Sunday, March 7, 2021

 Third Sunday of Lent

(Exodus 20:1-17; I Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25)

What is the Law to a Jew?  One Jewish scholar calls it “a yoke that becomes a tree of life.”  It is a demanding teacher from whom we could never draw an “A.”  Nevertheless, this teacher shows us not only how to think but how to live.  Jesus, being a devout Jew, loved the Law and lived it every moment of his life.

In today’s gospel Jesus acts on the Law’s first tenet.  He finds the temple’s vendors and money changers making gods out of their businesses.  Being Son of God with special rights in God’s house, he throws the infidels out.  The act bursts open the Jewish social structure.  “By what authority does he act as the Temple police?” the people would wonder. The priests see it as sheer insolence. “Who is he to determine right and wrong in the temple?” they would rage.  Since they cannot tolerate his audacity, they will plot to have him executed.

How should we think of Jesus’ zeal?  Uncompromising with the temple merchants, he would find our grasping for power, pleasure, fame, or fortune similarly intolerable.  He asks us to put such pursuits away and give him our attention.  He promises us that we will find God, our Father also, in doing his will.  That is, we are to live jot and tittle the Ten Commandments at the heart of the Law.  Also, we are to love others as much as we love ourselves.

Friday

 

Friday of the Second Week of Lent

 

(Genesis 37:3-4.12-13a.17b-28a; Matthew 21:33-43.45-46)

 

Mark Twain secured fame as a humorist.  Few in his time or any could match his insight and wit.  However, he was no humanist. He did not believe that humans are basically decent people.  Quite the contrary, he found them as conniving for their own comfort of mind.  If all humans acted like Joseph’s brothers in the first reading or the tenants of today’s gospel parable, Twain’s view would be judged as correct.

The brothers have no patience with Joseph, their father’s favorite son.  They universally dislike him although not all favor killing him.  In any case, they mean him harm when they sell him to the Ishmaelites.  The tenants of Jesus’ parable are even more reprehensible.  They kill the son of the landowner, who stands for the Son of God.  In strict justice, they deserve execution.

Despite frequent examples of hard-heartedness and full treachery, we know that humans are not completely corrupt.  In fact, humans can become merciful and loving.  For this reason we seek renewal in the season of Lent.  We endeavor to be like Christ.  He not only taught us to help others but also who died to save us from oblivion at death.