This blog continues to reflect on the catholic bible readings for each day

Reading 1, Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26

19 Yes, people of Zion living in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will be gracious to you when your cry for help rings out; as soon as he hears it, he will answer you.

20 When the Lord has given you the bread of suffering and the water of distress, he who is your teacher will hide no longer, and you will see your teacher with your own eyes.

21 Your ears will hear these words behind you, ‘This is the way, keep to it,’ whether you turn to right or left.

23 He will send rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the bread that the ground provides will be rich and nourishing. That day, your cattle will graze in wide pastures.

24 Oxen and donkeys that work the land will eat for fodder wild sorrel, spread by the shovel-load and fork-load.

25 On every lofty mountain, on every high hill there will be streams and water-courses, on the day of the great slaughter when the strongholds fall.

26 Then moonlight will be bright as sunlight and sunlight itself be seven times brighter — like the light of seven days in one — on the day Yahweh dresses his people’s wound and heals the scars of the blows they have received.

Gospel, Matthew 9:35—10:1, 5a, 6-8

35 Jesus made a tour through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and all kinds of illness. 36 And when he saw the crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd.

37 Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send

Labourers at Olive Harvest

out labourers to his harvest.’ 1 He summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to drive them out and to cure all kinds of disease and all kinds of illness.

5 These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows: ‘Do not make your way to gentile territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; 6 go instead to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. 7 And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those suffering from virulent skin-diseases, drive out devils. You received without charge, give without charge.

 The Isaiah passage is a very beautiful vision of the time when God will turn in compassion to his suffering people. The Jewish prophets proclaimed that the total defeat of their nation, and the exile of all its leading citizens, was God’s punishment for its faithlessness, its worship of idols and the injustice in its society. They interpreted the evil that came upon them as the wrath of God.

  The other side of a wrathful God is pity, compassion, faithfulness in the end. As we struggle to understand this way of thinking we should note that just as the “punishment” is worldly and real, so the promised restoration is seen as material-the teacher will be visible, the farms will be fruitful, even the weather will be a blessing. These verses follow a particularly blunt prophecy of Israel’s punishment and are not by the original author, but were inserted by an editor, who took material from after the exile, and placed it here so that, on the same page, as it were, God’s wrath should be matched by his kindness.

 The passage from Matthew is linked with the prophecy because the lectionary compiler saw it as a fulfilment: Jesus’ “ministry of God’s rule in the world” (=kingdom) was entrusted to his disciples and was directed to the bodily ills of ordinary people. If most Christians accept that Messiah Jesus fulfilled the ancient prophecies, perhaps we should hear the argument of those who rejected him as Messiah, asking, “So all the promises are fulfilled already? Where’s the peace and plenty, the wondrous harvests, the soft rains and the bright sunshine? Messiah Shemiah! ”

 The question allows us to focus on Jesus’ seriousness about the “harvest”. He creates a small parable. “The rule of God is like a harvest which is ready but needs labourers to bring it in.” The kingdom is not given on a plate but requires human faith and cooperation, for example, in the healing of bodily disease and liberation from the powers of evil.

 Jesus vision is less ecstatic and more realistic than that of the prophets. Christians ought to understand why some were disappointed, but should also celebrate the sober promise of Jesus’ faith, that the harvest of justice and love can be gathered in the world we know.