Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
You know how some foods taste so good on the tongue, but leave a sour or unsettled feeling in your stomach? That’s what we hear about in today’s first reading from the book of Revelation (10:8-11). Only it’s not food that the author was tasting. It was a “small scroll.” A scroll with words written on it that tasted as sweet as honey, but would “sour” in his stomach. We hear about words in today’s gospel reading (Luke 19:45-48) as well. Jesus’ own words and the words he was quoting “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” Words that were likely sour to those he was driving out of the temple area. Yet some found his words to be sweet, as we read, “all the people were hanging on his words.” So much so that it interfered with the plans of those who were seeking to put Jesus to death.
What can we make of this? What about the strangeness of the vision of the author of Revelation being told to eat a scroll? Well, we know that the book of Revelation is full of symbolism offering hope to the Christian Church under persecution by the Roman empire at that time. Scripture scholars tell us that the scroll in this vision we read about today was considered sweet because it foretold the final victory of God’s people. But it was also sour because it revealed their sufferings.
And in the gospel narrative, we hear about Jesus’ words/teaching prompting both admiration and hatred with plots to kill him. It seems that Jesus’ reflection on the sacred texts he was raised on led him to take action (the cleansing of the temple) that was unsettling to some, especially those in positions of power.
Perhaps, like me, you find some of Jesus’ words, some of the Word of God, to be unsettling, even sour upon digestion. Sweet on the tongue but hard to stomach when it comes right down to what we’re called to as Jesus’ disciples. The scriptures contain both sweetness and sourness, comfort and challenge. Let us pray this week for the courage to fully digest the truths that we have been asked to take in. Courage to accept the sweetness of discipleship, along with the sourness of the suffering that goes along with that. Jesus is our model, our guide who transforms all to sweetness. We are not alone.
~Eileen Miller