Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's Mass Readings
When I lived in Virginia, I had some neighbors who were very vocal about how absolutely silly Christianity was, in their view. “All this God stuff,” they’d say. “There’s just no proof for any of it and all that stuff about eternal life seems just so flaky.” Today’s scriptures might well prove their point – but only to a degree. The first reading from Genesis (46:1-7, 28-30) is about Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the Israelites, and whose God-given name is Israel. Our passage for today occurs late in Jacob’s life: after he has tricked his father Isaac into giving him the birthright instead of to his older twin Esau, after he has worked for Laban for years just to marry his beautiful daughter Rachel (only to be tricked into marrying Leah first), after he has had twelve sons, and after his favored son Joseph was sold into slavery by his other sons because they were envious of Joseph’s many-colored coat.
It turns out that in his old age, Jacob is once again being called by God, to be reunited with his son Joseph in Egypt. Despite the hope of seeing his favored son again, Jacob seems a bit afraid to go to Egypt at first – foreign land, strange people, totally unknown landscape. (In fact, readers of this passage should note what will happen as a result of this move to Egypt as recorded in the Book of Exodus. A few centuries from the time of our story, the Israelites will have been enslaved by the Pharaoh of Egypt. Thus it seems that God has called Jacob and his descendents to go to Egypt so that they will one day be slaves!) But in our passage for today, God promises that Jacob will not remain in Egypt but be buried in his own familiar land. The catch is that God’s promise to Jacob will happen after his death. This is the point that my former neighbors would find rather funny, that anyone would bank on a promise occurs after death, for who knows if it will really happen?
And my former neighbors would find the Gospel passage rather funny too (Matthew 10:16-23) –that anyone would actually follow Jesus on the basis of his words here. The disciples are like “sheep in the midst of wolves”, they’ll be hated, they’ll be handed over for severe punishments, and even death.
Ultimately, Christians say that Jesus’ promises to them will be fulfilled in an afterlife – but really, who would want to follow after a man that promises death and destruction? As with the first reading, a promise of an afterlife seems unknowable and uncontrollable, especially when compared to the current life that feels so much more solid.
It is the fact that despite it all, people still join Jesus’ Way that convinces others to follow too. But what is it, really, that makes people choose to follow a God who does not offer an easy life? There are many reasons, but maybe one of them to get from today’s reading is that this Jesus Way is a more truthful description of life. Life is uncontrollable, bad things happen, people make poor choices that unfortunately affect us even if we weren’t the instigators. The people in today’s readings are not really encountering the happy-happy-joy-love side of God that many Christians emphasize, though I hasten to say that God is ALSO friendship and love and joy and peace and happiness. Still, in a world where evil happens and the good guy doesn’t always win, a total focus on the “friendship and love God” can seem a bit fake.
God in these passages is the God who leads us in mysterious, strange, sad and even horrible ways. But this is still God who promises to be with us in it all, and there for us at the end. Will it REALLY work out that way, as my neighbors might keep asking? Ultimately, we don’t know, but maybe we can’t have that kind of certainty about life anyway. In a world that is mysterious and uncontrollable, however, having faith in a God that is also mysterious and uncontrollable seems like a pretty truthful way to follow.
- Jana M. Bennett