Friday of the 17th Week in Course 2025
When we think of Torah, the Jewish Law, we usually think of the Ten Commandments and the various prohibitions that flow from those natural law ordinances. So, for instance, the first commandment prohibits worship of any God but Hashem, and the pagans of Palestine worshiped Baal by sacrificing pigs, so Jews may not eat pork. But Torah is much more than that. We see today that Jewish life circulated around worship of the true God, and even what we call the secular calendar had strong religious overtones. Every seven days, of course, was Shabbat, or Sabbath, and no work could be done. Everyone pretty much stayed home. Then there were seven annual feasts, four in the spring and three in the fall. They coincided in this agricultural society with the spring harvest “of barley and wheat and the fall harvest of olives, dates, grapes. . .” and other crops. Specific sacrifices were to be offered on each feast. In today’s first reading from Leviticus, we see what is called a “wave” offering. Some of the festivals call for a “holy convocation,” which is a gathering of the whole community. Once Jerusalem became both an administrative and religious center, with the reign of Solomon, three of these festivals became times in which all the Jews, at least the men, were to come to that city to celebrate and make offerings. Those were Passover, Weeks or Pentecost and the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. Each feast was a memorial of some historical event in the life of Israel and was more than just an exercise in nostalgia. Each Jew was called to consider himself or herself as living in that historical moment, as it is being celebrated in the present. This notion carries over into Christian practice. We today, celebrating weekly the Holy Eucharist, are reliving the Passover Supper celebrated two thousand years ago with Jesus and the Apostles in the Upper Room.
The psalmist offers today a prayer that was used in those Jewish celebrations, and reminds them and us of the first commandment as it says “There shall be no strange god among you nor shall you worship any alien god. I, the Lord, am your God [note the capital G] who led you forth from the land of Egypt.” Every celebration is a re-enactment of liberation, originally from Egyptian slavery, but now from slavery to sin and death.
Our Gospel is blunt today. The “native place” of Jesus is Nazareth. He taught in their synagogue and astonished them all. After all, the folks in Nazareth town, a little nothing burg up in the hills, had seen Jesus as a boy, and watched him learn carpentry from Joseph, who they accepted as His father. So what about these wonder stories of miracles He performed down at the lake, or in Judea? Where did He get wisdom so He can even debate the local rabbi or the Pharisees from down south? They took offense at all that, and especially at His not working miracles in Nazareth. They didn’t see how it was all possible, so they didn’t believe. Not the stories, and not the teaching. Faith is a divine gift, but humans can, and do, turn down the gift. Let’s accept it, and all of God’s gracious gifts.
