Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
OLD AND NEW
The author of the first reading interprets God’s intervention in history as a free option for progress. Isaac, the farmer and shepherd, though younger, is preferred over the culturally inferior hunter, Esau, notwithstanding the latter’s vested birthright position. God often chooses the younger (Joseph, David, Solomon), the one who can break with established situations and rights, above those who try to monopolize God and his authority.
Can we be people of compromise? To settle disagreement and make peace, to solve disputed matters and to become at least tolerant of one another? Yes, but not with the Gospel. Not when it comes to the renewal of life, whether personal or communal, that is constantly asked of us. Jesus tells his disciples and us, who are living in messianic times, that we are new, liberated people: we cannot compromise with salvation, with our faith, with the Gospel. Young wine belongs in new wineskins. New times require new attitudes.
Reading 1: Gn 27:1-5, 15-29
When Isaac had become an old man and was nearly blind, he called his eldest son, Esau, and said, “My son.”
“Yes, Father?”
2-4 “I’m an old man,” he said; “I might die any day now. Do me a favor: Get your quiver of arrows and your bow and go out in the country and hunt me some game. Then fix me a hearty meal, the kind that you know I like, and bring it to me to eat so that I can give you my personal blessing before I die.”
5-7 Rebekah was eavesdropping as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. As soon as Esau had gone off to the country to hunt game for his father, Rebekah spoke to her son Jacob. “I just overheard your father talking with your brother, Esau. He said, ‘Bring me some game and fix me a hearty meal so that I can eat and bless you with God’s blessing before I die.’
15-17 Rebekah took the dress-up clothes of her older son Esau and put them on her younger son Jacob. She took the goatskins and covered his hands and the smooth nape of his neck. Then she placed the hearty meal she had fixed and fresh bread she’d baked into the hands of her son Jacob.
18 He went to his father and said, “My father!”
“Yes?” he said. “Which son are you?”
19 Jacob answered his father, “I’m your firstborn son Esau. I did what you told me. Come now; sit up and eat of my game so you can give me your personal blessing.”
20 Isaac said, “So soon? How did you get it so quickly?”
“Because your God cleared the way for me.”
21 Isaac said, “Come close, son; let me touch you—are you really my son Esau?”
22-23 So Jacob moved close to his father Isaac. Isaac felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He didn’t recognize him because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau’s.
23-24 But as he was about to bless him he pressed him, “You’re sure? You are my son Esau?”
“Yes. I am.”
25 Isaac said, “Bring the food so I can eat of my son’s game and give you my personal blessing.” Jacob brought it to him and he ate. He also brought him wine and he drank.
26 Then Isaac said, “Come close, son, and kiss me.”
27-29 He came close and kissed him and Isaac smelled the smell of his clothes. Finally, he blessed him,
Ahhh. The smell of my son
is like the smell of the open country
blessed by God.
May God give you
of Heaven’s dew
and Earth’s bounty of grain and wine.
May peoples serve you
and nations honor you.
You will master your brothers,
and your mother’s sons will honor you.
Those who curse you will be cursed,
those who bless you will be blessed.
Gospel: Mt 9:14-17
14 A little later John’s followers approached, asking, “Why is it that we and the Pharisees rigorously discipline body and spirit by fasting, but your followers don’t?”
15 Jesus told them, “When you’re celebrating a wedding, you don’t skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to exercise moderation, but not now. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!”
16-17 He went on, “No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match. And you don’t put your wine in cracked bottles.”
Prayer
Lord our God,
we are your people on the march,
moving forward to you with your Son
who came to make everything new.
Dispose us Lord, to accept the pain
of leaving the familiar behind us.
Uproot us from our established ways
and guide our faltering steps
toward your new future in Jesus Christ,
your Son and our Lord for ever.