More

Commentary on Matthew 19:13-15

This short passage is an echo of the statement Jesus made at the beginning of the discourse on the Church (Matt 18:1-4). Parents were bringing their children for Jesus to bless. The disciples, with the officiousness of minor officials, thought they were doing their Master a favour by protecting him from such trivial nuisances.

Jesus scolds them:

Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.

Thus, not to children alone does the Kingdom of Heaven belong, but to all those who have the qualities of the child: their simplicity and openness, teachability, freedom from prejudice and readiness for change and adaptation. Only such people are ready to hear the message of the Gospel in its fullness.

The passage leads naturally into the next one about the rich man who asked Jesus what he should do to enter eternal life. For all his wealth, he would prove to be wanting in this particular area of openness.

More

Commentary on Matthew 14:1-12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More

Commentary on Leviticus 25:1,8-17

Today in our second and last reading from the Book of Leviticus, we read of the tradition of the Jubilee. The Jubilee was calculated as happening at the end of seven times seven sabbatical years, in other words, every 50 years. To arrive at this number, the preceding year of jubilee was included in the count, and therefore this was more exactly the 49th year, the seventh sabbatical year. The word ‘jubilee’ is derived from the Hebrew word yobel, which means ‘ram’s horn’, because a horn was blown to announce the beginning of the Jubilee.

The observance of the Jubilee began on the 10th day of the seventh month, the feast of Atonement (Yom Kippur), when a horn or trumpet blast was heard throughout the land. The main purpose of the Jubilee was to restore social balance to the community. The year was to be made sacred first of all by proclaiming freedom for all citizens. This involved the restoration of both personal and economic freedom.

On the level of personal freedom, all Israelite slaves were to be set free. On the level of economic freedom, all ancestral land was to be given back to the original owner. For this purpose, everyone was told to return to their own property and everyone to their family land.

The idea was to restore the social balance in a community which was family-based and whose livelihood depended on the ownership of family land. For various reasons, for which family members might or might not be responsible, people might be forced to sell their land in order to survive and, in more severe cases, might even have to sell themselves into slavery. The purpose of the Jubilee was to have their ancestral property and status restored to them.

This arrangement was also an attack on land monopolies, which are denounced later on by the prophets. So Isaiah says:

Woe to those who join house to house,
who add field to field,
until there is room for no one,
and you are left to live alone
in the midst of the land! (Is 5:8)

And Micah says:

They covet fields and seize them,
houses and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance. (Mic 2:2)

Both prophets could be talking about situations in our own contemporary societies.

Whether selling back or buying back alienated property to or from the original owner, justice was to be observed and only a fair price charged. The price was to be calculated on the basis of the number of years the property had been held—a longer period meant a higher price, because, in effect what was being sold back was not only the land, but also the harvests which it yielded during that time.

In addition, during the Jubilee, there was to be no sowing, reaping of after-growth or picking grapes from untrimmed vines. Only what was taken directly from the field could be eaten and not any other produce from it. In other words, fields were to be left fallow during this year. It was easier to give back a fallow field to the original owner than one on which there was a valuable crop which had been planted by the person who had been holding the property.

All this seems a highly admirable arrangement and a model of social justice, but it seems that it was only a late attempt to make the sabbatical law—which had similar stipulations—more effective, and it does not seem that this particular law was ever really observed.

The passage concludes by urging all to deal fairly with their neighbour and stand in fear of their God:

…I am the Lord your God.

One is reminded of similar ideals for a just society which one reads in the Acts of the Apostles. We are told that the new Christians would bring forward their property and give it to the community for the shared use of all. No one had any wealth which belonged to them privately. One couple, who gave only part of their property claiming that it was all that they had, was struck dead for their dishonesty (see Acts 5:1-10).

Although this ideal never really took root in the Church, there is certainly much that could be done in parish communities to see that those in need are helped by their brothers and sisters. Each of us needs to seriously consider the many ways we can put the ideal of Acts into practice.

The Church has a great record of speaking about justice and also, in many places, of doing justice, but we are a long way from perfection. So we say:

“Let there be justice done on earth, and let it begin with me.”

More

Commentary on Matthew 13:54-58

Immediately following the discourse on the parables of the Kingdom, we see Jesus going to his home town of Nazareth. The New American Bible marks this as the beginning of a new section in Matthew’s Gospel which it calls “Jesus, the Kingdom and the Church”. It ends with chapter 18, which contains the fourth of the five discourses distinctive to Matthew.

As was his right, Jesus spent some time teaching in the synagogue at Nazareth. The townspeople were quite amazed to hear the local carpenter’s son speaking as he did:

Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power?

The New International Version says that the word usually translated “carpenter” could also mean “stonemason”. All his family were well known to the people and they knew he could not have gotten it from them (“Is not this the carpenter’s son?”), but they failed to apprehend the real origin of what he was saying and doing.

And, in the contrariness of human nature, they were so impressed that they rejected him! He was just too much. A perfect example of familiarity breeding contempt and blinding the eyes to the obvious. And Jesus sadly comments that a prophet can get a hearing everywhere except among his own. Probably all of us have had some experience, directly or indirectly, of this! We Irish, in particular, are well known for our ‘begrudgery’!

It might be helpful for us to see how often and where we ourselves have been guilty of this sort of behavior. How often have we written off what people we know very well, or think we know very well, suggest to us? It is important for us to realise that God can communicate with us through anyone at all, and we must never decide in advance who his spokespersons will be.

Finally, we are told that Jesus could not do in Nazareth any of the wonderful things he had done elsewhere “because of their unbelief”. His hands were tied. Jesus can only help those who are ready to be helped, those who are open to him. How open am I?

More

Commentary on Leviticus 23:1,4-11,15-16,27,34-37

Today we move on to the third book of the Pentateuch—the Book of Leviticus. It gets its name from the Levites who were responsible for worship and ritual among the Israelites. The content of the book is almost entirely concerned with rules and regulations concerning worship and ritual.

Although we seem to be starting a new ‘book’, it is a continuation of the priestly tradition we saw at the end of Exodus (chaps 25—31; 35—40). And this tradition continues on into the first 10 chapters of the next book, Numbers. The emphasis is on the continuing presence of God among his people. This emphasis heightens their sense of sin and also influences them to honour God with sacrifices of worship. These are the means by which a sinful people can be reconciled in their relationship with Yahweh.

We will only be taking two readings from the book, both coming from well into the second half, from chapters 23 and 25. Today’s reading, which consists of snippets taken from a whole chapter, touches on the observance of certain important feasts which are to be celebrated “at the time appointed for them.”

The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread
The two festivals are linked together, occurring on consecutive days. The first of these is the Passover of the Lord which falls at the evening twilight on the 14th day of the first month (Nisan).

The 15th day of the same month is the beginning of the feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days unleavened bread is to be eaten. We saw earlier that this feast may be connected with the fact that the Israelites, during their flight from Egypt, only had unleavened bread with them. On the first day of this feast there is to be a sacred assembly and no work is to be done. And on each day an offering is to be made to the Lord. Finally, on the seventh and last day, there is again a “holy convocation” and no work is to be done.

The First Sheaf
When they arrive in the land which the Lord is giving them, immediately after the harvest, a sheaf of the first fruits of the harvest is to be brought to the priest. He will wave it before the Lord so that it may be acceptable for the offerer. This will be done on the day following the nearest Sabbath.

The Feast of Weeks
On the day after that Sabbath, there shall follow a period of seven full weeks, and on the day after, the 50th day, the offering of cereal made from the new grain will be made to the Lord. Between the feast of Unleavened Bread and the feast of Weeks, the Law of Holiness introduces an offering of the first sheaf (of the barley harvest) at the appropriate place in the agricultural cycle. This is a new formulation of the ancient offering of the first fruits.

From the Greek word for ‘fifty’ (hendeka) we have the name ‘Pentecost’. It was also called ‘the feast of the Seven Weeks’. Pentecost was the thanksgiving feast at the end of the grain harvest, which began after Passover. Later tradition made it a commemoration of the giving of the law at Sinai.

The Day of Atonement
The 10th day of the seventh month is the Day of Atonement, when there is a sacred assembly. Penance is to be done, and an oblation is made to the Lord. On this day, too, no work is to be done. We know this feast more commonly as Yom Kippur. Part of the observance was the slaughtering of two goats. One was offered in holocaust and the other was driven out into the desert to die, bearing with it the sins of the whole community. It is from this that we get our term ‘scapegoat’.

The Feast of Booths or Shelters
The 15th day of the seventh month begins the feast of Booths, which lasts for seven days. The Hebrew name is Sukkoth. On the first day, there is a sacred assembly and no work is to be done. On each of the seven days an oblation will be made to the Lord. On the eighth day, there will again be a “holy convocation”, an oblation made to the Lord and no work will be done.

This feast was the joyful observance of the grape and fruit harvest. During the seven days of the feast, the Israelites camped in booths of branches erected on the flat roofs of their houses, or in the streets, in commemoration of their wanderings in the desert, where they had dwelt in booths.

These are festivals which are to be observed. During each one there will be a “holy convocation”—a sacred assembly—when holocausts and cereal offerings, sacrifices and libations, as prescribed for each day, will be offered to the Lord.

We find a number of these feasts mentioned in the New Testament and some of them have been incorporated into our Christian faith:

• The feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread are mentioned during the narrative of Holy Week. The Hebrew Passover was transformed into a new Passover with Christ as the sacrificial Lamb. In every Eucharist, the host is made of unleavened bread.
• The end of the feast of Weeks is Pentecost which, in our Christian faith, is described by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles as the day on which the Holy Spirit came down on Jesus’ disciples (in the Gospels, the Spirit is described as being given under different circumstances, e.g. John 20).
• The feast of Booths is mentioned in John’s Gospel (7:2).

Every community—whether secular or religious—needs its regular celebrations as a reminder and affirmation of its identity and purpose. And our Christian communities are no exception. The important thing is that we remain faithful to the meaning of these celebrations and not reduce them to an occasion for ‘having a good time’. We are often reminded to put Christ back into Christmas, which is in constant danger of being taken over by commercial interests.

More

Commentary on Matthew 13:47-53

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

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

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

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

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

The Jerusalem Bible comments:

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

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

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

More

Commentary on Exodus 40:16-21,34-38 Read Thursday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

More

Commentary on Matthew 13:44-46

Today we read the 5th and 6th of the Parables of the Kingdom which have basically the same message, but with some difference in emphasis. In the first of these today, a man unexpectedly discovers treasure in a field and quickly puts it back again. In ancient times it was common to hide treasure in the ground since there were no banks as we know them. There were, however, ‘bankers’, people who could handle money, probably closer to what we would call moneylenders. (Remember the parable of the talents, where the man who hid his talent was told he should have deposited it with a banker so that it could earn interest. Instead, he did what someone in this parable had done—buried it in a field.)

The finder then goes and quietly buys the field, selling everything he has in order to do so; the treasure is now his.

In the second parable, a jewel merchant comes across a magnificent pearl. Again, he sells all the lesser pearls he already has in order to gain possession of it.

These, Jesus says, are images of the Kingdom. Yet there is a significant difference between them. In the first parable, the man comes on the treasure purely by accident. He was not looking for anything like that. He just came across it while working in someone else’s field. That is the way that Christ can come into some people’s lives. They are living their lives with a greater or lesser degree of happiness and satisfaction and then, out of the blue, they are brought face to face with the Christian message. It can happen in so many ways and has been described in many accounts of conversion. The effect is to turn their whole life around.

In the second case, the man is looking for something. He has a very definite goal in mind—the perfect pearl. Similarly, a person can be looking for real meaning in their life. They may have tried many things already with only partial satisfaction. Then they come across the gospel of Jesus and they know that here is the answer they have been looking for. Everything else is abandoned as they focus entirely on following the Way of Jesus. They know that this is it.

Once we truly understand what it really means to live under the Lordship of God, once we have a full understanding of the vision of life that Jesus proposes, then everything else pales into insignificance. And, whatever enticements may come our way, we know that there is no other way to go. Jesus is the Way, Jesus is Truth, and Jesus is Life. We would not exchange his Way for anything.

More

Commentary on Exodus 34:29-35

Today’s reading comes after an account of God’s covenant being renewed with his people. The first covenant had fallen through when the Israelites set up the golden calf as an image of God and worshiped it with sacrifices and holocausts. God had been displeased and Moses was so angry at the sight of the revelling Israelites that he threw the tablets on the ground where they were smashed to pieces. It was the end of that covenant. It was not God who had broken it, but the people who had reneged on solemn promises to keep the Lord’s commandments. Moses then asked God who was to be their leader from now on, to renew the covenant. If they were to continue their journey, the people needed the assurance that the Lord was with them.

Moses was told to cut two new tablets so that the Lord could write on them as he did with the first pair. Then Yahweh appears and speaks consoling words:

The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… (Exod 34:6-7)

They are to know that this is the God they are dealing with. Of course, if they alienate themselves from him, they will be the losers. He will not force himself on them.

God then makes a new covenant with the Israelites and gives them a set of instructions for them to follow. It is a summary of commandments already given. Finally, Moses is told to put all this in writing as the terms of the covenant between God and Israel.

And Moses, we are told, stayed up on the mountain with Yahweh for 40 days and 40 nights, eating and drinking nothing, and on the tablets he wrote the words of the covenant—the Ten Words, the Decalogue (Greek, deka logoi).

Here today’s passage takes up the story. It is a story of uncertain origins and records a tradition about the radiance of Moses’ face, expressed by the verb qaran meaning ‘horn’. The radiance is seen like two horns of light rising from the head of Moses and represented as such in many works of art, including the famous statue by Michelangelo in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Our passage makes use of this tradition to describe Moses on his descent from the mountain back to his people.

As Moses came down from the mountain with the two newly inscribed tablets, he was not aware of the radiance of his face after having been speaking face to face with the Lord. When Aaron and the people saw the face of Moses, the radiance of his skin was such that they were afraid to go near him.

Moses told them not to fear and invited them to come close. Aaron and the other leaders approached and then the rest of the people followed. And Moses passed on to them all the instructions that he had received from the Lord on Mount Sinai. Once he had finished speaking, Moses put a veil over his face.

From now on, whenever Moses went into the Lord’s presence, he removed the veil to speak face to face with the Lord. This can refer to the times when Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to talk with God, which we saw in yesterday’s reading.

When he came out again, he would give the Lord’s instructions and the Israelites would see the radiance of his face, but then Moses would put the veil back again until the next time he spoke with the Lord.

Paul sees in Moses’ veil a symbol of the failure of many of his people to recognise in Jesus the true Messiah and Saviour. When they read the Old Testament, it is as if a veil is concealing its full meaning from them:

…to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. (2 Cor 3:14)

It is significant in this context, that Moses only put on the veil after he had passed on the Lord’s message.

The symbol of the veil also occurs in John’s description of Jesus’ resurrection. When the Beloved Disciple looks into the tomb he notices that the veil which covered the face of Jesus is now wrapped neatly into one place. On seeing this, he believed, that is, he knew that his Lord was with the Father. The veil represents the humanity of Jesus by which his disciples could look on him during his earthly life; now, face to face with the Father in glory, there is no need any more for this veil.

Finally, we might say that the veil that Christ wears now is his community. We are the Body of Christ and it is through his Body that he now communicates with the world. How well are we fulfilling this responsibility, especially on a community level?

More

Commentary on Matthew 13:36-43

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

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

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

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

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