Monday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 13:31-35

Today we have two short parables which both reflect the experience of the early Church and also highlight features of the Kingdom. Considering when they were written, they exude an extraordinary level of trust and confidence in God’s power, a trust which was not disappointed although the results were not seen for generations.

The first is the parable of the mustard seed. The mustard seed is not actually the smallest seed known today, but it was the smallest seed used by Palestinian farmers and gardeners. Nor did it, strictly speaking, produce the largest of trees, but under favourable conditions, it could reach some 10 feet (or 3 metres) in height, big enough to provide shelter for birds.

The early Church, scattered in tiny communities largely cut off from each other and all over the Mediterranean area, must have felt very small and very vulnerable. The idea that in time it would become the central cultural influence all over Europe, Roman and barbarian, must have been beyond the wildest dreams of those early Christians. But that tiny seed did become a large tree providing shelter and comfort to millions and, from the Mediterranean, spread to every corner of the world.

The second parable about yeast in the dough is similar, but with a different nuance. In the Bible, yeast is usually a symbol of that which is evil and corrupt. Jesus warned his disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees (Mark 8:15). Similarly, at the Passover, the Jews eat unleavened bread, that is, bread free from leaven or yeast. In this parable, however, yeast is presented as a symbol of growth.

A tiny amount of yeast put into a large batch of dough produces striking results. (The 3 measures would produce enough to feed 100 people!) A dough batch, over a matter of hours, can swell to twice its original size as the process of fermentation takes place. The effects of the yeast, quite invisible, reach to every corner. Again, when this was written, that was not yet the case. The Church had made very little impact on its surrounding societies. But over the years, its influence grew until Christianity became the prevailing faith and cultural influence of the whole of Europe and then continued to spread out to other parts of the world.

This second parable points to a very important element in the life and work of the Church. It only exerts its influence when it is totally immersed in the society it wishes to reach and influence. And it can do this while still being only a small part of the whole. While never identifying itself with many of the prevailing ideologies and values of our societies, Christian communities must at the same time never separate themselves from their surroundings. There is a danger that we become inward-looking and spend most of our energies on the already converted. There is a strong evangelising element in this parable which cannot be ignored.

We need to remember that these are primarily parables of the Kingdom and not just of the Church, which is the imperfect sign of the work of the Kingdom going on in our world. And what these parables say applies first of all to the work of building the Kingdom in our world—it is a work which will go on inexorably, because it is based on truth, love and justice, and which slowly penetrates every corner of every society.

We can become aware to the point of depression at the amount of evil that we see around us and yet there is a gradual forward movement at all levels. But as the previous parable reminds us, the wheat has always to co-exist with the weeds—both inside and outside the Church, both inside and outside the Kingdom.

Today’s reading concludes with a repetition of the statement that Jesus only spoke to the crowds in parables. And Matthew sees this as the fulfilment of a prophetic text from the Old Testament. It is in fact a quotation from Psalm 78:

I will open my mouth to speak in parables… (Ps 78:2)

Read more

Friday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 13:54-58

Immediately following the discourse on the parables of the Kingdom, we see Jesus going to his home town of Nazareth. The New American Bible marks this as the beginning of a new section in Matthew’s Gospel which it calls “Jesus, the Kingdom and the Church”. It ends with chapter 18, which contains the fourth of the five discourses distinctive to Matthew.

As was his right, Jesus spent some time teaching in the synagogue at Nazareth. The townspeople were quite amazed to hear the local carpenter’s son speaking as he did:

Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power?

The New International Version says that the word usually translated “carpenter” could also mean “stonemason”. All his family were well known to the people and they knew he could not have gotten it from them (“Is not this the carpenter’s son?”), but they failed to apprehend the real origin of what he was saying and doing.

And, in the contrariness of human nature, they were so impressed that they rejected him! He was just too much. A perfect example of familiarity breeding contempt and blinding the eyes to the obvious. And Jesus sadly comments that a prophet can get a hearing everywhere except among his own. Probably all of us have had some experience, directly or indirectly, of this! We Irish, in particular, are well known for our ‘begrudgery’!

It might be helpful for us to see how often and where we ourselves have been guilty of this sort of behavior. How often have we written off what people we know very well, or think we know very well, suggest to us? It is important for us to realise that God can communicate with us through anyone at all, and we must never decide in advance who his spokespersons will be.

Finally, we are told that Jesus could not do in Nazareth any of the wonderful things he had done elsewhere “because of their unbelief”. His hands were tied. Jesus can only help those who are ready to be helped, those who are open to him. How open am I?

Read more

Wednesday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 13:44-46

Today we read the 5th and 6th of the Parables of the Kingdom which have basically the same message, but with some difference in emphasis. In the first of these today, a man unexpectedly discovers treasure in a field and quickly puts it back again. In ancient times it was common to hide treasure in the ground since there were no banks as we know them. There were, however, ‘bankers’, people who could handle money, probably closer to what we would call moneylenders. (Remember the parable of the talents, where the man who hid his talent was told he should have deposited it with a banker so that it could earn interest. Instead, he did what someone in this parable had done—buried it in a field.)

The finder then goes and quietly buys the field, selling everything he has in order to do so; the treasure is now his.

In the second parable, a jewel merchant comes across a magnificent pearl. Again, he sells all the lesser pearls he already has in order to gain possession of it.

These, Jesus says, are images of the Kingdom. Yet there is a significant difference between them. In the first parable, the man comes on the treasure purely by accident. He was not looking for anything like that. He just came across it while working in someone else’s field. That is the way that Christ can come into some people’s lives. They are living their lives with a greater or lesser degree of happiness and satisfaction and then, out of the blue, they are brought face to face with the Christian message. It can happen in so many ways and has been described in many accounts of conversion. The effect is to turn their whole life around.

In the second case, the man is looking for something. He has a very definite goal in mind—the perfect pearl. Similarly, a person can be looking for real meaning in their life. They may have tried many things already with only partial satisfaction. Then they come across the gospel of Jesus and they know that here is the answer they have been looking for. Everything else is abandoned as they focus entirely on following the Way of Jesus. They know that this is it.

Once we truly understand what it really means to live under the Lordship of God, once we have a full understanding of the vision of life that Jesus proposes, then everything else pales into insignificance. And, whatever enticements may come our way, we know that there is no other way to go. Jesus is the Way, Jesus is Truth, and Jesus is Life. We would not exchange his Way for anything.

Read more

Saturday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 14:1-12

Our reading is about the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among four of his sons. One of them, the Herod of today’s Gospel (also known as Herod Antipas), is called a “tetrarch”, meaning that he was the ruler of a fourth part, or a quarter of a territory.

Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD, that is, all during the life of Jesus and beyond. He is the same one who wanted to see Jesus, and whom Jesus called “that fox”. He is the one to whom Pilate sent Jesus during his trial. His rather painful and loathsome death is described in Acts (12:20-23). Although only a tetrarch, Matthew calls him ‘king’ because that was his popular title among the Galileans and also in Rome.

It seems that, by all accounts, Herod was a nasty man and, as revealed by today’s story, a weak and highly superstitious one as well. It is striking that, even today, many seemingly powerful people are made insecure by superstition (for example, needing to wear the same ‘lucky’ business suit or only drive or ride in a particular model of car).

Herod was hearing extraordinary things about Jesus and he came to the conclusion that Jesus was a reincarnation of John the Baptist whom he had executed for reasons he knew very well to be totally wrong. Now here was John’s spirit come back to taunt him, for he had killed God’s servant. This leads to a retelling by Matthew of the events which led to John’s death.

John, who was no respecter of persons, had openly criticised Herod for taking his half-brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, as his own partner. This was in clear contravention of the Mosaic Law. Herod’s fault was not so much in marrying a close relative, but for taking her as his wife when Philip was still living and, at the same time, putting away the wife he already had.

It was already an extraordinarily incestuous family. Herodias was a granddaughter of Herod the Great and therefore a niece of Herod Antipas. First, she married another uncle, Herod Philip, who lived in Rome. He was a half-brother, from a different mother, of Herod Antipas. It was on a visit to Rome that Herod Antipas persuaded Herodias to leave her husband for him. This, of course, was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law:

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. (Lev 18:16)

Herod, doubtless under pressure from Herodias, had wanted to rid himself of the embarrassment John was causing him, but was afraid to do anything because, in the eyes of the people, John was a prophet and spoke in the name of God.

Herodias got her chance on the occasion of Herod’s birthday. Knowing her new husband’s weaknesses, she got her daughter to dance in his presence. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the daughter was known as Salome. She later married her granduncle, another Philip, and a son of Herod the Great who ruled over the northern territories. He is mentioned by Luke.

Whether the dance was lascivious (as old Hollywood movies have suggested) we do not know, but Herod was greatly taken by the performance. In the presence of his courtiers and very likely having drunk too much wine, he promised the girl he would give her anything she wanted, even half his kingdom. Under the prompting of her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist delivered on a dish. Herod was clearly appalled and also afraid, but he had made his oath in the presence of a large number of people. He could not go back. John was decapitated and his head delivered as requested. His disciples came and buried the body and then went to tell Jesus.

There are echoes in this story of Jesus’ own death. He also died because of the moral weakness of Pilate, who gave in to the threats of the Jewish leaders for the sake of his own career. Jesus’ death, too, was the result of blind hatred. And when he died his disciples arranged to have him buried.

Undoubtedly John was a martyr. He died as a witness to truth and justice in the service of God. Herod, on the other hand, put expediency and his own convenience before truth and justice. He was in an immoral relationship with a woman and he gave in to what he felt would be the criticism and perhaps the derision of others. He had indeed made an oath, but it was one that, in the circumstances, he was obliged not to observe.

With whom do I identify more? John the Baptist, the fearless champion of truth and justice? Or Herod, the vacillator, the one who compromised truth and justice because of pressure of opinion and his own personal interests? I am sure all of us can think of times when we compromised with what we knew was the good or right thing to do and took the line of less resistance.

John is an example to us of integrity. And like him, we have, each one of us, been called in our own way to be prophets, to be spokespersons for God’s way. It may not always be easy.

Read more

Saturday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 26:11-16,24

Today we have a continuation of yesterday’s reading about the reaction to Jeremiah’s prophecy about the future fate of the Temple and Jerusalem. We saw yesterday how Jeremiah had been arrested by the religious leaders after he had warned that the Temple and Jerusalem would be reduced to ruins if the people did not change their ways. His words sounded sacrilegious to his hearers, and now judgement is being passed on him.

In a verse that comes between the two passages, but not in either reading, we are told that the leaders of Judah were told of the situation and held a formal trial at the New Gate of the Temple. The priests and prophets told the leaders and the people gathered round that Jeremiah deserved to die because of what he had said against the Temple and the holy city. His accusers pass sentence on him even before Jeremiah has had a chance to defend himself.

When Jeremiah does get the opportunity to speak, he says that everything he told them came directly from the Lord. They were not his own thoughts. Once again he tells them that they have only to change their ways and submit themselves to God’s law and the threatened disaster will not take place. Jeremiah is in their hands and he says they can do what they like with him. But if they execute him, they will have innocent blood on their hands:

…for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.

This statement produces a division between the court officials and the people over the religious leaders, the priests and the prophets. The former say that Jeremiah does not deserve to die because what he has said he has spoken in God’s name.

What happens next in the passage is not contained in our reading (see Jer 26:17-23). First, some of the elders remind the people that the prophet Micah had made prophecies very similar to those of Jeremiah, but he was not condemned to death. Micah had said that:

Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the mountain of the temple a wooded height. (Mic 3:12)

But then we are told of another prophet by the name of Uriah, who was preaching the same message as Jeremiah. When the king wanted to eliminate him, he fled into Egypt, but he was pursued, brought back, executed and dumped in a common grave.

However, Jeremiah was rescued from certain death by some high-powered intervention. Ahikam, son of Shaphan, was a highly-placed official, a scribe in the court of King Josiah and always well-disposed to Jeremiah. He was also the father of Gedaliah, who would become governor of Jerusalem after its destruction in 586 BC, and would also befriend Jeremiah.

Here we have an example of how the prophet’s integrity is rewarded, although it might not always turn out like this. Whatever the consequences, Jeremiah had to speak out what he believed was the Lord’s message. Quite unknown to him, circumstances worked in his favour and preserved his life.

This is an example of one’s life being in the hands of the Potter. Jeremiah would die when his time had come and not before. Neither he nor anyone else could change that. Clearly, Yahweh had some more work for him to do.

For us it is the same. In our lives, too, God’s Providence can work in strange ways and use very unexpected instruments. Let us today count our blessings and recall how many times God’s love has been experienced through surprising and unexpected interventions.

Read more

Friday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 26:1-9

Today’s reading from Jeremiah is in historical or biographical form. Some believe these passages may come from the prophet Baruch. It tells of Jeremiah’s discourse to the people warning them about disasters which will come unless they change their ways. His message will not be well received by the priests and people.

The scene takes place at the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. The Hebrew term indicates the beginning of his first official (calendar) year as king, rather than the time of his immediate succession. This places it in the year 609-608 BC. Jeremiah is told by Yahweh to go to the temple court, perhaps near what was called the New Gate, and to speak to all those who had come from the surrounding countryside of Judah to worship. He is to say exactly what Yahweh has told him. Through his prophet, Yahweh promises that, if they listen to Jeremiah and change their ways, he will not bring disaster on them.

The Lord’s warning comes in the clearest language. If each person listens and turns back from their evil ways, the Lord may repent of the “disaster” he planned to inflict on them. On the other hand, if they will not observe the Law and listen to the words of his prophet, the Temple will end up like Shiloh, and the city of Jerusalem will become a curse word among the nations of the earth.

Shiloh was an ancient shrine, which was now in ruins. The sanctuary there was apparently destroyed by the Philistines. In the first book of Samuel we read:

…Israel was defeated, and they fled, everyone to his home. There was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured…
(1 Sam 4:10-11)

Jerusalem, says Yahweh, will meet the same fate.

Not surprisingly, this message did not go down well with those who heard it. The priests and prophets seized Jeremiah and threatened him with death. The phrase they used described the ultimate penalty for those who seriously violated the law of Moses. The ‘prophets’ here are those false prophets who gave upbeat prophecies, putting unrealistic hopes in the people’s minds and glossing over their wrongdoings.

All were horrified and enraged that the Temple should become deserted like Shiloh and the city. These were absolutely unthinkable ideas. How could God allow such a thing to happen?

But it would, and very soon. And it would happen again about 40 years after the death of Jesus—never to recover. St Augustine had similar feelings when he saw Rome (for him the centre of the world and its civilisation) fall to the ‘barbarian’ invaders.

Once again we see the dangerous vocation of the prophet. He is blessed with a special insight and he can see where the behaviour of people is leading them. He gives warnings, but they fall on deaf ears. Even worse, they are rejected and the prophet is seen as someone to be gotten rid of as an enemy. But the prophet has no option but to continue speaking out.

What makes the matter more complex is that there will be confusion between true and false prophets and often the beguiling messages of the latter will be listened to. Careful discernment is needed to distinguish the genuine prophet from those who either lull us into complacency or, on the other hand, tell us that “the end of the world is nigh”.

Read more

Thursday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 13:47-53

We come to the seventh and last of the Parables of the Kingdom in this discourse. Of course, we need to remind ourselves that Jesus did not speak them one after the other as they are presented here. They are the work of the author’s editing, putting matters with a common theme into one place.

Today’s Kingdom parable points to the end of time. There will come a time for the end of the Kingdom on earth, and then those who belong and those who do not will be clearly distinguished and separated from each other. That is something which cannot and should not be done now as the parable of the weeds indicated.

When will that end be? Of course, we do not know—fortunately! But one thing we do know is that our own end will come in a relatively short time, even if we live to be 100. And when that happens, it will be clear to God, if not to others, whether we are leaving this world ‘inside’ the Kingdom or ‘outside’ it, that is, whether we are with God or against him.

How can we make sure we are in the right place? By making sure that I get confession and the ‘last sacraments’ before I die? Don’t bet on it! The best guarantee is to enroll in the Kingdom today and every day, to live, with Christ’s help, in the way he has shown us. If we do that on a day-to-day basis, the future will take care of itself and there is no need to worry.

The whole discourse is then brought to an end by Jesus asking his disciples if they understand what he has been saying, and they say they do. Jesus then gives a description of the truly learned disciple. He is a “scribe”, an interpreter of God’s Word, who can bring from his storeroom “what is new and what is old”, someone who has both the wealth of the Old Testament, as well as the vision of the New.

The Jerusalem Bible comments:

“This picture of a ‘scribe who has become a disciple’ sums up the whole ideal of the evangelist and may well be a self-portrait.”

The author of this Gospel is clearly a Jew who has become a Christian.

As Jesus said earlier, he had not come to destroy the traditions of the ‘old’ Hebrew covenant, but to fulfil it with a new covenant. He would equally reject those who abandoned the Hebrew tradition, as well as those who rejected the new insights which he brought. This is a process which goes on today in the Christian faith. There is a continuing and creative tension between what has been handed down in the past, and the new understandings which arise with changing circumstances. We all have to be both conservative and progressive at the same time!

Read more

Thursday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 18:1-6

Today, Jeremiah visits a potter. Three chapters, of which today’s reading is the beginning, consist of lessons that God taught Jeremiah at a potter’s workshop. The date is believed to be before 605 BC. The message is clear: as the potter has total control over his clay and makes of it what he wills, so is the Lord master of his people. They are like clay in his hands.

Once again we see how the prophet uses a symbol from daily life to give a message about God’s relationship with his people. (Remember on Monday of this Week 17, we had the image of the loincloth.)

The Jerusalem Bible makes the following comment:

The time of this enacted parable is before 598 BC, since the great disaster (the exile into Babylon) has not yet taken place. Symbolic gesture had accompanied the preaching of the earliest prophets, of Samuel for example, or Ahijah of Shiloh, and of the false prophet Zedekiah. This procedure was not simply a dramatisation of the spoken prophecy: it was a pre-enactment of the event threatened or promised, in such a way that the event itself became as inevitable as the gesture was irrevocable. (edited)

The same phenomenon recurs among the ‘writing’ prophets. Hosea’s whole mission is inextricable from a symbolic action which in turn is his private predicament, namely, his difficult marriage. With Isaiah, the symbolic gesture is found less frequently (see Isiah chapter 20 and the symbolic names he gives to his children).

Jeremiah performs, or interprets, many symbolic actions: the almond tree and the pot, the hidden loincloth (though this seems only to have been enacted in vision), the potter, the jug, the figs, the yoke and the buying of the field. To this list we may add that his life itself is a symbol and that his sufferings (though he gives this no emphasis) identify him in advance with the nation itself about to suffer, and make him foreshadow the suffering servant of Yahweh.

Later, Ezekiel was to perform more symbolic actions (see Ezekiel chapter 4): the brick ‘besieged’, the rationed food, the hair, the mime of the exile, the pot and the two sticks. He too, like Hosea, interprets his personal experience symbolically: his illness, his wife’s death, his dumbness and recovery.

Symbolism of this kind is also found in the New Testament for example, the fig tree cursed by Jesus and the prophecy of Agabus in Acts (21:11) in which, by a symbolic gesture, he prophesies the future arrest of Paul.

In today’s reading Jeremiah is told to go down to the potter’s house. It was probably situated on the slopes of the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near what was known as the Potsherd Gate (perhaps because broken and discarded pottery was piled there).

The prophet sees the potter working at his wheel. The wheel consisted of two horizontal stone disks. Both were attached to an upright shaft, one end of which was sunk permanently into the ground. The potter would spin the lower wheel with his foot and work the clay on the upper wheel which was also turning.

Jeremiah noticed that if the vessel being made turned out wrong, which happened often, the potter would start all over again to get exactly the shape he wanted. It is worth noting that the Hebrew word for ‘going wrong’ (i.e. “spoiled”) here is the same as that describing the ruined loincloth in Monday’s reading.

The message is then given. Can God not do with his people just as the potter does?

Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

It is an image found elsewhere in Scripture. And the Hebrew word for ‘potter’ is translated elsewhere as ‘Maker’ with reference to God.

The lesson tells us a number of things. First, that man proposes, but God disposes. We can make as many plans as we like in our lives, but in the end, we are always the subject of forces totally beyond our control. This applies to all, rich and poor, powerful and weak.

Second, this does not mean that we are to go through life passively and fatalistically and just let things happen to us. We cannot just write off things as “fate” or say that “I am an unlucky person”.

Finally, what it does mean is that we are to actively seek what God wants from us in life, and to actively accept what clearly is his will for us. Life and freedom and peace consist in making God’s will and our will to be in perfect harmony. I want what he wants. As Paul puts it, writing to the Romans:

Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? (Rom 9:21)

God may be a potter, but he is a good one and wants to produce the very best product possible. For that, though, he needs my cooperation. I cannot make life in the way that I want it, but by allowing myself to be moulded by him, I can be all that I can be.

Read more

Wednesday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 15:10,16-21

The call of Jeremiah is renewed. We have today the third of Jeremiah’s so-called ‘confessions’, in which he bares his soul to God. It includes two responses from the Lord, of which part of one is included in today’s reading.

Jeremiah is experiencing a spiritual crisis half-way through his ministry and is feeling very sorry for himself. Here, God, far from issuing sympathetic noises, tells him to get his act together and to stop his orgy of self-pity. He calls Jeremiah back to a new conversion and renews, in almost the same words, the commands and promises of the prophet’s original call. (For a helpful picture of Jeremiah and his difficulties, see the Introduction to the Prophets in the New Jerusalem Bible.)

The tone is set by the opening words:

Woe is me…

The reason for Jeremiah’s moaning is that he has become, as a prophet, a source of strife and dissension. He regrets that his mother gave birth to him to have to face such problems in his prophetic calling. He sees himself merely as a source of strife and division everywhere.

He says:

I have not lent, nor have I borrowed…

And yet he has all this trouble, everyone is against him. We know how lending or borrowing money can be a serious source of friction and even violence between lenders and borrowers.

The people causing him so much trouble are those he is accusing of being unfaithful and disobedient to God, but they are being allowed to get away with it. Where is God’s protection for his prophet? In case his God is not aware of what he is going through and who is the real cause of his troubles, he says:

…know that on your account I suffer insult. (Jer 15:15)

He says it does not make sense, because he has been so faithful to God and his Law:

Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart…

He had made God’s word and God’s law his very own; he had assimilated them into his very being. For he had been called in Yahweh’s name; he belonged to Yahweh in a special way.

He never had anything to do with “merrymakers” (‘scoffers’ in some translations), the rich and the arrogant who felt they were above any law, including God’s. They were those who mocked at and rejected the message he brought. Under God’s constraint, he held himself aloof:

…under the weight of your hand I sat alone…

This means that he never married and he had few friends because, “with [God’s] hand” on him, he felt that that was part of his calling. Part of his loneliness was his distancing himself with indignation at the sins of Judah. The prophet’s lot can be a lonely one.

Why, then, does he have to suffer such continuous pain from a wound that will not heal?

…you are to me like a deceitful brook,
like waters that fail.

God has become for him a treacherous brook, whose waters are inconstant. Jeremiah here, with a hint of sarcasm, accuses God of being undependable, in contrast to the Lord’s own earlier description of himself as a “fountain of living water”. Earlier (see Thursday of Week 16), Yahweh had said:

…my people…
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water… (Jer 2:13)

Yahweh then replies to Jeremiah’s ‘confession.’ The Lord commands Jeremiah to repent, then encourages him and renews his call. If Jeremiah is willing to return then God will happily take him back into his service. But there is a condition. He must speak ‘noble’, not despicable thoughts like those he has just been uttering:

…you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,
you shall serve as my mouth.

Only then can he truly act as the spokesperson of God. Those negative thoughts will come back to him, but he must not go back to them.

If he follows the Lord’s command, then the Lord guarantees that he will be strong enough to face any opposition from the people:

…a fortified wall of bronze…

But there is no promise that life will be any easier. On the contrary:

…they will fight against you,
but they shall not prevail over you…

Why?

…for I am with you
to save you and deliver you…

And this is a solemn pledge “says the Lord.”

Persecution and rejection are almost inevitable for anyone who takes a prophetic stance in the Church or outside it. The prophet, by his or her calling, calls into question the conventional wisdom of a society or church.

It is the role of the prophet, not so much to tell the future, as to point out the direction in which the community should be going—what it should be doing and what it should not be doing, and what the consequences of its actions are likely to be.

Sometimes the prophet, in order to be heard, may speak in very clear and blunt language. This is not likely to enhance his popularity with those who become the object of his attacks or criticisms!

Jesus told us to love unconditionally and to forgive forever, but he never, never said that we would be loved in return. On the contrary, he said that among the ‘blessed’ would be included those who suffered persecution for the sake of the gospel.

Jeremiah does not seem to have understood this fully. He felt that because of his loyalty to God he should have been protected by God and respected by the people. He told God this in no uncertain terms. In reply he was told that, as a prophet, he would continue to be scorned and rejected, but that he would be given the strength to carry on. We cannot expect anything different.

Read more

Tuesday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 13:36-43

Today we have an interpretation of the parable of the wheat and the weeds (or darnel). Matthew begins by telling us that Jesus left the crowds and went to “the house”. This is the nameless place where Jesus is at home with his disciples. As suggested earlier, it is the place for the ‘insiders’, those who are close to Jesus in the sense of following him and accepting his way; it is also a symbol of where communities of Christians gathered in the early Church. Here Jesus is alone with his own disciples, away from the crowd.

His disciples ask for an explanation of the parable about the wheat and the weeds. Likely enough, what follows is less the actual words of Jesus than a reflection of the early Christian community applying the parable to their own situation. The parable, which basically makes one point, is now turned into an allegory where each part has a symbolic meaning of its own:

• The sower is Jesus himself
• The field is the world
• The good seed represents the subjects of the Kingdom
• The weeds are the subjects of the evil one
• The enemy who sowed the weeds is the devil
• The harvest is the end of the world
• The reapers are the angels

Whereas in the original parable, the emphasis seems to be on the necessary and unavoidable coexistence of good and bad within the Christian community, the emphasis here is more on what will happen at the end: the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the good.

Let us pray that we may be found among the good seed of the Kingdom. We do that by opening ourselves fully to Jesus our King and Lord and following the way he asks us to follow.

Read more