Readings in March/April 2010
Weekday Lenten readings
As we continue our own Lenten journey, the Church invites us through the weekday liturgy, to make that journey within the story of God’s people, struggling and failing to be faithful, and time and again lifted by promises and the forgiveness that offers perennial hope. As we approach closer to celebrate the Paschal Mystery in the Triduum we are called to focus on the One who is the cause of our redemption and hope – Jesus. From the fourth week the daily gospels are taken from John and invite us in a particular way to make our journey with him, a journey that ends
in glory.
Second week of Lent
Monday 1 March
St David; Daniel 9.4-10; Psalm 78; Luke 6.36-38
The gospel today offers a profound invitation for reflection. The measure of the believer’s integrity has only one standard – that of God’s. ‘Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.’ The correlation between what is received and what is given should make any hearer pause for thought. Daniel already recognises this in his lament in Babylon where the people are in Exile. The role of the prophets is partly to enable the people to recognise what has happened and why. Daniel makes no pretence. It is because of sin and infidelity that the people are in Exile. Daniel recognises God’s integrity and acknowledges that the people have not lived up to that standard, it is for that reason that they must confess their sin and lament their lot. Yet, despite their pitiful state there is always hope, because ‘To the Lord our God mercy and pardon belong.’
Tuesday 2 March
Isaiah 1.10, 16-20; Psalm 49; Matthew 23.1-12
When someone wants to make a point, they might use an expletive or other term of exaggeration. Isaiah confronts Israel in her sin and addresses her by the names ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’. The language of hyperbole is deliberate – Israel thinks of herself as God’s people, who have nothing to do with that paradigm of sin and wickedness associated with the cities of the plain. Isaiah throws the insult in the faces of the people to make them realise how serious is their sin. And yet for all its gravity, forgiveness is always available, if the people will repent and turn from their ways. The teaching of God (Law of Moses) has been made known to them, if they follow it, then God will acknowledge them as his own. Similarly in the Gospel, it is following what God has made known that matters; it is that, and that alone, that makes the people truly the people of God.
Wednesday 3 March
Jeremiah 18.18-20; Psalm 30; Matthew 20.17-28
Some scholars refer to parts of the book of the prophet Jeremiah as ‘The Passion of Jeremiah’ and the compilers of the Lectionary seem to agree. Often when the prophet is read in the Liturgy, it is part of Jeremiah’s personal story, and the section is chosen to parallel the episodes of Jesus facing hostility and persecution. Only a couple of chapters earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus asks the disciples who do people say the son of Man is: ‘and they said some say he is Elijah, or Jeremiah or one of the prophets’ (16.13). Jeremiah, like Jesus, challenges the priests and religious authorities, and as we are told in today’s gospel, that invites a sentence of death. As James and John are told, the call to obey the word of God may well bring with it a cup to be drunk.
Thursday 4 March
Jeremiah 17.5-10; Psalm 1; Luke 16.19-31
The first reading and the psalm both contrast the good person with the wicked – something the gospel does in parable form. The psalm and first reading offer a simile of a tree growing by a river – even when there is no rain, its roots are deep and draw water from the stream, and so can produce fruit constantly; the tree in the desert dries up and withers and produces nothing. An interesting point which the reading from Jeremiah makes is that part of the blame for the wicked is their blindness: ‘if good comes he has no eyes for it.’ The rich man in the gospel is not culpable simply because he is rich (though Luke is always on the side of the poor and intolerant of the rich); he is culpable above all because he didn’t see the poor man at his gate. He didn’t see him in the sense that he didn’t notice, and he is culpable because he had failed to see: ‘I confess that I have sinned . . . in what I have done and what I have failed to do.’ The readings do not simply promise reward for the righteous and punishment for the wicked, they challenge the hearer to look and see, and take responsibility for what is seen. During Lent we are called to look around as well as within.
Friday 5 March
Genesis 37.3-4, 12-13, 17-28; Psalm 104; Matthew 21.33-43, 45-46
During the course of Lent we are given reminders and pointers to indicate the focus of the season. Lent is above all time to focus on the life-giving death and resurrection of Jesus. Today, both readings tell of a plot to kill a beloved son who is cruelly maltreated: something we will celebrate with great solemnity in just four weeks’ time. Joseph who is cast out by his brothers and sold to Egypt, will prove to be their saviour when in years to come they arrive in Egypt looking for food in time of famine – as today’s psalm tells us. The son in the gospel parable is taken outside the walls and killed; his death brings condemnation to the guilty. The chief priests and the scribes know that Jesus is pointing the finger at them, and want to do away with him – because, like Joseph’s brothers, and the tenants in the vineyard, they have allowed personal interest to determine their lives. Their opportunity will come. Yet the believer knows that the truth, even for them, is that like the outcast Joseph ‘the stone which the builders rejected has become the keystone.’
Saturday 6 March
Micah 7.14-15, 18-20; Psalm 102; Luke 15.1-3, 11-32
The beautiful song from Micah can offer a helpful comment on what is a very familiar parable – the ‘prodigal’ son. Micah speaks lovingly with great confidence about God, the shepherd who will lead his sheep, his people, into rich pasture. God has done so in the past, God has always been revealed as a merciful God, who does not remember sin, but delights in mercy. Once again the people need that mercy and faithfulness which are the characteristics of the God of Abraham and Jacob. Micah portrays a God who is prodigal – extravagant, lavish – in forgiveness. Jesus shows a father who has the same characteristics, and invites the Pharisees to recognise that truth about God – lest they, like the elder brother, find themselves absent from the banquet – by their own decision.
Third week of Lent
Monday 8 March
2Kings 5.1-15; Psalm 41, 42; Luke 4.24-30
The first reading describes an encounter between the wealth and power of the world and the prophet of God – well not quite an encounter because Elisha doesn’t even deign to meet his mighty suitor face to face. Naaman is described in terms of power, and his retinue in terms of wealth and splendour, but his request for help is met with a reply that ignores all of this. His reaction is hostile: simply to bathe in the waters of Jordan cannot be enough to rid him of the malevolent leprosy! But with encouragement he submits to the act of humility and is indeed cured. As is happening in many parish churches at the current time, women and men are preparing for a similar simple act of bathing in waters of regeneration so that they, like Naaman, may emerge as cleansed. The crowd in the gospel responds to Jesus in the same way as Naaman reacted initially: rejection of what is presented in simplicity and in the ordinary. Their reaction, however, does not change, and they reject him forcibly. Jesus’ message for them – and for the reader – is that the ways of God and entry into the kingdom cannot be determined by the ways of this world.
Tuesday 9 March
Daniel 3.25, 34-43; Psalm 24; Matthew 18. 21-35
The religion of the Temple had been the strength and glory of the Kingdom of Judah. It had defined its status as the chosen people and the elect of the Lord. The daily sacrifices and annual celebrations had expressed the reality of the covenant. With the fall of the city and its destruction, and with the exile of the people and loss of their leaders, the very identity of God’s people seemed lost. Azariah in the burning furnace acknowledges all this and pleads for the people. He asks God to remember his people and the covenant, to remember his promise to the patriarchs. The people are powerless and they cannot make the normal offerings that would express their worship, and Azariah confesses that all this is because of their own sin. Instead all they can offer is contrition and humble souls. The external manifestations of their faith have gone; there is only the inward expression. But Azariah is confident that God is – as always – the merciful and gentle one. When all else has gone, there is only the hope of mercy. The gospel picks up this same truth, but in a very challenging manner.
Wednesday 10 March
Deuteronomy 4.1, 5-9; Psalm 147; Matthew 5.17-19
The book of Deuteronomy in its final form (the second Law) perhaps dating from the time immediately after the Exile, is pre-occupied with insisting on the importance of following ‘laws and customs.’ They form, as it were, the guarantee and the means of Israel’s continuance as God’s people; as such they are far more than simply a set of rules and a summary of the way things have always been done. The law and customs are revered as a sign of God’s choice of Israel. In the eyes of the author of Deuteronomy, ‘laws and customs’ are a sign of God’s favour and the way God’s people respond to God’s covenant. Matthew knows this and as a ‘scribe of the kingdom’ wants to emphasise that Jesus comes in that tradition. The early Church will quickly adopt new and different ways of living its calling to be God’s people, but that does not abrogate the covenant made in the past. The laws and the customs were the evidence of the intimacy of God, the teaching of God and wisdom of God. In Jesus that intimacy, that teaching and that wisdom is manifest fully. It is in that sense that Jesus comes to complete the Law. Moses asks: ‘what nation has its gods as near as the Lord our God is to us?’ Matthew would endorse that, but further insist that the promises and the revelation contained in the Law are now made fully present in the person of Jesus who makes manifest the kingdom.
Thursday 11 March
Jeremiah 7.23-28; Psalm 94; Luke 11.14-23
The reading from Jeremiah and the gospel are placed together today to address the issue of the rejection of God’s word by God’s people. Through Jeremiah, God speaks hard words. God made an agreement with the people, whereby they would follow his ways, but they did not. He sent prophets, but they ignored them. Now Jeremiah is told that his words too are doomed to be rejected. God’s message then, which Jeremiah is to deliver, is one of condemnation – the consequence of the people’s stubbornness. In the gospel Jesus too can make no impact. If actions speak louder than words, some of his hearers are profoundly deaf. Jesus casts out devils and heals, which amazes some of the crowd, but others will not acknowledge what is going on. To justify their disbelief they accuse Jesus of being in league with devils himself. However we understand this debate about evil spirits, it is clear that what Jesus is doing is bringing health and wholeness, in doing this he is overcoming the forces of evil: ‘someone stronger than he is attacks and defeats him.’ In Jesus the kingdom of God has overtaken those around him, which means they have a very simple choice – they must accept or find themselves lined up against the goodness of God: ‘he who is not with me is against me.’ Chilling words for any who encounter the words and deeds of the kingdom.