Friday of 10th Week in Ordinary Time
GOD RESTORES US
The experience of Elijah in God’s word today is a deeply moving human experience, wherein God shows himself as the Lord of life and resurrection as soon as a person discovers who he is when confronted with God whom he begins to understand a bit. Elijah, God’s loyal, formidable, fiery prophet, encounters defeat, despair and persecution the day after his victory.
He doubts himself, his future, his task, the people, and withdraws into the desert of himself. And then Elijah experiences God, not the formidable God of storm, earthquake and fire, which he pictured in his heart, but the God found in the gentle breeze caressing his face. This experience of the living God raises Elijah back to his feet and gives him the strength to return to people and to hope again in people and in the future. For now, he takes God on God’s terms. Could this not be our own experience?
First Reading: 1 Kings 19:9; 11-19
He got up, ate and drank his fill, and set out. Nourished by that meal, he walked forty days and nights, all the way to the mountain of God, to Horeb. When he got there, he crawled into a cave and went to sleep.
Then the word of God came to him: “So Elijah, what are you doing here?”
Then he was told, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention before God. God will pass by.”
A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.
When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face with his great cloak, went to the mouth of the cave, and stood there. A quiet voice asked, “So Elijah, now tell me, what are you doing here?” Elijah said it again, “I’ve been working my heart out for God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, because the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed your places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me.”
God said, “Go back the way you came through the desert to Damascus. When you get there anoint Hazael; make him king over Aram. Then anoint Jehu son of Nimshi; make him king over Israel. Finally, anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Anyone who escapes death by Hazael will be killed by Jehu; and anyone who escapes death by Jehu will be killed by Elisha. Meanwhile, I’m preserving for myself seven thousand souls: the knees that haven’t bowed to the god Baal, the mouths that haven’t kissed his image.”
Gospel: Matthew 5:27-32
“You know the next commandment pretty well, too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.
“Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.
“Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure.
Prayer
Lord our God,
we fear to take ourselves as we are,
with our weaknesses and our strength,
with our cowardice, failures, and projections.
God, touch us, seize us,
throw us down to earth if necessary,
that we may discover you as the source of life and strength
and constant resurrection
by the power of Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives with you and with us for ever. Amen.