Faith

Enlightenment not entitlement; why camels can and we cant – Tuesday, 20th week in ordinary time- Matthew 19: 23- 30

The Gospel of today seems to take off from where the rich young man left, but in reality it must be seen as one composite text.  At the heart of this text (19: 16- 30) lies the million dollar question of the rich young man. He wants to DO SOMETHING to enter into eternal life. He sought the one exclusive good work that would give him eternal life. Jesus’ answer, as we know, left him devastated for Jesus hits him where it hurts the most,”sell everything, give it to the poor and follow me”.

For the Jews, wealth was a sign of blessing from God. The mandate comes from the book of Proverbs 10:22 which says, “The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it”. Wealth was a clear sign of divine favour if one kept the commandments of the law, which the rich young man kept.

So what then is the problem? The rich young man desired salvation but he wished to ‘obtain it’. For him, salvation could be earned by doing something; that’s why he asks Jesus, “What must I do?”

For Jesus, the commandments had a vertical and horizontal dimension of love. It was not so much in the doing rather than in the being, that salvation could be obtained. Salvation is not obtained by performing a unique or special deed, nor is it a ‘claim’ made by virtue of religious appropriation. Salvation is a free gift! Here in lies the mistake of this rich young man.

The Pharisees had smugly come to believe that they would be saved by virtue that they were Jews or that they had religiously kept the law. They did things to obtain salvation; they failed to live it.  It is this foolishness that Jesus highlights by the use of an oriental exaggeration; a colourful image for an insuperable difficulty and He borrows it from a prevalent thought. The Persians also had a similar exaggeration when they spoke of an ‘elephant passing through the eye of the needle.’ The people at the time of Jesus simply picked a more familiar animal to compliment this oriental exaggeration.

Spread the love ♥
11      
11
Shares
Continue Reading
Faith

Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, by Heinrich Hofmann

Invitation not information- Monday, 20th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 19: 16- 22

There are many unnamed characters in the Gospels; the Syro-Phoenician woman, the men from whom demons were cast out in Gennesaret or the father of the boy from whom Jesus cast out a demon at the foot of Mount Tabor.

Today we read of another unnamed person whose identity is revealed in dribs and drabs all through the seven verse pericope. The Gospel begins by calling him, ‘someone’, and then reveals he is male, young and finally that he is rich.  That makes him a rich young man.

The rich young nameless man has a lot of things going well for him; or so it seems. He is rich; plousioi in Greek, indicated that the man was rich enough to live properly on his income that was derived from land that he had hired to tenant farmers. This puts him ahead of the peneis or the working class who formed 70 per cent of the population and even more than the ptokhoi, the lowest class of people who could barely eke out a living and comprised of 28 per cent of the population. That put our young man in the two per cent creamy layer of society.

The rich man was also young; but more than that, he was ‘a man’. Misogynistic as this may sound, you have to understand this statement purely with a first century patriarchal mind set. A Jewish male, woke up each morning, to the crowing rooster. As his feet touched the ground he would faithfully utter a prayer from the Jewish prayer book, the Siddur. In this prayer, he would thank God for not making him a goy or Gentile, a salve or a woman. These three categories of people were deeply frowned upon and looked down on in first century Jewish society.

So the young man ‘seemingly’ has a lot going for him. To his roll call of material and physical assets, he also has an enviable religious life. He has maintained all the five commandments that Jesus sites from the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) including the additional command to love ones neighbour as oneself.

Spread the love ♥
8      
8
Shares
Continue Reading
Art/ Heritage

A DOG’S TALE: ‘Jesus and the Canaanite woman’ (1617) by Pieter Lastman

We are in the 17th century. The Renaissance period of art has reached the highs of glorious perfection. However the artists of the time are not so content with just perfection. They seek to complicate and intensify it. Thus emerges the Mannerist school of art. It emphasizes on imbalance, tension, dramatic motion, anatomical distortion and the beauty of spatial relations. Adhering to this style is today’s painting by the Dutch artist, Pieter Lastman (1583 – 1633).

The soul of an artwork banks on the established relation between the artist and the viewer. A clever painter creates the scene focusing on the climax moment of the conflict within the narrative. He then leaves it to the expertise of the viewer to re-construct the story. This is within the frame work of its past and the future without violating the heart of time. Pieter Lastman plays with this precept in today’s painting.

It is an image that proceeds from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15. To the right, in the foreground stands the Evangelist himself. He peers intently at the viewer, clutching his sealed and exquisite reference book. His feet thrust forward, inviting us to accompany him on this Gospel tour.  

Right behind the Evangelist are hordes of people positioned against the architectural setting of the Temple of Jerusalem. To his immediate right is a stately figure with plumes on his hat. This places us in context. Jesus has just had a tiff with the Teachers of the Law over the Pharisaic tradition of purity. After a blatant and ‘offensive’ response, he ‘withdraws to the regions of Tyre and Sidon.’

Spread the love ♥
11      
11
Shares
Continue Reading
Faith

When Jesus carried Jonathan. Saturday, 19th Week in ordinary time- Matthew 19: 13-15

The chatter about this new rabbi, Jesus, had reached an excited pitch in the town of Thamna, and Sapphira rushed in to tell Bernice what everyone was talking about. Bernice was unconcerned; her priority, as she rocked her crying baby, was to get him to quieten down. ‘If only’, she thought to herself, ‘she could get the new Rabbi in town to calm this baby who would not stop bawling’.

Three weeks of sleepless nights had made her a wreck. Sapphira would have done well to carry her baby for a while, instead she kept chattering away about Jesus; the excitement in Sapphira’s already shrill voice only made the baby cry more.

But Sapphira was not the only one excited about Jesus. News had trickled out of Capernaum; a girl, the daughter of Jarius the synagogue ruler, had been raised to life by Jesus. Sapphira‘s mouth never exhausted and even more now. All that Bernice heard was, ‘Jesus did this and Jesus did that’. All Bernice wished for was if Jesus could just get this baby to stop bawling; she needed the rest.

Thamna’s market place was abuzz too. The talk that hit the market square was dominated by the distinct compassionate character of this Rabbi, Jesus. He spoke with authority they said, unlike their own religious leaders and many had begun to regard Him as the Messiah.

The Pharisees were not too pleased with the developments; rumour had it that they were plotting a way to get rid of Him. That accounted for the hushed tones, in the market square for no one wanted to offend the rabbis. The escalating price of olives, which dominated yesterday’s news, was overshadowed by the story of the child from whom a demoniac had been cast off. Could this really be the Messiah?

Spread the love ♥
55      
55
Shares
Continue Reading
Faith

Concession not a command – Friday, 19th week in ordinary time- Matthew 19: 3-12

With His teaching on community ethics now done and dusted, Jesus leaves His ‘headquarters’ in Galilee and heads south to Judea. This incident in today’s Gospel takes place several months prior to His final trip to Jerusalem, where He will be crucified.

Having already set in motion the plan to kill Jesus, the Pharisees are now stacking up evidence to use against Him. They have come to ‘test’ Him. Make no mistake, they are not testing His ‘knowledge’ but trying to drive a wedge into the growing number of His disciples with the content of His answer.

So what’s so deadly about this contentious question? The question thrown at Jesus is about legality; can one legally divorce one’s wife for any cause? This was a catch twenty two; damned if you do answer and damned if you don’t, for this question already had a Jewish community divided down the middle. At the heart of this issue were two rabbinic schools of thought. The school of Hillel held that divorce could be granted over bad cooking or because of the wife leaving her head uncovered and to say nothing of the ‘must happen’, inevitable; a fight with the in-laws.

The school of Shammai, however, held that divorce could be granted only in the case of moral impurity such as adultery. We have no idea which school of thought was behind the question posed to Jesus but we can be sure of this: He understood the implications of even appearing to take any particular side.

Jesus was not here to take sides but to go back to the truth. In answering the Pharisees, He passes a snide remark at His detractors to expose their hypocrisy. If this answer should be known to anyone, it should most certainly begin with these learned Pharisees who seem to ‘have not read’ the scriptures.

Jesus takes the discussion to where it all began; the Garden of Eden. He takes a step back in time, even before the matter found reference in Deuteronomy 24.  For Jesus the bigger picture begins with what God ordained. Marriage is His idea, not ours and so we have no business to alter, delete, subtract or alienate.

Interestingly, Jesus is doing some serious course correction. While the issue in question seem to be divorce, the real issue lies with the understanding of marriage. That is why Jesus re-visits the first human marriage.  

Spread the love ♥
7      
7
Shares
Continue Reading