Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 17, 2008
(Is 56: 1, 6-7; Rm 11: 13-15, 29-32; Mt 15: 21-28)
Saint Paul obviously thought very hard about how it could be possible that the Chosen People, whom God had sustained and nurtured through the centuries, might reject his Son, the greatest sign of his love. Saint Paul affirms in this letter that this is a temporary situation, and eventually all Israel will be saved (see 11: 26). For him it made an odd kind of sense that the Jewish people would have to pass through a time of not accepting Jesus, so that everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, might be placed on an equal footing as recipients of God’s mercy. In his deep thinking about this, Saint Paul also worried about his Gentile followers becoming proud of themselves in their possession of faith in Jesus. In a part of the letter that has been omitted in today’s reading, Saint Paul uses a parable to make his view of the situation more clear. He compares Gentile Christians to a wild olive branch grafted onto the cultivated olive tree of the ancient Israelite faith. True, an old branch had to be cut out to make this grafting possible, but that should not make the new branch proud of itself, rather it should make it quite humble. As he says, “remember you are not sustaining the root, rather the root is sustaining you.” Saint Paul also seems to be putting Gentile Christians in their place in another, more subtle way with this analogy. Coming from an area of the world in which olives were a staple of life, Saint Paul and his first readers would have known that the horticultural situation he was describing was somewhat backward. Usually, it doesn’t work to graft a wild olive branch onto a cultivated tree. That doesn’t make for particularly good fruit. More commonly, a cultivated branch would be grafted onto a wild root. That would make a vigorous plant yielding much fruit. Saint Paul points out the anomaly of their situation to his Gentile readers, calling it “contrary to nature” and he implies that it should make them all the more humbly thankful to God for his great kindness. We might meditate in humility and joy this week on the sustenance that we continue to draw from the living root of Israel’s traditions. After all, we call Abraham our father in faith, not because of any blood relation with him, but purely through God’s generosity. This fact should make us ever more eager to bear good fruit in due season.
(Your comments on these reflections are welcome at jkupin@stpaulsofprinceton.org.)
|
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 24, 2008
(Is 22: 19-23; Rm 11: 33-36; Mt 16: 13-20)
In Chapters 9-11 of Romans, Saint Paul explains his view of the place of Jews and Gentiles in the plan of salvation. This section of the letter is very dense in quotations from the Hebrew scriptures, and this seems odd at first, in that this part of the letter seems mostly to address Gentile Christians. Why quote so often from the Hebrew Scriptures when addressing Gentiles? The answer seems to be that Saint Paul is taking great pains to show that what he is saying is consistent with Scripture. It would make most sense to take this approach if the Gentiles being addressed were among the class of people called “God fearers.” These were people who followed some Jewish ways and revered the Jewish Scriptures, although they were not themselves Jews. It seems that there were a significant number of such people in the Roman empire, and that many were attracted to Christianity. The quotation in today’s reading is typical of Saint Paul’s usage. The words “For who has known the mind of God…” come from a beautifully lyrical part of the book of the prophet Isaiah, called the Book of Consolation, which responds joyfully to the end of the exile in Babylon. The return of the exiles was promoted by Cyrus, the king of Persia, after he conquered the fading Babylonian empire. Cyrus had some enlightened ideas for his day and did not approve of the wholesale relocation of conquered peoples that was part of the master plan of the Babylonians. It is one of those surprising events that sometimes occur within what we think of as “secular” history but which nonetheless fulfill God’s plan. Saint Paul felt a similar sense of wonder at the way that events were working out in his own age. He believed that Jews and Gentiles were currently in the midst of very different dynamics in their relationship with God, but they would eventually be equally recipients of God’s favor. Saint Paul is astounded that God was finding a way to make this happen. It is as if we are all watching an epic film with several main characters, each caught up in a different plot complication, and in the middle of the movie Saint Paul can confidently assure us that the ending will be a happy one. When our own lives seem to caught up in bizarre plot twists, maybe reading these words of Saint Paul might help restore our own hope and trust in the author of history.
(Your comments on these reflections are welcome at jkupin@stpaulsofprinceton.org.)
|
