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Commentary on Matthew 12:14-21

Jesus is becoming a figure of controversy.  We saw yesterday how he was accused by Pharisees of condoning the breaking of the sabbath on the part of his disciples.  Far from apologising, Jesus defended his followers and implied that he himself was greater than the Law.  Immediately afterwards he went to a synagogue and, in spite of a challenge about healing on the sabbath, went ahead and cured a man with a “withered hand” (Matt 12:9-13). At the end of this story, Matthew says:

But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. (Matt 12:14)

He was seen as a severe threat to their authority—and this is where our reading begins today.

Jesus was fully aware of their plotting and so he disappeared from sight for a while.  We should be clear that Jesus did not go out of his way to confront and attack people.  Still less was his behaviour deliberately designed to create trouble for himself. There are people like that; they go out of their way to make trouble for others and for themselves.  Jesus never behaved in such a way.  He did not want to attack or be attacked by people.  He did not deliberately engineer his own sufferings and death, quite the contrary.  So now, as things get hot for him, he withdraws for a while.

At this point, Matthew (remember, he is writing for a Jewish readership) shows how Jesus’ behaviour corresponds to a prophecy in the Old Testament—something he does a number of times in his Gospel. Jesus quotes the passage from the prophet Isaiah (42:1-4), and it shows him as full of the Spirit of God campaigning for justice for peoples everywhere. 

He is the servant whom God has chosen, “in whom my soul delights”.  He is no demagogue shouting from a soapbox:

He will not cry out or lift up his voice
or make it heard in the street…

He moves around quietly and, at the same time, is tolerant and understanding of the weak. His behaviour is described as gentle and kind, so that:

…a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench…

We, too, are called to live and proclaim the Gospel without compromise, but to do so without any taint of arrogance or bullying. At the same time, we need to show patience and understanding for those who are not yet ready to answer Jesus’ call.

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Commentary on John 5:31-47

Today we continue on from yesterday’s words of Jesus to the Jewish religious leaders. In four ways, John’s Gospel reaffirms that God himself is the witness to the truth of all that Jesus says:

1. The testimony of John the Baptist gives witness, although that was only human testimony (vv 33-34).
2. The works of Jesus give clear testimony of the divine origin of all that Jesus does:

   The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.

   The leaders could not see this, but the crowds often testified to it with enthusiasm (v36).

3. The Father himself has given testimony, although that has not been seen directly by some of the Jews:

   And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form…

   Perhaps this is a reference to Jesus’ baptism or to the Transfiguration (vv 37-38).

4. A careful reading of the Scriptures will show they give testimony to Jesus (vv 39-40).

   You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

   This is clearly shown later on by Jesus when explaining the Scriptures to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35).

Although Jesus clearly comes in the name of his Father, he is not accepted or believed in. Yet some other individual will come in his own name, and they will accept him. Further, they keep looking to their own traditions, rather than looking further to someone who clearly comes from God.

Jesus will not accuse them before his Father. Moses, in whom they claim to believe, will be their accuser.

If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?

By “Moses” is meant the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch. Their authorship is attributed to Moses, although we know now by the dating of the various parts that this could not be possible. It was common in ancient times to attribute the authorship of a work to a well-known personality.

How much of all this applies to us? Where do we ultimately put our faith—in the Christ of the New Testament, or in a Jesus we have tailored to our own wants? How familiar are we with the Word of God in the New (and Old) Testament? Where do we clearly see the Risen Jesus bringing God into our lives every single day?

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Commentary on Mark 8:34—9:1

Having warned his disciples of the future that lies ahead for him, Jesus now calls the crowds and his disciples together, and lets them know in no uncertain terms what following him entails. To be a follower of Jesus is to be ready to go exactly the way that he went:

If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wishes to save his life, will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it.

Yet, this is the paradox. Self-preservation and self-centred aggrandisement leads to nothing, only to a kind of death. Surrendering one’s life totally through a commitment to Jesus and to his Way (as expressed in the Gospel) leads to an enrichment which nothing else can supply.

This is a clear challenge: that anyone who wants to follow Jesus must be ready both to suffer and give their lives in love for others. Those who make every effort to preserve their lives, and hang on to what they have with no regard for transcendent values or the needs of others, are destined to lose everything, not least their integrity, dignity and self-respect.

This was very practical teaching for people who were frequently being persecuted for their Christian faith. Those who betrayed that faith to save their lives or their property had lost something more valuable—their integrity, their wholeness, their consistency. Undoubtedly many could not live with themselves afterwards. There are certain things which are more important than human life or material possessions.

What gain, then, is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin [the true meaning of] his life? And indeed what can a man offer in exchange for his life?

We have a long list of martyrs (from the Greek, meaning ‘witnesses’) to the faith whose memories we cherish, and whose example we respect and admire. We have no list, and no desire, to remember those who avoided martyrdom and compromised their faith and their values, and who may have enjoyed wealth and position as a result. They lived on for a while and then disappeared; the martyrs are still very much alive.

There are overtones here of a Church in persecution. There must have been those who, when their faith was challenged, “were ashamed of Jesus and his words” and denied their faith to save their immediate lives. They will hear the terrible words cited in Matthew’s Gospel:

Truly I tell you, I do not know you. (Matt 25:12)

The final phrase is ambivalent:

There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.

This can refer to the establishment of the Christian communities, as witnesses to the Kingdom’s being established in the world, which will be the result of the great experience at Pentecost. It can also refer, of course, to a belief among many in the early Church, that the Second Coming of Jesus, the Parousia, would take place in their lifetime.

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Commentary on Genesis 11:1-9

We are now at the end of our selected readings from the story of Creation and our tragic fall from the life that God originally intended for us. Today’s story is based on the stepped or terraced temple towers called ziggurats in ancient Babylon, a city with few happy memories for the Israelites and, for them, the home of idolatry and religious corruption.  The context is used by the writer to show humanity’s increasing wickedness, here shown by an arrogant desire to create an urban culture without God.  A secondary theme is an explanation of the huge diversity of languages and dialects in people who, in most respects, seem so similar, and also an explanation for the meaning of the name ‘Babylon’.

Like the garden of Eden story, it is a folktale of human pride and folly and reflective of Israel’s strong anti-urban bias. We are told that originally, the whole of humanity had just one language and one vocabulary.  Then the world’s people migrated from the east and settled in the plain of Shinar.  This is ancient Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (today, southern Iraq), and also known as Babylonia.

Here they developed construction techniques, learning how to make bricks instead of using stone and bitumen as mortar.  Bricks were so easy to make and so convenient, when compared to the tedious process of cutting stone.  Buildings could be bigger and constructed so much more quickly.  Stone and mortar were used as building materials in Canaan, rocky country where the Israelites lived.  Stone was scarce in Mesopotamia, so mud brick and bitumen were used as determined by archaeological excavation.

The people in Shinar decided to build a whole city, including a tower that would reach upwards, penetrating the heavens.  This is a direct reference to the chief ziggurat of Babylon, the E-sag-ila, signifying “the house that raises high its head”.  Ziggurats were pyramidic temple structures intended to serve as staircases from earth to heaven.  They were square at the base and had sloping, stepped sides that led to a small shrine at the top.  They could be called the earliest ‘skyscrapers’.

These structures were intended to symbolise the holy mountain and resting-place of the deity, and the builders were apparently seeking a means of meeting their god.  But the biblical writer sees their project as an act of arrogant pride.  They built this tower because:

…otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

As so often is the case, the root of overweening ambition is often fear. The theme of the tower is combined with that of the whole city, as a condemnation of urban civilisation.

God was not at all pleased with what he saw.  They were all one people, united by a common language, and this was only the beginning of what they could do.  Nothing would seem impossible.  There would be no limits to their unrestrained rebellion against God.  The kingdom of Man would try to displace and exclude the kingdom of God (something often seen today).

In order to put a stop to such ambition, God says:

Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.

The result was that, divided by incomprehensible languages, they were scattered over the face of the earth, and the building of their city had to be abandoned.  The very thing they feared ultimately took place.

Finally, the city was called Babel, because it was there that the Lord had thrown the language of the earth into confusion and scattered the earth’s peoples in all directions.  Babel is the Hebrew form of the name ‘Babylon’, originally Bab-ili, meaning ‘Gate of the gods’.  Apparently the name referred originally only to a certain part of the city, the district near the gate that led to the temple area.  There is a play here on the similarly-sounding Hebrew word balil, which means “to be confused”.

For the biblical writer, the dream of building a tower reaching up to heaven is just another example of the sinfulness of the human family, this time of their arrogance and pride.  It is a repetition of the sin of the man and the woman in the garden who thought they would gain infinite wisdom by eating the forbidden fruit.

There is also a theological explanation of why our single species, once thought to be living in one place and sharing one language, is now so divided by language, and why we are scattered and separated over such a wide area.

Arrogance can be found in many places today, and is a feeling that we are in total control of our lives and our destinies. But events that happen in all our lives constantly remind us just how fragile and contingent our existence really is.

However, the divisions of Babel and mutual incomprehensibility are reversed on the day of Pentecost.  As Peter speaks to the crowds coming from so many different places, they are amazed that they can all understand the message.  It is a message for everyone, and one which is in total harmony with the deepest needs and desires of every single person (Acts 2:5-12).  There is a similar gathering of the whole of humanity in the presence of God described in the Book of Revelation (Rev 7:9-10).

It is our mission as followers of Christ to work for the establishment of the Kingdom where all are united in truth and love as brothers and sisters.  There is still a lot of work to be done.

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Commentary on Mark 8:27-33

We now come to a high point in Mark’s Gospel which the texts of previous days have been leading up to.  Since the beginning of this Gospel the question has been continually asked: “Who is Jesus?”  Today we get the answer.  The blind and deaf disciples show that they are beginning to see more clearly.

So Jesus himself puts the question that has been underlying all that has gone before:

Who do people say that I am?

The disciples give a number of answers reflecting the speculations of the people.  These include:

• John the Baptist come to life again
• Elijah, who was expected to return to earth just before the arrival of the Messiah
• One of the other prophets

Then Jesus asks his disciples what they believe:

But who do you say that I am?

Peter speaks up in the name of all:

You are the Messiah.

This is indeed a dramatic moment.  Jesus is not just an ordinary rabbi, not just a prophet. He is the long-awaited Christ, the Messiah, the anointed King of Israel. This is a tremendous breakthrough for the disciples.  However, they are told to keep this to themselves for the time being.  There were many expectations about the Messiah and Jesus did not want to be identified with them.

But it is not the end of the story.  There is a sudden and unexpected twist for which they were not at all prepared.  Jesus immediately begins to tell them what is going to happen to him in the days ahead: that he will suffer grievously, be rejected by the religious leaders of his own people, be put to death and—perhaps most surprising of all—after three days rise again.  And there was no mistaking his meaning for:

He said all this quite openly.

The religious leaders mentioned here are part of the Sanhedrin, a 71-member ruling council of the Jews consisting of elders, the chief priests and the scribes.  Under Roman rule, the Sanhedrin had authority in religious matters.

For the first time in this Gospel, Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man”.  He will do this many more times.  The title was first used in the book of Daniel (7:13-14) as a symbol of “the holy ones of the Most High” (Dan 7:27), referring to those faithful Israelites who receive the everlasting kingdom from the “Most High” (i.e. God). 

In the apocryphal books of 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, the title “Son of Man” does not refer to a group, but to a unique figure of extraordinary spiritual endowments—who will be revealed as the one through whom the everlasting kingdom decreed by God will be established.  Of itself, this expression means simply “a human being”, or, indefinitely, “someone”, and there are instances of this use in pre-Christian times. Its use in the New Testament is probably due to Jesus’ speaking of himself in that way, “a human being”, and the later Church’s taking this in the sense of the Jewish apocrypha and applying it to him with that meaning.

It is not difficult to imagine how the disciples must have been profoundly shocked, and could not believe their ears at what Jesus was telling them.  Peter, their impetuous leader, immediately begins to protest.  They have just pronounced Jesus to be the long-awaited leader of the Jewish people, and now he says he is going to be rejected and executed by their very own leaders.  It made absolutely no sense whatever.  Jesus turns round, looks at his disciples and scolds Peter with the terrible words:

Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.

This is what the gradual opening of the eyes of the blind man in yesterday’s story indicated.  They had reached the stage where they had made the exciting discovery that their Master was none other than the long-awaited Messiah.  They had answered the first question of Mark’s Gospel: Who is Jesus? But they were still immersed in all the traditional expectations that had grown up around the coming of the Messiah as the victorious and triumphing king who would put all Israel’s enemies to flight.

But they would have to unlearn all this. The rest of Mark will answer the second question: What kind of Messiah is Jesus? or what does it mean for Jesus to be Messiah?

And a further question follows from that: What will all that mean for the disciples—and for us?  We will see some answers to that tomorrow.

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Commentary on Mark 9:2-13 Read Saturday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »

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Commentary on John 7:1-2,10,25-30

In today’s Gospel we move to the 7th chapter of John, skipping chapter 6 on the Bread of Life, which will be read at another time in the liturgical cycle. We are told that Jesus was confining his activities to Galilee. He did not want to go to Judea and the vicinity of Jerusalem because there were people there who wanted to kill him. Jesus does not expose himself unnecessarily to danger. He knows that a time is coming when the final conflict will be inevitable, but that time is not yet.

It is the time of the Feast of Tabernacles and (though not contained in today’s reading) his family are urging him to go up to Jerusalem for the feast and show himself to the world. He tells them the time is not ripe for him to do this, but later on, after his family have left for the city, he goes privately and unbeknown to others. However, in Jerusalem, Jesus goes to the Temple area and begins to teach openly, to the amazement of his listeners:

How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught? (John 5:15)

A marvelous example of Johannine irony—the Word does not need to study the Word!

Jesus is a source of some confusion in the minds of many people. On the one hand, the people are aware that Jesus has become a target of their religious leaders, and yet he goes about openly and speaking freely and without fear.

Jesus would not be Jesus if he were to keep his message to himself. The Word of God cannot remain silent. On the other hand, the people are also confused about the identity of Jesus. Is he allowed to speak freely because the leaders now believe he really is the Messiah-Christ? But everyone knows where Jesus comes from (Nazareth in Galilee). How, then, can he be the Messiah?

Jesus then tells them:

You know me, and you know where I am from.

That is only partially true; rather, they think they know.

I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true…I know him because I am from him, and he sent me.

And, if they do not know the Father, how can they know the Son? And vice versa.

This only angers his listeners who know what he is implying, but they cannot arrest him there and then because “his hour had not yet come.” The time of his arrest will only be in accordance with God’s plan.

Do we really know who Jesus is? There are many conflicting opinions out there. We can only know the real Jesus by reading the Scriptures under wise and perceptive guides who can help us penetrate the deeper meaning beneath the literal text. We can also learn a lot by prayer and contemplation. Lent is an excellent time for us to do both and, better still, to begin making it a practice that goes far beyond Lent.

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Commentary on John 7:40-53

Today we have a continuation of yesterday’s confusion about the identity of Jesus. There is a conflict between what people are seeing and hearing, and what they have been taught to believe. On the basis of his words and actions, Jesus looks like the Messiah, but as every Jewish child knows, the Messiah is not going to come from Galilee (where Nazareth is). Rather, he is to come from Bethlehem and the family of David. This is a good example of Johannine irony. Of course, Jesus did come from Nazareth, but he was of the family of David and, as we know from Matthew and Luke, born in David’s town of Bethlehem.

Even the police are confused. When asked by the religious leaders why they have not arrested Jesus, they reply:

Never has anyone spoken like this!

They are scolded for their ignorance and told to never mind how impressively he speaks:

Surely you have not been deceived, too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him?

And the crowds who surround Jesus and listen to him are written off as ignorant and cursed:

…this crowd, which does not know the law, they are accursed.

But one Pharisee, Nicodemus, who had earlier (John chap 3) spoken with Jesus in secret and had been won over, protests:

Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?

Nicodemus is swept aside by the leaders’ preconceived ideas:

Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.

We need to remember we are not reading this passage to condemn the Jewish religious leaders or the Pharisees, but to reflect on our own prejudices and short-sightedness. How do we see Jesus, the Gospel message, the whole Bible, the Church, our parish community and its leaders? How do we see our family, friends, neighbours, not to mention strangers and outsiders? Let him or her who is totally without prejudice or who has never passed judgement on another cast the first stone.

Let us pray for an open mind to accept in its totality the message of Jesus. And let us also be very open about the many and surprising ways in which Jesus can speak to us. If we are honest, there is something of the Pharisee in every one of us.

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Commentary on Mark 3:13-19

Jesus goes up a mountain. It has no name because the symbolism is more important than the location. Mountains in the Scriptures are holy places associated with the presence of God. Jesus goes up mountains at more solemn moments in his public life—here, during the Sermon on the Mount, at the Transfiguration, and after feeding the 5,000.

Jesus’ purpose on this occasion is to pick the inner circle of his followers:

[He] called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him.

Later he will say:

You did not choose me, but I chose you. (John 15:16)

A call includes both the invitation and the response. The same is true for each one of us. The call is always there—can we say the same about our response?

There were twelve in this inner circle of disciples. In the New Covenant, they would be the ‘patriarchs’, the foundational pillars of the new community, embracing the new Israel.

They are called ‘apostles’. This is a word to be clearly distinguished from ‘disciples’. The ‘disciple’ (coming from the Latin verb discere, meaning ‘to learn’) is essentially a follower who imbibes the teaching of the teacher and tries to make it part of his or her life. However, ‘apostle’ (from the Greek verb apostello, meaning ‘to go out on a mission’—like an ambassador) is essentially one who has a mandate from the teacher to pass on to others.

In the Pauline letters, where the term appears most often in the Christian (New) Testament, ‘apostle’ means primarily one who has been a witness of the Risen Lord and has been commissioned to proclaim the resurrection. Paul himself, because of his experience at Damascus, is regarded as one of Jesus’ Apostles.

The Twelve were to be Jesus’ companions. They were to preach, that is, proclaim his message of the Kingdom, and work with him to make it a reality. They were to cast out demons and liberate people from all situations which enslaved them to any form of evil.

The list is headed—as are all lists of the Apostles—by Simon Peter. For Mark, the name Peter was given on this occasion. In Matthew, it is given later, following Peter’s confession of Jesus’ identity. In the Gospel of Mark, the list included one man who would betray (“handed him over”) his Master and Lord.

And today there are still those, called by Jesus, who betray him. What about me?

Surely not I, Lord? (Matt 20:22)

There go I but for the grace of God.

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Commentary on Mark 3:20-21 Read Saturday of Week 2 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »