life, especially that of women, comes cheap. It is a society, too, where—at least among the non-Hebrew religions—human sacrifice was not unknown.

The spirit of Yahweh was on Jephthah, who crossed Gilead and Manasseh, by way of Mizpah in Gilead into the territory of the Ammonites. Jephthah is one of the ‘lesser’ Judges. In the Old Testament, the unique empowering of the Spirit was given to an individual primarily to enable him to carry out the special responsibilities God had given him.

He made a vow to Yahweh:

If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.

What or who he expected to greet him is not certain, but it would very likely be a human person.

Making vows was a common practice among the Israelites and they were not to be broken. While Jephthah clearly worships Yahweh, he seems to share some of the thinking of his non-Hebrew contemporaries. The text clearly implies that Jephthah was prepared to vow a human sacrifice, according to the custom of his pagan neighbours. Human sacrifice was forbidden by the Law, but made its way into Israel through Canaanite influence. The author merely records the fact, but was not likely to have approved the action.

Jephthah did enter the Ammonite territory and was victorious:

He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and…the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.

As he returned to his house at Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, dancing to the music of tambourines. It was customary for women to greet armies returning victoriously from battle in this way. So Miriam, the sister of Moses, together with the other women danced and played tambourines to celebrate the defeat of the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds (Exod 15:20). A similar scene played out when David came back after defeating the Philistines (1 Sam 18:6).

Now this girl was Jepthtah’s only child—he had no other son or daughter. On seeing her, he tore his clothes and cried out:

Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.

Tearing the clothes was a common practice for expressing extreme grief. His vow, too, even in this situation he sees as irrevocable.

The daughter replied with extraordinary equanimity:

My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.

She puts her life on a lower level than his vow and his military victory. We need, of course, to remember that in such societies, the individual counted for very little, as would also be the case in authoritarian societies in much later times.

She then made a request to her father:

Let this thing be done for me: grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.

In other words, she will never be a mother. To be childless was considered a misfortune and, for a woman, a disgrace. At this time, a man married a woman for the primary purpose of having children, especially sons. And a woman existed to become the mother of children, preferably sons. To be kept from marrying and rearing children was a bitter prospect for an Israelite woman. Hence Jephthah’s daughter now asks permission to spend two months mourning the fact that she will be put to death before she can bear children. The very reason of her existence is to be denied.

The father granted his daughter’s request. And, when the two months were over she went back to her father and—as the reading euphemistically expresses it—he treated her as the vow had required him to do. In other words, she was burnt to death as a sacrificial victim.

The words of the next sentence are poignant:

She had never slept with a man.

In the case of many Christian and Hebrew martyrs this was often a matter of glory, but here it is full of pain and tragedy. Jephthah’s daughter never became a mother. And perhaps there is in this comment a criticism of the whole story by the author. There was probably no greater contribution that could be made for the nation of Israel than to produce sons for it. That contribution had been denied here.

The story of Jephthah’s vow was apparently intended to explain an annual festival celebrated in Gilead, the real significance of which was unknown. It was observed by the daughters of Israel each year over a period of four days mourning the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

In plain terms, Jephthah immolates his daughter rather than break the vow he has made. Human sacrifice was always regarded with abhorrence in Israel. This is expressed in the scene where Abraham is prevented by God from sacrificing his son Isaac (Gen 22), but this story is told without any expression of blame, the emphasis apparently falling on the importance of fulfilling a vow once made.

In the Gospel, Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount, teaches us not to make any vows or oaths of this kind. The disciple of Christ will be a person of such transparent integrity and reliability that his ‘Yes’ always means ‘Yes’ and his ‘No’ always means ‘No’. With such a person, a Jephthah situation will never arise.

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Commentary on Matthew 20:1-16

Today we have another parable of the Kingdom. And it is not unrelated to the previous story of the rich man. At a first reading we might be strongly inclined to side with the grumblers in the parable. After all, it did not seem at all fair that those who only worked for one hour should get exactly the same as those who had worked from early in the morning and through the heat of the day.

Even though all had agreed to work for a stipulated amount, still in all fairness and decency, one feels that the early comers should have been given more, or the latecomers less. However, if we find ourselves agreeing with this, then it shows that our thoughts are human thoughts and not God’s. A little further reflection will make us feel grateful that God works like the employer in the vineyard.

The story seems, as often happens in the Gospel, to reflect the situation of the early Church. The first Christians were all Jews. Before their conversion they had been trying to live according to the requirements of their Jewish faith. They belonged to a people who had thousands of years of religious history; they were God’s own people. Then, Gentiles began to be admitted into the community. Some of these people probably came from totally pagan environments. They may have lived very immoral lives and yet, once accepted and baptised, they enjoyed all the privileges of the community. Somehow, it did not seem right.

But this is the justice of God which we need to learn. Without exception, he gives his love—all of his love—to all those who open their hearts to it. It does not matter whether that happens early or late. One reason for that is because God’s love can never be earned, only accepted. And, as the previous story indicated, the genuine needs of all should be met. The fact that the latecomers were only employed at the last hour does not make their needs any less than those who came earlier. God’s justice is measured by our needs, not by mathematical divisions.

What each of the workers received was a symbol of the love of God, who is the vineyard owner. All—early arrivals and latecomers—got exactly the same, the love of their Master and Lord. There are not various degrees of that love. It is always 100 percent. God is Love; he cannot not love and he cannot not love totally. He cannot and will not give more of that love to one than another.

This is indeed something we should be grateful for. Because it can happen—perhaps it has already happened—that I move away from God and his love; I may move very far. But I know that at whatever time I turn back to him, even if it be the 11th hour, he is waiting with open arms. Thank heavens for the justice of God!

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Commentary on Judges 9:6-15

Today we have a rather unusual reading. Gideon is now gone and, true to form, the people have relapsed once more into idolatry. Our reading is taken from a section of Judges dealing with the reign of Abimelech as king.

The story of Abimelech does not really belong in this book. The only reason for his appearance is that he was the son of Gideon-Jerubbaal, but he was not one of the judges, nor even a king of Israel. He is presented as a highly disreputable character. He was the son of a Shechemite woman and was made king of Shechem by the Canaanites as the result of intrigue and a show of force on his part. His only exploits were the massacre of his brothers, his struggles with the rebels of Shechem and his assault on the Israelite town of Thebez, which ended ignominiously in his death.

The narrative is undoubtedly historical and throws light on conditions of the period, the 14th century BC. Abimelech’s failure served the author-editor’s belief that there could be no other king in Israel, but one chosen by Yahweh. That would not happen until the appointment of Saul. As with Rome at a later period, there was a strong anti-king feeling among the Israelites and it is reflected in today’s reading.

As the reading opens we are told that:

…all the lords of Shechem and all Beth-millo came together, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.

Shechem, as we saw before, is in the very middle of Palestine, and at that time in the territory of Manasse. Beth-millo is probably the same as the Migdal-Shechem mentioned later in the story (but not in our reading). Millo is derived from a Hebrew verb meaning ‘to fill’ and probably refers to the earthen fill used to erect a platform on which walls and other large structures were built. Beth-millo then may mean ‘stronghold’ (see Judg 9:46).

News of the proclamation was brought to Jotham, Abimelech’s youngest brother. He went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted at the top of his voice. He was totally opposed to his brother becoming king and, after making his speech, he will take flight to be beyond Abimelech’s reach. Mount Gerizim will later be the mountain which, for the people of Samaria, will become the rival to the Temple in Jerusalem. It is featured in the dialogue that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman when she asks him which place is the right one in which to worship God (see John 4:1-42).

What follows is known as Jotham’s fable. It is the earliest example in the Bible of a fable using plants or animals to illustrate a human moral. Later examples include the fable that Nathan told to David to make him aware of his terrible combined sin of adultery and murder in connection with Bathsheba (2 Sam 12:1-4) or the fable of King Jehoash about a thistle proposing marriage to a Lebanon cedar (2 Kings 14:9). Ezekiel, too, uses a fable to speak of how Nebuchadnezzar deported King Jehoiachin and put Zedekiah on the throne instead.

As a literary form, it was found everywhere including Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. In Greece, one thinks of the fables of Aesop, part of the literary lore of children up to our own day. The one that is told here may have existed independently and was adapted by Jotham to express his evaluation of Abimelech.

Jotham’s fable betrays a mistrust of the monarchy such as we find in the period just before the choice of Saul as Israel’s first king (1 Sam 8). So here, olive, fig, and vine trees, of value for man, refuse kingship as serving no useful purpose. They represent Gideon, who refused to be king or found a dynasty. The thornbush, fruitless and noxious, accepts it and represents Abimelech, a person entirely unsuited for the role.

The fable then follows:

The trees once went out to anoint a king over themselves.

As we mentioned, fables of this type, in which inanimate objects speak and act, were popular among Eastern peoples of that time – and indeed in our own, though now they may be more likely to take the form of a Disney cartoon.

The fable continues:

So they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us.’

But the olive tree declined and answered them:

Shall I stop producing my rich oil by which gods and mortals are honored and go to sway over the trees?

Oil was used in the worship both of the true God and of false gods; it was prescribed in the worship of Yahweh. It was also used to consecrate prophets, priests and kings. In speaking of Jesus as the ‘Christ’, we are speaking of an anointing with oil. Christos means ‘anointed’ and hence that he is a King. The Hebrew equivalent is Messiah. But in fact, Jesus was not anointed with oil; rather, he was baptised with water by John the Baptist.

Back to the fable:

Then the trees said to the fig tree,
‘You come and reign over us.’

The fig tree replied:

Shall I stop producing my sweetness and my delicious fruit and go to sway over the trees?

Then the trees said to the vine:

You come and reign over us.

The vine also declined:

Shall I stop producing my wine that cheers gods and mortals and go to sway over the trees?

Wine was used in the libations both of the Temple of Jerusalem and of pagan temples. But it was also commonly believed that the gods participated in such human experiences as drinking wine (remember Bacchus—the god of wine).

All in all, the olive tree, the fig tree and the vine were all plants which produced fruit of great importance to the people of the Near East. All are mentioned frequently in the Scriptures, including Gospels.

Lastly, the trees approached the thorn bush:

So all the trees said to the bramble, ‘You come and reign over us.’

The bramble replied to the trees:

If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.

The cedars of Lebanon, the most valuable of all Near Eastern trees, is here symbolic of the leading men of Shechem who are being warned of the consequences if they do not show their loyalty to Abimelech, whom they have made king.

The ‘bramble’ is probably the well-known buckthorn, a scraggly bush common in the hills of Palestine and a constant menace to farming there. It produced nothing of value and was an apt figure to represent Abimelech. In offering shade to the trees, the thornbush symbolised the traditional role of kings as protectors of their subjects, but there is an element of sarcasm in such a plant offering shade to other trees all much taller than itself. There seems to be an implication that the protection of kings, especially Abimelech, is no better than the thornbush.

Overall, the story reflects Israel’s distaste for monarchy at this time. It implies that the most valuable and productive people are not interested in being kings. Instead the role is taken by the utterly useless brambles (symbolic of Abimelech).

We too can sometimes avoid taking on responsibilities because we are reluctant to give up something we like doing. As a result, the task may have to be done by people who are incapable or unsuitable. On the other hand, we may have ambition for some role for which we are not suited and which frustrates the use of the real gifts we have. Discernment is often needed to discover whether we are really in the place that God wants us to be or whether we are making good use of the talents he has given us.

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Commentary on Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6,10; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26; Luke 1:39-56

Today’s feast celebrates the special place that Mary has in the life of the Church. This place is first of all defined by her being chosen to be the mother of Jesus, his only human parent. This alone gives her a uniqueness which is shared by no other person who has ever lived.

As with the case of Jesus’ resurrection, we need to look at the meaning of what the feast is about rather than being too literal in our understanding of how it is described. It is probably not helpful to try to imagine that, as soon as Mary’s dead body was laid in the grave, it immediately, as it were, escaped from its earthly darkness and floated up ‘body and soul’ into ‘heaven’.

By using the image “assumed body and soul into heaven”, what is really being said is that Mary, because of the dignity of her motherhood and her own personal submission to God’s will at every stage of her life, takes precedence over everyone else in the sharing of God’s glory—which is the destiny of all of us who die united with Christ her Son.

She remains, of course, fully a human being and thus lower in dignity than her Son and much closer to us. With us, but leading us, she stands in adoration of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She cannot, even in glory, be given in any way the worship that is proper to the Persons of the Trinity. What she can do is to intercede for us in our needs, offering her human prayers on our behalf. This is something our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters do not always understand, and perhaps we Catholics have by our words and actions given a distorted idea of the place of Mary in our Christian living.

Mary’s role is well described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. Thus she is a ‘pre-eminent and…wholly unique member of the Church’; indeed, she is the ‘exemplary realisation’ (Latin: typus) of the Church.” (Section 967)

Today’s Gospel is the story of Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth when both were expecting their first child. The story contains most of the elements which contribute to the status we give to Mary in our Church.

First, we see Mary setting out with haste from Nazareth to a small town in the hills of Judea, not far from Jerusalem (where Zechariah served as a priest in the Temple). She went to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the child we know as John the Baptist. Mary herself, of course, is carrying her own child, Jesus. It is highly significant that it is Mary and Jesus who go to visit Elizabeth and John. Already in the womb, Jesus is showing that urge to serve rather than be served. Mary, too, shares that urge. And, at the presence of Jesus and his mother, the child in Elizabeth’s womb jumps for joy.

Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, excitedly bursts out into praise. She recognises the special position of Mary and her Son:

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Mary is indeed unique and blessed in being chosen to be the mother of our saving King and Lord. Elizabeth is deeply moved that it is Jesus and his Mother that come to her and John:

And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?

And yet that is what is happening to each of us all the time, and especially in every celebration of the Eucharist, when the Lord comes to us in the sharing of his Word and in the breaking of the bread and our sharing in the cup.

And there is a special word of praise for Mary also:

Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

This brings us to the second characteristic of Mary—her faith and total trust in God. That was expressed in her fiat (“Let it be done to me…”), when, even though not fully understanding what was being asked of her, she unconditionally accepted to submit to God’s plan.

It is now Mary’s turn to sing God’s praises in the lovely song we call the Magnificat, which the Church sings at its evening prayer every day. It is full of reflections on what makes Mary great in the eyes of God:

He has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.

Mary was a simple unmarried girl living in obscurity in a small town in an out of the way Roman province. About the town, Nathanael asked rather cynically when told where Jesus came from:

Can anything good come from Nazareth? (John 1:46)

But in the New Covenant, reflecting God’s own bias, it is the lowly and obscure who are specially favoured. Mary’s greatness does not come from her social status; that has no relevance whatever in God’s eyes, except in so far as those at the bottom of the social ladder tend to be denied a fair share of this world’s goods.

From now on all generations will call me blessed.

This is not a statement made in arrogance, but in humble thanksgiving and, of course, has been true since the day it was uttered. It was indeed an extraordinary grace to be chosen to be the mother of the world’s Saviour. Why Mary? we might ask, and Mary herself would be the first to agree. But she rejoices and is deeply grateful for being chosen for this privilege.

Her being chosen is simply another sign of God’s desire that the poor, the weak, the marginalized, the exploited and discriminated against in this world should be the special recipients of God’s love and care. Mary expresses this in the last part of her song:

He has shown strength with his arm;
He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

The rich and powerful of Mary’s day: where are they now? Who were they? For the most part they have disappeared from history and memory, while the little girl of Nazareth is still celebrated round the world.

But Mary’s greatness does not stop at the graces and privileges which were showered on her. These, after all, were purely passive in the sense they were gifts given to her. In a telling scene in the Gospel, a woman who had been listening to Jesus suddenly cried out in a loud voice:

Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you! (Luke 11:27)

In our own language today we might say: “May God bless the mother who produced such a wonderful son as you!” And there is a deep truth here, namely, the influence that Mary (and Joseph, too) actually had in the formation of her Son. But Jesus immediately picked up the woman’s words and said:

No, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it. (Luke 11:28)

In other words, it is not the graces that God gives us which make us great, but the manner in which we receive and respond to them.

Mary’s greatness was not just in being chosen to be Jesus’ mother, but in her total acceptance of that responsibility in faith and trust—accepting blindly all that it might entail. And, indeed, she had no idea the price she would have to pay to be the mother of Jesus. But again, like her Son, she had emptied herself into total service to his Father and today we celebrate her reward, her being raised to the highest place among the human race.

This is indirectly expressed in the Second Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians where Paul is speaking of the resurrection of Christ as crucial to the validity of our Christian faith. And Christ, the Son of God made flesh who died on the cross, is indeed the very first among the risen, seated at the right hand of his Father. He is, in Paul’s words:

…the first fruits of those who have died…

But further on Paul says:

…for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in their own order.

Jesus is first of all, but next in order surely comes his Mother.

The First Reading from the Book of Revelation has clearly been chosen as a symbolic description of Mary in glory. There is first a brief vision of God’s Temple in the New Jerusalem opening and revealing the Ark of the Covenant within. The original Ark, a chest made of acacia wood, contained the tablets of the Law and was kept in the Holy of Holies as the pledge of God’s promise—his covenant—to be with his people. But this is the Ark of the New Covenant, the permanent home of God among his people, the Risen Jesus in his Body, the Church. On today’s feast, the image is applied to Mary, who bore the maker of the New Covenant within herself. And so she is called in the Litany of Our Lady, “Ark of the Covenant”.

Next, there is a much longer description of the vision of a woman appearing from heaven. The woman is Israel, from whom was born the Messiah and the community which believed in him. The description of the woman is often applied to Mary in statues and images:

Clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet…on her head a crown of twelve stars.

The woman is described as being pregnant, crying out in birth pangs and in the agony of giving birth. This recalls the words of God to our first parents after the fall, telling of the pain that would accompany childbirth. But the child being born is the Messiah, seen both as an individual and leader of the new Israel. The mother who bears him is suffering from persecution and oppression.

There follows an apocalyptic description of a dragon threatening to devour the child as soon as it is born. The dragon (along with the serpent) was seen in Jewish tradition as representing the power of evil, the enemy both of God and his people. Its tail sweeping a third of the stars from the sky is an allusion to the fall of those angels who sided with Lucifer. Nevertheless, the child is born. He is a son, who will rule all the nations with a rod of iron. He is the promised Messiah. However, he is described as being immediately snatched away and taken up to God. This refers to the ascension and triumph of the Messiah which follows the dragon’s fall.

Meanwhile, the woman, the mother, flees into the wilderness, the traditional refuge for the persecuted. God has prepared a place there for her where she can be nourished for 1,260 days, which corresponds to the time of the persecution.

It must be first of all emphasised that the writer is not directly thinking of Mary here, and clearly, not all of this passage can be directly applied to her. But Mary is the mother of Jesus, who in his Body is the continuation of God’s presence among us. Mary now stands, glorious and bejewelled, in the presence of her Son and his Father with the Spirit.

Today we join in her happiness. We look forward to the day when we too can share it with her. In the meantime, we ask her to remember us as we continue our journey on earth and to intercede for us with her Son, that we may remain faithful to our call as faithful disciples. May we know God’s will for us at all times and, like Mary, say our unconditional Yes to what he wants for us.

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Commentary on Matthew 19:23-30

After hearing the sad story of the rich young man who could not accept his invitation to be a disciple, Jesus gives some comments on the effects of wealth. Jesus says:

Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

It could be that Jesus was referring to a narrow entrance in the city wall of Jerusalem called the ‘eye of the needle’. In either case, Jesus is indicating something which is extremely difficult, in fact, next to impossible.

Some of us may likely feel discomfort about this. Even if we are not rich ourselves, we might like to see our children get rich some day, or we admire people who have, by their hard work, become wealthy. What is wrong with having a lot of money which one has earned by the one’s own sweat and labour?

What does the Gospel mean by being rich? To be rich here means to have a large surplus of money and possessions while around one are people who do not have what they need to live a life of dignity. How can I continue to hold on to ‘my’ possessions when such a situation prevails? How can I claim to belong to the Kingdom, the reign of God, which is a kingdom of love and justice? Jesus said that “you” did not give me to eat or drink; “you” did not visit me or show any compassion when I was:

…hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison… (Matt 25:44)

Instead, “you” piled up all that money in the bank or on the stock exchange or you splurged it on fancy cars, restaurants and expensive clothes.

In the Gospel, to be rich means refusing to share what you have with those who have not. As long as you behave like that, you cannot be eligible for the Kingdom. It really is like trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle. There is a radical incompatibility.

The disciples were quite amazed at Jesus’ words. They were thinking along lines traditional to their culture and their religion. Wealth was a sign of God’s blessings—poverty and sickness a sign of his punishment. But Jesus is turning their traditions on their head.

It was something the young man could not understand either. He was under the impression that his wealth was a grace, a sign of God’s favour. The idea of giving alms was to be highly commended, but to share his wealth with the poor and create a more just playing field was something for which he felt no obligation and which made no sense.

Then Peter, the optimist, begins to see the bright side:

Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?

Jesus gives a twofold reply. As the leaders of the new community and people who have generously put their whole security in Jesus, his disciples will be especially rewarded. And indeed everyone who leaves family and goods for Jesus’ sake will be rewarded many times over with father, mother, brothers, sisters, goods. This is not just a pie-in-the-sky promise. It is one that can be realised and, in many parts of the world, is being realised. When everyone works for the good of the other, everyone benefits.

The wealth-is-good world believes that it is every man for himself. There is only a limited amount of the cake and it is up to each one to get as big a piece as he can—too bad about the losers.

In the world of Jesus, everyone gets because everyone gives; because everyone gives, everyone receives. It is not a ‘gimme’ world; it is a ‘reaching out to others’ world. And when everyone reaches out, everyone is benefiting. In such a world, I do not have to worry about a roof over my head, or about brothers and sisters, or property or security. It is where love and justice meet. For too many people in our world, there is neither love nor justice.

If the rich man had liberated himself from his wealth and shared it with the poor and become a follower of Jesus in the new community, he might never have been rich again, but he would have had all his needs attended to.