Friday of the Second Week of Lent
People surprise me everyday - not least the ones I went to high school with. I find out from Facebook on a regular basis things like: the class clown is now CEO of a Fortune 500; the outcast runs a successful solar energy company; the person voted "most likely to succeed" was arrested as a member of the Mafia.Crazy stuff! And it makes a person realize how much we grow, change, regress, over the course of our lives. But usually, we don't think about the course of our lives, or the big picture. Our days are filled with thinking mostly about the present - getting through this day, worrying about these things.
Yet Christians are admonished to put our "todays" into a much broader context, the context of life with God. That gives us hope, and true reasons to believe that what we see now is not at all what will be in the future. That is what today's scriptures emphasize.
In today's first reading, we encounter the story of Joseph. Jacob, remember, had plenty of children by his other wife and his two concubines, but he grew to love Joseph the best, as today’s passage says (Genesis 37:3-4). The rest of the passage (Genesis 37:12-13, 17-28) from today recounts how Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery for twenty pieces of silver. If we were to continue from here and read the rest of the story about Joseph, we would find that he is sold into slavery in Egypt but eventually (after all sorts of trials and tribulations) becomes head steward in Egypt, essentially doing a job a tiny bit like today’s secretary of agriculture. He is second in command.
A few points to take note of, then: 1) Joseph is favored, but by the standards of those days, he shouldn’t be, because he is not only NOT the firstborn son, but he is the son of Jacob’s SECOND wife; 2) Joseph is sold into slavery for twenty silver pieces; but finally: 3) Joseph is eventually highly favored in Egypt. From abject poverty, he becomes second in command to the king. Who could have remotely thought about this as a possibility if we focused only on Joseph's slavery?
We are meant to understand Jesus as a bit like Joseph. He is the Son of God, born from a nearly forgotten people in a backwater province – not unlike Joseph being born of a second wife. Jesus is sold for thirty silver pieces into the hands of the people who eventually condemn him to death. The poor and humble carpenter Jesus is the savior of the world.
But to make the connection more plain, the parable Jesus tells in today’s gospel (Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46) features a vineyard owner, usually seen as like God in this story, while Jesus is seen as akin to the vineyard owner’s son. The people rage against the tenant’s son, seeking to put him to death. Then Jesus discusses the parable further by speaking these words from Psalm 118:22: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
Jesus’ parable and Joseph’s story are to be reminders to us during Lent that God expects great things from the least-likely people – even from the people who appear to be doomed to death.
This reminder should give us great hope and opportunities for faith in God during this Lenten season - even as we focus on our present moments, let us pray for help in remembering the bigger picture.
- Jana M. Bennett