Eighth Sunday in OT (A) 2.03.2014
José Enrique Ruiz de Galarreta S.J.
Commentary on the Sunday
Readings - Is 49:14-15
The most common opinion today is that this book was
written by an anonymous prophet (who claims to follow the school of Isaiah
)about the year 539, a date on which the Persian king Cyrus will conquer
Babylon thus ending the empire of the Chaldeans. Cyrus will follow the politics
of tolerance and will allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and reconstruct the
Temple.
These events
are interpreted by the prophet: the deportation to Babylon and the destruction
of Jerusalem are punishments of God for the sins, the infidelity of Israel. But
they are punishments so that Israel may repent and return to Him. The anger of
Yahweh against his people does not last because he loves them. And here the
text we read today with its beautiful message is included: even though a mother should forget her child, I
will never forget you.
THE
LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS
It is a fragment that has to be understood in the
context of the whole of this part of the letter, in which Paul sends them a
reprimand for the many deficiencies there are in their church. In any case it
is not very clear why the theme of judgment is introduced. Perhaps because some
people, motivated by purely human wisdom (as is apparent in the previous
paragraphs and we have read on the preceding Sundays)were passing unfavorable
judgments against Paul. Paul abandons himself to the judgment of God and refers
to a universally valid criterion: what matters is not the judgment of men but
fidelity to Jesus.
THE
SERMON ON THE MOUNT - Mt.6:24-34
Once more, this paragraph is very useful, for besides
its message, it shows us how to read and to understand the way of life of
Jesus. Last Sunday we read the piece on turning the other cheek; we know the
comparison of the camel and the eye of a needle, of filtering mosquitoes and
swallowing camels, about cutting off one’s hand or taking out your eye...And so many other images Jesus uses to
impress the audience and have his message stay in their minds. The
exaggerations are the image, the wrapping which makes the message striking.
It is a good
example of the general style of the Sermon on the Mount, a group of teachings
of Jesus brought together in a conventional setting and hardly organized (for
our taste).
Keeping all this in mind the text has three parts:
1. No one can serve
two masters... You cannot serve God and money.
2. The images of the
birds and the lilies.
3. Seek first the
Kingdom and its justice.
It is clear
that the first is a saying of Jesus, perfectly in accord with the teachings of Jesus on money (parable of
the Rich Fool, of the Rich Fool and Lazarus...), while the second and the third
speak directly of the exclusivity of the Kingdom based on the images of the
birds and the lilies. There is no connection between the first and those that
follow, but the writer has placed them in this way based on the criterion of
the rest of the Sermon, which may seem to us rather chaotic.
REFLECTION
We are used to drawing a conclusion about the lilies
and the birds which seems to me hardly adequate. As though God would put
flowers and birds as an example of the Providence of God, who takes care of all
beings and frees them of worries. This is a romantic vision of nature, good
only for children’s story books. God cares for the flowers, which invariably
dry up whenever nobody looks after them. God cares for the birds which have no
storage but they live their lives desperately looking for their food, they are
at the mercy of predators and are destined like everything that lives to die - perhaps
of hunger, perhaps violently.
No, these
phrases cannot refer to providence, to trust in a God who worries about us even
when we do not work or care for our lives, for our health... Jesus is not a
simpleton, believer in providence, who hopes that bread will fall from heaven.
Jesus is a carpenter who earned his living working with his father for thirty
years, and when he walked along the roads, lived off what he was given; he had
an administrator, ( Judas for sure) who looked after their income, and bought
their victuals in the villages along the
road (episode of the Samaritan woman).
Nor is it
true that God looks after us and so nothing disagreeable will occur as some
psalms seem to say. Jesus will die on the cross and his Father will not save
him from it. The meaning of all this is in the final phrase: “Seek first the
Kingdom and its justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” I would
even dare to say that we would find the complete meaning in this way: Seek
first his Kingdom and its justice, and the providential adornments are due to
the contagion of the Old Testament to which Matthew has made us so accustomed
to.
Jesus is
speaking of preferences, of which is the most important of our values. The word
“values” demands the word “scale”. It is not a matter of which things we value
more than others. What do we value more, health or entertainment, children or
earning more money, fidelity or advantage...? Jesus uses the image of “serving
a master”, because our values are not only (nor perhaps chiefly, acts of the
will, choices,) but giving in to an attraction, slavery. Seen thus, Jesus sees
clearly that some things attract us more than others, and that between money
and the kingdom we are far more attracted to money.
“You cannot
serve both God and money.” SERVE, have as a master. Two ways of living are
being compared: for myself – for others. This is well understood with the old
(and renewed by Jesus) precept: you must love your neighbor AS YOURSELF. Because
it is taken for granted that everyone loves himself, seeks his own good; what
is proposed here is to extend that love to others, and that is to serve God,
that is the Kingdom, that is to take that value as the highest.
The highest
is the Kingdom. All else comes after that, only after that. Then we will know
that food, clothing, the vast major part of the things that worry us so much,
are far less important, and will worry us much less. Jesus is not saying that
food, clothing... don’t matter; he is telling us how much they matter, he is
telling us what is most important, fundamental, and what comes after that, the
rest, what is “added on.”
Undoubtedly,
what Jesus proposes is a new scale of values: what comes first and what
afterwards. We clearly value what Jesus proposes, we value the Kingdom, but
above everything else?
All this
should not take us unquestionably to a spirituality of renunciation, as many
ascetics believed who thought of “fleeing the world” physically as a way of
following Jesus. What we hold on to is not fleeing but making everything serve
the purpose of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is not built by fleeing the world but by doing everything in the spirit of
Jesus. We do not serve two masters when we buy, exchange, procreate, enjoy... All
that can be to serve God. The spirituality of renunciation, of flight may be
the right one for some, but obviously not for the majority of people.
“What is
added.” What is added is that when we direct all things to the purpose of
the Kingdom, those very things take on a
better value. When things are enjoyed and the only and absolute purpose is to
enjoy, we do not discover the greater enjoyment. Here the parable of the
treasure applies very well, and that of the salt: se discover more delight in
everything when we direct it to the Kingdom than when we only seek to enjoy it
for itself; this leads to the emptiness (hastio) of meaninglessness. The heart
of the human being is made for more. And the kingdom is precisely to offer (and
exact) more.
It is not
accidental that the beatitudes, the basic law of Jesus, are not drawn up as
laws, or as requirements; “you would be more happy if...”
To paraphrase
the last phrase of our text: Seek first the Kingdom and its justice and
everything else will “taste” much better.
PROFESSION
OF FAITH IN THE KINGDOM
I believe that those who share are happy, those who
live on little, those who are not slaves of their desires.
I believe they are happy who know how to suffer, who
find in You and in their brothers consolation and know how to comfort those who
suffer.
I believe those are happy who know how to forgive,
those who allow themselves to be forgiven by their brothers and sisters, those
who live your forgiveness with pleasure.
I believe that the pure of heart are happy, those who
see the best in others, those who live in sincerity and in truth.
I believe those are happy who sow peace, those who
treat all as your children, those who sow respect and harmony.
I believe they are happy who work for a more just and
more holy world and they are still happier if they have to suffer to make it
happen.
I believe they are happy who do not hold in their barns their stocks of wheat of this life that
ends, but who sow it without measure, so that it produces the fruit of life
that does not end.
And I believe all this because I believe in Jesus of
Nazareth, the Son, the man full of the Spirit, Jesus Christ, the Lord.
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