for June 23
Tuesday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

Today’s Gospel can sound somewhat harsh and exclusionary. On the face of it, the overall message seems to be to keep the best for those who are deserving and maintain distance from the flood of ordinary humanity crowding through the public gate. In that context, even the golden rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”) takes on a bit of an elitist or prideful tone implying the unstated “. . . lest you be like the sinful masses.” I know people who would certainly take exception to the separation of dogs and holiness. As to gems, there’s a story about Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker movement.  She once received a donation of a diamond ring. Later in the day a disturbed woman who came in regularly showed up and Day gave her the ring. When a staff member questioned the wisdom of this, Day’s response apparently was, “Do you suppose God created diamonds only for the rich?” I wonder what Jesus’s take on that would be.

Here we need to remember that this passage is from the Gospel of Matthew, which is concerned to present Jesus’s teaching as a continuation of the Mosaic Law. The Sermon on the Mount provides instruction on how Jesus’s law of love fulfills the Jewish Law and on the behavior and attitudes Jesus’s followers should therefore adopt. Key to understanding where Matthew is coming from is recognizing the purpose of the Law. The Law was revealed by God to Moses as the way for the Jewish people to live out the covenant they entered into with God. However, this covenanted life was not lived in a vacuum but in a world with many other people who had other gods and other laws. Seen from this perspective, the wide gate and broad road can be seen as symbolizing a thoughtless going along with the flow without making the moral choices that keep the faith. The constricted road makes you stop and think where you’re going. The narrow gate forces you to figure out how you’re going to get through it. The point is not to be better than others but to be mindful of yourself and your choices. St. Paul tells us to put on the mind of Christ. The more Christlike our understanding of God’s desires for us, the more easily we’ll be able to follow the path Jesus lays out for us.

The difficulty of keeping faithful to the covenant can be seen throughout the history of Israel as recorded in what we Christians call the Old Testament. The temptations of the surrounding cultures, including idol worship and idle living at court, keep reappearing. Hezekiah, the central figure of the first reading from 2 Kings, was one of the few excellent kings, both as a ruler and a man of faith. He pushed back against the excesses of his predecessors, restored the Temple in Jerusalem, reformed religious practices, and made Jerusalem more secure. Nonetheless, in this passage the Assyrians, who have already conquered and ravaged many other lands, are now besieging the holy city with an overwhelming army. Hezekiah turns to God in prayer and supplication and the next morning the encamped enemy is found decimated (by a plague of some kind, it’s thought) and the Assyrians depart, leaving Jerusalem to stand for a century longer.

Hezekiah may be the king referred to in today’s psalm. Whether he is or not, the psalm presents a lovely vision of a just and merciful society built around a city that worships God and honors his commandments. We may have a long way to go to get to a place like that, but it’s a hopeful vision worth holding onto, especially in challenging times like our own.
—Christine Szczepanowski

The readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.