Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Today's scriptures begin reasonably enough. The author of Hebrews declares in the first reading that Jesus has instituted a better covenant with his people - better than the one that existed before. "If that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second one." But the first covenant was not faultless - and who was at fault, but God's own people?
Hebrews goes on to quote from points in the Old Testament where God has promised a new covenant. This new covenant is better because God's law is written on peoples' hearts. We won't have to teach the law (or try to cajole people into following it) because God will be so close to his people that they cannot help but know God's law through and through.
The second reading presents us with a puzzle, however, especially when we read it alongside the first. The author of the letter to the Hebrews knows that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the covenant. When we read about Jesus' own life, though, we see immediately, as in today's passage, that Jesus surrounded himself with people who had many, many faults. Today's second reading numbers all the disciples and shows Jesus giving them authority to preach and drive out demons - a great and weighty responsibility.
Jesus even gives that responsibility to Judas, "the one who betrayed him." Judas is an obvious case of a person who has faults, who maybe does not have the law of God precisely written on his heart. But the others Jesus calls are no better. Look at Peter - who betrays him three times. Matthew is a despised tax collector (a profession that involved extortion and stealing). James and John act like spoiled two year olds, each wanting to sit at Jesus' right hand. All of them are clueless about who Jesus is and what they are all about.
Yet these are the people Jesus appoints to spread the good news about God's new covenant! Will this new covenant be any less full of faults than the old one?
It will indeed, because here's the crucial piece, and the real good news for us who hear these readings: the new covenant is faultless and new because the new covenant is Jesus himself, God's own Son. WE humans are not much different at all compared to the people in the old covenant - we are still quite capable of sin and wrongdoing.
This is good news for us because we know ourselves and our world - it is still filled with all kinds of wrongdoing and evil. Yet God promises to be with us here and now in spite of ourselves. What the new covenant does is bring God close to us, so close that we directly encounter him in the person of Jesus, especially today in the Eucharist. This is how the law is written on our hearts. We still need to do the work of responding to God, but God meets us where we are. God is the one responsible for the faultless new covenant.
Today let us listen to the voice of the Lord, and respond to the great gift of receiving his new covenant, the promise of his very self.
- Jana M. Bennett