Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
As I reflected over today’s readings I first had to scratch my head and ask, what in the world is the Lord trying to tell us here with the story of Jacob’s deception and the teaching of the new wine and old wineskin. While there is much that can be said about the comparisons between the Old and New Covenant taking place in the Gospel, I believe the theme tying both readings together is the human tendency to always be in competition. We can especially be competitive to the point of losing ourselves and God’s plan in mindless comparisons.
We see this all the time in our daily lives. Tell someone you do something differently and they immediately want to know why you think your way is better than theirs. Whether it is how we approach cleaning, cooking, praying, serving, even loving God and neighbor. We can so easily make our whole lives competitive, which can blind us to the beauty of diversity.
There was competition between Jacob and Esau that resulted in both of them stooping to some pretty dishonorable levels. Jacob bribed Esau out of his birthright for a meal in a different passage. Then as we see in todays readings, Isaac was unaware of what had taken place, and so Esau went to complete his task to receive his father’s blessing. Jacob, for whatever reason chose not to tell Isaac the birthright had been sold and so instead deceived his own father to receive the blessing. Whether it was a lack of trust that Isaac would honor the sale of the birthright or out of fear that he would force Jacob to return it, his competitive side won out and he resorted to lying to his father. Of course his competitiveness was fostered by Rebecca, because isn’t that the case... we are always more competitive with an audience.
The disciples of John were also emboldened in a crowd. They came to Christ wondering why His disciples were different from them and the Pharisees. It is not clear whether they were afraid they weren’t doing enough, if they were confused how this man that John spoke so highly of doesn’t fast, or they simply allowed their pride to convince themselves they were doing things the “right” way. Regardless of the motivation, the disciples of John got so caught up comparing themselves to Christ’s disciples, their way to His way, that they failed to heed John’s announcement of Christ as the Lamb of God. Their constant sizing up of others blinded them from the bridegroom standing before them. How often do we allow our comparisons to blind us from Christ? Often times our blindness does not come from as honorable a source as mourning and fasting for the salvation of our people, but rather missing the readings at mass because we are comparing our clothes to someone else or thinking how we would make a better parent than them.
Christ doesn’t give us the answers to this competitive side of our nature in this reading. However he does point out to John’s disciples that they are missing the point and their messiah! So let us allow ourselves to compete in the race we are running through this life, but not allow competitiveness to overcome us. It is about whether or not you are loving God and neighbor, whether or not you are finding Christ in your neighbor, His creation, and His sacraments. It is not about whether you are doing it better than anyone else, but yourself.