Twenty-sixth Sunday in OT ‘B’

Today’s Scripture readings give us a strong warning against jealousy, intolerance and scandal.

In the First Reading, we find jealousy, in its destructive form of envy, raising its ugly head in Moses’ assistant and successor, Joshua. Moses and seventy future helpers were called by the Lord God to the Tent of Meeting for the Spirit-giving Ordination ceremony. But two of those invited were absent. Joshua couldn’t tolerate these absent men prophesying in the camp without receiving God’s Spirit in the Tent of Meeting. Moses had to instruct Joshua to be tolerant. This selection is intended to provide a Biblical background for Jesus’ response to the same kind of jealousy noticed in his apostles.

In the Second Reading, Saint James warns the rich against giving scandal by their denial of social justice to their workers in refusing to give them a living wage, by ignoring the needs of others, and by condemning and murdering the innocent. Withholding a day-laborer's wage was a terrible act of injustice, equivalent to murder in the agricultural economy of the ancient Middle East. Baptism commits every Christian to work for social justice, through peaceable rather than violent, means.

In the Gospel, we find intolerance among the apostles of Jesus. John complained to Jesus that a man outside their group of selected disciples was exorcising demons in Jesus’ name, in spite of their attempt to prevent him from doing so. Jesus taught the Apostles lessons in His kind of tolerance and in the reward to be given to outsiders for good deeds they had done for the disciples of Jesus. We also hear the strong warning of Jesus against giving scandal, especially to innocent children, vulnerable members of the community and beginners in the Faith. Jesus warned the Apostles, and us, that, just as a doctor might remove by surgery a limb or some part of the body in order to preserve the life of the whole body, so we must be ready to part with anything that causes us or others to sin and which leads to spiritual death.

Jesus is inviting us to integrate our bodies into our following of Christ, so that our hands become instruments of compassion, healing and comfort, our feet help us to bring the Gospel to the world, and our eyes learn to see the truth, goodness and beauty all around us.