Breaking the Word

14^th Week in Ord. Time, Tuesday – 11^th July 2023 — Gospel: Mt 9,32-38

Crisis in Leadership

In two metaphors, Jesus manifests the crisis in leadership as compassion for the crowds. The first conveys their lack of leadership (10,36). As Moses chose Joshua to continue his mission “so that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep without a shepherd” (Num 27,17), Jesus chooses his twelve disciples because they are “like sheep without a shepherd”. Ezekiel describes the leadership crisis after the exile as scattered and aimless, “My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them” (Ezek 34,6). As in the days of old, God’s people in Jesus’ time are helpless and abandoned by their leaders. The second metaphor states the urgency of the situation (10,37) that calls for leadership need. The agricultural imagery of the harvest is rooted in the message of the prophets. God’s slow work of ploughing and sowing the field throughout the saving history of Israel has now reached its climactic time of harvest. The time for gathering God’s people into the kingdom has arrived, but there is a shortage of labourers. This need to mobilize the leaders for the harvest leads Jesus to commission the twelve disciples.

13^th Week in Ord. Time, Saturday – 8^th July 2023 – Genesis 27,1-5.15-29; Mt 9,14-17

Oracle’s Fulfillment in Blessings

The first reading relates a story of stealing the blessing of inheritance between the twin sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob. Jacob, the younger son, is trying to fool his father by impersonating Esau, his older brother. The reason for this fraud is to receive the blessing of inheritance from his old, poor-sighted, and dying father. Jacob is led to do so at the prompting of his mother, Rebekah, who always favoured the younger twin, who wasn’t strong and tougher like his older brother, Esau. Therefore, she supplied him with the food Isaac requested from Esau, Esau’s clothes, and goat skins to mimic Esau’s hairiness. Unhesitatingly, Isaac seems to believe Jacob as Esau and ate the meal Jacob offered and gave him his blessing.

This blessing of inheritance once given cannot be revoked. This cheating of Esau is slightly accepted because, earlier Esau had sold Jacob his birthright when Esau had returned unsuccessfully from a hunt. In general, Jacob deceiving his father and cheating his brother Esau are condemned as blameworthy even by Hosea (12,4) and Jeremiah (9,3).  However, this story is told because it was part of God’s plan of salvation – his use of weak, conniving, sinful people to achieve his own ultimate purpose.  The oracle God gave to Rebekah prior to the birth of her sons is that the older, Esau, would serve the younger, Jacob (Gen 25,23). Rebekah had held on to that revelation and was paid for the fraud by a lifelong separation from Jacob (Gen 27,43-44).