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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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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