Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL’S THOUGHT ON BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr. Michael Boakye Yeboah, Vice Rector: St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

THE STRANGER

The readings meant for our reflection on the 21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time are full hope and assurance. The readings address their message of hope and assurance to “THE STRANGER”. The question therefore is: “Who can be classified as a stranger?” Within the context of religion and spirituality, all God’s people are considered “strangers”, if the term stranger is defined as a person who is a foreign or is in transition to his current place of stay (residence). Christians can therefore be considered as strangers in the world because the Christian doctrine teaches that the world is not our home, we are just passing through.

The term has seen a gradual growth in interpretation and over the centuries varied meanings have been applied to it. The Jews referred to non-Jews as strangers but the term was first applied to the Patriarchs who can easily be seen as the founding fathers of the Jewish ancestry. When the term “stranger” is applied to the Patriarchs, it is applied with its wandering nuances. The stranger as a wanderer depicts a state of detachment from one’s given original place of origin. The wanderer comes today and moves tomorrow and so wherever he arrives at, the people there see him as a stranger – the Patriarchs were always seen in this light throughout their wanderings. Time and time again in the Pentateuch we are reminded that the Israelites had been strangers themselves. Abraham, the great forefather, had been a ‘wandering Aramean’ (Genesis 12; Deut. 26:5); ‘You were once strangers and slaves yourselves’ (Deut. 10:19-22; 24:17-22; Exodus 22:21-24; 23:6-9; Leviticus 19:33-34). Precisely on the basis of that painful memory, ‘you are to be merciful to the stranger in your midst.’ The bible at times portrays the stranger as an enemy who Israel needed to exterminate while in another places Israel is called to love the stranger.

In Egypt, their strangers’ status turned to slavery but through the leadership of Moses, the Lord delivered them from the land of slavery into the land of promise and plenty (a land flowing with milk and honey). Before they arrived at the promised land, they were always considered as strangers and made enemies and fought wars along the way.

When they finally arrived in God’s designated land for them, they attained royal and citizenry status. This made them distance themselves from the term “stranger” as a sociological reference term. They earned the name the “Consecrated People of God.” Their royal status was beyond comparism among the social groupings of the world. This made them to see other people as strangers in earthly territorial terms and celestial term. Judaism emphatically taught, Israel will not share the heavenly Kingdom with any group. Israel’s relationship with strangers was basically in two-fold. As their enemies, they fought the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites but as people they co-existed with, their doctrine taught them to show kindness. Torah made a requirement of Israel to love strangers. Deuteronomy 10:19 states: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

            The prerogative of Israel as a “royal people” was about to change, when God through the prophets gave hope and assurance to all people considered as strangers by the Jews. Naturally humans are not comfortable if they are to share their “citizenship status” or “royal status” with others who are considered as “outsiders” and strangers. In any country or culture that monarchial rule is practiced, great efforts are always in place, so that a stranger will not gain royal status to rule. In some places there has been years of litigations in court over the rightful person to rule. An image of such scenario is painted beautiful for us by George R.R. Martin in the “universally” watched TV series “Game of Thrones.” All efforts, cruel and diplomatic, were pursued to make sure a stranger does not sit on the Iron Throne. The motion pictures of this epic depict to what extent people can go to protect their royalty and distance strangers from it. Human beings may work with this but God does not. For God, royalty does not depend on family ties, race, nationality, color, etc. and today’s readings lay emphasis on this theology.

            The readings should remind all people who are enjoying “royal status” in a particular place that they were once considered as “strangers” when they arrived at that place. When Joseph arrived in Egypt he was considered as a stranger but later he gained “royal” status that paved the way for his family to come and stay in Egypt. This story can be your story. In 2015, Pope Francis addressing the Joint Meeting of the US Congress said: “In recent centuries, millions of people came to this land to pursue their dream of building a future in freedom. We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners. I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing that so many of you are also descended from immigrants…Let us remember the Golden rule: ‘Do unto others what you would have them do unto you…” I personally have great respect for this “land of the freed and the home of the brave.” Its beauty as a country lies in its unity in diversity – it reminds me of the Caesars’ Ancient Rome. We can take great counsel from today’s readings

            The first reading’s prophecy, taken from the end of the Book of Isaiah, tells the people of Israel with complete clarity that God will call men to himself from the most distant lands that “have never heard anything of me”, and that he will make some of them into his priests and special servants. It is a hard task for Israel to know itself as the chosen people yet to permit itself to be relativized by the knowledge that God will extend the same closeness to others – at a time known only to him. God will now refer to nations that Israel, for the most part, considered the enemies of God as “your brethren”. The sacrifices that they offer in the house of the Lord are not blemished and worthless like the heathen offerings, for they will be offered in “pure vessels”. How will Israel behave towards this promise?

            The Gospel provides an answer, for it addresses primarily those in Israel who will not accept the truth of the promised expansion of the chosen people. Strangers will come “from east and west, north and south” to “take their place at the feast in the Kingdom of God” with the patriarchs of Israel. This is so intolerable to those Jesus is addressing that they will “grind their teeth” and will be transformed from “first” to “last”, indeed, will no longer be permitted entry. They will learn that they “did evil” when they insisted on their prerogatives, even though they ate and drank with Jesus and he “taught in their streets”. The harsh words they hear from Jesus are words of warning and admonition which can have no other source than love. And if, in the end, they are the “last”, this lowest place (as confirmed by many prophecies: Ezekiel 16:63) may be a place of shame but it is not a hopeless place. There is hope for all of Israel (Romans 11:26).

            When the second reading speaks of God’s discipline, which follows from love, it surely addresses itself primarily to Christians. They should consider themselves addressed also by the warnings of the Gospel reading. For they too, like the Jews, are capable of insisting on their election and supposed prerogatives, and thereby might find themselves left standing at the door or shown to the last seats. They ought to remember that discipline in life must be understood not simply as punishment but as a necessary instrument of formation, a means to put new tension into their slackened faith and Christian life. Yet Israel after the arrival of Christ also ought to recall the words that were spoken to it already in the Scriptures of the Old Covenant (Proverbs 3:11-12). If it is true that God’s gifts and callings are irrevocable (Romans 11:29), then Israel can only see its long suffering as an event within its calling to be God’s chosen people.

We pray that we will cooperate with the grace of God to live out our Christian faith well so that the first will be last and the last will be first principle will not be used against us, when Jesus comes again. Do these readings on the 21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) have a message of some Catholics who hold the view that: “Outside the Church there is no salvation.”? We should always remember that we serve a mysterious God.