Saturday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 13:24-30
Today’s passage from the Parables of the Kingdom is found only in Matthew’s Gospel. It is about the planting of seed, but the concern is quite different, and it again reflects the experience of the early Church.
A man has sown good seed in his field but, unknown to him, an enemy has come and planted weeds among the wheat. As the plants come up the farmer sees the weeds growing all through his wheat. His slaves want to pull them out, but the farmer tells them to wait until the harvest time. The wheat and the weeds are similar in appearance in the early stages and it will be much easier to differentiate them as they mature. In the meantime, let both grow side by side.
This is a picture of the Kingdom and also of the Church which is trying to be part of it. For the early Church, more distressing in many ways than persecution from outside, must have been betrayal and shortcomings on the inside. There would have been a strong temptation immediately to get rid of such people. But wiser heads prevailed: “Wait…let God be the judge and, in any case, people can change”. The sinner of today may be the saint of tomorrow.
This has been a problem all through the history of the Church and today is no exception. There is always a strong temptation among those who feel themselves more committed to living out the Gospel to adopt an elitist approach to the faith. This can take two forms, either: 1) members who are seen as falling short of the Church’s requirements in faith and behavior are gotten rid of, or 2) and perhaps more commonly, those who see themselves more committed form a relatively closed group, i.e. a church within a church. There has been a certain amount of tension over such situations with the appearance of a number of Catholic movements in recent times.
Today’s parable reminds us of something very important, namely, that the Church is, and always will be, a Church of sinners and for sinners. Our Church is, as Paul puts it, “a vessel of clay”, leaking and easily broken. At the same time, we have been called to help bring about the Kingdom in our world and we have constantly to try to do that. But we need to distinguish between the vessel and its contents—the weeds and the wheat—to distinguish between the Christian vision and the Church which tries to communicate it.
Some have been disturbed by the scandals of our age (and scandal has existed all across the time of the church) and have left the Church because of them. To do so is to not understand today’s parable. These scandals, far from undermining the Christian vision, only affirm it. That vision remains a shining ideal. But the Church, which is not to be identified with the vision, is the flawed and fragile bearer of that vision. It has always been so and always will be. The Church is called to proclaim the Kingdom, but it has to struggle to realise that Kingdom in itself also. Today’s parable is a call for tolerance, patience, compassion and understanding while not compromising on the vision that comes to us from Jesus.
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Friday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 13:18-23
In today’s Gospel reading from the Parable of the Kingdom, we find the explanation of the parable of the sower. Or perhaps we should say it is an interpretation rather than an explanation. It is presented as coming from Jesus, but it is likely to have come from the tradition of the early Church. There is quite a different emphasis between the original parable and this interpretation. The parable focuses on the sower and the ultimate and inevitable success of his work. The interpretation, however, looks much more at the soil in which the seed falls. The interpretation reflects the experiences of the early Church as it tried to spread the gospel. The four different kinds of soil are taken to represent four kinds of environments into which the Word of God is ‘seeded’. The behavior of the seeds, then, represents four types of responses to the Word of God.
The first kind is like the seed on the stony path. The Word of God never even gets started, but gets plucked away by the evil influences by which the person is surrounded. In our strongly secular world today it is not easy for the Word to take root with so many competing enticements.
The second kind is like the seed that falls on the rock. The Word of God is received with great enthusiasm; the person becomes a devout and active Christian. But if obstacles arise which make the living of the Christian life difficult, the person falls away, maybe quickly, maybe gradually. As the Gospel says, the person has no roots; the faith has not gone deep, and so has not been really assimilated. This must have been the case with many in the early Church who enthusiastically embraced Christianity, but when persecution came, abandoned their faith. In our own time, we see this often enough when, for instance, people are removed from a protected environment where it is easy to live the faith to one where the faith is ignored or even ridiculed.
The third kind is like the seed that falls among the briars and brambles. I would suggest that a very large number of us are touched by this category. Anxieties about many things and the lure of material goods can gradually choke off our commitment to the gospel in its fullness. Our witness becomes seriously compromised and “there is no yield”; that is, we make no real contribution to building the Kingdom and changing the world. We sit on the fence and try to have the best of both worlds; we try to serve God and mammon, which Jesus says is not possible. I am sure many of us have matter for reflection here.
Finally, there is the fourth kind of seed which falls on good soil. This is the one “who hears the message and takes it in”. These people hear the Word, accept the Word, make it their own and it overflows into all they are and do and say. Much fruit for the world comes from such persons.
These four types can still be found and it is for each one of us to determine to which group we belong.
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Wednesday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 13:1-9
Today we come to the third of the five discourses of Jesus found in Matthew’s Gospel. It consists entirely of the Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew calls it. It might be helpful to go back to Monday of the 10th Week (Ordinary Time) and look again at what is said there about the meaning of the ‘Kingdom of heaven’. Briefly to repeat, we are talking about, not a place and still less a place in the future life, but a network of people and communities who are committed to all that God is and stands for, as revealed to us through the life and teaching of Jesus. The people are those who work to see that God’s will be done on earth, which is the establishment of the Kingdom.
These parables, then, are images that Jesus gives to help us understand how we are to enter into and become part of that Kingdom—of that kingship of God to which we adhere with all our heart and soul.
Our passage begins:
That same day Jesus went out of the house…
What day? And what house? It seems that Matthew is linking the parables of the Kingdom with the scene at the end of chapter 12 (vv 46-50) about those who are on the ‘inside’ and those on the ‘outside’. The house—whose ownership is never referred to, and we know that Jesus had no house of his own—seems to refer to any place where people are gathered together with Jesus.
For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. (Matt 18:20)
And wherever people are closely related with Jesus, not just physically, but intentionally, that is what it means to be on the ‘inside’, and it is also to be part of the Kingdom.
We are told that the crowds wanting to listen to Jesus were so great that he had to use a boat moored near the shore to speak to them. In the Gospel, the boat often represents the Church or the Christian community from which Jesus continues to speak his message to the world. We are also told that he spoke to them in parables. Once again, Matthew uses his favourite number by having seven of them. Just to remind ourselves: there are 2×7 generations in Jesus’ genealogy; 7 Beatitudes; forgiveness not 7 but 77 times; 7 ‘alas’ in the condemnation of the Pharisees; and his Gospel is divided into seven main sections—infancy, five discourses, passion.
For three days, that is, for the rest of this week, we are going to be considering the first and the longest of the parables, the parable of the sower. First, today, we have the parable itself, then tomorrow some explanation of the role of parables in Jesus’ teaching and, finally on Saturday, an interpretation of the parable.
The parable itself is very straightforward. It speaks about a farmer sowing seed in his field, a typical Palestinian field of the time. It is obviously a very mixed patch of ground. There are paths going across it where people have long established a right of way. There are bits of rock sticking up above the ground with small hollows where water can gather after rain. At that time, ploughing was done after the seed was sown, so there are weeds and brambles growing wild all over the place. And then there are parts of the field which have good, fertile soil.
This image largely describes too the field in which Jesus, the preacher and teacher, is working. It provides very mixed soil, and much of the seed does not go very far in producing fruit. All this has been described in what we have already seen of Jesus’ mission among the people, the religious leaders, his own family—and his disciples. It is these latter who are the fertile soil, these are the ones who will enter, who are already entering the Kingdom.
A parable in the Gospel usually makes just one point. In this case the message is that God’s plan will succeed, even though there seem to be setbacks. It was as important a message for the early Christians to hear as it is for us today. It is a word of encouragement when Christians see how little success they seem to have at times in their evangelising work. The message is not to worry—God’s Word will prevail, and there will always be fertile soil in which to grow and multiply. Indeed, in the past, some communities did fail, but overall the Christian communities grew and the message spread to every corner of the world.
And then there is the final exhortation:
If you have ears, hear!
‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ are sometimes used interchangeably. In this context, to ‘hear’ is not just to be physically capable of picking up sound. To ‘hear’ presumes attention and awareness; it implies understanding and acceptance and, ultimately, implementation of what is heard.
Am I ready to enter the Kingdom? What kind of soil do I present for the Lord’s Word? Am I really listening to him in the fullest sense?
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Thursday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 19:1-2,9-11,16-20
We begin today the story of the great encounter with Yahweh at Mount Sinai—a mountain whose exact location is in doubt. Its importance was in its holiness and not in its geographical location. According to the Jerusalem Bible commentary:
“Tradition locates it in the southern region of the Sinai peninsula at Jebel Musa (2,500 m), the northern rock-face of which dominates a barren plain surrounded by mountains. This locality admirably satisfies the data of the text. It was at Sinai, also called Horeb or ‘Mount of God’, that Moses received his vocation and had his second meeting with his father-in-law Jethro. At Sinai, the Law was given and the Covenant concluded. At Sinai, God placed himself at the head of his people for the journey to the Promised Land. It was to Sinai that Elijah the prophet returned as to the pure spring of divine revelation. Sinai also stands for the Old Covenant that was eventually superseded (see Gal 4:24).”
It was three months after leaving Egypt that the Israelites arrived in the desert of Sinai and set up camp there. In a paragraph omitted from our reading, God speaks to Moses with a message for the people. He reminds them of all that he has done for them:
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. (Exod 19:4)
Though the whole earth belongs to God, if the Hebrews listen to his voice and observe the covenant he has made with them, they shall be his special possession, dearer to him than all other people.
…you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. (Exod 19:6)
In this context, “holy” means ‘set apart’.
When Moses passed on the message to the people, they responded together:
All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do. (Exod 24:3)
Sadly, this is a promise they will continually make—and break.
We now come back to our reading. The Lord tells Moses that he is going to come to him in a thick cloud. When the people, who have grumbled so much against Moses, will hear God speaking to him (but not able to see anything), they will have their trust in Moses restored. At the same time, the people are told to prepare themselves on that day and the next. They are to wash their clothes and to be ready for the third day, but they are not to have any sexual intimacy during these days. They were told:
…on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.
On this day, the great theophany takes place. God is not seen face to face, but his presence is evident through all the symbolic signs of thunder and lightning, a heavy cloud and trumpet blasts.
Not surprisingly, the people are filled with fear and trembling. The thunderstorm is the chosen scene of God’s self-manifestation; the gale is his herald’s trumpet, the thunder his voice, the cloud and the fire the signs of his presence. (Compare the encounter of Elijah with God in 1 Kings 19:11-12.) The purpose of this theophany is not only to show God’s mastery of nature, but also his majesty, his sublimity and the religious awe that he inspires.
Moses then led the people to the foot of the mountain. God had earlier indicated the limits of their approach. Anyone who even touched the holy mountain itself was himself not even to be touched, but to be killed from a distance by stoning or by being shot with an arrow. This also applied to their animals.
Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord came down on it in fire. The smoke rose as if from a furnace and the whole mountain trembled violently, as if there was an earthquake. The trumpet blasts grew louder and louder, while Moses spoke with God and God replied with peals of thunder. ‘Thunder’ here may mean the voice of God, which sounded like thunder.
Finally, when God came down on the mountain, he invited Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up to meet him. We are preparing for what is perhaps the most awesome moment in the whole of the Hebrew Testament. The stage is now set for God to communicate his Law to the people, the Law which will seal the covenant between the two sides. We see here the paradoxical remoteness of our transcendent God and, at the same time, his closeness in speaking intimately with Moses.
Obviously, the images here are not to be taken literally. They are intended to convey the awesomeness, the unapproachability and unknowability of God, his simultaneous transcendence and immanence.
Strangely, those who are most aware of this are those who have been closest to him—the great mystics like Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross or Ignatius Loyola. The nearer they come to God, the deeper their awareness of his total transcendence. Thomas Aquinas will also say that every statement made about God must be at once denied—God is Truth, but not the truth that we can reach; God is Love, but love far beyond our most intense experience of it. At the same time, God is closer to us than breathing, and penetrates the deepest recesses of our being. Where God is concerned, familiarity breeds awe—but not fear. It also generates an indescribable love.
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Monday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 12:38-42
Today’s passage follows two others, which we have not read. In the first, Jesus is accused of doing what he does by the power of Satan (Matt 12:22-32). This is an accusation which he easily shows is self-contradictory and makes no sense. In the second, he says that a tree which is rotten inside cannot produce good fruit (Matt 12:33-37). Goodness comes from a person’s interior. The words are directed at his accusers whom he more than once accuses of being hypocrites—pious and law-abiding on the outside, but full of malice inside.
It is these same people who approach him today. It is difficult to know their mood as they ask Jesus for a sign. Is it a genuine request for Jesus to indicate the source of his authority and power, or is it a hostile demand for Jesus to present his credentials?
In response, Jesus first says that:
An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Yes, “evil and adulterous”, because for anyone with an open mind, Jesus has been giving nothing but signs ever since he began his public life. The ordinary people have been full of praise and amazement at what Jesus is doing and say:
A great prophet has risen among us!…God has visited his people! (Luke 7:16)
But these leaders, blinded by their own prejudice, are even saying that the teaching, exorcisms and healings of Jesus are the work of Satan.
In addition to all this, they are going to get an unmistakable sign of who Jesus really is. They will be given “the sign of the prophet Jonah”:
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.
This is a clear reference to Jesus’ resurrection—the conclusive sign of his identity and power.
Mention of Jonah leads Jesus to say that:
…people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and indeed something [i.e. Jesus] greater than Jonah is here!
Similarly:
The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and indeed something greater than Solomon is here!
This of course also refers to Jesus, who is greater by far than Solomon.
We, too, have the privilege of listening to Jesus and we know the sign of his resurrection. Is it not possible that there are many people around us who, not knowing Jesus, but following the guidance of their consciences, will find themselves going before us into the Kingdom?
Complacency is probably one of our biggest temptations: “I am good enough; I observe the basic requirements of my religion.” Is that all that Jesus expects of me?
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Tuesday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 14:21—15:1
Following on from the reading of Monday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time, we see today the great moment when Moses, at the Lord’s command, separated the waters and the Israelites walked across on dry land. Just before this (not in our reading) Exodus tells us that God’s protecting angel which had been leading the Israelites now moves to protect their rear. Similarly, the pillar of cloud, the visible sign of Yahweh’s presence, which had been leading the people from the front now moved to the rear to be between the Israelites and the Egyptians. And, before night fell, the cloud became dark so that the two sides could not see each other and come in contact.
It was now, in obedience to the Lord’s command, that Moses stretched out his hand over the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea). A strong east wind began to blow all through the night and turned the sea into dry land. The Israelites then marched right into the sea on dry land with the waters piled like a wall to their right and to their left.
The Egyptians with all their horses, chariots and charioteers went in pursuit right into the sea. It was then that the Lord struck:
At the morning watch the Lord, in the pillar of fire and cloud, looked down on the Egyptian army and threw the Egyptian army into a panic.
Moreover, the wheels of the chariots bogged down on the soft bottom of the sea so that they could hardly move.
Seeing the situation, that their God was supporting the Israelites, the Egyptians immediately sounded a retreat. But it was too late:
The the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.
Immediately the sea began to return to its normal depth. The Egyptians were thrown back into the surging waters. The whole army of the Pharaoh, chariots and charioteers were drowned. Not one man escaped.
In this way, the Lord rescued his people from the hands of the Egyptians. When the Israelites saw the bodies of the drowned Egyptians lying on the seashore, they were made aware of the great power the Lord had shown against the Egyptians. The scene is a film director’s dream and it is no wonder that the story has been re-enacted in more than one film epic over the years.
On seeing all that had happened and how they had been rescued from certain capture and death:
…the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
However, it was a faith that would have many ups and downs, as we shall see.
Then Moses and all the people broke out into a marvellous hymn of praise and thanksgiving. Our reading ends with just the opening verse of the hymn:
I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.
It is a long and magnificent hymn (Exodus 15:1-18) well worth reading in full. It is a whole psalm of thanksgiving (the first and most famous of the ‘canticles’ which the Christian liturgy takes from the Old Testament). Its starting point is the destruction of Pharaoh’s army, but it goes on to develop the theme of God’s power and his care for his people; the wonders of the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, even the building of the Temple in Jerusalem—all indicating it is a much later composition.
Parts of the hymn probably sound rather aggressive and triumphalist to our ears today, but the underlying theme is a realisation of God’s awesome power and thanksgiving for his protection in times of danger. Verses from it form the response to the reading for yesterday and today, and it is also used during the Easter Vigil liturgy.
As the Jerusalem Bible notes:
“Old Testament tradition consistently regards the ‘crossing of the Red Sea’ as one of the most, if not the most striking evidence of Yahweh’s intervention on behalf of his people. The episode is equally prominent in Christian tradition from the New Testament onwards, as a figure of the decisive ‘exodus’ effected by Jesus, and particularly of the baptism by which the Christian enters into it (see 1 Cor 10:1-33—‘Our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; by the cloud and the sea all of them were baptised into Moses…’).”
In the waters of baptism—more significantly when it is by total immersion—we pass through the saving waters to life in Christ.
The idea running all through both in the Old and New Testaments is liberation; God makes his people free. He liberates us from slavery of all kinds. To be honest, am I as a Christian experiencing that liberation and sense of freedom in my life? If not, why not?
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Wednesday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 16:1-5,9-15
After crossing the Sea of Reeds in safety, the Israelites begin their long, meandering journey to the promised land. In spite of all that God had done for them, they began complaining first of all about their water situation. There was water, but it was too bitter to drink. They discovered it could be made drinkable by throwing a certain kind of wood into it. God also told them that if they acted properly and observed the Lord’s precepts, they would not experience any of the problems which had afflicted the Egyptians. They reached an oasis called Elim, an oasis with twelve water springs and 70 palm trees. There they had an abundance of water and shelter.
Then, as we see in today’s reading, they set off again and arrived in the desert of Sin, which lay about halfway between Elim and Sinai and was clearly not a very hospitable terrain. They were following a route close to the eastern shore of the sea they had crossed earlier. It was the 15th day of the second month, just one month since they had escaped from Egypt. They had eaten the Passover meal and left Egypt on the 15th day of the first month, Abib, later known as Nisan.
Once again the grumbling started. They spoke with nostalgia of the “pots of meat” of Egypt and the abundance of food they had when they lived there. Apparently, all the hardships from which they were so anxious to escape were now all forgotten. And, once again, they laid all the blame on Moses for bringing them to a place where they could only die of starvation.
A patient God heard their complaint and told Moses of his plan to rain down ‘bread’ from heaven on them every day. As a gift from God, the manna was said to come from the sky. It may, in fact, have been something similar to a natural substance still found in small quantities on the Sinai peninsula, but here it is, at least in part, clearly miraculous.
However, there were some rules to test their obedience to God’s law. Each day they were to pick just what they needed and no more; and, on the day before the sabbath, they were to pick a double portion. Clearly, there was to be no gathering of manna on the sabbath.
This message was passed on by Moses to Aaron who announced it to the people. And, just then:
…the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.
This was the cloud which was accompanying them on their journey, the pledge of God’s closeness to them. What form this manifestation took we do not know, but the message was clearly understood by the Israelites and was intended to put a stop to their grumbling.
Once again the Lord spoke with Moses. He was to tell the people that, from now on, in the evening they would have their fill of meat and in the morning their fill of ‘bread’. Sure enough, that evening a flock of quail came and covered the camp and, in the morning, they saw what looked like hoarfrost all over the ground.
When they first saw it, they asked: “What is that?” and were told by Moses,
It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.
“What is that?” is represented in Hebrew as man hu and is taken to be the origin of the word ‘manna’.
We are told that quail are common in the Sinai and that, as mentioned, the manna was possibly the juice of some local shrub. However, the narrative intends some special intervention under natural forms by which God fed his people.
The Psalms and the Book of Wisdom gratefully recall the gift of manna which, in Christian tradition (as early as John 6:26-58), is a figure of the Eucharist, the spiritual food of the Church, the new Israel, on her earthly journey to the Promised Land. Jesus will refer to the manna as a type of the Bread that he will give (see John 6:32,49-52).
We have since taken over phrases like, “I will now rain down bread from heaven on you” and “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat” and given them Eucharistic significance.
What is made clear in the story is that the source of the food (and indeed of all we have and receive) is a compassionate and caring God, one who is largely deaf to his people’s constant complaints, their short memories of former help and protection and their weak faith.
We too so often suffer from the same weaknesses. It is so easy to be aware of our grievances and to forget the wonderful blessings we have received in life. Let us count our blessings today and say a big Thank You to our God and Lord.
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Saturday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 24:3-8
The giving of the Decalogue at Mount Sinai is followed in the Book of Exodus by the Book of the Covenant, a list of ordinances and laws concerning subjects like the treatment of slaves, murder and injury, theft of animals, matters demanding compensation, duties towards enemies, the sabbath and great feasts. Today’s reading gives us the solemn ratification of a covenant between God and his people based on the teaching that God has given to Moses.
After Moses had told the people of all the words and ordinances he had received from the Lord, the people answered with one voice:
All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.
Moses then committed all the words of the Lord to writing.
Early the next day, he set up an altar with twelve pillars at the foot of the mountain, each pillar representing a tribe of Israel. God was symbolically represented by the altar and the people by the twelve pillars surrounding it. He then sent young men to offer holocausts and sacrifices of young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. By burning them completely, they indicated that they were being given back to God in their entirety.
Moses then took half of the blood of these animals and put it in large bowls. The rest of the blood he splashed on the altar. He read the Book of the Covenant to all the people and again they replied:
All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.
Finally, Moses took the blood in the bowls and sprinkled it on the people, saying:
Here is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.
In this way God and his people were united in one purpose. Their intentions were good, but as we shall see, they did not always live up to their solemn promises.
Here Moses acts as mediator between God and the people, a priestly role. He unifies them symbolically by sprinkling the blood of a single victim first on the altar, which represents Yahweh, and then on the people. In this way the pact is ratified by blood.
We can see here foreshadowings of our own covenant sacrifice with God which we do through, with and in Jesus Christ. The “blood of the new covenant” is that of Jesus himself. The altar is the cross and the priest and victim are both Jesus. In the same way, the New Covenant is ratified by the blood of Christ:
…this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matt 26:28)
Jesus pours out not the blood of animals, but his own blood on the altar of the cross.
Like the Israelites of old, we many times fail to live up to the promises we make in our covenant with Christ. Indeed, we begin every Eucharist with the confession of our sins and failings. As we celebrate this Eucharist today let us renew our covenant promises and beg Jesus to help us do so.
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Tuesday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 12:46-50
Just before we enter the third of the great discourses on the parables of the Kingdom, we have today’s short passage on who really belongs to Jesus. As Jesus was speaking to the crowds his mother and other family members arrived:
While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him.
Matthew does not say what their words were, but we know from another context (Mark 3:21) that they were embarrassed by what he was doing, probably because of the way he was earning the displeasure of the authorities. In later times, many who opted to follow Christ have been a source of embarrassment and displeasure to their families, especially in situations where being Christian or Catholic was a violation of state law or religious affiliation.
When Jesus is told they are looking for him he stretches out his hands to his followers and says that they are his “mother and brothers”. And then he defines how one becomes one of his brothers and sisters:
…whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
It is significant that Jesus’ own blood relatives are spoken of as being “outside”; Jesus’ disciples, those who really listen to him, are those who are ‘inside’. This is not to say that Jesus is rejecting his family; to do so would be to contradict his own teaching of loving all unconditionally. But he uses the situation to make a very important point—that relationship to Jesus is based on one thing only, total commitment through Jesus to the Father.
To be a Christian, a disciple, is to enter into this new relationship with God and with others. All other bonds, including those of blood, take a second place or are to be understood in the light of this bonding to God first of all and above all.
It would be wrong to conclude that Jesus was rejecting his own mother here. Yet what he says applies to her as much as to anyone else. Mary is measured by her commitment to the Father and the Son, who is also her Son. That commitment was clearly made when she accepted to be the mother of Jesus:
Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)
It was a commitment that was still being kept as she stood in grief at the foot of her Son’s cross. Mary was certainly on the ‘inside’. Let us ask her today that we too may always be ‘insiders’.
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Monday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 14:5-18
At the end of last week, we saw the Israelites setting out on their escape journey out of Egypt. The story is interrupted by a number of religious instructions for later generations arising out of the Exodus experience, including regulations for the Passover, the consecration of the first-born to the Lord, and the feast of the Unleavened Bread.
When the story of the departure is taken up again, we are told that God instructed the people not to follow the shortest route through the land of the Philistines along the shores of the Mediterranean to Canaan. This was the objective of their journey, the Promised Land. Instead, they were told to follow a more “roundabout way of the wilderness bordering the Red Sea.” The reason given was that to go that shortest route would have involved a lot of fighting with the local people. It will eventually take them 40 event-filled years before they will reach their objective.
We are also told that on their journey:
The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. (Exod 13:21)
This is possibly one and the same preternatural phenomenon, a central nucleus of fire surrounded by smoke; only at night was its luminous nature visible.
Both cloud and fire are regularly symbols of God’s presence in the Scriptures. We saw Moses talking with God in a burning bush. In the Gospel, during the Transfiguration, God’s presence is shown by the cloud that comes down on the three Apostles, and Jesus, at his ascension, is taken up into a cloud. At Pentecost, God’s presence is indicated by the tongues of fire on each one present.
The erratic route followed by the Israelites gave the impression that they were lost in the wilderness, leading the Pharaoh to change his mind and go in pursuit of them. But this was all part of God’s plan. It is at this point we pick up today’s reading.
When the Pharaoh heard that the Hebrews had fled, he and his officials changed their minds about letting them go. They suddenly realised that they were going to lose a major work force for their construction projects.
So the Egyptians set out in pursuit with the cream of their armed forces. The Pharaoh:
…took six hundred elite chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
God had made the Pharaoh so obstinate that he went in pursuit of the Hebrews who were marching away in triumph with their God behind them. The Egyptian forces caught up with the Hebrews in their encampment by the sea at Pi-hahiroth, facing Baal-Zephon. These places have not been definitively identified and even their position related to each is not clear. Perhaps the former was on the west shore of the sea, where the Israelites were, and the latter was on the opposite shore.
Pharaoh was almost on top of them when the Hebrews became aware of their presence. Filled with alarm, they cried out to their Lord for help.
They then turned on their leader, Moses, as the scapegoat for their problem, saying:
Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?
They even begin saying that they did not want to leave Egypt at all and were ready to keep working for the Egyptians. They cried:
…it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.
It was typical of people who judge a situation only by what they can see immediately in front of them. It was also one of the first of many examples of their lack of trust in God and in his chosen messenger, Moses.
Moses then reassured them:
Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again.
The Egyptians who are pursuing them now will soon never be seen by them again, because:
The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.
The Lord himself now intervenes and asks why the people are crying out to him. Do they not trust him and his promises? He then gives his instructions. First, the Israelites are to continue going forward in the direction of the sea. Second, Moses is to raise his staff over the sea and divide it in two so that the Israelites can walk through it on dry land. Third, God will make the Pharaoh and the Egyptians so obstinate that they will go in pursuit.
In today’s passage, we are not yet told exactly what is going to happen to the Egyptians, but that God will receive glory through what happens to Pharaoh, his army and all his chariots. The result will be that the Egyptians will now realise that Yahweh is Lord.
The lesson all through is that God is with his people, protecting and leading them. Even when they seem to be in deep trouble, he is there. They sometimes can see no light at the end of the tunnel, but the light is there and it is God.
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