Friday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:27-32
In today’s reading from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes two more texts from the Old Testament to continue illustrating his attitude to the Law and its meaning.
One of the Ten Commandments says: “You shall not commit adultery”. Adultery is here understood as a sexual relationship between two people, at least one of whom is already married to someone else. But, for Jesus, for a man even to look at another woman with lust (he does not say whether either of them is married) is already to have violated the spirit of the commandment and the kind of relationship that he expects between people. We would need to distinguish here between a man finding a woman particularly beautiful or attractive and, on the other hand, looking on her as an object for sexual gratification. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with the former. We might also add that what is said here of men applies equally to women. If women are not mentioned it is because in ancient society the initiative for sexual activity seldom was available to the woman.
This commandment, in fact, is not primarily about sexual acts; it is about the inviolable dignity of each person. It is about the deep respect that people ought to have for their own bodies and the bodies of others. Other people cannot be used simply for one’s personal pleasure or to satisfy one’s sexual appetites—not even in the secret recesses of one’s mind and heart.
Jesus puts the situation rather graphically. He says it would be better to go physically maimed through life rather than allow oneself be led into a situation where another person could be so dishonoured. In human beings, our sexual powers have a double purpose: to express a deep and genuine love between two people, and for the procreation of new life.
Related to this, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy (24:1): “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ.” The original text reads as follows:
Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house;she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife.
The text goes on to say that if:
…the second man dislikes her, writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies): her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that would be abhorrent to the Lord… (Deut 24:14)
Two things seem clear in Jesus’ time: it was men who could initiate divorce and on the flimsiest of pretexts; it was the woman who was considered guilty of adultery by marrying another man, which is why she could not be received back by her first husband.
Jesus strongly challenges both of these traditions. The Jews accepted divorce but Jesus is ruling it out. The only exception for a marriage to be dissolved is on the basis of “sexual immorality” (Greek, porneia). There is much discussion on the meaning of this term, but it seems that it refers to a special situation in Matthew’s community. Certain types of marriage between Jews were regarded as incestuous, but were allowed in the case of a Jew marrying a Gentile. But Matthew is saying that in the case of a Gentile becoming a Christian (and marrying a Jewish convert), such exceptions would not be allowed and divorce should not take place. Jesus says further that a man who marries a woman who has been divorced commits adultery.
It is important to note that Jesus is first of all putting men and women morally on an absolutely equal level. He is making the marriage contract something to be taken very seriously with grave responsibilities on both sides. This issue will come up again later (in Matthew, chapter 19) and cause some dismay among Jesus’ disciples.
In our day, the whole question of marriage and the family is fraught with serious problems. Among them are divorce and adultery, although the problems here are somewhat different from that of Jesus’ time. The kind of divorce that Jesus speaks about is of a unilateral decision by a husband who wants to be rid of his wife, often for trivial reasons. In modern society, it is more often the result of the painful breakdown of a marriage relationship. While emphasising that nowadays each case must be treated with great pastoral sensitivity, we do need to remind ourselves of the fundamental values and attitudes that Jesus is underlining in this passage.
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Friday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 1 Kings 19:9,11-16
In today’s reading we have one of the most beautiful images to be found in the Old Testament. When Jezebel heard of the slaughter of the priests of Baal (at the end of Wednesday’s reading), she vowed to submit Elijah to the same fate. Elijah then fled into the wilderness. He was ready to lie down and die, but God still had work for him to do and gave him the food he needed to carry out his commission.
Our reading today opens with Elijah going to the mountain of Horeb, sheltering and hiding in a cave. Moses had done the same and had been crouching in the “hollow of the rock” when Yahweh appeared to him. It is here that God speaks to Elijah. The Lord asks:
What are you doing here, Elijah?
Elijah replies that God’s people have deserted him and torn down their altars; Elijah is the only prophet left and his life is in danger.
It is then that he is told to go and stand on the mountain in the presence of his Lord. Traditionally the Lord is especially present on the tops of mountains. We remember Moses on Mount Sinai, the mountain where Jesus delivered his Sermon, and the mountain where Jesus in glory appeared to three of his disciples. We read, too, in the Old Testament how many centres of worship were put in high places.
On the mountain, Elijah is told to await the Lord passing by, and:
…there was a great wind…but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire…
In ancient times, much more than in our own, the power of wind, earthquake and fire could fill people with terror and awe as pale signs of God’s own power. With all our technology today, we are still largely helpless when these elements rage out of control. Tsunamis are dramatic examples, but so are the earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones, floods and droughts, lightning strikes…
On Mount Sinai, too, when Moses and the Israelites encountered Yahweh there were storms, earthquakes and lightning proclaiming the presence of the almighty Yahweh, but with Elijah on that day on the mountain, God was not in any of these. They were only the remote signs of his deeper presence.
There came “a sound of sheer silence” (in other translations, “a gentle breeze”) And Elijah immediately recognised the presence of God. The whisper of a light breeze or the sound of silence signifies that God is a spirit and that he converses intimately with his prophets. The image of a gentle breeze reminds us of the gentle breath or wind of the Spirit which, as Jesus told Nicodemus, blows where it will. It speaks most eloquently of God as spirit and of the way he penetrates quietly into the most intimate corners of our life. It is why it is so necessary for us to be sensitive to God’s loving presence at all times.
In the symbolism of the phenomena on the mountain, the Lord appears to be telling Elijah that although his servant’s indictment of Israel was a call for God to judge his people with windstorm, earthquake and fire, it was not God’s will to do so now. Elijah must return to continue God’s mission to his people and Elisha is to carry it on for another generation.
Full of awe and fully aware of the closeness of Yahweh, Elijah hides his face with his cloak (in case he might come face to face with Yahweh) and emerges from the cave. Yahweh asks him:
What are you doing here, Elijah?
It is the same question asked earlier. Elijah now has an opportunity to give a different answer from the last time, but he gives exactly the same one as before. He is full of zeal for God’s glory as he sees his fellow-Israelites breaking down the altars of God and killing the prophets. He himself is the only one left. He intimates he is calling for divine vengeance.
He seems to have missed the point of the symbols he just experienced. The Lord is not to be looked for in violent behaviour, but in the quiet inspirations of his presence.
Elijah is now given a mission – his last as a prophet. He is to go first to the wilderness near Damascus. Apparently he is to go back by way of the road east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan. He will go back to the east side of the Jordan, from which he had originally come. He is also told to anoint two kings, Hazael for Aram and Jehu for Israel (Northern Kingdom), and also Elisha as his own successor.
Jehu was a military commander under King Ahab and Joram, Ahab’s son. He was anointed king over Israel by “a man from the company of the prophets” at the instruction of Elisha, with a mandate to destroy the house of Ahab. In general, anointing was reserved for kings (earlier we saw the anointings of Saul, David and Solomon). However, here it seems to mean no more than ‘designate as chosen by God’ because the actual anointings will be done by Elijah’s successor, Elisha.
Elisha’s name means ‘God is salvation’ or ‘God saves’ and it expresses the essence of his calling. His name evokes memory of Joshua (‘The Lord saves’). And Elijah is now being given someone to finish his work just as Moses was given Joshua. Elisha will channel the covenant blessings to Israel just as Joshua brought Israel into the promised land. In the New Testament, John the Baptist (identified as Elijah) was followed by Jesus (the same name as ‘Joshua’) to complete God’s saving work.
Elisha is the “son of Shaphat” which means ‘he judges’ and is also descriptive of his mission. And he is from Abel Meholah, like Elijah, from the east side of the Jordan. And that was where John the Baptist also carried out his mission.
Even though Israel would experience divine judgement through Hazael, Jehu and Elishah, God would continue to preserve a remnant faithful to himself among the people. Hazael subsequently became a serious threat to Israel during the reigns of Joram, Jehu and Jehoahaz.
Today’s reading reminds us of those people who, in Jesus’ time, asked him for spectacular signs to prove his identity and authority. There are people today too who look for striking miracles, the spiritual equivalent, one might say, of wind, earthquakes and fire, but the Lord comes much more subtly into our lives and does so every single day.
And when he comes, he may be giving us things to do, as he did with Elijah. Let us listen for “the sound of sheer silence” and be ready for his gentle voice to whisper into our ear today. Unfortunately, we are bombarded with so much noise, much of it of our own choosing, that God finds it hard to get a word in – not to mention a whisper!
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