In my view, it is irresponsible for us to preach on a text without clarifying, insofar as is possible, the circumstances under which it was produced. The information may not be useful, but we ought to try to find out what we can. Today's first reading, two verses from 'Second Zechariah,' make that challenge all but impossible. Scholars are uncertain and disagree about the circumstances relative to the book. So there is not much to do but lift its words out of context: The prophet longs for a time of peace and the end of war, for a king whose gentle dominion has no limit. Kings and broad dominions are rarely warless, as every era in which Zechariah could have written will have known. We can feel on safe ground, perhaps: Who wants war? Surely not we, Lord! Jesus, whom the synoptic evangelists and ancient commentators saw as Zechariah's gentle king, provides the nudge we need, as we hear him thanking his Father for sharing wisdom with the gentle ones. What wisdom is that, we may ask? Increasingly often and in multiple contexts we are learning that many things we value and even assume a right to have come to us violently and unjustly: food taken from the poor, resources exported from the less powerful, goods taken from the earth at a cost we didn't imagine and in a way unsustainable, even for us, let alone for all. Now we know, or we are being informed. And Jesus' prayer prompts us to examine carefully what we value, what we count on, with whom we stand. And he offers us a place near him, where our burdens will find rest. A good exchange. Barbara Green, O.P.

The first reading, responsorial psalm and gospel offer a similar scene: Jeremiah reviews his journey from naivete to realism, aware now of the lengths to which his allies-become-opponents will go to stop him; the psalmist reflects on the grief arising from suffering imposed by one's own group; Jesus in Matthew sounds more upbeat, though he knows what lies ahead. He says what the others imply: It is less fearsome to be killed by opponents than to be tempted over to the other side. All agree that God is the taproot of the courage and integrity that are called for. Since we could relish our righteousness here, we might do better to find in the readings' mirror the opponents to Jeremiah, the psalmist, Jesus. Who is relentlessly urging us that we cannot go on as we have been accustomed to, as we love to do? Whom are we tired of hearing, do we feel irritated at hearing? What will we do to dismiss their words, how far will we go to get rid of their presence in our lives? One group that looms for me is environmentalist and new cosmology advocates who urge that we cannot consume as we have been wont to do, must realize what and whom we are grabbing and destroying by our habits. Paul's note to the Romans dichotomizes in a frequent way he has that readily sounds dismissive of Judaism. What I hear him stress, rather, is the persistence of our tendency to oppose, to thwart, to do whatever it takes to minimize our opponents, to eliminate them if it comes to that. And to justify it. A sobering picture, if we let Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Jesus describe us as opponent instead of as innocent sufferer.

Barbara Green, O.P.

Keep the law, the instruction, the tradition. All the readings today ramify a single word in English, with Moses' discourse being the most explicit. In the meandering storyline of Deuteronomy, by the time Moses gets to the section we now call ch. 11, he has reviewed with his hearers what their parents experienced at Mount Horeb (also called Sinai): God's word spoken, mostly deferred to the ears of Moses, soon forgotten, then disobeyed.

The law tablets were broken in anger and in symbolic reaction to the peoples' refusal to keep them. So, says Moses to his people and to us: Keep it better: Learn it, say it, do it. Write it, wear it, teach it. Recall it, rethink it, debate it. Let it wrap around your arm, dangle before your eyes, catch your attention as you enter and leave your house. Love it, treasure it, let it guide your steps. Oh, and don't add or subtract from it while you build your life within it and around it! Biblical law and all that flows from it enjoys a paradoxical existence: Primordial and complete, given in a moment at the mountain, all of it, for once and for all. Yet, of course, it grew and changed in time, responsive to life as lived, and the biblical narrative makes that plain to anyone reading carefully. It is a profound mystery, one that we would do well to ponder. How to hear, recognize and love these words of God so deeply that keeping them is our greatest joy. Barbara Green, O.P.

In today's first reading we meet Samaria and Samaritans. We know generally who they were (though they are a "hot spot" in current study): Samaria was a capital city of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the 9th and 8th centuries, often "in trouble" with the biblical historian of the period for royal crimes related to injustice and worship. That same historian relates that when the people of the general region were deported to Assyria in 721, foreigners ignorant of Yahweh were transplanted to Samaria. It also appears that when the people of Judah returned from their exile in Babylon (6th century) and were rebuilding the temple, Samaritan offers to help were rebuffed. Samaritans are clearly cast as outsiders by the "new Judeans," though they were close enough to the Jews that they shared the first five biblical books. By the time of Jesus, tensions had compounded, as we hear in the story of the Samaritan woman (John 4). More than three strikes against Samaritans!

But the aftermath of that conversation shares with today's story a surprising datum: When prompted by good preaching (Jesus and Philip), intense prayer (Peter, John) and the Holy Spirit (advocacy), Samaritans became believers, unpromising though they might have appeared. My question is not about them so much as about us, or myself. When, contrary to expectation, something extraordinary and positive seems to happen--ne'er-do-wells responding with joy and gratitude to the post-Easter preaching--can we credit it as the work of the Holy Spirit? When I like an outcome, I have no trouble doing so; when I do not have confidence in or respect for an event, I withhold credit from the Holy Spirit. Do recent stadiums full of fervent papal fans testify to the presence of the Holy Spirit? Do they imply Holy Spirit approval of, influence in the way the Church is being led? Or is that the wrong question? What does the gospel suggest the Holy Spirit advocates for: our sense of unity with the triune God and with each other. In that I have confidence.

Barbara Green, O.P.

In most of the NT materials (excluding the letters), though the narrated events are set in the 30s of the first century, C.E., the accounts themselves were produced decades later, fruit of long and diverse reflection by the young Church on its experience of Jesus. Think, analogously, if after many years of discussion and reflection, we were only now beginning to distill into writing the meaning of World War 2 and the Holocaust. What both the first reading from Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel from Luke show us is what the early Christians did and what we continue to do: Name and be grounded in our experience while simultaneously correlating it with our Scriptural tradition. Both Peter (in Acts) and Jesus (in Luke's gospel) are showing us how to ponder the staggering event of Jesus' death: how opposition to him can be made sense of; how God continued to have events in hand, appearances notwithstanding; how the range of our own possibilities and proclivities bore on those events: Peter, surely conscious of his own failures at the time of Jesus' death, the pair of disciples so discouraged and clueless as to be giving up the whole enterprise. Paul calls these things "our futile conduct," presumably not to blame us for our weaknesses but to remind us that the path backwards is not for us to choose. And of course the main learning is from Jesus himself: In Acts we are prompted to remember how he faced his death, which is a major portion of what we are to learn from it and to emulate; and in the gospel we have Jesus himself, patiently taking his dinner companions back through the long tradition to read for them--with them--what they had missed before. Where we stand affects radically what we see. To stand with Peter is an invitation to compunction and compassion; to stand with Jesus and other disciples is as good as it gets. As the psalm response asks, "Lord, you will show us the path of life."

Barbara Green, O.P.

Since there is a lot of liturgy this week with many readings, I would like to comment on the figure emerging from within several places in Isaiah 40-55, notably in Palm Sunday's reading of Isa. 50:4-7, but really marbled throughout that prophetic text. The material shares vocabulary and motifs to describe the demeanor of an individual or perhaps group who evidently lived in Babylon during the 6th century exile and suffered, whether at the hands of the victorious oppressor or perhaps from his/her/their own people.

There is much that is mysterious about the passages, but what emerges is that the Servant, as "he" is called, acts from a nonviolence of the strong rather than the weak. It is that aspect--the strength to resist wrong and to choose not to retaliate--that makes the Isaian servant figure helpful for understanding Jesus' reaction and response to his suffering, including the injustice and violence of it. To me the figure of the Servant gains depth if the unjust suffering comes at the hands of friends, compatriots, and co-religionists, which is easily imaginable in the circumstances under which the exiles lived. Feminist and post-colonial readers have helped us see the importance of not simply interpreting by allowing the character (the Servant, Jesus, ourselves) to submit through lack of alternatives, despair or fear. There is not much to emulate there. But to understand what is happening, to rely on God, to refuse compliance with the injustice but to live in such as way as to maintain a courageous integrity: That is a challenge, lifelong.

Barbara Green, O.P.

The Exodus reading is difficult if we don't take it deep enough. At the surface we have a narrative where God's people whine and God seems to withhold basics, providing water only after a scene has been made. Beneath the water shortage is an accusation that God's plan is to kill the people and a non-denial of that charge by God. Of course water is urgent in the wilderness, and anyone would complain when it runs short. So this reading deserves better than a superior disquisition about foolish faithlessness of the Israelites.

What's being negotiated is the gift of liberation and more fundamentally the gift of relationship: how Israel is to become distinctively God's people. Their discourse efficiently suggests they are still wondering if Pharaoh is the better choice. There are quite a few of these "murmuring stories" sprinkled through Exodus and Numbers, and it's worth reflecting on why this negative dynamic needs so much attention. A similar though less antagonistic discussion shows up in the gospel reading, helping us see, perhaps, that in both narratives the participants are "playing symbols": Water is life, God is life, relationship with God is life, humans are thirsty and water-dependent. Water is a deep and rich way to suggest what is on offer. God "isn't" water, but we can see in the symbol how giver, gift and gifted meet "in the water," and why it needs lots of discussion. And in our warming world, with its uneven distribution of goods, there are plenty of other points to make too.

Barbara Green, O.P.

Jesus does not talk about the story of Adam and Eve, though Paul does, giving it a powerful interpretation that may overwhelm our initiative to continue to reflect on it. But Paul's view is not the only way forward here. The Genesis story treats in a sophisticated and subtle way the profound question of disorder in creation: how did it "get" there, what or who caused it, and what is its basic character?

Since--often and regrettably--we have a snipped and truncated edition for liturgy, we need to review the whole narrative if we are to read responsibly. The story suggests that disorder was not always there but was primordially present; the disorder was not planned by God but rooted somehow in human choice--though evidently not with full awareness; and that it entails a denial or blocking of solidarity with each other, God, and the rest of creation. A lot is packed in a short space! As the story winds on, the insight is offered that our present condition of disorder is a consequence of something beyond ourselves, which doesn't mean we don't participate in it in many ways. But the disorder is bigger than our willed sins or even the perennials that we struggle against. Though he doesn't talk about the Genesis story, Jesus enacts it. We watch him struggle in some of the same temptations we have, however we might name them, and call on God for help. God's word is not an antidote or a magic weapon but an ancient way of wisdom for Jesus, for us. The point is to know it well, to reach for it confidently, to trust its access to all we need.

Barbara Green, O.P.

This Sunday's first reading is woven explicitly into the Gospel: a "writer's move" recently named intertextuality. The practice is ancient, though often the intertexts are less clear and more difficult to spot.

Today we have Isaiah 9:1-2 invited by Matthew into the Gospel (at the place now called 4:13-16). The Isaiah quote is thus challenged to unpack itself and find a second home in the host text. And we, hearing or reading it, invite the Isaiah quote to explain something about the Matthew passage that we might have missed had the visiting words not been placed there. What might that something be? The point is not to find any one correct answer but to tease out various possibilities and see what they offer as the two contexts intersect and in fact interact with our contemporary situations.

It's often difficult to pin down original Isaian contexts, given the tendency of the material to be re-edited over generations; but we can safely assume that the experience alluded to is the depredations suffered when groups of Gentiles (e.g., Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans) spill into the northern territory of Israel. That painful memory is first invoked and then reversed in the prophet. When the prophet's old words turn up in the gospel, they bring along their old meaning but Matthew adds the idea that what was once sorrowful and then joyful can also work well, be productive. That is, Matthew's young church was likely dealing with the question of how Gentiles are to become part of those committed to Jesus. The earlier text suggests it may be difficult and joyful by turns, and then Matthew seems to suggest that Gentiles can even be a good thing, which may not be the experience his church was having. And we are invited, plausibly and challengingly, to think about our joys and fears, hopes and sorrows as "outsiders" join communities where we felt comfortable without them.

Barbara Green, O.P.

The ancients in general seem to have understood that diverse deities existed, related, competed--and that the question for human discernment and commitment was which one, whose, was the real God. Today's first reading from Isaiah can be understood in that way. Perhaps generated from amid a wider experience of having lived in the cosmopolitan empires of Babylon and Persia rather than simply in the land of promise, the prophet's sense is that all the earth will learn that Yahweh of Israel/Judah is the true deity, competing claims notwithstanding. "Lord, every nation on earth will adore you," promises and praises the psalm refrain. I think our sense of this vast human challenge about God is slightly different: not to choose among discrete contenders but to discern and move ever more deeply into relationship with the One who pervades all that exists. Our actions, not God's, are the diagnostic of how well we manage. The temptation, I think, is not so much to choose wrong and wrongly (I don't think the things we sometimes are said to idolize actually begin to fill the role of deity) but to fail to orient our lives deeply enough so that God is able to exert a deep and tangible influence on us. The Godquest is our search for God who is searching for us, finding us, to the extent we allow it. How to be deeply present there, sharing the gifts we have been given, and in adoration.

Barbara Green, O.P.

This Sunday's readings invite us into an area of considerable discussion--not to say dispute--in classrooms, pulpits, pews, chanceries and other such places: How is Scripture to be interpreted most fruitfully? What methods and questions are most suitable? Do we need to consider the 8th century circumstances where the prophet Isaiah advises a king on the royal response to a situation of international aggression: The king is reluctant to hear the prophet's advice and so the prophet adds a sign as incentive. A child will be born to enhance the Davidic line, while the kingdoms whose leaders threaten Judah can anticipate extinction. Or drawing on classic philosophical methods (analogy, allegory, typology), shall we focus on the way in which the gospel reading constructs the features of the Isaiah text to stress the circumstances of the child's conception and the centrality of his role: God with us? Can we have both, do both?

There is little danger that the texts will not be read allegorically, since that mode is strong in our tradition. Prophets speak proleptically about what lies far ahead. But perhaps it is just as useful, currently, to spend some time filling out the figure of the prophet struggling to convince the monarch that he need not be drawn into a war that will gain him and his people nothing. Prophets speak urgently about situations in the present. Let's not miss that aspect of Isaiah's word to us.

Barbara Green, O.P.