Memorial of Saint Bonaventure, bishop and doctor of the Church
It is interesting to have today's texts side by side. The first (Exodus 11:10-12:14) is the story of how the great feast of Passover came to be. It is one of the most important feasts of the year because it commemorates that God saves and protects the Israelites by leading them out of Egypt. God makes observing the feast a kind of law: "This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution."
On the other hand, we have Jesus seeming to disobey a similar kind of law (Matthew 12:1-8) - the law to observe the sabbath, which is meant as a day to honor God and ourselves through rest and prayer. Instead of doing those things, Jesus and his disciples are eating grain from the fields - an offense because they seem to be harvesting grain, which is work best left for the weekdays. But they are hungry - so Jesus proclaims that God wants mercy rather than sacrifice.
We seem to have two opposing views: one, to uphold days of worship to honor God who has given so much for us, or two, to ignore the worship in favor of not letting people go hungry.
We often see these same kinds of opposing viewpoint in our own day: some people ask why the church spends money commissioning precious artworks or building beautiful churches when there are hungry people. Others complain that our society is agnostic or atheistic, which results in people not having a sense of purpose or being depressed. Worship is a way to give a sense of purpose.
Of course, the thing to see here is that God does not really put us in this either/or position. In both scriptures, God clearly cares about our food and about our worship because both are nourishing, and God is present in both. God's mercy means not having to sacrifice either of the things we need to have in order to live fully as human beings.
Today's memorial honors Saint Bonaventure who also sought the middle ground. In his time, his Franciscan order had become divided over the best way to keep the vow of poverty. Saint Bonaventure resisted the extremes of the two opposing groups and instead combined both of their concerns to forge a middle ground.
Today, let us consider the times and places when we, too, have held strong opposing views toward others. Are there ways in which God might be asking us to go a middle way?
- Jana M. Bennett