Monday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Peter 1:2-7
Today we begin reading from the Second Letter of Peter. There will be just two readings, today and tomorrow.
According to the Vatican II Missal:
“Second Peter is one of the most interesting New Testament books. Written perhaps by a later disciple of Peter, it may be the last written book of the Bible.”
The letter begins by asserting a theme which runs through it, namely, that the only knowledge we really need is a personal knowledge of God and his Son, Jesus. The author is challenging the heretical teaching of the Gnostics, who said that the only thing needed was knowledge, independent of any behaviour. Knowledge of God and Christ necessarily leads to following the Way of Jesus, a way of both knowing and doing.
God’s loving power has given us everything we need to live a life that is full and meaningful, which is a life in close relationship with him. God has made available all that we need spiritually through our knowledge of him. No special ‘secret’ knowledge, only accessible to initiates, is necessary for the Christian to achieve fulfilment of life. The glory and power of God was manifest in the teaching and signs that Jesus gave, clearly indicating his divine origin. Later in the letter, the author will mention specifically the experience of the Transfiguration, of which Peter was a witness.
The Gnostics, who followed a way of thinking which was a constant challenge to the early Christians, believed that salvation depended on having a knowledge of “mysteries”, secret revelations, only given to them. They also tended to see evil in all material things, a kind of distorted Platonism.
God, in his love for us, has showered us with precious gifts, including material gifts. And provided we abandon a world corrupted by irrational and hedonistic desires (a false infatuation with the material), we can become sharers in the very life of God, that life of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Our whole Christian life is ordered to having that experience.
The rest of the reading lists the steps by which we develop a well-rounded and fruitful Christian life. The foundation of our inner goodness is our total faith and trust in God’s love and our commitment to the Way shown to us by Jesus. That faith is supplemented and fulfilled by virtuous behaviour which flows from it. Virtue must be accompanied by knowledge. This means that virtue is not a mere pious veneer, but rather comes from an ever deeper understanding and grasp of the way of life that Jesus proposes to us in the Gospel—a Message accessible to all.
This knowledge leads to self-control. Many of those infected by Gnosticism, which put all emphasis on the acquisition of secret knowledge, believed that self-control was completely unnecessary. Knowledge, not behaviour, was the source of salvation. The Christian belief is quite different. The deeper our knowledge of God and Jesus, the more our whole lives, including our behaviour, are affected. We do good, not because we have to, or force ourselves to, but because we want to. Our behaviour flows naturally from our insight into what is true and good.
Self-control, in turn, leads to endurance, to perseverance even in the face of either competing attractions or painful obstacles. Endurance in turn is supported by devotion, which implies a deep warm-hearted commitment and not just a dogged stubbornness. Devotion leads to mutual affection. To be a Christian is not to go alone to God, but in companionship with others who share the same vision. This mutual affection then blossoms into love, that outgoing, unconditional desire for the well-being of the brother and sister.
This is a very different picture from the purely head-centred intellectualism of the Gnostic which can only end in a cold isolationism, with little regard for the well-being of the world in which we live. In contrast, we Christians are convinced our world is the place in which to find and love our God.
Among other things, the author here is warning us against any form of elitism, which is a constant threat to our understanding of the Christian life. Such an elitism can lead to the formation of groups which lay claim to a higher level of Christian living and look down on ‘outsiders’. The beauty of the gospel is that it can be grasped adequately by even the illiterate. (Perhaps that message was brought home some years ago when the founder of Opus Dei and scholar, Fr Josemaría Escrivá, was beatified together with Canossian Sister Josephine Bakhita, who had formerly been a slave in Latin America and had no formal schooling whatever.)
That does not mean we should not do all we can to have a deeper understanding of our faith. If we have the intellectual capacity to do so, we should. A great scandal among us is the ignorance of many educated Catholics about Scripture, theology and spirituality. At the same time, we also have to affirm that the very highest levels of mystical prayer are accessible to those with no education at all. Knowing Jesus is a lot more important than knowing a lot about him.
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Monday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 12:1-12
This will be our last week of readings from Mark’s Gospel. We are now in chapter 12 and fast approaching the climax of Jesus’ life and mission. This chapter is marked by a growing conflict between Jesus and the religious and political leaders of his own people. The chapter begins today with a parable (or, more accurately, allegory) directed towards that leadership. Its meaning was very clear to those who heard it.
It tells the story of a man who planted a vineyard, fitted it out with all that was necessary and then let it out to tenants to cultivate. It is clear that the owner is God, the vineyard is Israel and the tenants the people of Israel. The words of Jesus echo very closely a similar image in a poem by the prophet Isaiah:
I will sing for my beloved In Isaiah’s image the vines only produce sour grapes. In Jesus’ story there are evidently good harvests. The problem arises when the owner sends his servants to collect what belongs to him of the harvests. One after the other, the servants are driven away, beaten up or even killed. It is a clear reference to the way that God’s people treated the many prophets which God had sent to them. In exasperation, the owner decides to send his only son, expecting that they will at least respect him. But no, the tenants argue that by killing the only heir, the vineyard will inevitably become their property. When the son (Jesus) arrives, they seize him, kill him and throw him out of the vineyard (a reference to Jesus being crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem). Jesus then says: What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture: ‘The stone that the builders rejected Jesus is rejected by the leaders and by many (but not all) of his own people. The Gentiles will be invited to take their place and will be more than happy to fill it. The words Jesus quoted from Psalm 118 can apply either to himself or the Gentiles. Jesus, the rejected and crucified one, becomes the cornerstone. Or, the despised Gentiles become the recipients of God’s love and grace and the cornerstone of the new Christian communities. Clearly, this story did nothing to endear Jesus to the leaders. They would have (as foretold by the story they had just heard) seized him, but they were afraid of the crowd (also Jews) who stood in awe of Jesus, his words and works. This is one of those stories where we can be tempted to sit in judgement on those who rejected Jesus. But we are not reading it today for that purpose. Rather we are being asked whether we are listening to the word of God as it comes to us in the various people that God sends into our lives. How much better are we than the scribes and Pharisees? How often do we rationalise ourselves out of doing what God clearly wants us to do? What welcome do we give to God’s messengers? Do we even recognise them when they come? Maybe today—right now—would be a good time to listen more carefully than we normally do.
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?