The first reading and the Gospel today speak of an essential pivotal moment in the journey of faith: it is the moment of transition from receiving from God to being formed by God.
Exodus 19:2-6a
It is important to realize that we have returned to Ordinary Time. While the reading today is from the story of the Israelites exodus from Egypt and journey to Canaan like last week, it occurred 40 years earlier than last week’s speech by Moses. Today’s reading takes place three months after the Israelites departure from Egypt. YWHW has saved them through a long string of miraculous events: from Moses and the burning bush through the plagues of Egypt, the night of Passover, and the successful escape through the Red Sea into the desert of the Sinai. God is now feeding them with manna and giving them water from where Moses struck the rock. They have been saved by the mighty power and glory of God.
Now, the relationship with God shifts. God calls Moses up on Mt. Sinai and tells him to tell the people:
You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians
and how I bore you up on eagle wings
and brought you here to myself.
TRANSITION
Therefore, IF you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my special possession,
dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.
You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
Nothing has yet been required of the Israelites except they follow YHWH and leave Egypt. Everything has been the work of God. But now YHWH puts the word IF into what he tells the people. He gave them great, great mercy and salvation from slavery. Now he tells them something more amazing and wonderful: “you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.” Why will this be so? Because of “IF the people HEARKEN (listen to learn) to my voice and KEEP MY COVENANT they will be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
YHWH saw the misery of the people’s slavery, doubtless remembered his covenant with Abraham, and now says to the people: I want to make you like me: I want to teach you how to love and flourish. IF you do what I tell you, it will make you different from the world around you. You will be a nation so holy (set apart) that you will become the seed people for how I will claim the world for goodness, justice, and love.
God then begins this formation with the 10 Commandments in the next chapter.
Matthew 9:36-10:8
Again, remember we are returning to Ordinary Time. The Gospel last week, from John, about feeding the 5000 and its aftermath, is described in Matthew 14. Today we are back in Matthew 9. We won’t get to feeding the 5000 in Matthew until August.
Today’s Gospel is a pivotal point in Matthew. Up until now, Jesus has done all the work. Matthew 9:35, just before today’s reading, sums up Jesus’ early ministry: “Jesus continued his tour of all the towns and villages. He taught in their synagogues, he proclaimed the good news of God’s reign, and he cured every sickness and disease.”
Jesus has poured himself out, just as the Father did with the Israelites. Jesus has worked miracles and preached “repent and believe in the Gospel.” He has collected followers. But, up until now, his followers have only needed to “come along.”
But Jesus sees there is more need than he can handle by going from town to town. It is time for his disciples to add their talents and gifts. Read his instructions carefully:
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”
This time, instead of just calling the disciples to listen and keep a covenant, they are to do what he does: cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and drive out demons. It is the last sentence that sinks into me this week: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”
This is a parallel and yet an extension of the Father’s instructions to Moses and the Israelites: Jesus has demonstrated the power of God to do good (like the Exodus). Now, his followers are to take being the people of God to a new level. They are to also do what Jesus has been doing: doing good to people without cost. Doubtless, they, too, have received this goodness. That is why they are followers. Now they are to extend the reign of God to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” AND they are to do it without expecting to be given to in return.
Romans 5:6-11 and Applications
Romans today reminds us that we all have also received of the glory of God. We have been baptized. God Himself is present in every tabernacle and in every mass. We, too, are God’s people. We, too, received from God—when we were “still helpless…still sinners.” God still begins the process of conversion with his goodness extended. He has especially given us of the goodness of Eternal Life. When we have always known of that, it is easy to take it for granted.
Nonetheless, we have the hope of Eternal Life in God and with God through NO merit of our own. God gives it to us through our Christian faith.
The application I see today is that in our Scriptures today we have at least a skeleton of a solution for the divisions that divide right and left wings of the Church today. Much of today’s reflection is based on Walter Brueggemann’s Delivered into Covenant: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus Part Two. Brueggemann says it much better than I could:
“The narrative of the exodus and the Sinai covenant present to us a narrative of the miraculous deliverance and a guide for institutional consolidation that intends to transpose the substance of the narrative of deliverance into a continuing community of sustained practice…In Christian appropriation, this double focus of a narrative of deliverance and institutional consolidation, moreover, is transposed into gospel and law. The gospel is the good news of God’s initiatory emancipatory activity. The law articulates the requirements for a proper response to the gospel in freedom and gratitude, and the application in the neighborhood of the initial transformative act of God’s love for God’s people….
…The deliverance was unconditional. There were no requirements, except to depart. But the moment at Sinai is marked by a huge “if” of conditionality. It is not an obvious or easy or natural thing to become God’s people….The foundational covenantal possibility of Sinai is not a free, unconditional gift. It is, instead, based on ready obedience….
It has been, over time, a huge temptation to break apart these two accent points that must be kept together. When the exodus is taken without Sinai, we get a blank check of emancipation, as though the story ended with the dance of Miriam in Exodus. This is a temptation of Enlightenment notions of freedom, as thought God intended emancipation into an unburdened individualism…
…Conversely, when Sinai is taken alone as though it did not have behind it the wondrous narrative of exodus emancipation, the covenant can be taken as a quid pro quo of obedience that bargains with the God of covenant for gifts to be given when earned. Such a temptation leads to a works righteousness that accepts the virtue of obedience to the neglect of divine generosity. Such a temptation is often exhibited in the moralistic posture of much of the church.” (from chapter 4, p 29-37)
Prayer:
What You have shown me, Lord, here, in these readings, is a path that offers generosity and hospitality to all AND maintains God’s standards as eventually how we must act. I am reminded that, no matter what you and I might want of others in obedience eventually, you want obedience from me now, for I am already a disciple. This next week, Lord, as I study at St. Meinrad with other Oblates about HOW to interact with and HEAL Church divisions, help me keep the lessons of these readings as a compass. Lead me, guide me, Lord.
