October

There is a very powerful truth-telling device, as we saw two Sundays ago: the device called story.

Our brains love stories because they include events with “before-and-after” built right in, along with suspense, action, relationships and intercommunication; not to mention emotion and disappointment and elation and so on. These elements are the most like daily experience of any device we have in the language.

So, Sunday we will hear several tales of a vineyard.

The first tale tells about “a friend” who carefully built a vinery: clearing stones, building a watchtower, planting the choicest vines (First Reading). He even "hewed out a wine press." But the vineyard yielded bad grapes. God tells the people of Jerusalem and Judah in vivid language that they themselves are this vineyard, and that he is going to destroy the it and trample it down. They would not let God's love grow up among them.

In the Gospel Jesus embroiders this tale. In just one sentence he handles the part about planting a vineyard, digging out a wine press, building a tower. Then he goes further. In his version he says that the owner rents his rich vineyard to tenants, as was the custom, and he trusts them to raise choice grapes for him. In due season he sends his servants to collect the yield—which must have been great because the tenants dishonestly want to keep everything including the vineyard. But the tenants beat or stone or even kill the servants!

Next, a surprising, seemingly implausible twist to the tale. The owner decides to send his own son, thinking that the tenants will surely respect him. Would you have done the same? Wouldn't you or I have said, "I will keep my family away from these criminals"? I surely would.

But not the owner. He sends his only son into the trap and the tenants kill him.

The details of the two stories are different, but isn't it the same story, about God punishing those who fail to produce?

Actually, the two parables are not the same. There is much, much more in the Gospel. Jesus hints at this after he has told the story:

Did you never read in the Scriptures:

The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

by the Lord has this been done,

and it is wonderful in our eyes. (Gospel)

This new metaphor is the key to the Gospel tale, and it fills the story with dramatic new meaning.

The son sent into the vineyard is Jesus himself!

He is to be rejected and killed, just as the prophets and the owner’s son were. But here is the difference: as son, he is entirely willing to go among the sinning people. He lives by compassion, so danger takes second place.

If the main character in the Gospel were called Life, and it had its own choices to make, it would desire to turn into another being, one called Love. Life always yearns to go back to its source, the everlasting union called by that simple name, love.

Greed and disregard stop this progress. True Life gets buried. It rises again when we look to Jesus each Sunday at Mass. He is love, there for us in our vineyard.

God sent his own son into the trap of human life not because life is perfect, but because love is.

Rooted

Pre-Prayering

At the end of parties or dinners there is an almost liturgical feature. It is the sending out ceremony, which can take lots of time. The guests do not just get up, grab their coats, say “thank you” and close the door.

Instead, there is a “lingering” and the saying of kind words and finally there are promises to get together soon and/or that calls back and forth will happen. There can be kisses, hugs, handshakes as well, and all this takes time.

The object of a gathering is a closeness or intimacy among friends which encourages the participants in the living of their lives. There is an afterwards to a party or dinner, a nourishment of the body, but even more of the spirit to enact living relationally, rather than in isolation.

The Eucharistic celebration ends with a “sending” statement by the presider or deacon, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” The community accepts that mission by its response of thanks to God for that invitation. At many parishes there is a communal lingering for this, in social halls, vestibules, and in places actually called, “Gathering Spaces.”

People have been given their traveling instructions and give their collective agreement with enthusiasm, it is hoped. They say thanks, not that the Eucharistic liturgy is ended, but that the relationships will continue in the “afterness” of the Sacred Meal.

Reflection

In today’s First Reading we hear a poem from the beginning of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry to Israel. The basic image is a vine planted in a field with great care. The nation Israel is often seen by various prophets as a choice vine. The prophet’s friend is the God who has called Isaiah and who had given Israel a fertile land and planted them there, with great saving love.

The planter is pictured as expecting great crops of tasty fruit, but God finds sour grapes not good for wine-making. God uses the words of the prophet to tell the House of Israel that, because of their lack of justice and living of the laws, they will be trampled and not defended any longer by God. The image is clear. Then God steps from behind the image and announces what is going to happen. The land will be invaded while Israel will go into exile.

The Gospel is more an allegory than a parable. The story Jesus tells is also about an owner planting a vineyard. All the features and characters in the story are accounted for in real life. Jesus is speaking directly to and about the “chief priests and elders of the people.” They would be quite familiar with the image of Israel as a planted vine or vineyard. They are the “tenants” and the “hedge” is the Law of Moses. The “winepress” is the very land given to Israel after the Exodus and forty years in the desert. The “tower” is the sacred place of God’s presence in the temple within Jerusalem. Worship of God in the temple was their celebration of being protected by God.

Keeping the Law, caring for the land, and liturgical purification and worship rites were the good fruits. Prophets, “servants” were sent to announce to the people their failings as well as instructions about right living. Matthew relies on his listeners knowledge of the history of prophets in Israel. They had been stoned, imprisoned and killed. At last the owner sends his own son whom the leaders throw outside the vineyard and kill him as well.

Matthew is reminding his listeners that all this is the Lord’s doing and it has been and will be “wonderful in our eyes.” There is no ambiguity in this story. The priests and elders hear that they are considered as rejected leaders of God’s people. It is important to be aware that Jesus, here in Matthew’s Gospel, is not picturing God as rejecting Israel and the Jews: Jesus and the disciples are Israelites themselves.

What we are to hear is the deep love that God, the owner, has for the people, and that this love is given so that there will be fruitfulness within the vineyard of God.

When we experience our imperfections, we assume that God, for eternity, will be collecting us in the weed pile. We can be smothered by the locusts of materialistic greed which devour simplicity and gratitude. It is difficult to offer our faces to the warmth of the sun when we are burdened with the discouraging pulls of the earthly gravitational discouragement.

The beauty of the flower and the tastiness of the fruit are rooted in the dirt, which the dirt-owner has embraced so that there would be beauty and life.

The Lord is good to those who hope in him,

to those who are searching for his love.

Lamentations 3:25

First Reading

Isaiah, Chapter 5, Verses 1-7

1. “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?” What could we have done to prevent discrimination? What could we have done to prevent global warming? What can we do now to rectify the wrongs? Might these crises be comparable to the “wild grapes” Isaiah sings about in his friend’s vineyard?
2. What are some things you could do if you discovered that all the “grapes” in your spiritual garden were all turning out small or sickly?

Second Reading

Philippians, Chapter 4, Verses, 6-9

1. How do you feel about the God of peace standing guard over your mind and heart? What does St. Paul say takes the place of anxiety and the worries? Are his words true for you?
2. What would happen to things that cause anxieties in the world right now (e. g. global warming, racial injustice) if all people embraced whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, … anything worthy of praise?

Gospel

Matthew, Chapter 21, Verses 33-43

1. Who are God’s messengers right now? What changes in society do they advocate? How can you somehow be God’s envoy in your community, work, church or the world? Will you move toward necessary changes in society?
2. In his morning meditation on the Wicked Tenants, the Pope suggested that we think about “what we can do so as not to kill the Word of God, … to not lock up the Holy Spirit.”

[May] the Lord grant us the grace of humility to look upon Jesus as the Savior who speaks to us: he speaks to me! Each one of us ought to say: he speaks to me! When we read the gospels: he is speaking to me! 

The Imprisoned Word

Morning Meditation in the Chapel of the

Domus Sanctae Marthae

A Christian Attitude Towards the World

It is hard to believe that God still loves this world and smiles upon it as does a mother upon her child. Our spontaneous impulse is rather to protest, condemn, and point out the world’s faults, its sin, its injustice, and its indifference to God.

But the world is still God’s creation, still lives under God’s primal blessing, and (post-modern or not) is still loved by God. Like the original chaos, so full of both life and potential, our world today is still spinning and creating itself under the influence of God’s breath. Its marvelous achievements reflect both God’s greatness and human cooperation with God’s power. The world still honors both God and humanity.

But it also as a very mixed reality. On the one hand, the world is full of goodness, generosity, sincerity, creativity, imagination, and ingenuity. Daily we see real advancement in moral sensitivity, knowledge, art, and technology. On the other hand, it is also full of infidelity, sin, injustice, greed, individualism, and many other rampant forces that constitute a virtual conspiracy against the poor, the family, sexual integrity, and compassion. It is a world within which progress itself often comes at the expense of the poor and progress itself causes us to be blind to those who fall through its cracks.

All of this notwithstanding, too often we tend to see the world only negatively. Irrespective of whether we are liberal or conservative, whether we are into piety or justice, we do not “weep over” the world in sympathy as Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Rather we tend to stand in blanket judgment against it, refusing to recognize and bless its goodness. Our attitude towards globalization is a good example of this. Within church circles globalization is almost always viewed as negative, given that we are looking mainly at its economic component where we see it generating a new poor even as it makes the rich still richer. However, there too are positive aspects to globalization, especially as regards communications, information, education, a growing universality, and a growing awareness of injustice in the world. Ironically, even as it is helping make the rich richer and generating a new poor, globalization is making the world aware of injustice in a way that has never been possible before. Thus, despite its obvious negative aspects, globalization is also helping create an interdependence which is making us, for the first time ever, truly a global community. The same might be said, in a slightly different way, about the media and its effect on our world.

And the world is not blind to our negative judgment. For the most part, it views us, the churches, with suspicion, as precisely standing in narrow and naive judgment of it, simplistic and fundamentalistic, the enemy of its life and creativity. The world does not believe in our sympathy and looks to us neither for comfort nor guidance.

What then is to be our response? Through what prism are we to see the world? First of all, we must let ourselves be purified by its critique of us. Its anger, accusations, anti-clericalism, and indifference constitute for us an important road to purification and humility. Next, our attitude must mirror God’s attitude. Accordingly, we must comfort and bless the world’s life and goodness even as we disturb and challenge its injustice and infidelities. We must comfort it in its pain, affirm its goodness, and help it direct its powerful life forces and energy towards the transcendent, towards God, towards community, towards justice, and towards compassion. We must bless the world by letting it know that God still looks at it and says: “You are my beloved Child in whom I am well pleased”; even as we prophetically challenge it to see the poverty of its practical atheism, its lack of community, its consumerism, its greed, its obsession with comfort and the things of this world, and especially with its failure to see the poor.

Ultimately, what we must do is to show the world the cross of Christ, to make it aware that the one whom it commonly rejects, the one whom it crucifies, the poor one, the helpless one, the unnoticed one, the insignificant one, is the cornerstone for its final progress. Within all the goodness and sin of this world, our task is to stand with the poor and bring the expertise of the poor, which is the wisdom of the cross, to all the dialogue and planning that goes into helping shape our planet.

But we can do this only if we view the world through a prism of hope within which we bless its goodness and challenge its sin, even as we trust that God still deeply loves this post-modern planet and that, in the end, all will be well and all will be well and every manner of being will be well.

God true and just, loving and lovely:
in this wide world
you are searching day by day
for the harvest of justice,
and day by day you find bloodshed instead.
What are we to do?
In all this daily clamor for war and blood,
make us bold peacemakers,
our words and hearts with those in danger.
We pray in Jesus' name,
who is our peace and our Lord
for ever and ever.

The Vineyard of the Lord

The church is the vineyard of the Lord. It has been placed by God on a fertile hillside; he spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines. Unfortunately, what grows in this vineyard is often not a crop of grapes but wild fruit, of no use to the master. We have within our community a good share of selfishness, power grabbing, and shortsightedness. The very same social ills that we see in the world at large can be found right here within our own community: racism, sexism, economic injustice, and marginalization.

We pray that God forgive our failings. We hope that God will take care of this vine, and protect what your right hand has planted. The challenge is for us to become a true vineyard of the Lord, free of all the sinful conditions that we lament in the world. We work for the day when Christians will form a Christian community united in love and service.

Is it too much to hope for? No, it is not, as long as we maintain our faith in our God, who can lead us to seek beyond our reach.

“Although the Catholic Church has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all means of grace, her members fail to live by them with all the fervor they should. As a result, the radiance of the Church’s face shines less brightly in the eyes of our separated brethren and of the world at large, and the growth of God’s kingdom is retarded. Every Catholic must therefore aim at Christian perfection and, each according to his station, play his part so that the Church ... may daily be more purified and renewed.”

Vatican II, Decree on Ecumenism (1964) 4.

Keying in to words and phrases from the gospel:

• landowner
• vineyard
• sent his son
• kill him
• other tenants
• cornerstone

Keying in to a focus: God's kingdom will advance because of God's tenacity and faithfulness. God is so committed to the right management and care of the vineyard (first reading and psalm) that God even sends the Son. When the rebellious tenants kill the Son God begins again, making the Son the cornerstone and bringing in new tenants.

Connecting to the previous two Sundays: All three of these Sundays have used the vineyard as an image for God's kingdom. This is a vineyard in which laborers experience God's generosity, in which the landowner's Son shares in the labor, and which God cares for faithfully.

Connecting to our experience: In buildings today cornerstones are largely symbolic. Their importance lies in the date and memorabilia they contain. Christ becomes this kind of cornerstone when we relegate him only to our Sunday hour of worship.

Connecting the vineyard to the history of Israel: As in last Sunday's gospel, Jesus addresses this parable to the "chief priests and elders of the people" who had questioned his authority (21:23). Jesus draws on a rich biblical and prophetic tradition of likening Israel to a vine or a vineyard (Isa 5:1-7; 27:2-6; Jer 2:21; 12:10; Ezek 15:1-8; 19:10-14; Hos 10:1). Already in Genesis Jacob compares Joseph to "a fruitful vine near a spring" (Gen 49:22, NIV).

The image is also used to describe the Exodus and the conquest of the Promised Land: "You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove away the nations and planted it ... it took root and filled the land" (Ps 80:9-10). In this Sunday's first reading from Isaiah the owner planting "the choicest vines" (Isa 5:2) evokes the status of Israel as God's "treasured possession" (Deut 7:6); God's scrupulous care for Israel is reflected in the considered selection of a "fertile hillside," and constructing the watchtower and wine press. But Israel's infidelity has produced "wild grapes," i.e., "bloodshed and outcry" (5:7). Because the fault is in the vine itself, the vineyard is destroyed. The tearing down of the walls, uprooting the hedge, giving it to plunder, and letting it be over-grown describes the punishment suffered by Israel and Judah at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians at various times.

As Matthew allegorizes the parable, the fault is in the rebellious tenants who must be called to account. The first detachment of servants perhaps represents the "former prophets" while the second group, "more numerous than the first," perhaps represents the "latter prophets." The Scriptures clearly record that some prophets where killed (1 Kings 18:4, 13; Jer 26:20-23) and others were stoned (2 Chr 24:21-22; see also Heb 11:37). Finally the owner sends the "son." The next details are usually taken to reflect the death of Jesus who is taken outside the city walls and crucified, though nothing in the parable equates the vineyard with Jerusalem. According to Matthew the vineyard is the "kingdom of God" which is now given to Gentiles (see Acts 13:46; 18:6).

The Vineyard Church

"He looked for justice, but hark, the outcry!"

We delude ourselves dangerously if we think our major task in reading scripture is to examine the historical period in which it was written. Admittedly, such study is a valuable tool for critical distance from and understanding of revelation's context.

But if the word of God lives for us, it must be spoken now. It must be received now. Paul's charge to the Philippians is that they live what they have learned and accepted. Living the word, more than the study of it, yields "God's own peace beyond all understanding."

If we are concerned only with knowing the historical context of Isaiah's vineyard story, we may find out something about the people of Judah and their infidelities, but we will miss what the prophet has to say to us. And if prophets have nothing to say to us, why bother listening to them at all?

What if our contemporary church is seen as the new House of Israel, God's cherished vineyard? What if we are that land, carefully cleared of stones, now filled with vines delicately planted? Then Isaiah's words might shake us. "He looked for judgment, but saw bloodshed! He looked for justice, but heard cries." Despite everything that was done for this vineyard, despite all that was given, there was no true yield. So the owner gave the verdict: it shall all be torn down, eroded, and trampled, overgrown with briars and thorns. Are these words addressed to our church?

There is a temptation to make our holy books, even our privileged "New" Testament readings, into a collection of quaint bygone accounts, comfortably shelved in a mausoleum. Now and then, we prod the dead text, safely kept at arm's length, with some thin academic stick that protects us from what we poke.

When Jesus looks at scripture, it's a different story. He recalls Isaiah's parable of the vineyard, but only to engage it for his own time and people. The leaders of his age were rejecting him, son of the vineyard's Lord, just as they rejected the delegations of prophets before him. What is worse, they reject him as the Son of God, even kill him, in the false hope that they will then get the inheritance for themselves.

When the church applies this gospel story merely to Jesus' context, two things happen. A crude conclusion is drawn that the chief priests and elders (and even the Jewish people, as the story was later diabolically interpreted) were the source of Christ's rejection. More foolish yet, we Christians presume that we ourselves do not reject Christ in our own lives.

At our safe distance, we can shake our heads. See the results of their rejection of Jesus? They are all brought to a bad end, and the prized vineyard is left to others. That's us. We are the inheritors of the new promise. We harvest what Israel did not. It's as simple as that, we think. But if we stop there, the gospel will never strike us. We simply avoid its force.

One of the great virtues of the Hebrew scriptures and those who conscientiously read them is that such an easy way out is never taken. The Jews not only recorded the bad news prophets brought; they remembered it and relived it in the telling. That is what Jesus was doing. And that is what we are called to do if we wish to encounter the Word of God.

The parable of the vineyard, in both Isaiah's account and Jesus' reformulation of it for his contemporaries, must in some way be a message given to today's church. Although we believe in Jesus' promise that the armies of hell will not prevail against us, that should not lead us to think that we ourselves cannot squander the gift of the vineyard.

The "always reforming" church must always ask itself whether it seizes the vineyard inheritance for itself, rather than for the Lord of the harvest. It is only at great peril to themselves that the preacher, the mediator, and the institution, present themselves, rather than the Savior-Son, as the way of salvation. We put our very stewardship at risk if we follow a gospel other than that of Jesus.

Those who warn us that we neglect the ways of justice and close our ears to the cries of the poor are simply reminding us of the very gospel we proclaim. Those young people who wonder whether we stewards of the gospel are actually living as if the gospels didn't exist are not posing the question from a "worldly" perspective. They are posing it because they have received the seed of God's word and long to bear its fruit.

Isaiah promised that there would remain with God's people, despite many infidelities, a "holy remnant" of faithful followers who carry the truth, cherish the message, and steadfastly tend the vineyard. This remnant, I think at times, may be the saints or the "little" people—those who aspire to no human greatness, fabulous wealth, rank, or privilege. Perhaps it is they who, even in these hard days when many Christians seem to reject Christ as the rock of their lives, continue to build on him as their cornerstone.

Commentary: Basil the Great

He leased his vineyard to other farmers.

You need only to look at the vine to be reminded of your own nature, that is, if you observe it intelligently. No doubt you remember the image used by the Lord in which he says that he is the vine and the Father the vinedresser. Each of us who have been grafted onto the Church by faith he calls branches, and he urges us to bear much fruit so as not to be rejected as useless and thrown onto the fire.

Throughout the Scriptures the Lord continually likens human souls to vines. He says for instance: My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hillside; and again: I planted a vineyard and put a hedge round it. Clearly it is human souls that he calls his vineyard, and the hedge he has put round them is the security of his commandments and the protection of the angels; for the angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him. Moreover, by establishing in the Church apostles in the first place, prophets in the second, and teachers in the third, he has surrounded us as though by a firmly planted palisade.

In addition, the Lord has raised our thoughts to heaven by the examples of saints of past ages. He has kept them from sinking to the earth where they would deserve to be trampled on, and he wills that the bonds of love, like the tendrils of a vine, should attach us to our neighbors and make us rest on them, so that always climbing upward like vines growing on trees, we may reach the loftiest heights.

He also requires that we allow ourselves to be weeded. To be spiritually weeded means to have renounced the worldly ambitions that burdened our hearts. Anyone who has renounced the love of material things and attachment to possessions, or who has come to regard as despicable and deserving of contempt the poor, wretched glory of this world, is like a weeded vine. Freed from the profitless burden of earthly aspirations, that person can breathe again.

Finally, following out the implications of the comparison, we must not run to wood, or, in other words, show off or seek the praise of outsiders. Instead, we must bear fruit by reserving the display of our good works for the true vinedresser.

(Homilies on the Hexaemeron, 5: SC 27, 304-307)

Basil the Great (c.330-379), one of the three great Cappadocian Fathers, received an excellent education and began a career as a rhetorician before a spiritual awakening led him to receive baptism and become a monk. After visiting ascetics in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, he decided that it was better for monks to live together in monasteries than alone as hermits, and he set about organizing Cappadocian monasticism. Basil's Rules influenced Saint Benedict. In 370 Basil succeeded Eusebius as bishop of Caesarea. His main concern was for the unity of the Church, and he strove to establish better relations between Rome and the East. His efforts bore fruit only after his death. Basil's writings include dogmatic, ascetic, and pedagogic treatises as well as letters and sermons.

Varieties of Violence

The day after Jesus' prophetic action in the Temple, when he was teaching in the Temple precincts, the chief priests and elders come to challenge his authority for “doing these things” (Matthew 21:23). As part of his response, Jesus tells the parable about the wicked tenants. Matthew remarks, “They knew that he was speaking about them.” How did they catch on so quickly? Jesus was drawing upon a prophetic tradition they knew very well.

This Sunday's First Reading presents exactly the passage Jesus was alluding to in the parable, Isaiah's allegory of the fruitless vineyard. In that little masterpiece, the eighth-century prophet was addressing the leaders of his own day in a parable of his own. Israel's Lord is portrayed as a vineyard owner who is so intimately and caringly related to his vineyard that he images it as a marriage relationship. Finding, at harvest time, that the vineyard has produced no grapes, he takes it to the divorce court! In case his audience has missed the point, Isaiah explains,

The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah are his cherished plant;

he looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed!

for justice, but hark, the outcry!

Jesus evokes Isaiah's parable by virtually quoting its first line: “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.” He makes explicit Isaiah's hints about violence by expanding the parable into a story about tenants who beat up and kill the slaves sent by the owner to collect the produce. Jesus further updates Isaiah's parable by having the tenants kill the son of the owner outside of the vineyard, a clear reference to his own imminent death by crucifixion outside of the city.

Isaiah and Jesus both unveil violence. As the verses following Isaiah's vineyard parable make clear, that prophet had in mind the violence of an alcoholic lifestyle mixed with land-grabbing. Jesus, on the other hand, focused on Israel's violent rejection of its prophets (and finally of himself). As Jesus updates his eighth-century predecessor, can we contemporize Jesus' teaching? In our own day, our US bishops have dared to unveil a kind of violence hidden for centuries and, until recently, little mentioned in official Church teaching—domestic violence, especially against women. In their pastoral letter, When I Call for Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence Against Women (1992), they state unequivocally that “violence against women, in the home or outside, is never justified. Violence in any form—physical, sexual, psychological, or verbal—is sinful; many times, it is a crime as well.” The bishops note a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association claiming that “an estimated 3 to 4 million women in the United States are battered each year by their husbands or partners.” Shockingly, “approximately 37 percent of obstetric patients — of every race, class and education background — report being physically abused while pregnant.” In addition to naming the violence, the bishops write out of a desire to offer the Church's resources to both the women who are battered and the men who abuse. “Both groups,” they say, “need Jesus' strength and healing.”

As we hear how Isaiah and Jesus address the violence of their own days, let's attend to the prophetic voice of our own bishops in this matter. The love of neighbor to which Jesus calls us urges us to be alert to the possibility of violence and near-violence in our own behavior with family members. That same love command calls us to be sensitive to signs of abuse and battering among people we relate to. And should any one of us find herself a victim of domestic violence, our leaders would have her know that the Church considers it part of its pastoral ministry to help. Let us not be afraid to reach out in this matter—either to ask for help or to give it.

The tenant farmer perspective

Today's parable offers an opportunity to appreciate the complexity of the gospel tradition. Matthew's version of the parable contains elements that are difficult to attribute to Jesus: allusions to the Greek Bible (vv. 33, 42), allegorical features (the vineyard is Israel, the tenant farmers are Israel's leaders, the householder is God, etc.), and others.

The version of this parable in the Coptic (= the Egyptian tradition) Gospel of Thomas 65 (dating from the beginning of the third century) doesn't contain allegorical elements and may be closer to the parable Jesus originally spoke. In this simpler form, the parable reflects a reality familiar to all peasants, namely, the extortion practiced by hard-nosed absentee landowners.

A Simple Parable

The vineyard owner lives in a different country (v. 33). This was a common experience among peasants in Galilee. The owner rented the vineyard out to tenant farmers or share-croppers who worked the land in return for a fee or a percentage of the crop. The owner sent his agents on a regular basis to collect what was due.

Modern scholars have pieced together bits and pieces of information to gain a better understanding of the situation of tenant farmers based on what is known about peasant free-holders, that is, peasants who were fortunate enough to own and farm their own land. Some of the crop would have to be used for trade to gain other necessities of life. There were also social dues (gifts), religious tithes, and taxes adding up to about 35 or 40 percent. About 20 percent of the annual produce would be left to feed the family and livestock of a free-holding peasant. Far less would be left to tenant farmers who also owed land rent.

From this perspective, the parable is easy to interpret. The tenant farmers are frustrated, desperate, and driven to violence. They beat and kill the first two delegations from the owner. When the owner's son shows up, they miscalculate and presume that the owner is dead. Believing the son to be the sole surviving heir, they kill him in hope of gaining the vineyard for themselves. The plan is stupid and illegal, but they are driven by their otherwise hopeless situation.

The owner is very much alive. Everyone knows what his response will be. He will avenge himself against these foolish tenant farmers and lease to more compliant tenants. The owner will not be deprived or defrauded of his harvest. If this was the form of the parable Jesus told, it was a warning to landowners against selfishly hoarding their harvest or exporting it.

An Allegorized Parable

In general, a parable makes one point. The story is about an absentee landlord and his tenant farmers. In an allegory, every element of the story means something else. Good storytellers don't explain their stories (or jokes). The point is clear. When a story or parable is interpreted, inevitably, the meaning is not what appears on the surface.

In verse 43 Jesus (or the preachers, or Matthew) appears to make an allegory out of the parable, perhaps on the basis of Isaiah 5:1-7. But note carefully the differences between Matthew and Isaiah. There are no tenant farmers in Isaiah; God destroyed the vineyard itself. In Matthew, the tenant farmers are destroyed, and the vineyard given to others. The chief priests and Pharisees (v. 45) realize the parable is directed against them and would arrest Jesus were it not for Jesus' popularity with the crowds, who regard him as a prophet.

Clearly in Matthew the problem lies with the leadership of Israel and not with Israel itself as in Isaiah (5:5-6). The tenant farmers, that is, the leadership, must be replaced because they have not born fruit (see Matt 3:8, 10; 7:16-20; 12:33; 13:8; 21:19). Thus, leadership will be transferred from the present group which has failed to a different group (preferable to the word "people" in v. 43) that will produce proper fruit. This group is best identified as the leaders of the Judean-Christian community.

The simple parable raises probing questions about the responsibilities of land ownership and relationships with tenants or workers. Matthew's allegorized parable urges his contemporaries and modern day Christians and Jews (and all people of different creeds) to reflect upon mutual relationships. It does not support any idea that one people is superior to or will replace another.

Reading I: Isaiah 5:1-7
 
The song of the vineyard, it is thought, was composed by the prophet Isaiah during the early part of his ministry and was sung at vintage festivals. Only the last stanza equates the vineyard allegorically with Israel, thus turning a happy little song about country life
into an expression of God's judgment upon his people. This represents a clever turn on the part of the singer, who has engaged the attention and approval of his hearers up to this point. The parables of Jesus are clearly in the same tradition.
Why this reading was chosen for today is obvious (see the gospel).
 
Responsorial Psalm: 80:8, 11-15, 18-19

As in Isa 5 and other passages in the Old Testament, the vine appears in this psalm as a symbol for Israel.

The psalm, however, is not used for purposes of denunciation but as a prayer for deliverance.
 
Reading II: Philippians 4:6-9

According to the partition theory (see our comments for the twenty-fifth Sunday), verses 6-7 form the conclusion of Letter B, verses 8-9 the conclusion of Letter C. This would explain the sudden shift from a blessing to a final exhortation (one would expect these to be in the reverse order at the end of a letter). It further eases the position of the word "finally"some fifteen verses before the actual end of the present "letter" (of course, we all know preachers who go on for fifteen minutes after saying "finally," but Paul was probably not among their number, at least on this occasion!). It also explains why Paul seemingly repeats himself in verses 7 and 9 ("peace of God," "God of peace").

The partition theory also enhances the understanding of the two paragraphs in our pericope. The first paragraph comes at the end of the thank-you note for the help Paul has received from the Philippians. The exhortation may be a reassurance in view of the possible arrival of false teachers at Philippi. Verse 7 will be the concluding blessing. Verses 8-9 will have followed originally upon 4:3. Paul has been denouncing the false teachers who have by now arrived in Philippi (3:2-21). They were probably some kind of enthusiasts who believed that they were already in heaven and had attained perfection, ignoring the "not-yet-ness" of Christian existence, and who did not take seriously the place of the cross in Christian life. Like the opponents in Galatia, they may have demanded the circumcision of Gentile Christian converts (see "whose glory is in their shame"—3:19). In a final exhortation Paul seeks to direct his readers to higher things. In order to do so, he draws upon the ethical teaching of Stoicism: things true, honorable, just, pure, gracious, excellent (virtuous), worthy of praise—all these are the categories of Stoic ethics; there is nothing distinctively Christian about them. But, in Paul's thinking, they are none the worse for that.

Finally, the Apostle reiterates what he said in 3:17, though in somewhat different words, holding himself up as an example for his converts to imitate. At first sight, this idea looks rather embarrassing, even contrary to Paul's repudiation of justification by works. But Paul understands his life as an apostle, especially his sufferings, to be a manifestation of the cross of Christ. Therefore, in asking the Philippians to imitate him, he is not asking them to copy his good works but inviting them to pattern their
lives on Christ as he is made manifest in his (Paul's) apostolic existence. This interpretation is borne out by what Paul says about himself in 3:12-16, where he disclaims any notion that he has already achieved ethical perfection.
 
Gospel: Matthew 21:33-43

In Matthew (and Mark, the source Matthew follows here), the parable of the vineyard is heavily allegorized. Luke and the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas contain traces of an earlier form of this parable that is shorter and less allegorized. In this earlier form, there are no echoes of Isa 5 in the opening of the parable (v. 33). The emissaries prior to the son are reduced to two or three single ones, without any suggestion that they are identified with the Old Testament prophets. The Christological upgrading of the son is missing, and the parable must have concluded with his murder.

For the original meaning, we have to ignore all the secondary allegorical features and consider the story by itself. As in the Lucan parables of the unjust steward and the unjust judge, Jesus draws a surprising lesson from an utterly discreditable piece of human behavior.

See, he says, how these vinedressers stopped at nothing. They even murdered the heir to get hold of the vineyard. You must be just as resolute in laying hold of the kingdom of God!

It was all too easy for the Church to allegorize this parable. The vineyard became Israel; the vinedressers, its religious leaders; the successive emissaries, the Old Testament prophets; the son, Jesus the Messiah; his murder, the crucifixion. This interpretation was then clinched by combining with it the testimonium from Ps 118:22, so that the parable closes with Jesus' resurrection. Matthew goes further and adds verse 43, so that it closes with the prediction of the mission to the Gentiles following Israel's rejection of the gospel. All this is not wrong; it is simply the constant reapplication of the parable to new situations in the community's life.

You probably saw Babette’s Feast, or at least have heard about it. An impoverished fine cook makes her way into a small town where the religion of the area made people hard and cold to each other, according to the movie, afraid to enjoy or even to relate to each other. Babette had only a small stash of possessions, but she was a top chef. So she prepared, over many days, a huge, delectable, exquisite feast, serving after serving, all for the uptight townspeople. As they began to taste and enjoy, they began also to communicate in kindness to each other. They even danced!

I have heard people say that the movie promoted self-indulgence, and I do not endorse such a thing. But I do notice similarities to the huge feast we hear about in the First Reading.

It is the famous invitation from the Lord of Hosts, full of unstinting promise. “A feast of rich food and choice wines,” Isaiah says. A great feast, a “groaning board” in medieval England, like the banquet in Babette’s Feast.

Sunday’s Gospel has a sumptuous feed too. The king gets his very best livestock fattened up, seasoned, readied for cooking, with invitations sent out. If you thought the people in Babette’s town were reluctant, look what happened here. Some people refused outright to come. Others simply ignored the invitation as if it had not been given, and a number “laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.” The king punished these and then invited in street people.

Food is meant to be enjoyed, not refused.

But with so many people starving in today’s world, how dare we fatten ourselves up with rich food and every other kind of riches? Shouldn’t we much more becomingly abstain and deny ourselves? Isn’t the “First World” currently fattening itself on food far more lavish than the ancient world could ever have imagined? Advertisements in the United States tell us we should luxuriate, should pamper ourselves, should not hold back. “Who says you can’t have it all,” they say. How are we to respond, we who try to be faithful to God and God’s promises

But remember that Jesus both fasted and feasted. He abstained from food for forty days at the beginning of his public ministry, then later on said, mockingly, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’ (Mt. 11:19).” How would he have gotten such a reputation except by enjoying times at meals?

Which is it for us, then, fasting or feasting?

I think the answer is simple yet difficult to grow into. I think we are meant to receive humbly and to give to others as well. The mistake is to adopt a stance of only receiving (getting, grabbing) or on the other hand, only giving (giving, with nothing in return). Sunday’s readings invite us to come into the kingdom, to open up, eat, enjoy what is there.

To receive as Jesus did.

He went deep, accepting all things as coming from God’s hand. Then, when it was time to let go of it all—life, friends, peace and possessions—he did that with love.

Receive and give. Jesus wants us to receive his life and then give it out to the world.

Getting Ready to Pray

So as to be more receptive to the Word and Sacrament for this Sunday, picture Jesus seated in a large banquet hall, with tables set, but empty, except for some chief priests and Scribes. They are more than somewhat displeased at his recent parables concerning their inattentiveness to the “vineyard” of God’s people. They push him a bit about just what the “Kingdom of Heaven” is all about. So he looks around the vacant hall and uses the surroundings to strengthen his description.

Some Thoughts

We pray with the grace which God offers constantly. We are called, invited and preparing to sit once more at the Table of Abundance. We are attired in the inner garment of Baptism and the outer ware of the good things which are a reflection of who we know ourselves to be. We are not invited and seated because we have done these good things, but because of the goodness of the Invitor. Those good deeds are not tickets, but little sacraments or out-doings of our identities.

We can pray with our sense of being in a community of those whom God has called to be seated with us and whose wonderful works might not be celebrated on the evening news, but are constructive to God’s “vineyard” here on earth. We do not know all the little and large good things others do at home, in airports, around the neighborhood and out there, but we can pray with gratitude and joy that the Body of Christ is still gracing all its goings.

We pray also with the grace of belief. We are called and we trust that, but we also can have doubts about our worthiness and our doing enough, and are we just fooling ourselves because we so deeply want to belong. We pray with the grace of confidence in the Caller and Comforter. We are encouraged in our belief by the presence of those who are also seated at the Table waiting to be fed and sent once more.

First Reading

Isaiah, Chapter 25, Verses 6-10

1. Does banquet imagery describe well the fullness of life in the presence of God? How can a feast––juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines––be a sacramental vision of the universe?

2. “He will destroy … the web that is woven over all nations.” What are the “webs” over all nations today that God will destroy? And in doing so will God wipe tears from every face? Do the pandemic, racial injustice, and the climate crisis qualify as webs over all nations?

Second Reading

Philippians, Chapter 4, Verses 12-14, 19-20

1. Will the Lord ever test you beyond your capacity? Will he always be with you? When you face daily life, when difficulties arise, do you remember Paul’s words, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me”? 

 2. The readings show God bestowing gifts on us without measure. Do you “measure” when you give? How could you be a little freer?

Gospel

Matthew, Chapter 22, Verses 1-14

1. Besides answering God’s invitation to the feast, what is expected of us? Are we the guests or are we also the ones doing the inviting? How does this banquet not only sustain life but also transfigure it?

2. When Pope Francis , then Cardinal Bergoglio, gave his three minute speech below, the Cardinals at the Conclave started thinking seriously about electing him. How does his speech relate to today’s Gospel, “Go out therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.” Which “existential peripheries … of injustice, ignorance, all misery” that the Pope mentions, would you like to see the Church travel in, or travel yourself and invite people?

The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only in the geographical sense but also to go to the existential peripheries: those of the mysteries of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and of religious indifference, of thought, of all misery.

Pope Francis focuses on reaching out to peripheries

On this day which you have made, O God,
and within this place of our gathering,
your words are spoken from prophet and parable,
and to good and bad alike
the gates of mercy are thrown open.
May mercy be ours in holding back the violent hand,
in tending to the tears of all who live in fear.
We pray in Jesus' name,
our salvation and our Lord
for ever and ever.

The Wedding Banquet

The Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines ... he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples ... he will destroy death forever. The kingdom has been prepared, and it is coming. Jesus likened it to a wedding banquet to which the invited guests are summoned.

Of course, there are some who refuse to come. They prefer to remain mired in their oppressive attitudes, their discriminatory relationships with others, their violent approach to solving social problems. They prefer revenge to forgiveness. They prefer the superiority of some to the equality of all. They see victimization and blame the victims. They are the invited guests who are unfit to come.

There are those others, however, whose love for God expresses itself in eagerness to do good for others. They are the ones who live in the house of the Lord, preferring love, forgiveness and equality. They will welcome the coming of the kingdom with the cry: let us rejoice and be glad that God has saved us!

“Christians cannot yearn for anything more ardently than to serve the men of the modern world ever more generously and effectively. Therefore, holding faithfully to the gospel and benefiting from its resources, and united with every man who loves and practices justice, Christians have shouldered a gigantic task demanding fulfillment in this world. Concerning this task they must give a reckoning to Him who will judge every man on the last day.”

Vatican II, Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965) 93.

Keying in to words and phrases from the gospel:

• king
• wedding feast for his son
• summon… guests
• refused to come
• everything is ready
• come to the feast

Keying in to a focus: The extraordinary nature of the invitation (from the king, repeated invitation, wedding of the king's son, lavish feast) casts in sharp relief the foolishness of the refusals ("refused to come," "ignored the invitation," "killed the servants"). Within the context of the first reading, the gospel raises the stakes of our response, for the wedding feast is really the Messianic Banquet of our eternal life. This is an invitation we would be foolish to refuse!

Connecting to last Sunday's parable: The two parables make a similar point: the original tenants/guests are by-passed in favor of new tenants/guests. While a good part of discipleship is laboring in the vineyard, in the end we are guests at a lavish banquet.

Connecting to our experience: There is often a tendency to hear only the bad news—king enraged, burning of the city, etc. This gospel also reminds us that God repeatedly invites us to God's lavish banquet.

Connecting to "Messianic Banquet": The term "messianic banquet" refers most narrowly to the Banquet at which the Messiah is present. More commonly, it refers to banquets associated with the end times; in apocalyptic literature such banquets are usually symbolic of eternal life or life in the "age to come." The expectation that the coming of the Messiah inaugurates the age to come links the Messianic Banquet to these eschatological feasts. A common metaphor for the coming of the Messiah is the coming of an expected groom (e.g., Matt 9:15; John 3:29; Eph 5:25-32; Rev 21:2-9). In turn, the image of the Messianic Banquet is sometimes associated with the wedding feast, as in this Sunday's parable. The overlap is understandable: the coming of the groom/Messiah is joyously anticipated; both banquets are celebrations which feature lavish food, choice wine, music, joy, and festivity (see Sunday 18).

In both the first reading and the responsorial psalm God is the one who provides "rich food and choice wines" and who "spread[s] the table before me." In the gospel, it is the "king" who prepares the feast for his son's wedding. Clearly, these feasts are no ordinary events. In addition to showcasing the lavishness of the feast the stories highlight the graciousness of God who invites and provides for the guests. In the ancient Near East the wedding celebration lasted for several days and featured all the appropriate meals for each day. Thus, those who may have missed the opening celebrations can still change their minds and respond to the reissued invitation. In this respect this Sunday's gospel is like last Sunday's: in both parables two sets of servants are dispatched and are each rebuffed; the culprits in both are dispossessed and others are either given the vineyard or invited to the feast. But whereas last Sunday's parable only promised a coming judgment, this parable describes the actual destruction of the city (Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D.). The banquet is prepared; the invitations have been issued. The king has done all that can be expected. The response is in the hands of the guests.

Commentary: Augustine

Whomsoever you find invite to the wedding.

All believers are familiar with the story of the wedding of the king's son and the banquet that followed it, and of how the Lord's table was thrown open to all comers. When everyone was seated the master of the house came in to see his guests, and among them he noticed one without a wedding garment. So he said to him, "My friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?"

Now what precisely does this mean? Let us try to find out what it is that some believers have, but which the wicked lack, for that will be what the wedding garment is.

Can it be one of the sacraments? Hardly, for these, as we know, are common to good and bad alike. Take baptism for example. It is true that no one comes to God except through baptism, but not every baptized person comes to him. We cannot take this sacrament as the wedding garment, then, for it is a robe worn not only by good people but also by wicked people. Perhaps, then, it is our altar that is meant, or at least what we receive from it. But we know that many who approach the altar eat and drink to their own damnation. Well, then, maybe it is fasting? The wicked can fast too. What about going to church? Some bad people also go to church.

Whatever can this wedding garment be, then? For an answer we must go to the Apostle, who says: The purpose of our command is to arouse the love that springs from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a genuine faith. There is your wedding garment. It is not love of just any kind. Many people of bad conscience appear to love one another, but you will not find in them the love that springs from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a genuine faith. Only that kind of love is the wedding garment.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, says the Apostle, but have no love, I am nothing but a booming gong or a clashing cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, if I have all knowledge and understand all mysteries, if I have faith strong enough to move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. In other words, even with all these gifts I am nothing without Christ. Does that mean that prophecy has no value and that knowledge of mysteries is worthless? No, they are not worthless but I am, if I possess them but have no love. But can the lack of one good thing rob so many others of their value? Yes, without love my confession of the name of Christ even by shedding my blood or offering my body to be burnt will avail me nothing, for I may do this out of a desire for glory. That such things can be endured for the sake of empty show without any real love for God the Apostle also declares. Listen to him: If I give away all I have to the poor, if I hand over my body to be burnt, but have no love, it will avail me nothing. So this is what the wedding garment is. Examine yourselves to see whether you possess it. If you do, your place at the Lord's table is secure.

(Sermon 90,1. 5-6: PL 38, 559. 561-563)

Augustine (354-430) was born at Thagaste in Africa and received a Christian education, although he was not baptized until 387. In 391 he was ordained priest and in 395 he became coadjutor bishop to Valerius of Hippo, whom he succeeded in 396. Augustine's theology was formulated in the course of his struggle with three heresies: Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. His writings are voluminous and his influence on subsequent theology immense. He molded the thought of the Middle Ages down to the thirteenth century. Yet he was above all a pastor and a great spiritual writer.

Dressed for the Banquet

"The invited are many, the elect are few."

On God's mountain all people are given a banquet of rich food and fine, aged wine. Mourning and death cease, and every tear is wiped away. Shame is dispelled; hunger is forgotten. "This is our God, in whom we hoped for salvation." Thus Isaiah recalls the lush image of the banquet, that same feast of which the psalmist sang, with food prepared in abundance, cups running over, heads anointed with oil. It is the banquet of God that, despite transient appetites or hungers, allows Paul to be satisfied no matter what his need or desire. "In him who is the source of my strength I have strength for everything."

In the context of heaven's feast, the Gospel of Matthew presents a strange story, one among many instances, actual or symbolic, of dinners and banquets. In this particular case, some of the invited are uninterested in the banquet prepared for them. Others make light of it and go about their business; still others ridicule and abuse those who bring the offer. So the king sends his wards out into the streets to invite everyone, good and bad alike, into the banquet. Eventually, however, the king spots a visitor who is not wearing a robe, and the poor bloke is cast into darkness.

This has never been a very attractive story for me. It seems somewhat mercurial and vindictive. Why invite people to the banquet if you are going to reject them? Were not all called and welcome?

It is understandable that those who absolutely reject Christ and the bounty of his saving banquet are not included. They do not even want to come to the party. But the rest—all those who do not resist the possibility that God calls them to the eternal feast—are welcomed.

So why are some people who are already in the promised banquet-land excluded for the feeble-sounding reason that they are improperly dressed?

What has helped me understand this odd state of affairs is C. S. Lewis's wonderful fantasy, The Great Divorce, which he wrote to suggest that the option between heaven and hell is a radical choice we all have.

In this short, allegorical story, it turns out that a group of people, after a long bus ride, find themselves in a strange location. It is the vestibule of heaven itself, a place they have all generally wanted to go. The problem is that they must now believe that they are actually there. They must accept the fact that God really saves them.

Lewis develops a lively drama for each traveler's life. All they need to do is "put on" the armor of salvation to receive it; yet many of them cannot bring themselves to believe that they are in banquet-land. They would rather cling to the defenses with which they have covered themselves during their lives. One self-pitying chap, unwilling to let go of the mantle of his own righteousness, just cannot bring himself to trust that he is actually within the gates of Paradise. He grips his resentments so tightly that he disappears into the small dark hole of his egotism.

Another poor soul wears a small, slimy red lizard on his shoulder, a twitching, chiding garment of shame and disappointment. This lizard is his clothing, his self-image and self-presentation to the world. It is a symbol, Lewis leads us to believe, of some sin of lust, which the pilgrim soul both hugs for identity and carries for self-pity.

An angel approaches, offering to kill the slimy creature, which protests that if he is killed, the soul will surely lose his life and meaning. The ghost-soul, encouraged by the angel, finally lets go of the lizard, but only with trembling fear. He gasps out a final act of trust: "God help me. God help me."

And with that plea, a mortal struggle ensues, the lizard mightily resisting while a wondrous metamorphosis happens. The lizard is transformed into a glorious creature. "What stood before me was the greatest stallion I have ever seen, silvery white, but with mane and tail of gold .... The new-made man turned and clapped the new horse's neck .... In joyous haste the young man leaped upon the horse's back. Turning in his seat he waved a farewell, then nudged the stallion with his heels." They both soar off, like shooting stars, into the mountains and sunset.

What happened to this wayfarer at the vestibule of the banquet is that he finally clothed himself in Christ rather than in his shame. Having nothing of his own, not even his sins to cling to, he abandoned himself in the "God help me" of radical trust.

If it is God's will that we all be saved in Jesus, then it is for us, clothed in faith, hope, and love, to accept God's will as our own. Perhaps this is the meaning of Jesus' parable, as well as of Lewis's.

Paul wrote in his Letter to the Galatians that if we are baptized in Christ, we must be clothed in him. He is the only adequate banquet garment. And it is his love, we read in the Letter to the Colossians, that must be the clothing to complete and unify all others we wear. Yes, every child of the earth is called to the feast. But if any of us actually get there, it will only be because we are "all decked out" with Christ, in God.

Reading I: Isaiah 25:6-10a
 
Just as the vineyard became, since the song in Isa 5, an accepted symbol for Israel as the people of God in salvation history, so our present reading made the great banquet a classic symbol of the consummation of God's saving purpose in history. But this idea of the eschatological banquet was not created by Isaiah. Its roots can be traced back to earlier Canaanite literature.

The Qumran community took up this symbolism in the institution of their daily meal, and Jesus also put it to various uses: in his conduct in eating with outcasts; in his parable of the great banquet, which forms the gospel for today; and above all in the saying at the Last Supper that he would no longer feast with his disciples until he could do so in the consummated kingdom of God.
 
Responsorial Psalm: 23:1-6

It is instructive to compare the use of this psalm here with its use on the sixteenth Sunday of the year in series B. There the emphasis is indicated by the refrain, which focuses on the image of the shepherd. Here, since it is in response to the reading from Isaiah on the messianic banquet, the emphasis lies upon the Lord's house or temple, where he prepares the banquet table and invites his people to share the blessings of his kingdom. The third stanza marks a shift in imagery from God as shepherd to God as host at his banquet.
 
Reading II: Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20

According to the partition theory, these excerpts from Philippians would be from Letter A, the thank-you note for the relief they had sent to Paul while he was in prison, probably at Ephesus (see the commentary on Reading II for the twenty-fifth Sunday of the year in series A).

Paul seems a trifle embarrassed to accept any gift at all. C. H. Dodd spoke of Paul's "sturdy bourgeois independence," which made him a little too proud to accept help readily in this way. Or was it just stoic detachment (v. 12a)? Perhaps it is more theologically based than that.

Paul knows that the existence of an apostle is marked by the sign of the cross—in facing hunger and want as readily as plenty and abundance.

There is a slight undertone suggesting that the Philippians had inadvertently deprived Paul of boasting in his sufferings. But Paul is too gracious to say so, and although admitting that he could have gotten along very well without it, he nevertheless thanks them for their kindness. It is a pity that verse 18 has been omitted, for there Paul gives the Philippians’ charitable act a theological meaning: it was a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.
 
Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14 (long form); 22:1-10 (short form)

It is interesting to compare the long and short forms of this gospel. The long form really consists of two parables spliced together—the parable of the great banquet and the parable of the man without a wedding garment. That the combination is secondary is shown by Luke (14:16-24) and by the Gospel of Thomas, where the great banquet occurs on its own, without the addition of a wedding garment. The combination produces an unrealistic effect, for one inevitably asks, How could the poor man have been expected to have a wedding garment if he had been hauled in unexpectedly from the street? The answer is that in the original parable he had not just come in off the street. In its original form the parable stood on its own. The original opening of it was then lost when it was joined to the parable of the great banquet.

Although it is difficult to be certain, it seems likely that the evangelist was responsible for combining the two parables. He interprets the gathering in of the ragtag and bobtail from the streets allegorically as Jesus' prediction of the subsequent Gentile mission, and adds the second parable as a warning against their admission on too easy terms.

It is unlikely that the evangelist was requiring the circumcision of the Gentiles, since that issue had been settled long before at the apostolic conference (Gal 2; cf. Acts 15). Matthew may be inserting a bit of propaganda in favor of the apostolic decrees which, according to Acts 15, were promulgated at the council, but which in all probability were enacted at a later conference while Paul was away (see Acts 21:25). As an original parable of Jesus, the story of the man with the wedding garment, like many other parables, would be an exhortation to readiness in face of the coming kingdom of God. The invitation came sooner than the man expected, and it caught him unprepared. Woe to a person in such a case!

The shorter form, as we have noted, consists of the parable of the great banquet by itself. A study of the parallels in Luke and in the Gospel of Thomas shows that the version in Matthew is highly allegorized. Again, the allegorization has produced some quite unrealistic features. It is most unlifelike—and Jesus' parables are lifelike, even if they often end on a note of surprise. What invited guest would not only spurn the invitation but actually kill the servants who brought it? And what host would send out his troops not only to destroy those murderers but to burn down their city? Clearly, these details reflect the events of A.D. 66-70, the Jewish war and the destruction of Jerusalem. With these accretions, the parable is used by the post-A.D. 70 Church as an interpretation of the debacle of those years—they were a punishment of Israel for rejecting the gospel, for persecuting the Christian messengers, and for putting them to death.

But this is not the end of the allegorization. Comparison again with Luke and the Gospel of Thomas shows that in Matthew the parable has been transformed in other ways. In the other versions it is simply a great banquet given by a private individual; but in Matthew it is the story of a wedding feast given by a king for his son. The king is equated with God, and the son with Jesus, the Messiah. This, of course, is an entirely natural post-Easter reinterpretation, but if we want to ask what Jesus meant when he told the parable, we have to disregard these later elements. It is a judgment on Jesus' contemporaries who rejected his invitation to the coming kingdom, and an assurance to the outcast, with whom Jesus celebrated the great banquet in advance.

The Great Feast, Told Twice

The quickest way to understand the parable of the great feast in the First Reading is to first read Luke's version of the same story in Luke 14:16-24. Most students of the parables are convinced that, in this case, Luke gives us the version closest to Jesus' life setting and that Matthew has given the parable quite a different turn to apply it to the pastoral needs of the community for whom he was writing.

So read Luke 14:16-24 first. Notice that in his setting, a dinner party, Jesus tells the story in response to a guest's dreamy statement: “Blessed is the one who will dine in the kingdom of God.” Jesus proceeds to tell of a banquet to which none of the invited guests come, all of them begging off with phony excuses. The would-be host then instructs his servant to invite the poor, crippled, blind, and lame. Finding that there is still room, he has the servant call people in from the highways and hedgerows. In Luke’s setting, the parable is a commentary on Jesus' ministry and who is responding, or not. To his dreamy dining companion Jesus is saying something that might be paraphrased as follows:

Buddy, the kingdom of God is not something in the distant future. In my own preaching and table fellowship I've been inviting people to the table of the kingdom of God regularly, but most of those invited reject me, coming up with excuses like, “He eats with tax collectors and sinners,” or “He heals on the Sabbath.” Meanwhile, it is the poor and those in need of healing who respond to my invitation to the reign of God. And even outsiders (Gentiles) will be included.

Thus far Luke.

Matthew, on the other hand, has Jesus tell the story in the Temple precincts, when the chief priests and Pharisees come to challenge his authority after the clearing of the Temple. Matthew's fingerprints are all over his version of it. He specifies the characters and the occasion as a wedding feast that a king gives for his son—making it easy to identify God inviting the people of Israel to the eschatological banquet of his Son Jesus Christ. The single servant in Luke becomes two groups of servants in Matthew. More than simply excusing themselves, the invitees abuse and even murder the servants—all of which parallels the behavior of the wicked vineyard tenants of the parable placed just before this in Matthew's Gospel. So in Matthew's version, the two waves of servants easily fit the pattern of the former and the latter prophets (as in the story of the wicked tenants). In this version, the angry response of the host shows not only in the invitation of “street people” but in the destruction of those murderers and the burning of “their city.”

By this time, the original readers would have caught the fact that Matthew has turned the parable into a mini-history of Israel, alluding first to the people's rejection of the prophets—both Hebrew prophets and Christian—then alluding to the (recent?) 70 CE destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, interpreted as an act of God. The final scene, the king coming in to meet the guests gathered from the roads, is a “fast- forward” to the final judgment. If we are puzzled by the king's singling out a guest caught without a wedding garment, we miss the cultural note that the host of such a wedding feast would supply a closetful of festive garments for the guests, and it is this man's fault that he has not cooperated (none of the other “street people” seem to be lacking proper attire).

What was, in Luke, an illumination of Jesus' kingdom preaching ministry becomes, in Matthew's hands, a cautionary tale. As in the parables of the Weeds and the Wheat and the Net (both in Matthew 13), or the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids and the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, this is a parable about divine judgment aimed at a complacent community. Having one's wedding garment on is a symbol parallel to having your oil-lamp ready for the advent of the Bridegroom. It means having fed the hungry, having clothed the naked, having housed the homeless and so on, as in the vision of the sheep and the goats (Mt 25:31-46), where Jesus gives away the secret.

Ancient Table Manners

Some background knowledge of meals in antiquity sheds light on today's parable. Meals reproduce in miniature the everyday social relations of a society. Who eats with whom at a given table reflects who can associate with whom in the larger society.

The Insults of the First Group

In today's story, a king is arranging a wedding banquet for his son. In any society, commoners will not likely be invited. Royalty associate almost exclusively with royalty or at least with VIPs. Among the king's invited guests are a landowner and a business person (v. 5), definitely members of the elite class.

Notice also the double invitation: "The king sent his slaves to call those who had been invited…. Again he sent other slaves, saying… 'Come!’" (vv. 3-5). This was a common practice in antiquity. After the first invitation, the guests checked out who was invited or not invited, what kind of preparations were being made or not being made, and who was planning to attend as well as who was planning to stay away. This last point was particularly important. If key people decided to stay away, so would others.

The refusal of the invited guests to attend the king's wedding party shames him. For some reason the guests disapproved of the arrangements the king was making. They offer flimsy and insulting excuses, implying that tending the farm or the business is much more important than the wedding of the king's son. This is the traditional and indirect or face-saving method of turning down an invitation.

Other invited guests challenge the king's honor in a more direct fashion. They seize his slaves who bring the invitation, beat, and kill them. Clearly this action demands redress, and the king obliges (see v. 7).

First, he sends troops to kill the murderers and burn their city. This evens the score and solidifies the king's honor according to the rules of the honor and shame game. But then the king does something that breaks the rules. He invites nonelites to the wedding feast. Going to the palace, these people will enter a section of the city where they are rarely, if ever, seen.

Unexpected Invitations

The word in verse 9 translated as "main roads, main streets, or thoroughfares" actually describes the squares or plazas into which the streets run. These open spaces are common in Mediterranean cities. They are the normal places where the elite might meet and communicate with the nonelite. It is the place to see and be seen.

The king's guest list now is very unusual to say the least. In antiquity, meals were an exclusive affair. Inclusive table fellowship in the early Christian community caused problems, as Paul noted in his letters to Corinth (e.g., 1 Cor 11:17-34). People in a status-conscious culture such as this would feel more than uneasy with the royal banquet.

Jesus' parable was directed against his elite opponents from Jerusalem, the chief priests and elders. He contrasts their rigid observance of exclusivity with the open-hearted inclusivity expressed by the king: "Invite everyone you find" in the city square. Remember, parables tell how God relates to his clients ("the reign of God is like . . ."). The implication is that God's people ought to relate to each other in the same way. Do we?

There seem to be two realms, God’s and Caesar’s. Jesus says this in Sunday’s Gospel: “Give to God the things that are God’s and to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

Which realm do we live in?

Are we “Sunday Catholics,” giving to God maybe an hour per week at Mass and then getting on with television and cars and work and food? And maybe with being afraid? Or with wishing things had turned out better? Do you leave it to professionals to pray to God while you live a lesser life? Have we given your life to Caesar?

Or do we try it the other way around?

Perhaps we are so serious about Christianity and spirituality that we try to get away from enjoyment of any worldly thing so as to live uncorrupted. Through the history of Christianity there have been marvelous examples of this. The desert hermits. The cloistered nuns and monks. The great mystics. “A penny for Caesar and all the rest for God”?

If you push this statement too far, everything of Caesar must go away because it is not God, or on the other hand, God has to go away because science and secularism are so powerful.

Maybe Jesus made his statement to settle the argument posed to him by Pharisees. Here is a key. Can God and Caesar co-exist? What if you are created to be a container for God’s presence right in the midst of the secular world?

What if, in spite of the voices within you saying that you are not worth much, in spite of the setbacks of life, the losses, the flatness, in spite of all these, what if God created you with room inside you where God, out of love for you, can be quietly present?

I can hear objections to such an idea: “God would never be at home in me, not until I do a lot better with my life.” Or, “You want me to be some kind of nut, running around acting holy?” Or, “Sure, I want to let God in, but I like beer and TV too much.” Or, “What does all this have to do with real life?” Or simply, “I don’t want to.”

But if God were a great friend, a loving, faithful amigo who really does want to be with you, within you, as much as is possible? In fact, how would it be if God were a companion who truly and actually accepts you and forgives you completely whenever you need it? Wouldn’t this give you another way to look at the connection between heaven and at earth?

Wouldn’t it mean that God put you and me into the world to be holy in it, to be friends with the things of Caesar? To work in the world of sin in spite of our own sins?

Could be that we ourselves are those “things that belong to God” that Jesus spoke of. “Belong,” not in a possessive way, but in the way felt by people who love and are loved. We “belong.” If this were so, why wouldn’t we want to give ourselves to God, and then also to bring our God-filled selves to Caesar’s palaces and to the dirty roads outside them and show everyone what Jesus is all about?

Which realm should we live in?

Both.

Pre-Prayering

At which altar do we worship? In the history of the human race there have been many altars to many gods and goddesses. Some of these holy places are of humans forming likenesses of superhuman beings. Some, like mountains and rivers, are of nature reflecting force and supremacy.

We are encouraged to pray in preparation for the Eucharist with the faith which leads us to worship, adore and petition the God who has been revealed through the covenants and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We can pray with the attractiveness which false gods have for us. We may pray as well with the attractiveness which Jesus has for us.

We pray also with the call from God, the invitation, which extends through our entire span of days to which we have responded. In this way we are praying with the history of our coming to know, to love, and to serve this one God with more than lip-service.

Reflection

The Book of Consolation which comprises the sixteen chapters, forty to fifty-five of the Prophet Isaiah, are directed toward the people of Israel’s being in the Babylonian captivity. They are exiled from their homeland and long for release. These many oracles, poems, songs and predictions are meant to keep hope alive in the hearts of the people.

Earlier in the Book, God has called a foreign king, Cyrus, who does not know exactly how he has been called by God. The prophet proclaims that God has called this Cyrus, who is so powerful that kings run away from him, to be the victor over Israel’s captors

We heard the second section of God’s call to Cyrus a few chapters earlier. God affirms that Cyrus, a foreign military leader, has the title of the “anointed.” It may sound as if God is boasting like a professional wrestler, but instead God is protesting divine fidelity to the Jewish nation which lies in captivity. Help is on the way and it is God who is behind Cyrus’ power and victories.

The Gospel story is familiar and the final line is often quoted to various purposes. The Pharisees have been getting hit quite in their collective noses by the recent parables which Jesus has directed toward them. They want to trap him and so do something rather strange.

The Herodians are a separate Jewish group who cling to the Pentateuch as containing nothing about the resurrection of the body after death. Even more importantly for this Gospel text, the Herodians accepted the authority of the Romans and their allegiance to Caesar. The Pharisees wishing to get Jesus in conflict with the Romans, allied themselves with supporters of the Roman domination.

They flatter Jesus a bit and then pose the big question. Jesus rebukes their intention and confronts their hypocrisy. The coin belongs to Caesar’s empire, his image crowns the coin. The census tax is unjust of course, because the Roman domination is cruel and unjust.

“Repay to Caesar” is the way Jesus avoids entrapment with the Romans which would be

reported by the Herodians. Repaying to God what belongs to God is Jesus’ call to the interior surrender to which all people are called. God, the “Dominus” is greater than Caesar and God’s empire more extensive. The Pharisees have heard this insult to their religious authority and so the trap has failed. The tension remains between them and Jesus and that tension will be rising.

Caesar’s image was on the coin of the realm. As we know it was a powerful and extensive kingdom, but temporal. We struggle to live with the belief that God’s image is upon everything and everyone. We are made in that image while we wear our human smudge.

It was easy for the Herodians and Pharisees to see Caesar’s image. It takes some reflection to pick up God’s image upon us and others. That image may pop up clearly on the faces of little babies and tall mountains. Our human senses have a built-in filter which is reluctant to repay God for what belongs to God.

The first word infants speak, after “no!!!!,” is “mine!!!!” That outward possessiveness demands property and dominion. For some, that infancy continues into long years of “mine-ness” grasping.

“Internal possessiveness” is the basis of spirituality and the following of Jesus. It has several aspects. We are invited to receive interiorly God’s image and God’s creating of us. We possess God’s dwelling within us. This allows us to be more grateful for the particular and peculiar person each of us is.

“Interior possessiveness” allows us to be more generous. What we have is a wonder-filled gift which has many auxiliary gifts which express reception in their distribution. Instead of greed, instead of having to possess for one’s identity, generosity and service are the coins of the realm.

Repaying God with that which belongs to God is called the Christian life. Jesus as King of that realm lived his interior-possession by pouring himself into each of his life’s gestures. Outside he lived what he was inside.

We repay to God what is God’s by accepting who we are and whose we are. We worship at the altar at which Jesus continues to serve from the divine generosity of love. We worship at other altars when we forget who we really are.

See how the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,

on those who hope in his love, the he may rescue them from death

 and feed them in time of famine.

Psalm 33:18-19

First Reading

Isaiah, Chapter 45, Verses 4-6

1. Cyrus was a Gentile, yet he permitted the Israelites to return from captivity in Babylon to their homeland. What people in the last hundred and fifty years have broken down the walls of prejudice and freed oppressed peoples? Were they all Christian? Do you think God chose them? Has God ever chosen you? If so, were you aware of it?

2. Could God be “grasping the right hand” of scientists “though they know him not” who are trying to find cures for the pandemic and solutions for the global warming crisis, and of activists trying to stop racial injustice?  

Second Reading

1 Thessalonians, Chapter 1, Verses 1-5

1. Do the following help in your reception of the word:

• presence of the Holy Spirit;

• people living the gospel with conviction?

Compare and contrast these:

• receiving the word as way of life

• receiving the word as a code of conduct.

2. St. Paul says, “For our Gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.” What is more important: thinking about the word or acting on it? Where does the power to act come from?

Gospel

Matthew, Chapter 22, Verses 15-21

1. In this Gospel reading, are the Pharisees more interested in taxes or in undermining Jesus’ influence? Do God’s and Caesar’s worlds have to be separated? “Can we divorce spiritual obligation from political policies … or social issues?”*

 *Joan Chittister, Now Is the Time, p. 57

2. Pope Francis says Caesar’s image is on the coin, but we are all created in the image and likeness of God. To whom do we all ultimately belong? How would a Christian illuminate the world’s human and social problems with the Light of the Holy Spirit?

Christians are called to commit themselves concretely in the human and social spheres without comparing “God” and “Caesar”; comparing God and Caesar would be a fundamentalist approach. Christians are called to commit themselves concretely in earthly realities, but illuminating them with the light that comes from God. The primary entrustment to God and hope in him do not imply an escape from reality, but rather the diligent rendering to God that which belongs to him. … to live earthly life to the fullest, and to meet its challenges with courage. 

Pope Francis, The Angelus, Oct. 22, 2017

Honesty as Sobriety

You are as sick as your sickest secret!

That’s a popular aphorism in recovery circles and it speaks a deep truth. If we have to hide something then we aren’t well, at least if the blemishes we are hiding are moral rather than physical. A recovering alcoholic once told me: “Sobriety is only 10% about alcohol or a drug; it’s 90% about honesty. You can drink, if you can do it honestly.” Indeed you can do anything, if you can do it honestly.

That’s an interesting moral principle: You can do anything if you don’t have to lie about it.

There are exceptions to this of course if people have hardened their spirits or are otherwise so morally insensitive that they are not ashamed to openly admit or even flaunt duplicity. But the principle is sufficient as a moral guide for basically anyone walking in grace. Simply put, you can do anything as long as you can be honest about it.

But that covers a lot of ground. Could you cheat someone, be sexually unfaithful, slander someone, or commit a sin of any kind and feel comfortable in sharing that openly with those who are closest to you? The need to hide some action from others is a strong moral nudging. If we are walking (at least essentially) in grace we don’t need any other commandment: We can do anything as long as we don’t have to lie about it.

And there is another insight in this. When we do something wrong and then cover it up and lie, it is not so much the particular thing that we did wrong that harms us, it’s the lying about it afterwards that does the real damage. We are all weak, we all fall, we all commit sin. God understands this and it is not so much the sin itself that harms us. What causes the real harm is lying, covering up, sneaking around, not being transparent, living a double life. Why? Because the human spirit is not made to live in dishonesty and duplicity. When we do wrong, we either have to stop doing what we are doing or, at least in honesty and contrition own our weakness, or our spirits will automatically begin to harden and to warp. Such is the anatomy of the soul; it can not tolerate moral duplicity for long without hardening and warping.

Indeed that is how the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, the one infamous sin that cannot be forgiven, can happen. It begins with lying, rationalization, cover-up, and dishonesty. When we sustain a lie for any length of time, we begin to warp our own insides and the sin can become unforgivable not because God doesn’t want to forgive but because we no longer see any need to be forgiven. Lying, especially to ourselves, hardens and corrupts the spirit. That’s why Satan is called the prince of lies rather than the prince of weakness. That’s also what is contained in Martin Luther’s famous axiom: Sin bravely! The invitation, in Luther, is not that we should have the courage to sin without flinching, but that, if we do sin, we should have the courage of honesty so as not to lie or rationalize about it after the fact.

One of the qualities that endeared Henri Nouwen to the world was precisely his honesty about his own weaknesses and his refusal to pretend he was anything other than what he was: a sincere, weak man struggling to live his life in honesty. For example, there were seasons in his life when he wouldn’t go on the road alone to give talks and conferences. Partly his reason for this had to do with his sense of community and his desire to bring a core member from his community along with him. Part of his reason though was more humble. He was also honest enough not to always fully trust himself to travel alone. The presence of family and community around us can be a powerful moral watchdog on our behavior. Nouwen was humble and honest enough to admit that sometimes he needed this in his life. Too often we lack that kind of humility and honesty and consequently have things to hide, little or big secrets which we keep hidden and which keep us from full moral health.

When he was falsely accused of sexual abuse, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was able to stand before the world and say, with credibility: “Everyone who knows me also knows that this accusation is false because my life is an open book.” Everyone who knew him believed him precisely because of the transparency evident in his life, the radical sobriety manifest in his person.

Sobriety is ultimately not about alcohol or some drug. It’s about honesty and transparency. And, like honesty and transparency, it is not all or nothing, but has degrees. We are all sober according to more or less, according to the degree that our lives are an open book with nothing hidden in the closet.

God forever unexpected,
as day and night draw even
and the fields and vineyards and gardens
finish their labors,
you call us to this school of mercy,
to this assembly,
to be startled anew by your ways with us.
Over the clamor for war and power,
shout loudly to us
so we may imagine your ways,
and so walk worthy of the gospel of Jesus,
who is Lord for ever and ever.

Giving Praise to the One God

I am the Lord and there is no other, there is no God besides me. The god that we make of power, the domination of others and the exercise of control over their lives, is a false god. The god that we make of possessions, the accumulation of wealth far beyond that required for a dignified life, is a false god. The god that we make of pleasure and comfort, soothing our senses with physical satisfaction and enjoyment, is a false god. The god that we make of security, lulling us to sleep in the midst of a world filled with chaos and turmoil, is a false god.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s. What is God’s is the only place as God, and so we give the Lord glory and honor. We who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ know that all the gods of the nations are things of naught, and so we reject the false gods of power, possessions, pleasure, and security. We place all our hope in the almighty and ever-living God who is our source of power and inspiration.

“Since it has been entrusted to the Church to reveal the mystery of God, who is the ultimate goal of man, she opens up to man at the same time the meaning of his own existence, that is, the innermost truth about himself. The Church truly knows that only God, whom she serves, meets the deepest longings of the human heart, which is never fully satisfied by what this world has to offer.” ”

Vatican II, Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965) 41.

Keying in to words and phrases from the gospel:

• entrap
• repay. . to God what belongs to God

Keying in to a focus: The context of this gospel is the escalating conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities. Instead of shying away from it or defusing it Jesus addresses the conflict head on. He has clarity about what is central—God and the kingdom—and so he is able to give to God what belongs to God: his very self. Discipleship requires of us nothing less.

Connecting to last Sunday's gospel: We can be so foolish as to refuse the invitation to God's lavish feast when we lack clarity about God and the kingdom. Because Jesus has this clarity his response is total.

Connecting to biblical culture: Second Isaiah is among the first of the biblical authors to assert clearly that Yahweh is the only God. As such, Yahweh is not only the God of Israel but the God of all nations. As sovereign Lord of all, Yahweh appoints and uses even foreign kings—like Cyrus the Persian—to carry out God's purpose, in this case, to redeem Judah from exile. The sovereignty of God extends over all.

Connecting to "Messianic Banquet": The past three Sundays have shown Jesus confronting and condemning the "chief priests and elders of the people." As religious leaders their primary loyalty was to the God who had given them both the Law and the land. That land had become polluted and defiled because of the occupation of the pagan Roman army. The religious leaders, therefore, had no sympathy for their hated overlords.

The conflict in this episode expands to include the Herodians, a political faction loyal to the Roman-approved and supported rule of the House of Herod. The Herodians and the religious leaders could normally be expected to be opposed to one another but their shared hatred and fear of Jesus make of them temporary conspirators. Jesus must have appeared to be a significant threat to bring these opponents to the same bed! They present Jesus with an apparent "no-win" situation: should Jews pay Roman taxes? Roman taxes had to be paid in Roman currency. The coin in question was the denarius: it was imprinted with the image of the Emperor Tiberius on one side and the obverse was inscribed with the words "Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus." The coin quite literally belonged to Caesar. If Jesus said "no" to the payment of taxes, the Herodians could accuse him of rebellion and treason; if he said "yes," the Pharisees could accuse him politically of collaboration and religiously of acknowledging the alleged divinity of Augustus.

Jesus acknowledges that the coin already belongs to Caesar: give it to him. What, in the long run, is a day's wage? It's a relatively small claim. Even symbolically, surrendering the coin tacitly acknowledges that foreign kings rule only by Yahweh's permission (see Connecting to biblical culture, above). A greater claim is made by the same God who allows "Caesar" to rule: God demands submission of the will, obedience of the heart, and the surrender of one's life. Paying the tax is getting off cheap. Jesus is about to reveal the cost of obedience: its full measure is stretched out on a cross. 

Commentary: Lawrence of Brindisi

Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.

In today's gospel we find two questions: one put to Christ by the Pharisees, and the other put by him to them. The Pharisees' question concerns this world alone, while Christ's has an entirely heavenly and other-worldly sense. Their question derived from profound ignorance and perversity; his stemmed from perfect wisdom and goodness.

Whose likeness and inscription is this? Caesar's, they reply. Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. To each, he says, must be given what belongs to him. This, surely, is a judgment full of heavenly wisdom and instruction. For it teaches that authority is twofold, having an earthly and human aspect, and a heavenly and divine aspect. It teaches that we owe a twofold duty of obedience: to human laws and to the law of God. The coin bearing Caesar's likeness and inscription must be given to Caesar, and the one stamped with the divine image and likeness must be given to God. We bear the imprint of your glorious face, 0 Lord.

We are made in the image and likeness of God. So you, 0 Christian, because you are a human being, are God's tribute money—a little coin bearing the image and likeness of the divine emperor. Therefore with Christ I ask, whose likeness and inscription is this? Your answer is, God's. To which I reply, Then why not give God what belongs to him?

If we really want to be God's image, we must be like Christ, for his is the image of God's goodness and the perfect copy of his nature, and God foreordained that those he has chosen should take on a likeness to his son. Christ undoubtedly gave Caesar what was Caesar's and God what was God's. He fulfilled to perfection the precepts of both tablets of the law, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross, and he was most highly endowed, both inwardly and outwardly, with every virtue.

In today's gospel the reply, most wise and discreet, by which Christ sidestepped his enemies' trap shows his great prudence. His teaching that each must be given what belongs to him, and also the example he gave by being willing to pay the temple tax and giving a shekel for himself and Peter, shows his justice. His declaring it to be a duty to pay taxes to Caesar, openly teaching the truth without fear of the Jews who would be offended, shows his fortitude. For this is God's way, of which Christ is the authentic teacher.

Those therefore who resemble Christ in their lives, conduct, and practice of the virtues, they are the ones who truly manifest the divine image; for the way to recover this image is by being absolutely just. Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's; that is, give each what belongs to him.

(Opera omnia 8, 335. 336. 339-340. 346)

Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619) was born at Brindisi and educated at Venice. In 1575 he entered with the Capuchins and was sent to Padua to study philosophy and theology. He had a prodigious memory and was said to know the Scriptures by heart in the original. This enabled him to convert many Jews. Raised to a high degree of contemplation himself, he evangelized much of Europe, speaking to the hearts of those who heard him. From 1602 he served a term as minister general of the Capuchins. As chaplain to the imperial troops he led them into battle and to victory against the Turks on two occasions, armed only with a crucifix. He died at Lisbon while on an embassy. His writings include eight volumes of sermons, commentaries on Genesis and Ezekiel, and other didactic or controversial works. Pope John XXIII added his name to the list of Doctors of the Church.

No Tax Break Here

There was once a cartoon by Tony Auth that shows our status today. He illustrated a roomful of partying politicians, elephantine and asinine. The legend declared, “At the Welfare ‘Reform’ Celebration ... ” Through a window you can see a forlorn youngster holding up a sign: “14 million American kids in poverty.” One of the pols notices and says, “Lighten up, kid. Nobody likes a sore loser.”

Taxes, and how they are used in today’s America, have always been a sensitive issue. The Pharisees and the Herodians are acutely aware of this when they approach Jesus with the question, “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” They figure they have him either way. Either a yes or a no answer will get Jesus in trouble. If he says no, they have grounds to accuse him of sedition before the procurator. On the other hand, a yes answer will make him unpopular with the people, who find the Roman tax burdensome. Jesus, however, refuses to give a yes or no answer. Instead, he calls for a denarius and asks whose image it carries. Hearing that it is Caesar's, he says, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

Most people, when they read or hear this response, think something like this: That is a clever answer, but now Jesus has left us with another difficult question: How do you sort out what is Caesar's and what is God’s?

But that reaction misses the point of Jesus’ remark. Lacking the cultural context, we miss two things. First, when Jesus asks for the coin (and one is promptly produced), he exposes the hypocrisy of his questioners. For any Jew who was sensitive to the demands of the Mosaic Law would not be carrying a coin embossed with the image of an emperor, pictured as divine. The bearer of such a “graven image” has already settled for himself the question of relating to the Roman Empire and its economy.

Second, Jesus' question about whose “image” the coin carries contains an allusion that most of us miss. If an image on something indicates authority and ownership, and Caesar's image on the coin implies the dominion of the empire, then what is it that bears God's image, indicating the ownership and dominion of God? Anyone, especially any Jew, knew that human beings are created in the image of God.

Thus Jesus' response is not a clever dodge. It is a confrontation. The world is not divided into one part for God (however large) and one part (however small) for Caesar. All creation is, first of all, under God's sovereignty, especially human beings, who as God's image have a special role in stewarding the goods of creation. Then, within that context, one works out the smaller question of relating to the empire. Jesus' challenge to his adversaries, then, is that in refusing to deal with Jesus' truth, they are resisting the reign of God. They are failing to live out their roles as bearers of God's image.

The reading from Isaiah thus provides a powerful background for meditating on this Gospel. Isaiah presents the voice of God referring to another head of empire, Cyrus the Great, as his “anointed one.” This pagan emperor of the Persians earns that title because he, albeit unknowingly, has become God's instrument in the restoration of the exiled Judeans to their homeland. As in the action and words of Jesus in the Gospel, God's role as Creator of all is very much in the picture. Before and after this reading, the prophet speaks of God as

the LORD, who made all things,

who alone stretched out the heavens,

when I spread out the earth  … " (Isa 44:24)

and who

made the earth

and created mankind upon it (Isa 45:12).

Unlike Cyrus, the Pharisees and Herodians were failing to cooperate with the Creator of all.

Even in our own day, when our president addresses the question of taxation, we can suffer from amnesia regarding the image of God borne by all humanity. We live in a culture that easily divides the world into three parts—one part (as much as I myself can get) for me and mine; another part (as little as possible) for Caesar; and, oh yes, a third part (as much as is left over) for God. Jesus would remind us that as creatures made in God's image, we are to use taxes as a tool for seeing that the goods of the earth are used to meet the needs of all.

Not a popular notion at a time when the highest political value is not the common good but a tax break.

Reading I: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
 
In Second Isaiah we find a remarkable treatment of the Persian emperor Cyrus. Although he is a pagan king, he is saluted as the anointed of YHWH, his servant raised up to conquer Babylon and to restore God's people to their homeland:

For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I surname you, though you do not know me.

This inaugurates a line of Jewish teaching about the state, including the pagan state, that culminates in Jesus' pronouncement about the payment of tribute money (today's gospel) and in Paul's teaching about the Roman state under the emperor Nero as the servant and minister of God.
 
Responsorial Psalm: 96:1, 3-5, 7-10ac

Another selection from this psalm is used on the second Sunday of the year in series C. It is one of the enthronement psalms, which, according to some scholars, were sung at a (hypothetical) annual feast in which the king was enthroned in order to symbolize YHWH's kingship over his people. As the king took his seat upon his earthly throne, the whole people would have chanted this psalm in celebration of the kingship of YHWH.

This psalm (which, incidentally, tends to be overworked in Anglicanism because, I suspect, of the Book of Common Prayer's mistranslation of the first line of the third stanza as "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness") has close affinities in theological outlook with Second Isaiah. It emphasizes the sovereignty of YHWH over all nations and thus forms a fitting response to the proclamation of God's appointment of Cyrus.
 
Reading II: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b

This letter to the Thessalonians is the earliest written document in the New Testament. It was written by Paul during his stay at Corinth in A.D. 50. Paul had founded the church at Thessalonica not very long before. He had had to leave it hurriedly, and, in his anxiety over his recent converts, he sent Timothy to see how things were going.

The report Timothy brought back was largely favorable—hence the warm tone of the opening thanksgiving, which forms the main part of today's reading. But there were also a few problems in Thessalonica; we will meet them on the thirty-second and thirty-third Sundays.
 
Gospel: Matthew 22:15-21

Apart from a few stylistic changes, Matthew has taken over this pericope substantially in its Marcan form. He also retains the Marcan context, where it precedes the question of the Sadducees about the resurrection (Mark 12:18-27 / Matt 22:23-33), though Matthew has inserted the parable of the great banquet between the parable of the vineyard and the present pericope. Also, Matthew has rewritten the introduction so as to speak of a plot to entrap Jesus. The result of these changes is to emphasize that the episode of the tribute money was part of Jesus' conflict with his opponents. It thus is part of the material with which Matthew seeks to speak directly to the situation of the Church in his day, locked as it was in mortal combat with the Jewish leaders of Jamnia over the question of what was true orthodoxy and who were the true people of God.

The Pharisees' question about the tribute money is a classic example of the so-called pronouncement story, with its threefold form of setting,
action, and pronouncement. Everything in this story is subordinated to the punchline: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

This pronouncement has been interpreted in many different ways in the course of Christian history. Often, like Rom 13, it has been construed in the interests of a conservative throne-and-altar theology as in Lutheran orthodoxy, which reached its tragic climax in the German Christian movement during the Nazi period. Exegesis in Germany has swung to the other extreme today: "Only a penny for Caesar, everything else for God."

A more reasonable interpretation would be that Caesar has his own legitimate but limited sphere, and even that he holds it under God and is responsible to God for its proper governance. This does not necessarily mean—though in certain circumstances it has meant and could mean again—that the state itself has to profess Christianity. It means that the state must be what it is and perform the proper functions of a state in maintaining law and order and promoting the welfare of its citizens. But when it oversteps the mark and puts itself in the place of God, Christians are in the last resort absolved from obedience. We must give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and not the things that are God's. We must obey God rather than human beings.

To Caesar What Is God's

"I am the Lord, there is no other."

It is fitting that the gospel readings in October and November frequently focus on radical discipleship. Late fall in the United States is, after all, the time of political choices, a season of elections, partisanship, and rival loyalties. In this season, it is hard to escape the political implications of the story of Jesus and Caesar's coin.

Of course the situation of Jesus, as well as of the community that collected the accounts of his life, differs vastly from our own. The gospel confrontation most likely represents a struggle between the party of Herod, loyal to Rome, and the Zealots, who refused tribute. Jesus seems to reject the Zealot contention, but he also distances himself from the Herodians.

The story is not simply about competing jurisdictions of church and state, nor about the isolated question of paying taxes (although both issues seem germane to our political campaigns as the century turns).

The taxation incident is one of five confrontations concerning the authority of Jesus. There are surrounding controversies over the acceptance of John the Baptist, over marriage, over the resurrection of the dead, over the great commandment, and over claims of messiahship.

In this particular conflict, we see Jesus confronted by a group of people who want to trip him up and undercut his mission, since they suspect that his parables are actually challenges to their power. His opponents use friendly, even smarmy words: "Dear teacher, truthful man, sincere fellow, you court no favor, nor ever act out of human respect." Then, aware of the hidden agenda in their question, whether it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, Jesus says that they should give the coin to the one whose face appears on it. "And give to God the things that are God's."

This scenario is particularly interesting if it is taken as a metaphor for conflicting loyalties in a "Judeo-Christian nation" as it faces the 1996 election at our century's wane. Both prominent antagonists and their handlers say the right words. They are all on the side of angels: family, values, truth, fairness, virtue, faith, blah blah blah. But the hidden agenda is really a question of authority. Who or what speaks to us authoritatively? I propose that it is not the choice between two political parties that pulls us one way or the other. (They are both pulling the same way: toward the empire of money, nationalism, and entertainment.) It is really a choice between Caesar and God.

What are we asked today to give to the empire? Is it our faith and moral practice? Our hopes and dreams? Our consciences? Our labor? Our children? And if we offer such sacrifices upon the altar of Caesar, have we betrayed the goods that are most intimately ours and God's?

The empire and those who vie for its throne offer us, in differing forms, an ideology of self-interest. One version of this promises us lower taxes and more prosperity, national security and power, enlightened egotism, and the narcissistic myth that since we have "earned" our possessions, the poor of our country and of the world can make no claim on us. The other version appeals to unbounded self-indulgence. Here we find individualistic choice exalted over every value and objective good imaginable. The clap-trap of rights talk, for example, has little to do with the intrinsic value of persons who command our respect by their very humanity. It is rather the scream of special interests grabbing attention, demanding satisfaction.

Out of both sides of the empire's mouth come sophistries. One jabbers about "morality," the other about "the right thing." But behind the glib words is a message: how good we have it, how much better off we will be if we vote for the privileged candidate.

In this political campaign precious few words will appeal to our generosity, our discipline, or our spirit of sacrifice. If there is talk of discipline and sacrifice, these will be prescribed for the poor. If there is language of compassion, it will ring of self-righteous narcissism.

The shroud of death haunting hospitals and refugee camps will not be mentioned. The deceptions of our official instruments of war and governance will not be uncovered. The voracious economy, which demands full-time work from both parents hoping to raise children, will not be addressed. The extravagant mountains of money for jaded entertainers and corporate merchants will not be brought up to embarrass us. We will only hear of what matters most: the products of our hands and the imaginings of our minds to which we supposedly turn for comfort and meaning, even salvation.

Isaiah's God was heard to say, "There is no God beside me." The Spirit that St. Paul preached led not to fatuous words but to active power. And Jesus knew what ought to be rendered to God: not lip-service, but heart and mind.

If we go to that polling place and vote for one of those who would lead us, let us do so well and judiciously. Give to Caesar.

But let us keep vigilance over our souls.

Give To God What Is His

In ancient Mediterranean culture, no question is neutral. It is always intended and perceived as a challenge to one's honor. Today's gospel portrays Jesus once again as a master of the cultural game of challenge and riposte.

Setting the Trap

So far Jesus has been fencing with the chief priests and elders. Now the Pharisees and Herodians launch an attack on him. Matthew's editorial comment leaves no doubt about their intentions: the Pharisees intend to entrap Jesus by what he says (22:15). They enlist the Herodians dians in their plot.

The questioners begin with flattery to take Jesus off guard. A Pharisee compliments Jesus on being "honest" (true, a truthful man), teaching the way of God authentically, and caring little about honor, that is, taking no account of any person's status or opinion. In actuality, Jesus was very sensitive to honor. He did care about the opinions of others (Matt 16:13). Eagerness to trap Jesus causes the Pharisees to exaggerate. Jesus is not taken in.

Jesus was aware of the malice behind the question and understood the challenge. If he said it was not lawful to pay the tax, he would anger the Roman officials. If he said it was in accord with Torah, he would offend the ardent nationalists who hated everything about the Romans.

Turning the Tables

"Show me the coin that pays the census tax:' says Jesus. Before they recognize Jesus' trap, they produce the specific coin. In the time of Jesus, the denarius bore the image of the emperor Tiberius, who ruled between 14 and 37 C.E., and an inscription: "Tiberius Caesar, Augustus, son of the divine Augustus, high priest."

Pharisees were particularly disturbed by the attribution of divinity to Caesar but also considered possession of this graven image to be idolatrous. They devised ways to pay this tax without possessing or handling the coin. It would be very shameful if a Pharisee produced the coin.

But if a Herodian in the group produced the coin, the Pharisees would still be shamed by having selected unworthy allies. In either case, the fact that someone in their group possessed and produced the coin was shameful. Jesus' first riposte to their challenge cuts deep.

His second riposte lies in his questions: "Whose head? Whose title?" The inscription and image were plainly visible and clearly legible. The Pharisees' reply sets up Jesus' positive answer: "Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar?' Later (see Luke 23:2) the Pharisees will lie and say that Jesus answered negatively.

Actually, Jesus and the Pharisees probably held similar opinions about paying the tax. It could cause more trouble not to pay it. Life is preferable to death, and if this is what it costs to coexist peaceably with the Romans in their empire, so be it.

What Really Matters

Jesus' concluding exhortation, "Give to God the things that belong to God:' implies that neither the Pharisees nor the Herodians are doing that. This is a serious charge. The Pharisees were so devoted to observing the Torah's 613 commandments that they put a "hedge around the Torah." They proposed observing just a little bit more to be sure of pleasing God. Was Jesus exaggerating their minor foibles as the Pharisees earlier exaggerated Jesus' insensitivity to honor? Whatever the case, Jesus won this contest and reminded his adversaries that what mattered most was pleasing God.

Americans tend to see in this passage an argument for the separation of church and state. Such an idea makes no sense in first-century Mediterranean culture. Religion and economics both are embedded in politics and kinship. There was state religion (Temple; empire) and family religion (home); state economics (taxes and redistribution) and family economics (gifts and sharing). Our modern Western situation and its challenges are very different. For us as for our ancestors what matters most is to please God.

Look What Love Is Doing

Kids go through grade school and high school with important questions to face. Am I “in” with the crowd? Can I could hold my own against the bullies, can I get along with girls, can I get along with the boys, did I wear the right clothes, am I cool enough? These are obviously more important and more crucial than anything else in their lives.

This was the case in my own life, and I suppose it was the reason I did not think much about the place of “love” in the overall scheme of life. Of course, who "thinks" when they are in high school?

Then as a college freshman I had Fr. Robert Boyle, S.J., for English literature. He was a great teacher, without question, and one proof of his greatness lay in a statement he often made:

If you want to know what is happening

in a work of literature,

look what love is doing.

Look at what love is doing!

“What?” my barely 18-year-old self gasped.

I had never known explicitly that love was such a big deal. I thought it was something parents have for you and tell you about it over and over. Could it really be the key to plays, poems, novels, short stories and literature? The key to humanity? Ulp. I had better pay attention.

We went through Shakespeare, Hopkins, Joyce, Keats, Milton, and I can’t remember how many more. The clouds parted and I began to see that Boyle was right: characters’ lives do center around something called “love” or the lack of it. Try it out when you read your next serious novel or short story. Which character acts out of real regard for the other(s) and which does not? What happens as a result?

Oh, and what about love in our own lives?

Have you discovered that love is quite a bit more than pretense, more than an ideal, more than just a thing we crave from others, and certainly more than just pleasure? Have you seen that learning to love is the very air inhaled by such everyday importances as work, relaxation, attractions, happiness? Without love’s living atmosphere none of these could breathe, nor could we.

In Sunday’s Gospel Jesus says this in no uncertain terms.

You shall love the Lord, your God,

with all your heart,

with all your soul,

and with all your mind. ...

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.

“What?” we might exclaim (as I did in college). We thought that law consisted of commands placed upon us from the outside, rules whose violation would bring punishment! What is this about law depending on love?

Well, take a look.

God does not fail at love. God waits. God says, “how wonderful that you are learning!” God says, “I love every person on earth. And you: you are my beloved. I am at your side as you learn to open to me and to others.”

You and I do not judge ourselves as succeeding in this very often, so we need laws to help us. But the root of law and of life is love of others. It is loving concern under God for human persons. Ultimately, it is an imitation of God’s love for us.

“Look what love is doing."

Pre-Prayering

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous poem begins: “How do I love thee, let me count the ways.” When we love someone we have some evidence flowing from our interior disposition out into actions revealing that love. Love is shown in actions.

We are invited to pray for a loving, compassionate, unstandardized interior, formed by the personality of Jesus. We are invited to pray, not for the knowledge of how to love, but the wisdom to want to love in all circumstances of our lives.

We pray with the grace received in the Eucharist to live with gestures of personal and selfless kindness. Love can be expressed in the smallest of ways and especially toward the orphans, widows and those in most need.

Reflection

Perhaps one might think that being told with strict exactness how one is to love might be more comfortable than being told, well, just to love one's neighbor.

The section of the Book of Exodus from which our First Reading is taken has a huge number of laws concerning conduct within the Jewish community. These “laws” were meant to preserve a religious spirit and order between and among the people. They were all seen as initiated by God, and keeping them was the way to “love” or to reverence God. These “laws cover such areas as thievery, compensation for injuries, sexual behavior, and violent actions done to others or to animals. They are all quite specific and seem to cover every eventuality. One would have no problem knowing exactly what it means to love God, except by keeping each one exactly. Now that might be, for some, just what would make life easy.

Next we hear about lending and demanding high interest. Collateral is reasonable, but compassion must be shown or God’s compassion will be withheld.

Last week’s Gospel pictured Jesus as silencing the Jewish religious leaders with his answer about Caesar’s coin. To save face they ask him a question concerning the Law—which of all was the greatest. It is not quite exact enough to pin Jesus down. As with the question about Caesar’s coin that we saw last week, the Pharisees are trying to pit Jesus against Roman law as well as against their own Jewish traditions.

It reminds me of my first year at St. Norbert College near Green Bay, Wisconsin. I was taking a Philosophy course and could not figure out such concepts as essence, existence and all those kind of things I still have troubles with. Well, in an oral exam, wanting to show the professor that I had some interest in the subject, I asked who was the better philosopher, Augustine or Aquinas. I had heard those names floating around, but I thought I would trick him into talking more and asking me less.

He did me dirt. He asked me my own opinion and which areas I would like to compare and contrast. He, like Jesus, left me silenced.

When we read Luke’s account of the Gospel question/answer session, the Pharisees respond by asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Matthew leaves it more to us, not only about who our neighbor is, but what constitutes loving that person. This is exactly what Jesus is doing by making the answer both indefinite in one sense, but quite exact in a deeper more religious sense.

We love God, less by emotion and more by counting the ways God loves us and receiving that love gracefully. This is the first and greatest “invitation.” (“Command” is a word Jesus used, because of the Jewish sense of “law.”) Jesus is the Divine Invitation to experience what real human life is all about. The Second Invitation is good for us too. It is what real life is all about. When we respond to the First Invitation, then living the Second Invitation is both holy and healthy.

I suspect that you were hoping I could explicitate exactly what it means to love God and to love your neighbor. Jesus left it up to us and so I too, leave it up to you. Loving God and loving our neighbor constitute one and the same act of faith. That is exactly the act Jesus was inviting the Pharisees to make.

It is his invitation to us as well.

Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering to God.

Ephesians 5:2

First Reading

Exodus, Chapter 22, Verses 20-26

1. God’s love brought the Israelites out of Egypt where they had been aliens. According to this reading, how were they to repay God’s love? How do you repay God’s love for you? Do you pass it on? Do you pay it forward?

2. Does God hear the cry from immigrants because of immigration laws? What about minorities, and especially the poor because of the pandemic and climate change? What can we do to be part of God’s compassion toward all those suffering?

 

Second Reading

1 Thessalonians, Chapter 1, Verses 5-10

1. Are you “receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit?” Is the Holy Spirit the great forgotten one for you, or do you guard, even cherish, the gift that inspires you to “sound forth,” that gives you peace and teaches you to love?

2. Every place the Thessalonians went, the “word of the Lord sounded forth.” How can you yourself  “sound forth” (without preaching)? Do you know anyone in the world who does that today? in your parish? in your workplace? Can you “sound forth” with actions as well as words?

Gospel

Matthew, Chapter 34-40

1. You were made in God’s image and likeness, and every good thing you have comes from God. What does God ask in return? Is it always easy? Discuss whether “love you neighbor” includes your arrogant neighbor or just your kind one.

2. Pope Francis made remarks about love and one of the first steps toward that love. In overcoming anger or rivalry, etc., he suggests praying for the other person. Would that help you accept the other as brother or sister?

What is the law of the People of God? It is the law of love, love for God and love for neighbor according to the new commandment that the Lord left to us (cf. Jn 13:34). It is a love, however, that is not sterile sentimentality or something vague, but the acknowledgment of God as the one Lord of life and, at the same time, the acceptance of the other as my true brother, overcoming division, rivalry, misunderstanding, selfishness; these two things go together. … We must ask the Lord to make us correctly understand this law of love. How beautiful it is to love one another as true brothers and sisters. How beautiful! 

Pope Francis General Audience

St. Peter’s Square

June 12, 2013

The Ten Commandments of Mercy

Among the Ten Commandments, one begins with the word “remember”: Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.” It reminds us to recall something we already know. There are commandments of mercy written into our very DNA. We already know them, but we need to remember them more explicitly. What are they?

The Ten Commandments of Mercy:

1. Remember that mercy lies deepest in God’s heart.
   Few things so much approximate the essence of God as does mercy. Mercy is God’s essence. Scripture uses words such as loving-kindness and compassion to try to define what constitutes God’s mercy, but the central biblical concept, captured in the Hebrew concept of hesed, connotes a relationship that loves, embraces, and forgives even when, and especially when, we cannot measure up or deserve what’s given us.
2. Remember that mercy is the essence of all true religion.
   Inside religion and spirituality, within all faiths, three things try to lay claim to what’s central: proper religious practice, outreach to the poor, and compassion. Ultimately they are not in opposition, but complementary pieces of one religious whole. But for religious practice and outreach to the poor to be an extension of God’s love and not of human ego, they need to be predicated upon compassion, mercy. Deepest inside of every religion is the invitation: Be compassionate, merciful, as God is compassionate.
3. Remember that we all stand forever in need of mercy.
   There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who converts than over ninety-nine righteous persons. Does God love sinners more than the righteous? There are no righteous persons. It’s rather that we feel God’s love more when we admit that we’re sinners. None of us ever measure up. But, as St. Paul so consolingly teaches, the whole point is that we don’t have to measure up. That’s what mercy means. It’s undeserved, by definition.
4. Remember that, having received mercy, we must show mercy to others.
   We only receive and appropriate God’s mercy and the mercy of others when we extend that same mercy to others. Mercy has to flow through us. If we don’t extend it to others we become self-indulgent and too harsh on others.
5. Remember that only the practice of mercy sets us free.
   Receiving and giving mercy is the only thing that frees from our congenital propensity to self-seek, self-justify, and judge others. Nothing frees us more from the tyranny of ego than does the practice of mercy.
6. Remember that mercy is not opposed to justice, but is its fulfillment.
   Mercy, as Walter Kasper so aptly puts it, is not “a kind of fabric softener that undermines the dogmas and commandments and abrogates the central and fundamental meaning of truth.” That’s the accusation the Pharisees made against Jesus. Mercy is where justice is meant to terminate.
7. Remember that only the practice of mercy will make God’s Kingdom come.
   Jesus promised us that someday the meek will inherit the earth, the poor will eat plentiful, rich food, and all tears will be wiped away. That can only happen when mercy replaces self-interest.
8. Remember that mercy needs too to be practiced collectively.
   It is not enough for us to be merciful in our own lives. Mercy is marginalized in a society that doesn’t sufficiently attend to those who are weak or needy, just as it is marginalized in a church that is judgmental. We must create a society that is merciful and a church that is merciful. Mercy, alone, enables the survival of the weakest.
9. Remember that mercy calls us to do works both spiritual and physical.
   Our Christian faith challenges us to perform mercy in a double way, corporeally and spiritually.  The classic corporal works of mercy are: Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, cloth the naked, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. The classic spiritual works of mercy are: instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, comfort the afflicted, admonish the sinner, forgive offenses, bear wrongs patiently, and pray for the living and the dead. God has given us different gifts and all of us are better at some of these than at others, but mercy is manifest in all of them.
10. Remember that our lives are a dialogue between God’s mercy and our weaknesses.
    The only thing at which we are adequate is being inadequate. We are forever falling short at something, no matter the strength of our sincerity, good intention, and willpower. Only mercy, receiving it and giving it, can lead us out of the choppy waters of our own anxieties, worry, and joylessness. Only in knowing mercy do we know gratitude.

In the year 2016, Pope Francis asked us all to live a year of mercy, to contemplate the mystery of mercy “as a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace.” Mercy, he believes, is the secret to putting a credible face to God, to putting a credible face to our churches, and to walking with steadiness inside our own lives.

You have called us, loving God,
to come from our homes and our labors
into this assembly
where we shall attend to your word together
and together give you thanks.
In a time bent on violence, dear God,
give us courageous love to act for peace.
Fill us with the soul force of our saints.
We ask with the boldness of Jesus,
who loved you heart and soul and mind,
who is Lord for ever and ever.

Expand Your Neighborhood

The greatest commandment is clear: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart. The second greatest commandment is equally clear: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. What is not clear, perhaps, is what these commandments mean. The juxtaposition of these two commandments, both chosen from the Hebrew Scriptures, would seem to clarify at least to some extent what it means to love God: one way we humans express our love for God is by loving our neighbor. Today’s liturgy attempts to clarify the matter of loving one’s neighbor by another juxtaposition, preceding the Gospel with the passage from Exodus about treating justly the most vulnerable people in society.

The implication is that loving our neighbor means more than being kind to our friends and relatives, or to the person who lives next door. Loving one’s neighbor means doing right by any widow or orphan: seeing that the hungry are fed and the homeless sheltered, that the poor have their basic needs met, that the unemployed do not suffer from want, that the young are educated and the old are cared for. To do less is to fail in our love for neighbor. To do less is also to keep us from singing with joy: I love you, Lord, my strength.

“The commandments to love God with all one’s heart and to love one’s neighbor as oneself are the heart and soul of Christian morality.... These commands point out the path toward true human fulfillment and happiness. They are not arbitrary restrictions on human freedom. Only active love of God and neighbor makes the fullness of community happen. Christians look forward in hope to a true communion among all persons with each other and with God.”

U.S. Bishops, Economic Justice for All (1986) 64.

Keying in to words and phrases from the gospel:

• love God
• all... all... all
• love neighbor

Keying in to a focus: God's love for us is the source and strength of our love (see psalm). The command to love God with our whole heart requires us to love our neighbor with our whole heart (gospel and first reading). One without the other does not fulfill the whole Law and prophets.

Connecting to last Sunday's readings: Last Sunday the first reading brought into sharp focus the sovereignty of God and the centrality of God and the kingdom. This Sunday the first reading brings into sharp focus our responsibility to our neighbor.

Connecting to our experience: Sometimes we compartmentalize our lives in such a way that we express our love of God only in terms of religious practices, e.g., Sunday Mass, saying prayers, etc. Genuine love of God must also be expressed in care for widows, the orphan, the poor—indeed, all our neighbors.

Connecting to widows, orphans, and aliens: Last Sunday's gospel ended with Jesus admonishing, "give to God what belongs to God." In this Sunday's gospel the greatest commandment spells this out: "all your heart all your soul... all your mind." The second commandment, "love your neighbor as yourself," is spelled out in the reading from Exodus.

Four classes of people appear in this reading from Exodus: "widows and orphans, aliens and the poor." In the Bible and throughout the ancient Near East these terms stand for all those in need or in desperate circumstances.

First, "aliens" were non-citizens residing in the midst of the Israelites. As "outsiders" they were particularly vulnerable. It was difficult for them to own land because the Law forbade Israelites to sell their land to foreigners. Without land, aliens could not grow crops or graze their livestock. They were thus vulnerable both to poverty and to exploitation—not unlike migrant workers and undocumented aliens working in sweat shops today. Yahweh invoked the memory of the Israelites: remember, you were once aliens in Egypt and you were oppressed and enslaved. Don't do to others what you yourselves hated!

Widows and orphans were also vulnerable. In a "man's world" the loss of a husband left a widow with limited resources, few rights, and no power. Children who had lost their parents were in a similar situation. With no governmental social services available, the community as a whole was to care for them. God threatens that Israelites who abused widows and orphans would themselves be killed, leaving their wives as widows and their children as orphans.

The fourth group of people was the poor. Israelites were not to take advantage of the misfortune of the poor for their own profit. God is their personal protector.

These laws—among the oldest in the Bible—drew Israelites beyond the natural orbits of family, clan, and tribe. The care of the vulnerable and oppressed, however defined and whoever they may be, was a religious concern. Why? Because God is compassionate. The credibility of God is at stake: "God's people" had better act towards others as God acts towards them!

Commentary: Augustine

You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.

I know, beloved, how well fed you are every day by the exhortations of Holy Scripture, and what nourishment your hearts find in the word of God. Nevertheless, the affection we have for one another compels me to say something to you, beloved, about love. What else is there to speak of apart from love? To speak about love there is no need to select some special passage of Scripture to serve as a text for the homily; open the Bible at any page and you will find it extolling love. We know this is so from the Lord himself, as the gospel reminds us, for when asked what were the most important commandments of the law he answered: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And then, just in case you might be tempted to search further through the pages of Holy Scripture for some commandments other than these two, he added: The entire law and the prophets also depend upon these two commandments. If the entire law and the prophets depend upon these two commandments, how much more must the gospel do so?

People are renewed by love. As sinful desire ages them, so love rejuvenates them. Enmeshed in the toils of his desires the psalmist laments: I have grown old surrounded by my enemies. Love, on the other hand, is the sign of our renewal as we know from the Lord's own words: I give you a new commandment—love one another.

Even in former times there were people who loved God without thought of reward, and whose hearts were purified by their chaste longing for him.

They drew back the veils obscuring the ancient promises, and caught a glimpse through these figures of a new covenant to come. They saw that all the precepts and promises of the old covenant, geared to the capacities of an unregenerate people, prefigured a new covenant which the Lord would bring to fulfillment in the last age. The Apostle says this quite clearly: The things that happened to them were symbolic, and were recorded for us who are living in the last age. When the time for it came the new covenant began to be openly proclaimed, and those ancient figures were expounded and explained so that all might understand that the old covenant promises pointed to the new covenant.

And so love was present under the old covenant just as it is under the new, though then it was more hidden and fear was more apparent, whereas now love is more clearly seen and fear is diminished. For as love grows stronger we feel more secure, and when our feeling of security is complete fear vanishes, since, as the apostle John declares: Perfect love casts out fear.

(Sermon 350A, 1-2: PLS 2, 449-450)

Augustine (354-430) was born at Thagaste in Africa and received a Christian education, although he was not baptized until 387. In 391 he was ordained priest and in 395 he became coadjutor bishop to Valerius of Hippo, whom he succeeded in 396. Augustine's theology was formulated in the course of his struggle with three heresies: Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. His writings are voluminous and his influence on subsequent theology immense. He molded the thought of the Middle Ages down to the thirteenth century. Yet he was above all a pastor and a great spiritual writer.

How to Love God

The teacher of the Law thinks he is going to stump Jesus with his question about the greatest command, and Jesus answers simply by reciting the daily Jewish prayer called the Shema (“Hear!”). It is so named after the first word of Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which begins, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. Therefore, you shall love the LORD your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Jesus then goes beyond the question by quoting what he calls “the second”: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” which comes from another book of the Law, Leviticus 19:18.

What could be simpler? What could be more obvious? I trust that few if any Jews would disagree. And every Christian knows about this question and Jesus’ answer. But my hunch is that most of us have oversimplified it. If you are like me, at some point in your life, you began to interpret Jesus' double love command in the light of another New Testament statement: “No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us” (1 John 4:12). Taken by itself, that verse seems to let us off the hook regarding the difficult business of loving an invisible God, and appears to call us to concentrate on loving the visible neighbor.

But of course it is not that simple. The context of 1 John 4 implies that the author is addressing people who think their profession of love of God has absolved them from attending to their neighbor's needs. In Jesus’ response to the lawyer's question, however, he is quite clear that loving God is indeed the first and greatest commandment.

How, then, does one take seriously (and concretely and practically) the command to love the invisible God? Are all followers of Christ to become monks? St. Ignatius (no monk) took this command with full seriousness and even dared to work out a set of “how-to” notes for himself and his companions. The notes comprise the final contemplation in his Spiritual Exercises—“Contemplation to Attain the Love of God”—referring not to God's love of us, which is always given, but our love of God, which always needs coaching.

Ignatius begins by calling the retreatant’s (let's just say “our”) attention to the simple reality that love consists more in deeds than in words, that lovers give what they have to one another. Then he instructs us to place ourselves in the presence of the Lord and the communion of saints and to ask the Lord to wake us up to a knowledge of the gifts we have received (from God, of course) and to stir up gratitude “so that I may become able to love and serve the Divine Majesty in all things.” Now the simple insight begins to dawn: The most direct way we can obey the command to love God is to pay attention to God's gifts.

The remainder of the contemplation presents four concrete ways of getting in touch with those gifts of God. The first is, “I will call back into my memory the gifts I have received—my creation, redemption, and other gifts particular to myself.” In other words, he suggests that we review our life story. Then he tells us to consider how much we ought to offer and give to God, suggesting at this point the famous "Suscipe" prayer, which begins, “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will—all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you.”

The second way is to consider how God is present within all creatures—

in the elements, giving them existence; in plants, giving them life; in animals, giving them sensation; in human beings, giving them intelligence, and finally, how in this way he dwells also in myself, giving me existence, life sensation, and intelligence; and even further, making me his temple, since I am created as a likeness and image of the divine Majesty.

The third way focuses on how God works for me “in all the creatures of the earth.” Finally, the fourth way considers how all good things I discover in and around me are but partial reflections of their source, God.

When we take the command to love God seriously as “the first and greatest,” it is not hard to see how love of neighbor follows from this. When we learn to see all human beings as fellow creatures and co-recipients of God's gifts, we are enabled that much more to love them.

All You Need Is Love

"The greatest commandment."

Love. What verb does more work? What noun is more invoked? That's the problem. The word "love" means too much and too little.

It stands for (and justifies) just about everything: strong desires, imperial needs, an obsessive ache, murder, atrocity, mendacity. People have done things for the "love" of God that God assuredly disavows. They have done things for love of others that have crushed the very objects of their obsession. They have done things for self-love that destroyed their very souls. Thus, the appeal to love is often not only trivial, it can be lethal.

I think there is no more misunderstood word than love. It means sex to some. Thrill to others. Feeling wonderful to most. Love should fix things, change them, renew them. It ought to make us feel better about ourselves and the world. It must make life light and easy, a joy, an ecstasy, bliss. As the song says, "Love is all you need."

Imagine the embarrassment and confusion then, when such a word, in the ironic play of God and the transcripts of history, shows up as the summation of the law and the prophets.

Yes, Jesus said it. He was responding to a question posed by a lawyer, of all people, who was wondering which commandment of the law was the greatest. His response? "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Now at first sight this answer was not earthshaking in its originality. The great Shema, a prayer that devout Jews recite every morning and night, is straight from the Book of Deuteronomy (6:5). This command to love God absolutely was to be "written on the heart" and drilled into the memory of every child. Mary, we may suppose, did her job.

The second part of the answer—"You must love your neighbor as yourself"—is lifted from Leviticus (19:18). What might have raised some eyebrows is that Jesus puts both of these commands on equal footing. The second is just like the first: our love of neighbor mirrors our love of God. Jesus, mind you, was not asked for two great laws, but he gave two as one. The entire will of God and purpose of our life is to love God with our whole being and our neighbors as ourselves.

So we're back to love, that chameleon that hides in the hue of everything and disappears into any context available.

But not so fast. This love isn't just anything. It involves heart and will, soul and life, mind and strength. It requires a covenantal fidelity. It makes demands. Love is not mere ardor; it is arduous.

The ordinances from the Book of Exodus are explicit enough on how love is exercised in human relations. We shall not wrong a resident alien. (Get that.) We shall not abuse widows or orphans. If we do, God's wrath will be upon us. If we lend money to the poor, we must not treat them as creditors or exact interest from them. (Now it is getting a little uncomfortable.) If we take anything as collateral that a neighbor needs, we must return it before the sun goes down. (So much for sweet romanticism.)

With Jesus, love is even more irksome. Not only does he identify love of neighbor with our love of ourselves and of God; he makes it quite clear that love is serving others, even laying down our lives for them.

Anyone who thinks that love is an easy path should consult the "more excellent way" of Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians. It is a passage, often heard at weddings, that could profitably be read every day and night of married life.

What is love? Love is patience. It is kindness. It is not jealous or conceited, rude or selfish. It does not take offense, nor is it resentful. It is always ready to trust, to excuse, and to endure whatever comes.

Love, when we do it, is the eternal in us, what lasts of us. It is God, again made flesh, in our reciprocation, our giving back. Love is ultimately an affirmation, a kiss to the universe freely given. True love is the wedding of faith and justice, the bond of transcendence with time. The love of God in whom we move and have our being is the same love made timely by our earthly care.

One day I received a note from someone who communicated a love to me that I found indubitable. She loved God first and, in God, all neighbors, herself, and even me. It was splendid and invincible. Although the gospel of Jesus inspired her, the words of Martin Buber expressed for her the holy mystery:

Feelings accompany the metaphysical and metapsychical fact of love, but they do not constitute it. The accompanying feelings can be of greatly differing kinds. The feeling of Jesus for the demoniac differs from his feeling for the beloved disciple; but the love is the one love. Feelings are "entertained," love comes to pass. Feelings dwell in us; but we dwell in love. That is no metaphor, but the actual truth. In helping, healing, education, raising up, saving, love is the responsibility of an I for a Thou. In this lies the likeness—impossible in any feeling whatsoever—of all who love, from the smallest to the greatest and from the blessedly protected man, whose life is rounded in that of a loved being, to him who is all his life nailed to the cross of the world, and who ventures to bring himself to the dreadful point—to love all.

Reading I: Exodus 22:21-27

This reading is an excerpt from the "book of the covenant" (Exod 20:22-23:19). The materials in this book are akin to many legal codes of the Ancient Near East, the most famous of which is the Code of Hammurabi (twentieth century B.C.). The biblical code was apparently crystallized in the ninth century B.C.
Today's reading comes from a section of the code dealing with laws of social conduct. They inculcate a social ethic based upon compassion. Abstract justice is not enough, especially for the underprivileged. This lesson was obviously chosen to go with the summary of the law, which forms today's gospel reading. The effect is to slant the summary in a social direction.
 
Responsorial Psalm: 18:1-3, 46, 50ab

This is a royal psalm of thanksgiving for victory in battle, possibly written by David himself. The selected stanzas make an appropriate hymn of praise for any occasion, but it is difficult to discern any specific connections with the other readings here, except perhaps in the refrain, which takes up the thought of the love of God found also in the summary of the law.
 
Reading II: 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10

This week we continue Paul's thanksgiving for the progress of the Thessalonians in the gospel. This passage is particularly important for the hints it gives of what Paul had preached at Thessalonica on his foundation visit: "you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." From this it may be inferred that Paul's gospel to Gentile audiences would have comprised:

1. an apologetic for monotheism;
2. a proclamation for the deliverance wrought by Jesus through his (death and) resurrection;
3. the prospect of Jesus' impending return.

In his evangelistic preaching to pagans, Paul could take less for granted than when preaching to the Jews. He had to start with faith in the one God. We shall see later how the promise of the parousia would lead to serious problems for the Thessalonians when some of their number died before it occurred.
 
Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40

The summary of the law is not original with Jesus. Its two parts represent combination of Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18. Nor is the combination itself original to Jesus, for it is found in at least one earlier Jewish work, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, an amalgam of wisdom and apocalyptic materials. Jesus' thought was similarly cast in both molds, wisdom and apocalyptic, and the summary of the law represents the wisdom facet of his teaching. Jesus undoubtedly appeared not only as the final apocalyptic preacher but also as the authoritative declarer of God's wisdom.

In the Jewish parallels, the two commandments stand side by side, as a convenient summary. Jesus understands the interlocking of the two commandments in a new and quite radical way. You cannot have one without he other. Without the love of neighbor, the love of God remains a barren emotion; and without the love of God, love of neighbor is but a refined form of self-love.

Love Means Community

Jesus' statement on the greatest commandment is probably the best-known and most-discussed passage in all of Scripture. Placed in its Mediterranean cultural context, it takes on a fresh and concrete meaning.

The episode is yet another example of the continuous cultural game of challenge and riposte. The text clearly states that the Pharisee intends his question as a challenge ("to test him," v. 34). (The Greek manuscript evidence for "lawyer" is not very strong. It was probably inserted here due to influence from Luke 10:25.)

The Relative Importance of the Commandments

On the face of it, the question appears very honest. The Pharisees sees identified 613 commandments in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Two hundred forty-eight were positive ("thou shalt") and three hundred sixty-five were negative ("thou shalt not"). How could anyone remember all of them? Were some more important than others?

Some teachers distinguished between "heavy" and "light" commandments. The "Ten" (e.g., honor father and mother) are examples of heavy or serious commandments. An example of a light or less serious commandment is Deuteronomy 22:6-7, which stipulates that a person who finds a bird's nest with a mother sitting on eggs or with young may take the young but must let the mother go. The reason for observing both is "that it may go well with you, and that you may live long" (Deut 5:16; 22:7).

Another custom was to sum up the Torah's commandments in a small number of precepts or a summary statement. Thus King David proposed eleven (Ps 15), Isaiah six (33:15), Micah three (6:8), and Amos only one (5:4).

In reply to the Pharisee's question about the "greatest commandment," Jesus combines two: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (citing and amending Deut 6:5). And the second of equal importance is "love your neighbor as yourself" (citing Lev 19:18). Jesus does not discard other commandments.

He explicitly adds: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Essentially, Jesus' answer is very orthodox, very traditional. If there is any distinctiveness, it lies in his understanding of neighbor which he explains in Luke 10:29-33 but not at this point. (Leviticus specifies neighbor as brother, that is, fellow Israelite. Luke's Jesus expands the concept of neighbor to be more inclusive.)

Love

More importantly, what does Jesus understand by love? Mediterranean cultural anthropology sheds some light. Remember that our ancestors in the faith were strongly group centered. The group was family, village, neighborhood, and factions (like the Twelve, the Pharisees, etc.) which a person might join.

The group gave a sense of identity, a sense of belonging, and advice for actions to be taken or avoided. The group was an external conscience exerting enormous pressure on its individual members.

In this context, love and hate are best understood as group attachment and group disattachment. Whether emotion or affection is involved is beside the point. The major feeling in love and hate is a feeling of belonging or not belonging, respectively. Thus, to love God with all one's heart is to be totally attached to God. To love neighbor as self is to be as totally attached to people in one's neighborhood or immediate circle of friends (i.e., fellow Israelites) as one is to one's family group. This has been and continues to be the normal way of life in the Mediterranean world, unless feuding develops.

To "hate one's father, mother;' and others as Luke's Jesus (14:26) requires of his followers means to detach oneself from family and join the Jesus group. Paul says the greatest among the virtues faith, hope, and charity is charity, that is, love or attachment to the group. The group-attachment aspect of love poses a challenge to individualistically oriented, emotional American believers. Which commandment would American believers say is the greatest? And what does that mean?