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Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A, August 17, 2008

First reading, Isaiah 56:1, 6-7

The Historical Situation: Many things were changing for the people of Judah during and after their exile in Babylon, 587-540 B.C.E. The third part of the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapters 56-66, was written for returned exiles, and the left-behind ones whom they rejoined, during the time of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The experience of the exile had challenged the people's faith to its roots. A specific land and a flourishing population had seemed essential to their covenant with God. By their sins could they have broken the covenant irreparably? How could God restore everything? Clearly things were never going to be the same again, but what would life be like now?

To make things even more interesting, the prophet recorded in Isaiah 56-66, known as Third Isaiah or Trito-Isaiah, expressly reinforces a new element of God's relationship with the people, broached before but little emphasized. God, the prophet now insists, is interested in other nations of people besides the descendants of Abraham. The covenant is offered more widely than the first people of the covenant ever dreamed. Their exclusive claims to chosen status must yield and make room for strangers.

Proclaiming It: Today's passage first gives a general reassurance about God's intention to renew the covenant. If you can, make yourself sound hopeful as you proclaim the first sentence. Then pause. The rest of the reading announces the radical change in the covenant, the welcoming of foreigners. In reading it aloud, you should emphasize the words referring to the newcomers, as the prophet would have in announcing this to the people for the first time. So:

(The place "my holy mountain" means the hill Mount Zion, in the center of Jerusalem, where the temple ("my house") stood.)

Our Liturgical Setting: The Lectionary often chooses passages from this section of Isaiah to prepare us to hear gospel passages like today's, Matthew 15:21-28. The struggle to broaden the covenant was not complete even by the time Jesus came. Jesus himself was ambivalent about it, as today's gospel shows. For a survey of Lectionary references to Isaiah, click here, then click on the letter "I" in the top frame. In a rare congruence, our second readings last Sunday, today, and next Sunday also address the issue. Of course the locus classicus for the narrative of this struggle is The Acts of the Apostles.

Second Reading, Romans 11:13-15, 29-32

The Theological Background: As these Notes showed last week, In Romans 9-11 Paul asks how God could apparently renege on the promise made to Abraham, that Abraham's descendants would always be God's chosen people, now that those descendants had rejected Jesus. Paul figures out that it was God's plan all along to allow the Jews to reject Jesus, so that the few Jews who accepted Jesus would be forced to turn to the Gentiles, long the outsiders, and bring them into the covenant. Then the Jews would become jealous and accept Jesus, and God's long secret plan to invite all people into the covenant would be revealed and completed.

By "their rejection is the reconciliation of the world," Paul means the Jews' rejection of Jesus allows the world (the pagans, the Gentiles) to be reconciled to God. By "what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?" he means that the Jews' coming back to God by accepting Christ is tantamount to them receiving life again through the once spiritually dead pagans.

Proclaiming It: Make sure you know the referent of every pronoun in this passage, and that you contrast them properly with tones of voice. Paul ("I") is a Jew speaking to pagans ("you") about the Jews ("my race," "some of them") and so on. Every third-person pronoun here refers to the Jews, and every second-person pronoun to the just-converted Gentiles. Let your listeners hear the differences.

Extra! Each Sunday passage from Romans in context: Click here to see a table summarizing the readings from Romans from the 9th to the 24th Sundays of Ordinary Time, this year.

Several other commentaries on these passages. All are thoughtful, all quite readable, from the scholarly to the popular.
Links may be incomplete more than a few weeks before the "due date."
Lutheran pastor and college teacher Dan Nelson's notes for a study group. From the heartland of the U.S.A., two priest-columnists, both learned and wise, with a great common touch:

Father Roger Karban's syndicated columns about these readings:
from 2002,
from 2005,
from 2008 (Scroll down; page contains seven months of recent columns, and other items.)

The 2002 column of Jesuit Father Francis X. Cleary, From the site of the Saint Louis Review.

The Text This Week; links to homilies, art works, movies and other resources on the week's scripture themes
Saint Louis University's excellent new liturgy site
Most welcome here are Reginald Fuller's commentaries.

The Lectionary selections in the frame at the left, if any, are there for your convenience. The publishers of the page in that frame have no connection, except for membership in the one Body of Christ, with the publisher of this page. Likewise the publishers of the pages on the links above.

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Last modified: Jul 12, 2008