Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Jeremiah 28:1-17; Matthew 14:22-26)
Wendell Berry has been a prolific novelist and naturalist. Much of his fiction describes a farming town
in southern mid-Atlantic America. In one
of his last novels, Berry’s characters display a remarkable love for God and
one another. They are redeemed people
who respond humbly and graciously to the Lord’s goodness. They are what God calls both old and new Israel
to be.
Unfortunately, Israel has not always responded so well to
the Lord. At the time of Jeremiah the
people of Judah shrugged off the Law’s requirements to both God and the
poor. They are seen in today’s first
reading as being threatened by mighty Babylon.
Jeremiah has told them that Babylon is God’s scourge. It will punish Israel for its unfaithfulness
to God’s law. A false prophet delivers a
contradictory message. He claims that
God will deliver the people much like He did when the Assyrians were about to
invade one hundred thirty years before. Of
course, this consoling message is proven to be bogus by actual events.
Jesus has enabled our living as God has intended. He not only taught us humility and love but
demonstrated it in his life and death. Like
the characters of Wendell Berry’s fiction, we respond to Christ’s sacrifice
by daily living his graciousness.
