Monday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Genesis 28:10-22

Today and tomorrow we read of two strange experiences which Jacob has. On the way from Beersheba to Haran, Jacob stops for the night. Haran, we may remember, was the place between Ur and Canaan where Abraham lived before moving down to Canaan. It was there, too, that he had found Rachel, the wife of his son Isaac.

Using a stone for a pillow, Jacob lies down to sleep just where he is. As he sleeps, he has a dream. He sees a staircase reaching from the earth right up to heaven. And on it there were angels or messengers of God going up and down. We normally speak of “Jacob’s Ladder” but, in fact, the Hebrew word sullam, means a stairway.

The image in Jacob’s dream is derived from the Babylonian ziggurat or temple tower. On the outside was a flight of brick steps leading to a small temple at the top. As we saw in our earlier readings from Genesis, the Tower of Babel was modelled on such a tower.

The angels or messengers of God going up and down the staircase between earth and heaven are a sign that the Lord is offering to be Jacob’s God. Later, Jesus would tell Nathanael that he would:

…see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. (John 1:51)

Jesus himself becomes the stairway between heaven and earth (see John 14:6), the “one mediator between God and humankind” (1 Tim 2:5). He is also called the Pontifex or Bridge-maker.

Jacob then sees God standing above him and speaking to him. This continues the image of the ziggurat where the god is present at the top of the tower. And God identifies himself to the sleeping Jacob:

I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac…

Then come the promises: The land on which Jacob is lying will be given to him and his descendants. Once again God promises that his descendants will be as numerous as specks of dust on the earth, that they will spread in every direction and that all the tribes of the earth will bless themselves by Jacob and his descendants. God promises to be with Jacob and his descendants always, and to bring them back to this land. God will not desert them and all of his promises will be fulfilled. In this, God is unlike the gods of pagan religions, who were merely local deities giving protection only in their own territories. Here God assures Jacob that he will be with him wherever he goes.

This promise, of course, has relevance to the later periods of exile. Jacob then wakes up and realises:

Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!

If he had known, he might not have chosen just that place to have a sleep. He is filled with fear:

How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

“This” refers both to the stone used as a pillow and the staircase of his dream.

To commemorate his experience, Jacob takes the stone he had used for a pillow and sets it up as a memorial stone, consecrating it with oil. A ‘memorial stone’ (in Hebrew, messaba) might vary in shape or size, and would be set upright and usually intended for some religious purpose. The custom of erecting such ‘sacred pillars’ went back to the pre-Israelite period and their pagan associations were often retained. For that reason, the Israelite’s religion later forbade their being erected (see Lev 26:1) and ordered the destruction of those with pagan associations (Exod 34:13).

The stone used as a pillow now marks the place of God’s presence. The place, formerly known as Luz, is now named Bethel—“a house of God”. Jacob anoints the stone with oil as a formal act of worship and consecration. Practices of this kind were common in the Canaanite world and in the Semitic world in general, but as already mentioned, were later condemned by both the Law and the prophets (see also Exod 23:24).

Before leaving the place, Jacob makes a final vow. If God keeps his promises and protects Jacob, then Yahweh will be his God and the stone he has set up as a memorial will become the house of God. The passage is not fully clear about the concept of God at this point, especially with terms like “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob”. The later concept of a unique universal God seems yet to be conceived. Each of the peoples of those days had their own protecting god who had to be served. The Israelites had their God too, a powerful God, a God who was always with them wherever they went, but not seen as the God of other peoples.

Several of the Church Fathers later saw in Jacob’s ladder an image of the providential care God exercises on earth through the ministry of the angels. Others saw in it a foreshadowing of the incarnation of the Word who linked heaven with earth—Jesus as the Mediator mentioned above. The liturgy makes use of verse 17 (“How awesome is this place…”) in the Office and Mass for the dedication of a church.

The story is a continuation and a confirmation of the covenant promise God had made earlier with Abraham. The same promises are now made to the grandson, who, as we shall see, will be the father of the Twelve Patriarchs, from whom all God’s people are descended. And that promise reaches down to Jesus himself and through him to us, who are the spiritual offspring of Jacob. In a sense that Jacob or the Israelites could never have imagined, God’s people—with Jesus as Lord—have become a blessing for countless millions of people all over the world.

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Thursday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 10:7-15

We continue the apostolic discourse of Jesus to his disciples. Jesus now instructs them on what they are to say and do. They are to proclaim that:

The kingdom of heaven [God] has come near.

This, of course, is true because of the presence and work of Jesus. Jesus is himself the very embodiment of the Kingdom; he is the ultimate Kingdom person. The Kingship of God is fully present in him. But it will also be present in the Twelve who will do the same things that Jesus is doing: curing the sick, raising the dead, healing lepers, liberating people from evil spirits. Later, we will see the Apostles doing all these things in the Acts of the Apostles, and the Church continues to do these things.

Today, all of us are called to proclaim the Kingship, the Lordship of God by our words, actions and lifestyle. The Church is still called to bring healing into people’s lives. We may not raise people literally from the dead, but there are many who are virtually dead, though physically alive, and who need to be brought back to a fully human life.

Most of our societies today do not have lepers, but we have, in every society, people who are marginalised and pushed out to the fringes. They need to be reintegrated. There may be people in some places who are genuinely in the possession of evil spirits, but there are far more who are in the grip of more mundane demons such as nicotine, alcohol and other drugs, or who are caught up in the materialism, consumerism, hedonism and sexism of our time. They too need to be liberated. Yes, there is a lot of work to be done—by each one of us in our own way and in accordance with our gifts and life situation.

Jesus also tells his disciples to travel light. They are not to charge for their service. They are not to find their security in the possession of material things, especially money. To increase their freedom, they should go around with the absolute minimum. In our lives, possessions, and our concern about them, can be very controlling.

Of course, what Jesus does expect is that everyone working for the Kingdom has their needs looked after by those they serve. This is where their security lies: in being sure of a place to sleep and food to eat. In return, the missionary brings the Lord’s peace to any home that offers hospitality. This is a vision of a society which is hard to find in our own day, although it is lived in varying degrees of commitment by religious in the Catholic Church, as well as by some followers of other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.

St Teresa of Calcutta’s (Mother Teresa) Sisters come pretty close to the Gospel vision, as do the Little Sisters/Brothers of Charles de Foucauld. And that is really the meaning of the second half of today’s passage. St Teresa once said: “I do own things, but they do not own me.” That is where she differed from so many of us.

Jesus expects the missionary to find a place to stay wherever that person goes. And, once a suitable place is found, the missionary should stay there and not be moving around looking for more desirable conditions. On the other hand, Jesus has hard words for those who refuse hospitality to his messengers. Shaking the dust from one’s feet was symbolical. The dust of any gentile country was regarded as unclean. By implication, so was the dust of an inhospitable community. Jesus tells them:

…it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

In the Middle East, hospitality has always been important. Unfortunately, in our security-conscious urban Western world, it does not flourish—largely because of those unnecessary possessions which Jesus would liberate us from.

There are two things for us to reflect on today:

First, where is our security? Are we burdened down by the things we own? Are we owned by them? How free are we to live a fully Christian life as envisioned by the Gospel? How free are we to do the things that Jesus says we should be doing: bringing healing and wholeness into people’s lives?

Second, what kind of hospitality do we give to those—whoever they are—who are generously doing the Lord’s work? Or, if they are not Christians, who are doing the work of the Kingdom?

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Friday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 10:16-23

Today’s passage clearly reflects later experiences of the Church as, for instance, described in many parts of the Acts of the Apostles and, of course, in the later history of the Church. Matthew’s Gospel was written some 50 years after the death and resurrection of Christ and naturally reflects some experiences of this period. It is both a warning and a description of what has happened and continues to happen to the messengers of the Gospel.

We are sent out like “sheep among wolves”. We are, in a way, defenceless, because we renounce any use of violence. There are wolves out there eager to destroy us because, despite our message of love, justice and peace, we are seen as a threat to their activities and ambitions.

We are to be clever as snakes and innocent as doves. We are to be as inventive and creative as we can be in dealing with the world. But we are to be innocent, not in the sense of being naive, but in the sense of being completely free of even any suspicion of wrongdoing. The end does not justify the means!

As has happened so many times and continues to happen, followers of Christ, simply because they are his followers and for no other reason, will be hauled into court or will be the victims of intimidation and torture. This is our opportunity to give witness to Christ and everything that the Gospel stands for.

“When they hand you over” is a favourite Gospel expression. John the Baptist was handed over; Jesus himself was handed over first to the leaders of his people and then to the Romans; his disciples too will be and are handed over; and in every Eucharist, we hear that Jesus in his Body is handed over to us:

This is my Body, which is given up [Latin, tradetur: handed over] for you.

When we are “handed over” we are not to be anxious about what to say:

…what you are to say will be given to you…

This has been confirmed again and again by people who have been arrested and interrogated. Not only do they know what to say, but very often their fear, too, disappears. In fact, once released, they simply go back to what they were doing when they were first arrested; we see this in the Acts of the Apostles. And Jesus continues:

…it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you…

The enemies of the Gospel have no ultimate answer to truth, love and justice.

Jesus also warns:

…you will be hated by all because of my name…

These words of Jesus are sad because they are true. The following of Christ can break up families. Family members have betrayed each other and handed each other over. However, once baptised, we enter a new family with new obligations. Our commitment to God, to love, to truth, to justice, to freedom, transcends obligations that arise from blood. I cannot obey a father who tells me to violate the Gospel; I cannot cooperate with a brother who urges me to do evil. It involves painful choices, but the opposite would be, in the long run, worse. This is something we can sometimes find difficult to accept. It is difficult to understand that the following of the loving and loveable Jesus can create such hostility and hatred.

When they persecute you in this town, flee to the next…

We need to be clear that Jesus never tells us to go out of our way to seek persecution or to be hated. On the contrary, we are to make Christianity as attractive as possible. We want people to share our experience of knowing and being loved by Christ.

One of the reasons why the Church spread so rapidly throughout the Roman world was precisely because of Christians fleeing from persecution. There comes a time, however, when we can run no further, or when it is clear we have to take a stand and cannot compromise.

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Saturday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Genesis 49:29-33; 50:15-26

We conclude our reading from the book of Genesis today. We hear Jacob giving his final instructions before his death. He wants to be buried close to his ancestors, Abraham and Isaac with their wives.

Bury me with my ancestors in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave in the field at Machpelah, near Mamre, in the land of Canaan, in the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site.

We read about this purchase on Friday of Week 13. There Abraham and his wife, Isaac and his wife and Jacob’s wife, Leah, were all buried.

Then Jacob, having given his final instructions to his sons,

…he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.

That is, he joined all of his ancestors in Sheol.

With the death of Jacob, the sons were full of trepidation that Joseph would now want to settle his accounts with his brothers for all they had done to him. They pre-empted any vengeful action by sending Joseph a message. They quoted their father as telling them to go to Joseph and beg forgiveness for all the wrong they had done to him:

We beg you, forgive the crime of the servants of your father’s God.

Once again, Joseph weeps on the receiving their message.

They prostrated themselves before him and expressed their readiness to be his slaves. They need not have worried. Their prostration is another example of the prophetic dream which Joseph had shared with his brothers many years previously. And, ironically, in times to come, the Israelites will be reduced to virtual slavery in Egypt and this will trigger the Exodus.

They did not reckon with their brother; Joseph was a much bigger man than they:

Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God?

He then tells them that all the evil they planned against him has, in God’s plan, been turned to good and has resulted in the liberation of many people. Joseph then promises to provide for them and all their dependents. It was now the brothers’ turn to be deeply touched by the magnanimity of someone who could, with some justification, have made things very nasty for them. We see here a clear pre-figuring of the teaching and example of Jesus later on. His teaching on the love of enemies, turning the other cheek and forgiving seventy times seven.

This may well be said to be the central lesson of the whole Joseph story. This is a lesson which we can apply to unpleasant experiences in our own lives. As Paul says:

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God… (Rom 8:28)

And probably it is only when we love God that we can understand the place of the evil and the tragic in our lives.

From now on, Joseph stays with his own family and lives to be 110 years old, long enough to see many of his grandchildren. It is now his time to leave the world. He tells his brothers he is confident that God will look kindly on them and, in time, bring them back from Egypt to the land he had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in perpetuity.

And finally he asks his brothers to swear an oath that his bones be taken back to be buried with his fathers. This will not in fact happen until centuries later when Moses, mindful of Joseph’s last wish, will take Joseph’s bones with him as the Israelites begin their long trek to the Promised Land (see Exod 13:19). Joseph’s bones were eventually:

…buried at Shechem, in the portion of ground that Jacob had bought from the children of Hamor, the father of Shechem… (Jos 24:32; also see Gen 33:19)

The last verse of Genesis, which is not in our reading, says:

And Joseph died, being one hundred ten years old; he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

For the Egyptians the number 110 was seen as the perfect life span and would signify divine blessings on Joseph. Note too that the very last word of the book is “Egypt” and it is the setting for the opening of the next book, Exodus, and the next stage in the history of God’s People. In the coming weeks we will be reading passages from that great saga.

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Wednesday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Genesis 41:55-57; 42:5-7,17-24

Today’s reading finds us in Egypt with Joseph, the second youngest son of Jacob’s twelve sons. We have skipped the whole saga of how Joseph came to be sold into slavery by his brothers, and the gradual process by which he rose from being a Hebrew slave to becoming the Pharaoh’s right hand man. This was largely due to his ability to interpret dreams and to his personal integrity. It was Joseph who had predicted the famine that is now on the land, and Joseph who had made preparations to deal with it when it came.

As the effects of the famine began to be felt in Egypt, the people cried out to the Pharaoh for food. The Pharaoh referred the people to his grand vizier, his most senior official, saying:

Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.

Such was Pharaoh’s confidence in the ability of his chief official (who was, of course, an Israelite—a point that would not be lost on those hearing this story read to them).

Joseph threw open the granaries where, because of his foresight, the surplus of previous harvests had been stored, and he sold the grain to the Egyptians. But the famine was not confined to Egypt and people came from “all the world” to buy grain from Joseph.

The land of Canaan was also affected, so Jacob’s sons also made the same journey with others to get food. And it was Joseph, as the effective ruler of the country, to whom they all had to go. Jacob had kept his youngest son, Benjamin, behind with him in case his other sons might not be able to return.

As the sons of Jacob come into the presence of the chief minister, they bow down before him, their faces touching the ground. This is exactly what Joseph had foretold they would be doing when, many years before, he told them the dream he had of their sheaves of wheat bowing down before his (Gen 37:5-8). And it was this dream which had so angered them that they sold him into slavery. Now they come to the same brother—still unrecognised by them—to be saved from death. How ironic! How God works in strange ways to help us!

Joseph, of course, recognised his brothers, but said nothing at this stage. Instead he treated them as if they were strangers and threw them into prison for three days with the prospect of even worse things to come. They were getting a taste of the treatment he had experienced as a result of their rejection.

On the third day, Joseph told them they could save their lives if they did what he wanted. They could rely on him because, he said:

…for I fear God…

He spoke to them very severely and earlier had accused them of being spies. They can take grain back home with them for their families, but they have to leave one of their brothers behind as a pledge. Then, after they get home, they are to bring back their youngest brother, Benjamin, whom Joseph had never seen—otherwise they will be condemned to die.

The brothers immediately began to discuss among themselves their situation. They knew that Jacob, now an old man, would be very reluctant to let Benjamin fall into the hands of the Egyptians. But they had little choice and the brothers agreed to Joseph’s conditions.

At the same time, they realised that all this was a just punishment for the way they had treated their brother Joseph:

Alas, we are paying the penalty for what we did to our brother; we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this anguish has come upon us.

Reuben, the only one who was against Joseph’s being killed, now blamed his brothers for their present situation.

Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you would not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.

They presumed Joseph was long dead.

They said all this in Joseph’s presence, not realising that he understood every single word of their language, because when he had addressed them, he had spoken through an interpreter. Joseph now hurriedly leaves their presence and breaks down in tears. Such tenderness on the part of a high-ranking official is rare in the Hebrew Testament.

When he returned to their presence he had one of the brothers, Simeon, bound before their eyes as a hostage for the production of Benjamin on their next visit. He also gave orders that the brothers’ bags were to be filled with grain and that the money taken from them should be given back to each man. He also gave them provisions for their journey home (this last paragraph is not in our reading today). Tomorrow we will see the happy outcome of this drama.

For obvious reasons much of this lovely account of Joseph (beginning in chap 37) has to be left out, but it is well worth reading the whole story—one of the most touching in the whole of the Old Testament—a beautiful story in its own right.

Joseph stands out as a man of great compassion, a man of strong and sensitive feelings, and a person of the utmost integrity. He would have been a rarity in his day and even in our own. As we read this story we could perhaps reflect with some profit on our own sense of justice, compassion, and the level of our integrity in our dealings with friends, colleagues and strangers.

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Tuesday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 9:32-37

We come today to the end of the section recounting ten miracles of Jesus (chaps 8-9). The last miracle described is that of a man whose deafness arises from his being possessed by a demon. It follows immediately the cure of two blind men, a story which we did not read and which is told again by Matthew in chapter 20. It seems to correspond to the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus in Mark (chap 10), although there are significant differences.

The man is brought to Jesus by the people. Jesus drives out the demon and the man immediately is able to speak. There is a double reaction. The people are astounded:

Never has anything like this been seen in Israel.

The implications of Jesus’ divine origins are very clear. On the other hand, Pharisees were saying:

By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.

Elsewhere Jesus will show the absurd illogicality of that charge.

Stories of the blind, deaf, and mute in the Gospels always have a deeper meaning. Far more serious than physical blindness, deafness and an inability to speak are being spiritually blind, deaf and mute. The Pharisees in the Gospels represent such people, and we see it happening in this story. They are blind because they cannot see or do not want to see God at work in Jesus. They are deaf because they do not hear or do not want to understand what he says. And they are also mute because they cannot speak the words of life that Jesus gives them.

The very same can happen to each one of us. Let us pray today to be able to see clearly, to understand what God says to us and to be able to share it with others.

This section of Matthew concludes with a general description or summary of what Jesus was doing. He was going through all the towns and villages of Galilee; he was teaching in synagogues; he was proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom; and he was healing all kinds of diseases and sickness.

But behind all that he does, is his deep compassion for the needs of the people. He sees them harassed and dejected, wandering and aimless, like sheep without a guiding shepherd—a familiar image in the Old Testament (see Ezekiel 34). Then, looking at his disciples, he says:

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few…

Jesus cannot do it all on his own. In fact, he will hardly step outside the boundaries of Palestine. He needs many helpers.

Today, the situation has not changed. The harvest is as big as ever; people are as lost and rudderless as they have ever been in spite of the great strides in knowledge we have made. Where are the labourers? They are not just the bishops, the priests or the religious brothers and sisters. That is a very narrow concept of labourers.

Every single baptised person is called, in some way, to be a harvester, to help people find and experience the truth and love that God gives in Jesus. Every single person, in that sense (and it is a very real sense) has a vocation, a call to serve and to build the Kingdom. What and where and with whom is my vocation?

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Saturday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 10:24-33

We continue Jesus’ apostolic discourse to his Apostles and all those who do the work of evangelisation. He reminds them very clearly that they can expect no better treatment than he himself received as:

A disciple is not above the teacher nor a slave above the master…

All in all, Christians are to show no surprise at violence and abuse against them. But at times, it can be hard to understand. However, if they treated the Master and Lord in this way, his followers can expect no better treatment. If the Master is called the Prince of Devils, how much more those of his family! Remember what Jesus had said earlier:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness… (Matt 5:10)

Much of Jesus’ teaching to his disciples was done quietly and away from the crowds. He frequently told both people he cured and demons not to speak about him. Even his disciples were not to reveal his identity as Messiah. People at that stage were not ready and could have misinterpreted the true meaning of his teaching.

Also, his message could not be fully understood until he had completed his mission through his passion, death and resurrection. Only that would put his teaching into its proper context. But in the course of time, it will be all made public.

Later on it will be the duty of his disciples to deliver the message in its entirety and without fear. The Christian community, although consisting of initiates with a way of life that is not always understood by outsiders, has no secrets. The ‘mysteries’ that Paul and others speak of are truths, previously unknown, which have been revealed. They are not like those of the so-called ‘mystery religions’ of the time or of secretive societies in our own. The message of Christ is to be made known to all in its entirety, even in hostile environments.

Some of those who proclaim the Gospel are going to be threatened even with losing their lives—a fact that is testified to by a long list of martyrs (martyr, Greek for ‘witness’) over the centuries. Jesus is saying that physical death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. It is a reality we are all going to have to face sooner or later anyway. Far worse than physical death is the loss of one’s soul—the death of one’s integrity. There are some values which transcend our physical survival. To betray such a value in order to live a bit longer is to lose one’s soul. Many, many martyrs have clearly understood this.

Jesus is telling us that, even though we may, as he himself did, lose our lives, he will be with us. To be unfaithful to our deepest beliefs and convictions is a fate worse than death. 

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Friday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Genesis 46:1-7,28-30

After their emotional reunion with the brother they believed long dead, Joseph’s brothers return to their father, Jacob, laden with gifts and with an invitation for the whole extended family to return and live in the region of Goshen, to the east of the Nile in Egypt. In today’s reading we see Jacob (now being called by his given name, Israel) setting out from his home in Hebron and heading to Egypt with all his family members and all his possessions. Hebron lay to the west of the Dead Sea.

Before leaving Canaan he offers sacrifice to the God of his father Isaac at Beer-Sheba, which lay to the west of the southern end of the Dead Seas and south of Hebron on the road to Egypt. Here God speaks to Jacob in a dream. It is the last of God’s appearances to the patriarchs. He commands Jacob to go down to Egypt (the Exodus is already in view) just as he had commanded Abraham to set out for Canaan. The move is clearly presented as God’s will and not just a family decision.

God promises Jacob his protection and tells him not to be afraid to go down to Egypt. There he will make Jacob and his descendants into a great nation. God says:

I myself will go down with you to Egypt…

He also promises to bring Israel back to his ancestral land. Is there an ambiguity here with the name ‘Israel’? It can mean a promise to bring Jacob’s body back to Canaan for burial and also the promise that Israel, as a nation, will return to the Canaan after the Exodus.

And there is a promise that, in death, it will be Joseph, the son he thought he would never see again, who will close Jacob’s eyes. Jacob’s sons, together with their wives and children come to take their father to Egypt in wagons provided by the Pharaoh. The whole family—brothers, wives, children, grandchildren all move to Egypt to settle there.

On the way, Judah, the eldest son, goes ahead to arrange that Joseph should meet his father at Goshen. Joseph, riding in his official chariot, goes to meet his father. One can imagine the feelings of the old man as he saw Joseph, the son he thought was long dead, arriving in a magnificent chariot befitting his rank.

Not surprisingly, it is a very emotional meeting. Joseph throws his arms around his father’s neck and weeps for a long time on his shoulder. Jacob says to his long-lost son:

I can die now, having seen for myself that you are still alive.

Later (not in our reading), Jacob and some of his sons will be introduced to the Pharaoh and are invited to settle in Goshen, which was situated in the north-east part of the Nile Delta, a place very suitable for sheep-grazing. Jacob’s sons were shepherds.

Once again we see how what originally seemed like tragedy turn out to be a source of blessing for so many. It may help us to take a second look at events in our lives in which we wondered where God was present. Often, we may have to wait before we see the final outcome. God, as we have said more than once before, loves to write our life story with crooked lines.

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Wednesday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 10:1-7

We begin today the second of the five discourses of Jesus which are a unique feature of Matthew’s Gospel. It consists of instructions to Jesus’ disciples on how they are to conduct their missionary work and the reactions they can expect in carrying it out.

It begins by the summoning of the inner circle of twelve disciples. Matthew presumes we already know about their formal selection, which he does not recount (the Gospels of Mark and Luke clearly distinguish the selection of the Apostles from their later missioning). These twelve disciples are now called Apostles.

The two words are distinct in meaning and we should not confuse them. A disciple (Latin discipulus, from discere, to learn) is a follower, someone who learns from a teacher and assimilates that teaching into his or her own life. An apostle (Greek, apostolos from apostello) is someone who is sent out on a mission, someone who is deputed to disseminate the teaching of the master to others. In the New Testament a distinction is made between the two. All the Gospels, for instance, speak of the Twelve Apostles and Luke mentions 72 disciples.

However, that does not mean the two roles are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, all of us who are called to be disciples are also expected to be apostles, actively sharing our faith with others. It is very easy for us to see ourselves, ‘ordinary’ Catholics, as disciples and to regard priests and religious as doing the apostolic work of the Church. That would be very wrong. Every one of us called to be a disciple is, by virtue of Baptism and Confirmation, also called to be an apostle.

Applied to the twelve men (yes, they were all men—and therein lies the source of many disputes!), the word ‘apostle’ does have a special sense. They would become, so to speak, the pillars or foundations on which the new Church would be built, with Peter as their leader. They would have the special role of handing on and interpreting the tradition they had received from Jesus, a role which in turn they handed on to those whom we now call the bishops, with the pope as leader and spokesperson.

Later on, Paul would be added to their number and Matthias would be chosen to replace the renegade Judas. In fact, it is interesting to see the mixed bunch of people that Jesus chose. We know next to nothing about most of them, but they were, for the most part, simple people—some of them definitely uneducated and perhaps even illiterate. Judas may well have been the most qualified among them. And yet we see the extraordinary results they produced, and the unstoppable movement they set in motion. The only explanation is that it was ultimately the work of God through the Holy Spirit.

The first instructions they are given are to confine their activities to their own people. They are not to go to pagans at this stage, or even to the Samaritans. As the heirs to the covenant and as God’s people, the Jews are to be the first to be invited to follow the Messiah and experience his saving power. And their proclamation is the same one that Jesus gave at the outset of his public preaching:

The Kingdom of Heaven [i.e. of God] has come near.

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Tuesday of Week 14 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Genesis 32:23-33

We jump a few chapters in our story of Jacob and come to an experience even more strange than the vision of the ladder/staircase going up to heaven. Jacob has been preparing to meet with his estranged brother Esau. He was not at all sure what kind of meeting it was going to be with the brother whom he had cheated out of his birth-right. Each one was now rich and powerful in his own domain.

As our reading opens we are told that Jacob takes his two wives (Rachel and Leah), his two slave-girls and his 11 children (the youngest, Benjamin, has been conceived but not born), together with all his possessions, across the River Jabbok to a safer place while he stays behind alone.

‘Jabbok’ is possibly a play on ‘Jacob’. (The author loves toying with names in this way—see below.) The river is an eastern tributary of the Jordan originating near present-day Amman. It is known today as the Wadi A-Zarqa and flows westwards into the Jordan about 30 km north of the Dead Sea.

Jacob is now alone and then, during the whole night until dawn, he wrestles with an unknown man. As is clear later on, this ‘man’ is a messenger of the Lord, if not the Lord himself, in human form. Is this to be seen as a ‘real’ experience or was it just another dream or some purely internal experience? ‘Wrestled’ in Hebrew (ye’abeq) is a play on ‘Jacob’ (ya‘aqob) and ‘Jabbok’ (yabboq).

Jacob has struggled all his life to prevail, first with Esau, then with Laban, his uncle who is the father of his wife, Rachel. Now, as he is about to re-enter Canaan, he is shown that it is with God that he must “wrestle”. It is God who holds his destiny in his hands.

When the ‘man’ sees that Jacob is getting the upper hand, he strikes Jacob on the hip and dislocates it. The hip socket is in the fleshy part of the thigh. There is a hint of injury to the sexual organs and, indeed, with Benjamin, his 12th and youngest son, already conceived, Jacob will have no more children. God came to him in such a form that Jacob could wrestle with him successfully, yet he also showed Jacob that he could disable him at will.

With the coming of morning the stranger says:

Let me go, for the day is breaking.

But Jacob will not let the man go without receiving his blessing. He seems to suspect the divine origin of his opponent. There is also an indication that Jacob is still having problems over their father’s blessing which he got by deceit. He wants now a direct blessing from God himself.

“What is your name?” asks the stranger. “Jacob” is the reply. Then, the stranger says:

You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.

The probable meaning of the word ‘Israel’ is ‘May God show his strength’, but here it is understood as ‘He has been strong against God’.

At the very moment Jacob reaches full maturity as father and patriarch, his descendants acquire their national name. Later, Israel’s encounters with God will constantly entail intense struggle, with the divine and human alike. God will later confirm Jacob’s new name (Gen 35:10). The present incident, where the name Israel is alluded to, is referred to in a passage from Hosea (12:5) where the mysterious wrestler is explicitly called “the Lord”.

Jacob then asks the stranger his name but the only answer he gets is:

Why is it that you ask my name?

Given that the stranger is God himself, it is wrong to ask such a question and, in any case, it cannot be answered. The name of Yahweh could not be uttered by any observant Israelite, but the man does give Jacob his blessing.

Jacob, however, is now well aware of who the stranger is:

…I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.

In the Hebrew Testament, to look upon the face of God spells instant death, except by special privilege. So in Exodus we read:

Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. (Exod 33:11)

After these encounters his face shone so brightly that he had to keep it veiled when speaking to his countrymen. But God also said to Moses:

…you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live. (Exod 33:20)

Only God’s ‘back’ or ‘feet’ or ‘form’, in a symbolic sense, were allowed to be seen.

So Jacob calls the place where he had his experience with the stranger “Peniel”, which means ‘face of God’. The word is a variant of ‘Penuel’, the name of a town on the north bank of the River Jabbok in Gilead.

Then he leaves, limping because of his damaged hip. Limping is a frequent motif in myth and legend (Oedipus, too, limps), suggesting a maturing in his relationship with God, who is the real Lord of his life. It parallels in some ways the experience of Abraham at Moriah where he was told to sacrifice his only son. Although less whole physically, it is precisely through his experience that he becomes more spiritually complete. He is now Israel and not just Jacob.

And, the reading tells us, to this day Jews will not eat the sciatic nerve which runs near the hip, because that is where God had struck Jacob. Although mentioned nowhere else in the Hebrew Testament, this dietary prohibition is found in the later writings of Judaism. Jacob retained in his body, and Israel retained in her dietary practice, a perpetual reminder of this fateful encounter with God.

Finally, the Jerusalem Bible comments on this scene:

“This enigmatic story, probably Yahwistic, speaks of a physical struggle, a wrestling with God from which Jacob seems to emerge victor. Jacob recognises the supernatural character of his adversary and extorts a blessing from him. The text, however, avoids using the name of Yahweh and the unknown antagonist will not give his name. The author has made use of an old story as a means of explaining the name ‘Peniel’ (‘face of God’) and the origin of the name ‘Israel’. At the same time he gives the story a religious significance: Jacob holds fast to God and forces from him a blessing; henceforth all who bear Israel’s name will have a claim on God.

It is not surprising that this dramatic scene later served as an image of spiritual combat and of the value of persevering prayer (e.g. St Jerome and Origen). It was advice that Jesus himself gave, and also St Paul.

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