Word to the Wise
Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - Wednesday in the 15th Week in Ordinary Time
[Isa 10:5-7, 13b-16 and Matt 11:25-27]"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." [Matthew]
At the end of the very challenging and sobering "missionary discourse," the evangelist Matthew offers some soothing words for today and tomorrow in the lectionary. The first set is literally a prayer of Jesus. Although Jesus is often portrayed as a person who prays, we do not often know what he says beyond the words of the Lord's Prayer, the words in the Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John, the words in the Garden of Gethsemane, the words of forgiveness from the cross ("Father, forgive them....) and the words quoted above. (Did I miss any?) The words for today provide us with at least two thoughts.
The first is that Jesus contrasts the "childlike" reception of his preaching by the people of simple faith, and the rejection of his teaching by those who were considered "learned and clever" at the time - scribes and Pharisees. (St. Paul has some pungent words about this kind of rejection in First Corinthians.) We have to note that some scribes and Pharisees were attracted to Jesus, but the resistance and opposition reflected in the Gospel of Matthew was considerable long after Jesus was risen from the dead. Education need not be an obstacle to faith, but it is often portrayed as such. If anything, education should open one to the power of faith.
The second insight concerns Jesus' relationship to his Father. We hear some echoes of this prayer in the Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John. Jesus is not trying to be "mysterious" here, but he IS sharing a profound reality. He has been sent by the Father to reveal what God's Kingdom of salvation is. We come to know the Father through Jesus' teaching. Yes, St. Thomas Aquinas does say we can know God through natural reasoning, but when God became flesh, a new kind of knowledge was offered in the person of Jesus and this knowledge is helped by the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and in the Church.
A small prayer can contain a big reality. AMEN
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