Zeal And Jealousy And Envy--O My!

Saturday 4th Week of Easter

Jealousy. Envy. These are two attitudes that literally can tear a community apart–a church, a political body, a family. We can learn a great deal about these sins from the Scripture. Here we see two results of the preaching and healing done by Paul and Barnabas on their visit to Antioch in Pisidia, a town that today is in south central Turkey.

The first result of their missionary work is that a huge proportion of the city turned out on the next Sabbath to hear the word of God. Many of the people who had heard them the previous week invited Paul to come back, and some were converted to following Christ. Obviously they told all their friends about men who were full of Truth and spiritual power, and curiosity brought these people to the synagogue.

The second result of that first meeting is that the Jews who had not committed to Christ were full of zelos, a Greek word that can be translated as “zeal” or “jealousy.” You can imagine yourself as one of them. You’ve been a Jew all your life, devoted to the Jewish Law and community. Now here comes this renegade Pharisee you’ve been hearing about. He’s telling everyone that an itinerant carpenter-preacher who had angered everybody in Jerusalem so much that they had Him crucified by the Roman authorities is actually the Messiah. Unbelievable, and now the congregation is split over this novel doctrine and even the Gentiles, unclean and stupid in matters of religion, are coming to these heretics. So their zelos moves them to action. They are zealous for the Law of Moses and jealous of the success of the apostles. Call it “double zelos.” They acted, first to try to refute Paul and Barnabas by words, and then, when Paul told them they would go to the heathen Gentiles, by stirring up their faithful and influential women to get their husbands to persecute the apostles.

We learn from this story a lot about jealousy. It can be confused with righteous behavior, as in this story. It is essentially self-centered. Something another person has done is eroding your own self-worth, prestige, or position. And it’s forcing you to re-examine your own situation and either change yourself or fight the other guy. Its other face, envy, manifests itself when another person gets a possession or an honor or position that you want, and you judge that person less worthy than yourself. Jealousy and envy are like acids eating away at your relationships and feelings of gratitude. The catechism tells us that it seems to have a "universal character." They can mess up anybody, anywhere.

How do we fight these evils? Remember, a temptation is not a moral fault; it’s an invitation to commit a moral evil. Successfully resisting temptation is itself an act of virtue. Our Gospel today gives us some helpful counsel. It picks up the theme from Genesis that tells us we are made in the image and likeness of God. Jesus is the perfect likeness of God-in-flesh. We are to be like Jesus in all our thoughts and actions. Read the NT. Jesus was never jealous of anybody. When a guy who was not His disciple started teaching and healing in His name, He didn’t stop the fellow. He told His disciples to ignore him. Pray, fast, and open yourself to being an image of Christ, and it won’t matter that someone else has more honor or possessions than you. Believe in Christ and do the works He did. Then we all benefit, and God is glorified.