The Sánchez Archives ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR Year A

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

On Eagle Wings

EXODUS 19:2-6
ROMANS 5:6-11
MATTHEW 9:36-10:8

Usually, there is a readily discernible theme or motif underlying the Sunday scripture readings. The first reading, more often than not, correlates with the gospel while the second reading offers a semi-continuous selection from one of the New Testament letters. Occasionally however, it is difficult to recognize a central focus among the readings and attempts to do so result in a work of artifice; this week is one of those occasions. Nevertheless, riches always abound in scripture and this week’s first reading mentions an image of God which may warrant further consideration. As an illustration of his saving power, Yahweh is likened to an eagle.

A strong and majestic creature, of which there were several species in the ancient near east, the figure of an eagle was regularly featured on the royal scepters, standards and steles of many ancient nations (including Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Egypt and Rome). In the scriptures of Israel, the eagle was regarded as a model of strength and swiftness (2 Samuel 1:23, Deuteronomy 28:49, Proverbs 23:5, Jeremiah 4:13, 48:40, 49:22). Possessed of uncanny eyesight, the eagle can spot food or foe from distances as great as a thousand feet and silently plummet earthward to make short shrift of either.

Monogamous birds, eagles are faithful to one mate for life and return to the same nest each year to raise a new brood. By choosing an inaccessible place to nest, parent eagles assure the security of their hatchlings, but if a predator should approach, they will fiercely defend their young, even at the cost of their own lives.

Each of these characteristics, keen eyesight, fidelity to its own, strength and speed lent itself to a figurative portrayal of God as an eagle. He who is all-seeing was constantly aware of his people; even in far off Egypt he had seen their plight. Like the eagle, God was unfailingly loyal to those he had called to be his covenanted people. His concern for their security and salvation would eventually result in the sacrificial death of his Son.

Those who hope in God are promised to soar on eagle’s wings (Isaiah 40:31) and to be constantly renewed like the eagle (Psalm 103:5). This reference to renewal may be based on the annual molting process whereby dead and worn or broken feathers are replaced by new, vigorous ones. Some scholars believe that this idea of rejuvenation is rooted in the fact that eagle’s average lifespan can be as long as eighty years. Others cite the possibility that Israel knew the Egyptian fable of the phoenix; this mythical bird resembled an eagle and was believed to live for five hundred years. After it died, its body was placed on a pyre and burned; from the ashes, a new, living phoenix emerged. The Egyptians associated the phoenix with immortality; the Romans took it as a symbol of their undying empire. An emerging Christian community regarded the phoenix as an allegory of resurrection and life after death. Certainly for Israel the recuperative abilities of the eagle and the fabled phoenix were reminiscent of the God who was constantly renewing his love and resurrecting his relationship with his people from the ashes of their infidelities.

Perhaps the most poignant of all the eagle imagery in scripture is that which is described in today’s first reading (Exodus 19:4; see also Deuteronomy 32:9-12). To be borne up by God as on the wings of an eagle is a comforting thought, particularly in those seasons of human existence when discipleship seems burdensome and overwhelming. Though some have doubted that the eagle ever actually carries its young in this way, scientific observers have proven otherwise.

Staff members from the Smithsonian institution traveled to the Sinai (also known as “eagle country” because it is habitat to a large population of eagles); there they saw adult eagles teaching their young how to fly. Amazingly, the parent bird would nudge an eaglet from the nest, whereupon it proceeded to drop, not yet having learned to coordinate its awkward body. After allowing the young bird to drop about ninety feet, the mother eagle would swoop down under him with wings spread and the baby bird would alight safely on her back. She would soar for a short distance, as if to impart the experience of flight and then return to the nest. This process would be repeated again and again, day after day until the young eagle was capable of solo flight.

Communicated in this rich imagery is the assurance of the constancy of God, who attends to each of us as we learn to live in his ways. Through all the struggles and disappointments of life, there is sure shelter under the cover of his wings (Psalm 91:4). Ever present to teach, protect and challenge God is also always ready to swoop down and gather us to himself when we fail and fall away from him.

EXODUS 19:2-6

In the sixth century C.E. the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian the Great, ordered the building of the Monastery of St. Catherine on the northern slope of Jebel Musa. Traditionally venerated as the site of the burning bush, Jebel Musa which is Arabic for Mountain of Moses has also been associated with the scriptural Mount Sinai, the locale of today’s first reading. Because of its isolated location, the monastery’s impressive collection of icons and manuscripts were preserved uncorrupted and unpillaged for centuries.

In 1844, the German theologian Konstantin von Tischendorf visited the monastery and found there a fourth century C.E. Greek manuscript of both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures which became known as the Codex Sinaiticus. Believed to have been commissioned by Constantine the Great, this manuscript was then sent by Justinian to his favorite charity, viz. the monastery of St. Catherine. Somehow Tischendorf managed to take the manuscript from the monastery and give it to his patron, Tsar Alexander II in Russia, where it remained until purchased by the British Museum in 1933.

In 1975, workmen in the Sinai monastery accidentally penetrated a wall and discovered a treasure of over 3000 manuscripts, including very ancient biblical texts and the missing parts of the Codex Sinaiticus. With this discovery and other similar ones at Ebla (1974), Ugarit (1929), Qumran (1947), etc. Contemporary believers have been able to become better acquainted with the people and the times through which the sacred word has been interpreted and handed on to subsequent generations. At the heart of all interpretation and tradition, however, is the divine initiative. As is illustrated in today’s first reading, it was God who began the saga of salvation by freely calling a people to himself.

Despite its insignificance relative to other more ancient and advanced civilizations (Deuteronomy 7:7), Israel would be, by virtue of God’s designation be his segullah (Hebrew) or special possession (see also Deuteronomy 7:6, 14:2, 26:18). A chosen people consecrated by the covenant relationship they shared with God, Israel was also to function as a holy nation or a kingdom of priests for the benefit of humanity. Israel’s priestly character was to be manifested in mediation and in worship. Wilfrid Harrington described Israel as “a pilot nation whose consecration, being set apart, will be the mission to show forth in its life the universal saving plan of God” (The Saving Word, Michael Glazier, Inc., Wilmington: 1980).

When the early Christians considered their own special character as heirs of Israel’s blessings and recipients of the grace and salvation wrought by Jesus, they described their role in similar terms: “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). The sacrifice offered by believers are not cultic holocausts of animals or libations of oil or wine. Rather the spiritual sacrifices herein described include proclaiming the good news of salvation and living the ethical demands of that good news in integrity.

ROMANS 5:6-11

When Paul wrote what is often called his “gospel” to the community at Rome, he did so ostensibly to introduce himself and his message to a church he had not founded or ever visited. Once known and accepted by the Roman church, Paul wished to be able to establish a base of operations in the city, from which he could conduct a mission to Spain. But, as J.C. Beker has explained, Paul’s correspondence was also intended to address a concrete situation which troubled the Roman community, viz. the divisiveness between a Gentile majority and a Jewish minority. “In order to correct this situation by emphasizing that there is a unity between these two distinct peoples in the gospel, the apostle stresses both the priority of the Jew and God’s plan of salvation as well as the right of the Gentiles to belong to this very people of God. . . it is simply wrong for Gentile Christians to think that because they represent a majority in the Roman church that they have displaced or will displace Israel.” (The Romans Debate, Karl P. Donfried, Editor, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody: 1991).

Then, reminding his readers that sinfulness is not particular to or pursuant upon ethnicity, Paul called both Jews and Gentiles to acknowledge their common status as “powerless” (vs. 6), “godless” (vs. 6), “sinners” (vs. 8) and “enemies of God” (vs. 10). Jesus’ death on the cross was to be received as the unmerited gift of a loving and undiscriminating God for the universal salvation of humankind. “Paul’s striking portrayal of God’s love here (vs. 7) achieves its rhetorical impact by a dazzling contrast in which God’s act of love evident in Christ’s death for us far surpasses even the most heroic acts of human love.” (John Paul Heil, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Paulist Press, New York: 1987).

Christ’s blood had the power to justify (vs. 9), i.e. to set humankind in right relationship with God and provided the basis for the believers hope for salvation. Paul underscored the certainty of this hope (vss. 9-10) by using a style of argumentation popular among Jewish scholars. Known as qal wahomer (Hebrew), this “how much more then” argument exemplifies the first exegetical rule of Rabbi Hillel. A contemporary of Jesus, the Babylonian born Rabbi Hillel had an academy (House of Hillel) in Israel and at one time was the leader of the Sanhedrin (Jewish high court). His first rule of exegesis, the qal wahomer was an a fortiori logical assertion which proceeded as follows: If A is true, then how much more does B. follow. Paul’s A-statement, “now that we have been justified by his blood” (vs. 9a) finds its logical conclusion in his B-statement: “It is all the more certain that we shall be saved by him” (vs. 9b).

Paul regales us today with the gratuitousness of God’s gift of salvation; he calls it a reason for boasting (vs. 11). Boasting is appropriate and even obligatory because the source of our boasting is God himself. Loved and blessed sinners, we are challenged to remain boastfully receptive and cooperative with God’s gift of reconciliation. As Eugene H. Maly has explained, “In the Scriptures reconciliation is never the movement of the human person back to God. It is rather, God’s action of drawing the person back to himself.” (Romans, Michael Glazier, Inc. Wilmington: 1987). Therefore with Paul and the early Roman Christians, we boast today of the gift we have received and which we now enjoy: reconciliation.

MATTHEW 9:36-10:8

As was explained earlier in this commentary (see pages 518-519, December 1995) the Matthean evangelist so structured his gospel as to include a number of citations from the Hebrew scriptures. Each citation was introduced into the gospel by a formula which indicated that the word or work being performed by Jesus should be appreciated as a fulfillment of the Old Testament text. In today’s gospel, there are no specific citations but the atmosphere is nonetheless rife with the insinuation of fulfillment.

By describing the exhausted crowds as sheep without a shepherd, the evangelist recalled for his readers a series of similar images wherein the people of Israel were so portrayed (Numbers 27:17, 1 Kings 22:17, 2 Corinthians 18:16). In addition, the evangelist’s description of Jesus’ being moved with pity for the crowds and his resolve to gather them so as to tend to their needs recalled the compassion and shepherding love of God himself.

Ezekiel had prophesied that God, who was mindful of the plight of his people who were like “sheep scattered over the whole earth with no one to look after them or search for them” (34:6), would indeed act on behalf of his people. Through his prophet, God had promised, “I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest. . . the lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal” (34:15-16a). In today’s gospel and through the ministry of Jesus these promises are shown as being fulfilled.

Moreover, by naming the apostles and sending them off to extend his mission of shepherding, healing and proclaiming the good news of God’s reign, the Matthean Jesus has made it clear that the authority of leading God’s people has been transferred. Whereas formerly, the scribes, chief priests and Pharisees were the recognized leaders, charged with the responsibility of shepherding the people, these had failed as did so many of Israel’s rulers (kings) before them. As William Barclay has explained, “The Jewish leaders who should have been giving their people the strength to live were bewildering them with subtle arguments about the Law. . . When they should have been helping them to stand upright they were bowing them down under the intolerable weight of the Scribal Law. They were offering a religion which was a handicap instead of a support.” (“Matthew”, The Daily Study Bible, St. Andrew Press, Edinburgh: 1975). Therefore the privileged task of extending the reign of God to the people was shifted from these ineffective leaders to Jesus and to the apostolic community he commissioned.

Also reflected in this gospel was the concern of the Matthean church of the eighties C.E. regarding the danger posed by false teachers. An ever present reality (see Paul’s letters) inauthentic preachers threatened the legitimacy of the gospel tradition and eroded the trust of those being proselytized. By naming the twelve disciples and underscoring the fact that their authority and apostolic commission had their source in Jesus, Matthew affirmed their position as the original guardians of the tradition and the official successors of Jesus. The twelve and their teaching became the paradigm upon which all future leaders and their ministries would be modeled.

Entrusted with the “gift” (vs. 8) of the good news of salvation, the community of believers united by the same tradition is to share that gift freely with all who still lie “prostrate from exhaustion” waiting to be gathered in.

[NOTE TO USERS: This archive is available for use without charge, but it remains the property of the author and under copyright with Celebrations Publications. Users are permitted to print individual Sunday commentaries for pastoral use, but are prohibited from downloading or copying files or printing any portion of this for sale or distribution.]