The Law & the Good News--a meditation for the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

 “He has anointed me to bring

good news to the afflicted...

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

sight to the blind... to proclaim

a year of favor...”

--Luke 4:18-19

In today’s first readings we hear that stirring passage from Nehemiah (cf.8:2-10) that tells of the unrolling of the scroll and the reading of the law before all the people and how the people began to weep when they heard the law.  But Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites remind the people that this is a day not for weeping but for celebrating. The law is supposed to be a source of consolation and renewal and joy, not an oppressive burden.

And there is an echo of this story in the Gospel for today.  Jesus unrolls the scroll and reads from Isaiah the passage I quoted above. And when He finishes, says something so beautiful it astonishes His audience: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. (cf. 4:21)

Jesus is the Word of God, the Law come in person into their midst –and what does he bring? Fearful judgment and hard justice? That is not what He comes to proclaim.  He comes to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and good news to the afflicted! Liberty, sight, and good news; a year of favor.  Quite a jubilee, I would say.  That is what Jesus brings, the same Jesus who tells us elsewhere that He has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.  He is the fulfillment of the law.  In the next several chapters of Luke we will see Jesus go about healing the blind, setting people free from illness and demons, feeding the hungry, cleansing the leper, and proclaiming a message of love and mercy.  This is the law in its fullness abiding among us; He is the law.

When I wrote about that passage from Nehemiah a few months back I focused on the weeping of the people. I was struck by their tears, because I had recently read Deuteronomy (and Leviticus and Numbers) and the echoing of all those laws, those restrictions, regulations was still reverberating in my head.  In a half ironic mode, I had to wonder if some of those tears weren’t tears of dread: Lord, what have we got ourselves into! Weren’t we better off not knowing? But, in all seriousness, we are never better off in ignorance. Because ignorance is captivity.  Ignorance is slavery; it is life in Plato’s cave; fearing shadows.  The law sets us free.  But how can that be?  If the law sets regulations on our behavior, then aren’t we simply trading one for of slavery for another?

And I guess that depends on how we look at the law.  Do we see “the law” (the Ten Commandments, the Deuteronomic code, etc) as a rule book meant to control our behavior, a way of keeping us in check?  Or do we see it as a guidebook, an instruction manual, that helps us live our lives more fully, more completely, more joyfully?

Do you hear the law as good news? Does it set you free? Or does it sound like the turning of a key in a lock, the clanking of shackles fastened to your ankles?

Does it open your eyes? Or does it feel like a darkness cast over them?

How do you see the law?

Recently someone at my house told me I was being passive aggressive. Their words hurt. It was like a stinging slap to my face (or my ego).  And my gut reaction was to lash back. To defend myself with excuses and reasons for why I had behaved and spoken the way I had.  But, whether my reasons were valid or not, what I was really saying is: I don’t want to see that truth.  I don’t want to know that truth.  I would rather be blind to it. I would rather be ignorant.

But –with time, and reflection—I realized there was truth in what they said. There was a truth that could only set me free if I accepted it and let it dwell in my heart.  There words opened my eyes to something I had not wanted to see, but something that was true and something that was becoming a bit of a habit.  And I could only be set free from the captivity of my own habits and ego if I listened and accepted and let myself hear them not as something to fear, but as “good news.” A chance to grow and change and become better. I had to adjust the way I received those words. I had to receive them not as a slap on the face, but as a kind of nudge –like bumping up against a guard rail that protects us from going over a dangerous cliff.  It is hard to accept sometimes, but occasionally we need to be corrected. That’s how we get better: whether it is at math or spelling, fixing a dryer, or just being a husband.

How do we hear the law? I think the good news is this: regardless of what we think, the sound of God’s law is always the sound of a door opening.   

Meditation for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Meditation for the 2^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Do whatever He tells you...”

--John 2:1-11

The last words we hear from the Blessed Virgin Mary are pretty good advice: Do whatever He tells you.  They are spoken in the famous Wedding at Cana story.  And much has been made of their important advice.  Do whatever He tells you.  Yes. Good advice, for sure. And because what happens next is the first miracle, or as John calls them signs, i.e.  the first manifestation of Christ’s glory, it would seem to be pretty important advice too.

In this too familiar story wherein Jesus turns the water into wine, we are presented with that striking moment when Mary comes to her Son and says: “They have no wine,” to which Jesus responds: “Woman, how does your concern affect me. My hour has not yet come.” (cf. 2:3-4) Mary then turns to the servants and gives them her advice: Do whatever He tells you.   And the servants do it and suddenly there is more than enough wine and the wine is so good that the steward thinks the hosts have held back their best wine for the last.  This wonderful little story (11 verses) is rich with theological truths that have been explored and expounded since the days of the Church fathers.  So, I wasn’t imagining that I would be making any new or important discoveries, however I wanted to try my hand at it. And yet as I set pondering Mary’s advice, I found myself instead drawn to something else even more:  What He tells them to do...

Jesus tells them to fill the jars with water, and they do. They fill them to the brim.  Then He tells them to “draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” (2:8)  And that was somehow the part that caught my attention as I listened Sunday during mass.  That part about the water.  Jesus didn’t ask the servants to do anything magical or dramatic or exotic or even out of the ordinary.  He simply asked them to fill the jars with water.  And then He asked them to present some of it to the “master of the feast.”  It was as if I had heard this story for the first time.  I couldn’t stop thinking about that water.  It’s just water.  That is all they bring.  And yet it is wine by the time they present it to the steward (or master).   And it isn’t just any wine, it is the good wine (sometimes translated: best).  What does this little detail mean? The water?

I can’t say for certain, but I want to propose something.  Water. It is common and every day we use it to rinse and wash and flush and soak and moisten and even to drink... We give it away for free at restaurants.  We forget to shut off the sprinkler (sometimes overnight) and waste it.  But, not to worry—it’s only water. I was thinking about that.  How Jesus asks the servants to do something they probably did every day of their lives: fill the water jars with water.  Nothing special.  Just do you work.  And they did. They did it with integrity. They filled those jars to the brim.  And that was all that Jesus required of them and that was how the first sign came to be; how the Kingdom of God began to be revealed; by some servants doing their menial everyday chore.  But there is one more piece to that puzzle: they did it for Jesus. 

Do you want to bring about the Kingdom of God? Do you want to be part of a sign, part of a miracle, a manifestation of God’s glory?  You don’t have to be a priest or a nun or a missionary to a foreign land; just do your work, your ordinary every day work –but do it for Jesus. Are you a math teacher? Teach for Jesus. You don’t have to proselytize, just teach each student with love and compassion and kindness.  Are you a salesperson? Then treat each of your customers as if they too were beloved children of God. Are you an executive, a company leader: then lead with patience and love and gentleness and integrity and honesty.

Jesus isn’t asking us to go out into the desert and wear sackcloth and eat locus.  He is asking us to bring our ordinary lives and work and live them and work them for Him. Bring Him your water: your tears, your sweat, your labor, your rest, your sorrow and your joy, even your laughter; give it to Him.  Fill the jars full with it. Even up to the brim. If we do that, He will do the rest: He will turn our water into wine. And not just Boones Farm; we’re talking something really good. We are all invited to this wedding feast –come. Bring some water with you. You don’t want to miss this. 

Who will you become? Some thoughts on the martyrdom of Razis in 2 Maccabees

15 Jan 19

 “...he tore out his [own] entrails

and taking them in both hands

flung them down on the crowd...”

--2 Maccabees 14:46

This seems to me the strangest story in all of scripture.  Unwilling to fall into the hands of his enemies, a man attempts to throw himself upon his sword and misses the mark (cf 14:37-46).  Next, bleeding, but still alive, he rushes to the top of a high tower which the enemies have surrounded. From there our hero throws himself off –thinking to land on his enemies and possibly do them some harm.  However, they simply step aside and let him hit the ground.  Then, blood “spurting in all directions,” and still not dead yet,  he gets up and still has the strength and intestinal fortitude to run to the top of some rocks where he –as we read above—tears out his own entrails and flings them down on his would-be killers[1].  Certainly, this is at least one of the oddest story in the Bible[2].   It reads like a mash-up of a John Carpenter movie, a Greek tragedy and a Monty Python sketch.  But why? What is the author trying to tell us with this decidedly gruesome and strangely comical death scene[3]? 

So much of Maccabees (1 & 2) dwells on the suppression of the Jews, their rebellion and retaliation.  Together these two books tell the story of Israel, returned from exile, and ruled by an oppressive foreign power.  And much of the narrative is taken up by political machinations and military conflicts. But there are moments that transcend any normal historical or narrative constraints, and this is definitely one of them.

The man in question is named Razis.  He shows up at 2 Maccabees 14:37 and is dead 10 verses later.  But what a death!  And because it is described in such a graphic and gruesome manner, we are left to ask: why?  What was the author’s intention; both the human author and the Divine?

And so I have been contemplating this passage and –like some kind of ancient Mariner—stopping everyone I know and asking them: Have you read 2 Maccabees? Chapter 14? About the guy who tries to kill himself multiple times and finally flings his guts at people?  And most of my listeners look at me as if I am crazy.  That can’t be in the Bible!

But it is.

And I am still wondering what it means? What it tells me? About Razis? About the Maccabees? Ancient Israel? About life? And about God?

One thing I keep returning to is that story from 1st Maccabees about the people in the desert who submitto their death, rather than defend themselves.  Rather than fight back or even build a barricade, they choose to let heaven and earth bear witness to their innocence.  That is the first vision of martyrdom we get in this story.  And here near the end of 2^nd Maccabees we get our final vision of martyrdom.  In both cases the victims accept their role willingly.  In the case of Razis, he even inflicts it upon himself.   So far, so good... but still, I wonder: why such a brutal depiction of self-destructive behavior?  And why placed at the end of these two volumes about the heroic Maccabees and their courageous defense of the Temple?

And that makes my literary mind wonder whether there is something lurking beneath the surface of this grizzly tale. Something profound.  Perhaps a comment on all the battles and destruction that have come before it.  Is it possible that the story of Razis (whether based on an actual event or not) is an allegory of what happens to us when our society, our community, our lives, sink into a state of constant war; constant attack and retaliation? It seems to me a horrific vision of the dehumanizing nature of living in a state of constant violence, fear and conflict. Think about that vision of a man bent on his own destruction, bent on destroying himself before someone else can, with such an urgency that he tries to kill himself, fails, tries again, fails again and finally –his blood spraying out, he flings tears out his own entrails and flings them at the world.  That is a nightmare vision of life in an “occupied” land.  Razis is a good man, but the wicked Nicanor sends 500 men to arrest and execute him.  He has no power to defend himself or defeat these overwhelming forces, so he asserts his own autonomy through his effort to destroy himself before they can arrest him. And then there is that final vision of his flesh and blood spraying out onto his enemies; what does that explosion of flesh and blood call to mind but the horror of a suicide bombing.  The killer feels so helpless and so desperate that they feel no choice. What else can they do?

Here in these two bookends, the non-violent martyrs of 1 Maccabees 2 and the self-destructive desperation of a good man in 2 Maccabees 14, we are presented with two alternatives to the horror of violence and hatred.  Powerless in the face of insurmountable odds, one chooses non-violence and places themselves in the hands of God. They will let Heaven and earth bear witness to their innocence.  They will not choose evil even if it means death.  The other succumbs to a kind of desperation that drives him mad with rage and helplessness.  The second makes of himself something monstrous, a thing in search of its own destruction –as if hungering for death.

In this day and age when so many of us feel powerless and unheard, who will we become?

---

[1] All the while asking God to give his entrails back to him one day; a possible nod toward bodily resurrection.

[2] Of course, 1-2 Maccabees are not in everyone’s scripture. In Protestant Bibles, if they are present at all, they are   included with the apocryphal books.  In the Roman Catholic Bible they are with the historical books and come right after Esther, and just before the Wisdom books.

[3] Before I get too far, let me say something about 1 & 2 Maccabees. The main concern of these two books is Israel’s post exile struggles against an oppressive Greek rule (Antiochus IV Epiphanes).  So much of what we get in both of them is accounts of battles and for the most part victories as the good guys defend Israel and the Temple, and the bad guys make deals with their oppressors.  However, they are not (as might be expected) two volumes of one continuous story. Part I covers the period of 175-134 BCE and in it we meet Judas Maccabeus (the Hammer) who, in defense of the Temple, leads a revolt and defends Israel until he is killed; then his brother Jonathan becomes the defender of Israel and after a few chapters he dies, and finally we see their younger brother Simon taking charge; all of them fighting to defend their faith, their traditions, and the Temple. While, 2 Maccabees covers a much shorter period of time, focusing mainly on Judas (180-161 BCE). However, through its more focused view we get to see some very interesting characters who suffer very violent martyrdoms.