Religion and Politics: Readings for the 29th Week of OT

Religion and politics are a volatile mix, such that the old dictum was, these were the two topics one should not raise in polite conversation.  

The readings for this Sunday are concerned, in part, with the interaction of religion and politics, in the rule of God vs. the rule of men.  The Scriptures affirm that despite appearances to the contrary, ultimate control of human history is in the hands of God.  Human rulers have their place, but even they are ultimately instruments by which God guides human affairs.  In the midst of the chaos that is human politics, we cannot become distracted from the true goal of human life, which is union with God.  

The First Reading is taken from the second part of Isaiah: Is 45:1, 4-6:

Jesus, Caesar, and God (The Mass Readings Explained)

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All Dressed Up: The 28th Sunday in OT

The standard of dress at Mass has declined in recent years.  People show up looking like their ready for the beach or a football game.  Some pastors are calling attention to this problem.  I agree—I’m all for encouraging modesty and taste in the way we physically dress for worship.

But our external dress is not the main point of this Sunday’s Readings.

What kind of “clothing” does the King see us dressed in at Mass this weekend?

Our readings for this week begin with Isaiah’s famous prophecy of a feast on Mount Zion:

The Parable of the Royal Wedding Feast (The Mass Readings Explained)

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The NEW Mass Readings Explained: Year B

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The Fruitful Vineyard: 27th Sunday in OT

 

The past several Sundays we have been reading from the vineyard parables of Jesus in Matthew, and this Sunday we reach a climactic point in the hostility between the leaders of the people (chief priests and Pharisees) and Jesus.

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (The Mass Readings Explained)

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Once Again: Is God Fair? 26th Sun in OT

Apparently Holy Mother Church wants us to learn something about God’s justice and mercy, because the themes of this Sunday’s Readings repeat, with variation, those of last week’s.

Last week we had to deal with the difficult Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, which raised the issue of whether God is “unfair” in his merciful generosity

This week the topic of God’s “fairness” rises again at the beginning of the First Reading:

Douglas Campbell, John Paul II, and Christ's "Substitutionary" Death

I've been reading much from Pauline scholar Douglas Campbell's work on Paul. In particular, Campbell has written much on the topic of the atonement imagery in Romans 3.

Without saying too much, Campbell is very uncomfortable with the way Christ's work of atonement is often presented. Like many, he criticizes the way language of "substitution" is used and the way the cross is typically explained in Christian churches:

"Wrongdoers are separated from the appropriate desert for their action, and the innocent Christ, in a supremely unjust action, is punished in their place" (Deliverance of God, 49). 

It seems to me that Campbell and John Paul II would have made interesting conversation partners.

Consider what John Paul II has to say about atonement (h/t to my colleague Douglas Bushman for bringing this text to my attention). The following is a remarkably rich passage that merits much reflection:

What confers on substitution its redemptive value is not the material fact that an innocent person has suffered the chastisement deserved by the guilty and that justice has thus been in some way satisfied (in such a case one should speak rather of a grave injustice). The redemptive value comes instead from the fact that the innocent Jesus, out of pure love, entered into solidarity with the guilty and thus transformed their situation from within. In fact, when a catastrophic situation such as that caused by sin is taken upon oneself on behalf of sinners out of pure love, then this situation is no longer under the sign of opposition to God, but, on the contrary, it is under the sign of docility to the love which comes from God (Gal 3:13-14). Christ, by offering himself "as a ransom for many," put into effect to the very ultimate his solidarity with man, with every man and with every sinner. The Apostle Paul indicates this when he writes, "The love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died" (2 Cor 5:14). Christ therefore is in solidarity with everyone in death, which is an effect of sin. But in him this solidarity was in no way the effect of sin; instead, it was a gratuitous act of the purest love. Love induced Christ to give his life, by accepting death on the cross. His solidarity with man in death consists in the fact that he not only died as every man dies, but that he died for every one. Thus this “substitution” signifies the “superabundance” of love which overcomes every deficiency of human love, every negation and contrariety linked with human sin in every dimension.

--John Paul II, General Audience, October 26, 1988

The Parable of the Two Sons (The Mass Readings Explained)

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Is God Fair? Readings for 25th Sunday of OT

The Gospel Reading for this Lord’s Day raises the issue of the

fairness of God.  Jesus, being a good teacher, wants his students to think.  He teaches in parables that—on the one hand—do indeed communicate truth and answer questions, but—on the other—do raise new, puzzling questions that require the student (disciple means student, after all) to think. 

1.  Our First Reading emphasizes the distance between God’s perspective and ours:

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (The Mass Readings Explained)

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What Aquinas Would Give For A Copy of Chrysostom's Commentary on Matthew

Happy Feast Day of St. John Chrysostom! 

Chrysostom was one of Thomas Aquinas' favorite commentators on Scripture. 

In fact, the following story was told at the inquiry for his canonization in 1319. Accounts of this episode can be found in different forms in some of the earliest accounts of Aquinas' life.  

"Once Thomas was returning to Paris from St. Denis with a number of brethren, and when the city came into view they sat down to rest a while. And one of the company, turning to Thomas, said: 'Father, what a fine city Paris is!' 'Very fine,' answered Thomas. I wish it were yours,' said the other; to which Thomas replied, 'Why, what would I do with it?' 'You would sell it to the king of France, and with the money you would build houses for Friar Preachers.' 'Well,' said Thomas, 'I would rather have Chrysostom on Matthew.' This story, the witness said, he had from—among others—brother Nicholas Malasorte of Naples, who had been an advisor to the French king and a particular friend and pupil of his own; he told it when he came on a mission from the same king of France to King Charles II of noble memory . . . ; saying that it was well known in Paris."

For more sources go here.

By the way, the episode is also mentioned in a new book I want to plug by Romanus Cessario, O.P. and Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., entitled, Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017). 

You need this short but important little book!

Forgiveness: The 24th Sunday in OT

 

The Readings for this Lord’s Day are unified around the theme of forgiveness.  We begin and end with the words of “Jesus” on this topic: the First Reading records the words of Jesus, son of Sira, and the Gospel records the words of Jesus, Son of God.

One of the last books of the Christian Old Testament to be written, Sirach (also known as Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus) often seems to anticipate the teachings of Christ himself:

1. Reading 1 Sir 27:30-28:7:

Stylistic Differences between Mark and Luke

Yesterday in my Luke-Acts course at the Augustine Institute we examined some of the stylistic differences between the Gospels of Mark and Luke.

As is well known, Luke seems to smooth out some of the features of Mark.

I thought this might make for a brief but interesting blog post. Here are some examples - obviously, much more could be said!

Luke's Smoother Renderings of Awkward Constructions

Mark's Greek can be a bit awkward in places. Luke's expressions are a bit easier to read. 

For example, 

• Mark 2:7: “Who can forgive sins except one, God?” (literal; likely alluding to the Shema)
• Luke 5:21: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

The Parable of the Merciless Servant (The Mass Readings Explained)

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Hoffmann on Why God's Love Makes 'Sin' Possible

"The specifically Christian core of sin is grasped only when sin is conceived as the rejection of the call to that sonship whose innermost nature consists in being the continuation of Christ’s eternal sonship within the realm of creation, which is the 'other' that stands over against God. Sin means the refusal of the grace of allowing the creaturely 'I' to become the earthly abode of the trinitarian act whereby Father and Son turn toward one another. From this it becomes evident that man is not capable of 'sinning' in this way all on his own. In the sense of revelation, 'sin' becomes a possibility—to put it quite crudely for the sake of clarity—only on account of God’s paternal love for man, which opens wide to man down to its most intimate depth."

--Father Norbert Hoffmann, "Atonement and the Ontological Coherence Between the Trinity and the Cross," in Towards a Civilization of Love (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985), 241. 

Watchman on the Walls: Readings for the 23rd Sunday of OT

 

I don’t like personal conflict.  I try to avoid it as much as possible.  Probably most Americans do.  I’m not sure what it’s like in other cultures, although I’ve heard of others where open social confrontation is more common.

This Sunday’s readings deal with situations in which Christians have a duty to confront one another.  They don’t make for comfortable reading in a culture that puts a high value on keeping the peace and minding one’s own business.

1. The First Reading is the great “Watchman” passage from the prophet Ezekiel:

Harnack on Luke's Paul vs. the "Paul of the Epistles"

As I continue to teach Luke-Acts this semester at the Augustine Institute, I'm working through various issues related to the study of that corpus.

This week in class we tacked the question of whether the author of Luke-Acts is indeed the same Luke mentioned by Paul in his letters (cf. Phlm 24; cf. Col 4:14; 2 Tim 4:11).

Of course, one of the arguments many have found compelling against such an identification is that the Paul of Acts seems different from the Paul of the Epistles. For some, the differences are so pronounced it precludes the possibility that the "historical Luke" is the actual author.