Monday of Week 20 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 19:16-22
We have here a story of a young man who did not have that simple trust of the child which Jesus spoke about in the immediately preceding passage (note that only Matthew describes him as ‘young’).
He was apparently a good man—an unusually good man. He asks Jesus what he needs to do in order to have eternal life. However, he seemed to be operating out of a legalistic mindset with the emphasis on external actions. For Jesus, what we are is more important than what we do. The man also asked about “eternal life”. In Matthew (and in Mark and Luke) ‘eternal life’ is really synonymous with ‘entering the Kingdom of Heaven [God]’ and ‘being saved’. It is to be totally taken up into God’s world and sharing God’s understanding of life.
Jesus asks him
Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one who is good.
This seems to be a way of telling the man that goodness is not something merely external. The real source of goodness is inside, although, of course, it will flow out to the exterior. Is it also a way of asking the man who he really thinks Jesus is?
In any case, Jesus tells the man:
If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.
As we have just said, to “enter into life” is equivalent to entering the Kingdom. And Jesus mentions just four of the commandments, all touching on relationships with other people. And he adds:
Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The man is not satisfied:
I have kept all these; what do I still lack?
Jesus tells him that if he wants to be perfect, he should sell off everything he has, give it to the poor and then become a disciple of Jesus.
Obviously, the man was not expecting this. He was very rich and, although he wanted to serve God, he was not prepared to separate himself from the security of his wealth. And he walked away from Jesus full of sadness. It is an example of Jesus’ words earlier on that we cannot at the same time serve God and wealth.
In this context, to be ‘rich’ is not just to have a lot of money. It is to have a lot more money than others and especially to have more money than one needs in a world where there are people who do not have enough for a life of dignity. And wealth is very relative: a person close to the poverty line in some western countries could be seen as very rich in a remote village elsewhere in the world.
So, as long as the man had to cling to his money, he could not—as he claimed—be loving his neighbour as his own self. Clearly he was not yet ready for an unconditional following of Jesus. He was not able to follow the example of Peter and Andrew and James and John, who left their boats, nets and family to go and put all their security with Jesus.
Before we think that this Gospel does not particularly concern us because we do not see ourselves as numbered among the rich, we should listen to what Jesus is really saying. He touched on the one thing that the man was not ready to give up—his money and all that it brought. But if we are honest, we will admit that we all have some things we would be very slow to let go of. Things we would not like God to ask us to give up.
It might be a good exercise today for us to ask ourselves what would be the most difficult thing for us to give up if Jesus asked us to do so. It might be some thing we own like our house, or it might be a relationship, or our job, or our health. Whatever it is, could it be coming between us and our total following of Jesus? Do the things we own really own us? Why not ask for the strength to be ready, if called on, to give it up? Only then do we know that we are truly free and truly followers of Jesus.
One final point—this story has been used in the past as an example of someone’s getting a special ‘vocation’. According to this view, all are expected to keep the commandments, but only some are invited to follow a ‘counsel’, such as living a life of ‘poverty’, as members of religious institutes do. It would be quite wrong to see Jesus here suggesting two levels of living the Christian life. What is said here applies to every person who wants to follow Christ. All the baptised are called to the same level of service, although there are different ways of doing this.
Read more
Monday of Week 20 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Judges 2:11-19
Immediately after the book of Joshua comes the book of Judges, which we begin reading today. We will just have four readings from the book.
The story of the Judges proper is confined to the main body of the book (chaps 2-16). The term ‘judges’ (in Hebrew, shophetim) does not have our common meaning, but indicates war leaders and deliverers of the people. They are very different in character and ability from each other, but what they do share is a divine calling to save their people.
Today’s reading sets the scene for the unfolding of the book. After the death of Joshua, the people—in spite of the solemn promises they made—gradually began to fall away from serving Yahweh and started to follow the gods of the surrounding peoples. For their disloyalty, they found themselves the victims of their enemies. Yahweh was no longer with them in their struggles.
This passage comes from some general reflections on the whole period of the ‘judges’. We are given the theme or paradigm which will be repeated in the case of each judge:
- Israel deserts Yahweh for Baal;
- Yahweh hands Israel over to oppressors;
- Israel cries to Yahweh;
- Yahweh sends Israel a saviour.
The cycle then begins all over again.
However, this theological understanding of history, based on the assumption that the judges succeeded one another in the chronological order given in the book, and that each acted for the whole nation (rather than their own tribe), hardly corresponds to historical fact. The book is a compilation of originally independent accounts of local heroes, to whom an arbitrary relationship in time has been given.
As the Book of Judges opens we are told that the generation that followed Joshua neither knew Yahweh nor the deeds that he had done for Israel. The Israelites were now doing what was evil in Yahweh’s eyes and serving the “Baals” (‘Baal’ means ‘lord’). Baal, the god worshipped by the Canaanites and Phoenicians, was variously known to them as the ‘son of Dagon’ and the ‘son of El’. In Aram (Syria), he was called ‘Hadad’ and in Babylonia, ‘Adad’. Believed to give fertility to the womb and life-giving rain to the soil, he is pictured as standing on a bull, a popular symbol of fertility and strength.
The storm cloud was Baal’s chariot, thunder his voice, and lightning his spear and arrows. The worship of Baal involved sacred prostitution and sometimes even child sacrifice. The stories of Elijah and Elisha, as well as many other Old Testament passages, directly or indirectly protest Baalism. Elijah’s bringing rain down and breaking a drought showed the superior power of Yahweh over Baal, who was supposed to be the god of rain (1 Kgs 18:41-46).
The Israelites had deserted Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt and followed other gods, those of the surrounding peoples. They bowed down before these gods; they provoked Yahweh; they deserted Yahweh to serve Baal and Astarte.
In the Bible the phrase ‘Baal and Astarte’ or, in the plural, ‘the Baals and Astartes’ is the common expression for the Canaanite divinities. Baal, ‘the Lord’, is the male god. Astarte was associated with the evening star and was the beautiful goddess of war and fertility. She was worshipped as Ishtar in Babylonia and as Athtart in Aram. To the Greeks she was Aphrodite, and to the Romans, Venus. Worship of the Astartes involved extremely lascivious practices.
Every time they indulged in this idolatrous behaviour, Yahweh’s anger would grow hot against Israel. He would hand them over to pillagers who would plunder them. They would be delivered into the hands of the enemies all around them and no longer able to resist them. Whenever they mounted an expedition, Yahweh’s hand would be there to foil them—as he had warned he would—and, as a result, they were in dire distress.
It was then that the Lord appointed ‘judges’ who would rescue them from the hands of their plunderers. There were 12 judges altogether: six major judges—Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson, and six minor ones—Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon. Notice that one of the judges is a woman, Deborah.
But the Israelites would refuse to listen even to the judges. They preferred to prostitute themselves before other gods. They moved far from the path their ancestors had followed in obedience to Yahweh.
Idol worship was always seen as a form of prostitution. Since the Hebrew for ‘Baal’ (‘lord’) was also used by women to refer to their husbands, it is understandable that the metaphor of adultery was commonly used in connection with Israelite worship of Baal (see Hosea 2:2-3,16-17). Yahweh was the true spouse of Israel. The worship of Baal was a kind of adultery or prostitution.
When Yahweh appointed judges:
…the Lord was with the judge, and he delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for the Lord would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them.
The words ‘groan’ and ‘oppressed’ echoes the language of the bondage under the Pharaoh in Egypt.
But once the judge was dead, the people fell back into even more corrupt ways than those who had gone before them. They gave themselves completely to other gods, served them, bowed down before them and totally abandoned the practices of their ancestors.
Although there were undoubtedly natural explanations for the people’s sufferings, the Scripture sees the hands of God in everything they experience. On their own or subject to false gods, they are lost and they experience great suffering. It is less a sign of God’s punishment, still less his vindictiveness, than the fact that to leave truth and goodness is to head for darkness and failure and pain.
Following the ways of God and Jesus is not just a question of obedience to a higher authority; it is to follow a way of life which is in total harmony with our deepest needs.
Read more