This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

Reading 1, Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16

5 Woe to Assyria, rod of my anger, the club in their hands is my fury!

6 I was sending him against a godless nation, commissioning him against the people who enraged me, to pillage and plunder at will and trample on them like the mud in the streets.

7 But this was not his intention nor did his heart plan it so, for he dreamed of putting an end to them, of liquidating nations without number!

13 For he thinks: ‘By the strength of my own arm I have done this and by my own wisdom: how intelligent I have been! I have abolished the frontiers between peoples, I have plundered their treasures, like a hero, I have subjugated their inhabitants.

14 My hand has found, as though a bird’s nest, the riches of the peoples. Like someone collecting deserted eggs, I have collected the whole world while no one has fluttered a wing or opened a beak to squawk.’

15 Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it, or the saw more strength than the man who handles it? As though a staff controlled those who raise it, or the club could raise what is not made of wood!

16 That is why the Lord of Hosts is going to inflict leanness on his stout men, and beneath his glory kindle a fever burning like a fire.

The "Assyrian" in the U.K.: Trident Nuclear Sub.

The prophet claims that Assyria is an instrument of God’s punishment of his people, but it’s got out of hand and thinks it’s a world power. It’s a wonderfully daring piece of theology, but we have to ask some questions:

Does God approve of the actual killing, raping and pillaging of any people?

If God’s instruments can get out of hand, was it wise to employ them in the first place?

Whatever our theology, it’s true that God at least permits violent nations to bring violence on others. Many people cannot imagine a God who is so permissive, and are therefore atheist. (What was God saying to Bosnians, or Rwandans or Palestinians?) I sympathise with this reaction.

Any theological answer has to beware of seeming to know too much. My own answer points to a) the radical abdication of power by God in the creation of the universe and of human life. God shares the creative process with chaos and indeterminacy; and b) the powerless, suffering presence of God in the universe, which is revealed by the cross of Jesus Christ.

With all due hesitation, I want to say that this is better theology than Isaiah’s, which is however, more fun than mine. Most people like a smiting God.

Gospel, Matthew 11:25-27

25 At that time Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.

27 Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

No one knows the father (mother) except rthe son(daughter)

The secret of the rule of God, his pure goodness to all, is revealed to those who are content to be small, and who therefore live by trust in each other and God. Those who want to be big and to dominate, reject God’s revelation of his character as nonsense. The “Assyrian” in every soul and nation thinks that being one of the big battalions is the only safety.

The representative of the little ones is called the Son, not in the way of the doctrine of the Trinity, but simply as the leader of those who are willing to be God’s children. Jesus demonstrates that being small is not a passive retreat from life and its possibilities, but rather a splendidly vigorous, sober, humorous, compassionate, sharing of human weakness.