The Sánchez Archives TENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Year B

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

Put Your Faith in God

Hosea 6:3-6
Romans 4:18-25
Matthew 9:9-13

Despite what seemed to be insuperable human circumstances, Abraham hoped and believed in God’s power. The same power that made Abraham great (Romans), was extended, in the form of healing forgiveness to Israel (Hosea). That same power reaches out to lift up and renew every repentant sinner (Matthew).

Hosea 6:3-6.

Active among his contemporaries during the death throes of the northern kingdom (i.e., 750-732 B.C.E.), Hosea structured his prophetic oracles in a rîb or trial-judgment pattern. Interpreting Israel’s frequent political dalliance with foreign powers and its perennial attraction to the Canaanite fertility cults as the causes for its downfall, Hosea called his people to return to Yahweh and to covenantal integrity.

Himself the cuckolded husband of a repeatedly unfaithful wife, the prophet used his personal circumstances as a vehicle for his prophetic message; he compared Israel to an adulterous woman as he likened Yahweh to an ever-loving, patient and forgiving husband. Acting as prosecuting attorney, citing indictment after indictment against his people, Hosea built an airtight case. But his was not a message of unrelenting doom. Indeed Hosea’s touching prophecies include some of the most moving assurances of divine love and forgiveness in all of scripture (Hosea 2:18-25, 11:1-11).

Today’s first reading is part of a longer passage (5:15 to 7:2) in which the prophet described the inadequacy of Israel’s repentance. So numerous had been their transgressions that it seemed as if the people had almost forgotten how to repent. Even their best efforts, viz., a multiplicity of sacrificial offerings, fell short of the mark because the people were lacking in the one thing basic to any sincere repentance--true knowledge of God. True knowledge of God, taught Hosea, would have resulted in a sincere love of God, in humble recognition of personal sin, in renewed dedication to the covenant and, last but not least, in social justice and compassion for the disadvantaged.

Intended to be understood as a dialogue with Israel speaking the first verse (v. 3) and Yahweh responding in the remaining verses (4-6), this short pericope is actually a sarcastic prophetic parody on Israel’s futile attempts to gain divine favor. Some have suggested that Hosea was quoting part of a liturgical rite, perhaps an expiatory ceremony. Even as the people prayed, “Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord ...” (v. 3), their thoughts were still influenced by pagan cult. “He shall come to us like the rain ... like spring rain” reflects a preoccupation with Baal, the Canaanite god believed to bring forth rain upon the earth. As elsewhere in his prophecies, the prophet decried the people for approaching Yahweh as they would Baal (“no longer will she call me,‘My Baal’” 2:16).

Yahweh’s response, which comprises the remainder of this reading, underscores the fickleness of the people and the shallowness of their worship. Their sacrifices, however many and often they were offered, were empty without a steadfast and sincere commitment to Yahweh and to his will as it was revealed in the covenantal law. The value of love over animal sacrifices and knowledge of God over holocausts is borne out in today’s gospel wherein Jesus cites Hosea 6:6 in defense of his ministry among the tax collectors and sinners.

Romans 4:18-25.

All of chapter four of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome represents a digression into the Jewish scriptures to illustrate his point that justification by faith was already operative before the law. Indeed, Paul wished his readers to understand that justification by faith not only predated the law but confirmed it. Justification by faith (R. Fuller calls this shorthand for “justification by the grace of God manifested in Jesus and apprehended by faith”) finds an eloquent expression in the person and life of Abraham. Pronounced just or upright by God because of his faith (4:18) and not because of his circumcision (4:9-12) or the law (4:13-17), Abraham represents the epitome of the true believer.

Despite the fact that his human circumstances seemed to militate against God’s promises to him, Abraham believed in God’s power to effect the impossible. An elderly, sterile wife and an aged husband hardly seemed suitable candidates for the progeny God had promised. Yet, as Paul stated, “Abraham believed, hoping against hope.” Literally translated, v. 18 reads, “Contrary to all expectation, he believed in God ...” Abraham’s faith trusted that God could suspend all determinism in nature, that God could bring about a new and unexpected future from what seemed a dismal and un­likely past.

While he did not question or doubt the validity of God’s promises and his power to effect them in his life, Abraham was not naïve, his was not an unthinking blind faith. Appreciative and entirely cognizant of his own situation, he fell on his face and laughed when he heard he was to become a father at such a ripe old age (Genesis 17: 1 ff). But his laughter was not born of cynicism; nor did it stem from a lack of trust in God. Because of his faith and his hope against hope, Abraham was credited as just.

Using a midrashic technique popularly employed in rabbinical teaching, Paul intended for his readers in Rome to apply the lesson of Abraham to themselves and to their faith in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. As A. Theissen and P. Byrne have noted, Abraham’s faith has become the pattern or model of Christian faith because its object is the same, viz., belief in God who makes the dead live. Just as Abraham and Sarah’s “dead” bodies (v. 19) yielded to God’s power to bring forth life, so too did this same God raise his crucified Son from the tomb to life eternal. Our faith in the totality of the Christ event, i.e., in Jesus’ passion, death, resurrection and exaltation as it has been effected by God, “will be credited to us” as our justification (v. 25).

Matthew 9:9-13.

In vivid contrast to Abraham (second reading), whose righteousness was the fruit of his belief in God, stand the Pharisees in today’s gospel, whose self-righteousness hindered their ability to believe in Jesus. Following immediately upon the cure of the paralytic (9:1-8) whose faith and the faith of his friends elicited a physical healing from Jesus as well as a spiritual healing (the forgiveness of his sins), the narrative of Matthew’s call and the reaction to it by the Pharisees illustrates another sort of paralysis, viz., the rigidity which comes from second-guessing God. Whereas the self-righteous Pharisees believed themselves to be justified by their impeccable observance of the law and subsequently judged those who did not do likewise to be outcasts and accursed by God, Jesus habitually exhibited a distinct predilection for sinners. In this way, he manifested God’s special care for those whom the self-righteous deemed as unclean and outside the pale of acceptable, savable society.

Painted with the same brush as sinners, tax collectors were considered by the Pharisees to be among those who disrespected the law. Hired by Rome to collect the variety of tolls the empire exacted, tax collectors were actually local people (in this case, Jews) who had bid for and had won the option of collecting taxes from their neighbors. Since Rome required its tolls to be paid in advance, the collectors did so; then they hired agents to assist them in recouping their initial outlay and in making a handsome profit besides. Extortion was rampant and, because of their reputation for dishonesty as well as their cooperation with the occupying forces of Rome, tax collectors were feared and hated.

Matthew’s gospel is unique among the synoptics in that it alone identifies the tax collector as Matthew; Mark and Luke call him Levi in parallel narratives. While there is no historical evidence of a person named both Levi and Matthew, the fact that this evangelist changed Levi to Matthew may be an autobiographical signal. Or; more probably, it may be that the evangelist named the tax collector Matthew because he was listed among the Twelve and because that apostle was the source of special traditions in the evangelist’s community (J. Meier).

In any event, the tax collector called Matthew responded enthusiastically to Jesus’ challenge to discipleship. During

the table fellowship which followed in Matthew’s home, Jesus grievously offended the moral sensibilities of the Pharisees. His free and willing association with those whom the Pharisees deemed unclean served as a double affront. Not only did they disapprove of Jesus’ actions in themselves but they were equally peeved that, after associating with sinners and thereby rendering himself unclean, he then proceeded to converse with the Pharisees, thereby making them unclean as well. In order to avoid any ritual impurity, the Pharisees in this instance asked Jesus’ disciples for an explanation of his actions: “What reason can the teacher have for eating with tax collectors and those who disregard the law?” (v. 11).

Hearing their remarks, Jesus responded directly to their criticism. His response included three distinct points. Jesus’ first statement (v. 12) was based on a proverb, undoubtedly familiar to his contemporaries: “People who are in good health do not need a doctor, sick people do.” Instead of despising sinners as the Pharisees did, Jesus saw them in need of healing and he reached out to bring them to wholeness and holiness once again. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were so self-righteous as not to recognize their own need for healing; for them, there would be no cure because integral to the healing process is the admission of guilt and the recognition of Jesus as the healer.

Jesus’ second statement (v. 13a) in which he quoted Hosea 6:6 illustrated what should have been the Pharisees’ attitude toward their fellows. Mercy, over and above ritual sacrifice, even perfectly performed ritual cult, is of greater value in God’s eyes. Those who set themselves up in opposition to God’s mercy as it was manifested in the mission of Jesus would one day find themselves as outsiders looking in at the eternal messianic banquet. With the quotation from Hosea, Jesus challenged his critics to recognize God’s truth and wisdom at work in his own person.

In the final verse of the pericope, the Matthean Jesus underscored the purpose of his ministry among humankind, viz., to extend to sinners the call of God’s salvation. As J. Gaffney has commented, Jesus’ actions taught us that God does not passively await the sinner’s conversion. Rather, he actively seeks, assists and precipitates it. God is not a dispassionate critic of our moral life. He is the active inspirer and reformer of it; he is a healer, not a connoisseur of health.

1. Sincere conversion begins with a commitment to love and to know God (Hosea).

2. Because of grace and by faith, even that which seems impossible can happen (Romans).

3. To be aware of personal guilt and to acknowledge our sin is the first step in the process of spiritual recuperation (Matthew).

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