Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Have you ever eaten food that tastes so good, so sweet on the tongue, but it leaves a sour, hard-to-digest feeling in your stomach? That’s what we hear about today from the book of Revelation (10:8-11). Only it’s not food that the author is tasting, it’s a small scroll. Yes, a scroll with words written on it that tasted “as sweet as honey,” but “sour” in his stomach. We also hear about words in today’s gospel reading (Luke 19:45-48). Jesus’ own words and the words he was quoting from Isaiah. Words that were sour to those he was driving out of the temple area, yet sweet to others, as we read, “all the people were hanging on his words.”
So, why this strange vision in Revelation of being told to eat a scroll? Scholars tell us the book of Revelation is full of symbolism offering hope to the Christian Church under persecution by the Roman empire at that time. They further tell us that the scroll in this vision was considered sweet because it foretold the final victory of God’s people. But it was also sour as it revealed their sufferings.
In the gospel narrative, we hear about Jesus’ words 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 that was unsettling to some, especially those in positions of power, but sweet to others.
If you’re 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. Scriptures contain both sweetness and sourness, comfort and challenge.
Let us pray for the courage to fully digest the truths that we have been asked to take in. Like the psalmist, may we “gasp with open mouth” in our yearning for God’s commands (119:131) – trusting that through Jesus all is transformed to sweetness.
~Eileen Miller