Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Many of us have probably experienced, in the past few weeks (and years) the sensation of being strange and out of sync with the rest of American culture. Regardless of whether we agree with the Church on its teachings about a whole range of issues - from deep support of immigration to contraception and the Hobby Lobby decision to the pope's recent discussions of economics to the death penalty - Catholics have been out of sync with broad swaths of American society and have been in the news frequently for that reason.
One of the images theologians use to describe Christians is to say that we are "aliens in a foreign land", wandering and trying to find a home, a place to rest. This certainly describes our current situation. The good news of today's scriptures, however, is that God is a pilgrim God, one who is constantly on the move with us, flexible enough to be with us wherever we are.
The first reading (Isaiah 38:1-6 21-22, 7-8) describes a desperate time in King Hezekiah's life. He suffers the double whammy of being on his death bed while the kingdom of Assyria is threatening the lives of his people. What is especially important in this passage, though, is the place of the temple. God promises Hezekiah that he will be able to go to the temple.
We cannot underestimate the importance of the temple for Jewish people at the time (the time of this passage is probably roughly in the 8th century before Christ). All of the sacrifices that God demands in the law can only be done in the temple. In King Hezekiah's case, being in the temple gives him the extra added sense of hope that God is on his side in his war against Assyria. The temple has been so important to Judaism, in fact, that it was rebuilt twice; and it was so important for later Muslim conquestors, who claimed the site for their own mosque. Today, the site of the former temple remains significant to modern-day Israel. The place itself is important and immovable. We cannot rebuild the temple just anywhere.
So, the first reading serves to remind us about the central significance and role of the temple. No wonder Hezekiah recovers his hope when he learns that he will be able to make it back to the temple in three days. It is the presence of God, I think, that makes the temple so vastly important.
Importantly, prior to the temple era of Judaism, God's Ark was in a movable tent, and God shows great reluctance in some scripture passages to be housed in a temple. God often likes to be on the move with God's people!
So in today's gospel passage (Matthew 12:1-8), Jesus seems to be reminding us not to focus so much on the temple building itself that we miss the point. God is present to us and close to us even without the temple (as important as it is). Jesus proclaims himself Lord of the Sabbath because he is the new temple, the new place where God resides. But if the temple is now a person, specifically a person who is both God and man, that means that we are no longer bound to an immovable place but instead we go where Jesus goes, and Jesus is where we are.
Today, let us give thanks for God who is with us at all times and in all places.
- Jana M. Bennett