Word to the Wise
Thursday, August 19, 2021 - Thursday in the 20th Week in Ordinary Time
[Judg 11:29-39a and Matt 22:1-14]Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. "If you deliver the Ammonites into my power," he said, "whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the Lord. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering."....When Jephthah returned to his house in MIzpah, it was his daughter who came forth, playing the tambourines and dancing. She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her.......[Judges]
The story of Jephthah's daughter is horrifying to us. It was horrifying to Jephthah and his daughter as well! She is the real heroine of this story in her seemingly calm acceptance of her fate since the meaning of a vow to God, even a rash one like that of Jephthah, was clear. As awful as the situation was, this was a matter of faith and culture that yielded a terrible result. Jephthah's vow, designed in his estimation to help him secure victory in a battle, becomes the instrument of his punishment and the death of his innocent daughter.
As strange and revolting as this story may be to our sensitivities, I have witnessed pastoral situations that come close when a parent has vowed: "No child of mine will ever..........." Sure enough, that child, even if an only child, makes that fatal mistake and the parent disowns or must grieve the loss of the son or daughter. The son or daughter also loses life or parent.
Our secular culture is not very supportive of vows. We constantly ask, when a vow may become "inconvenient," "What if........?" The high divorce rate in our culture, even among Catholics, is an unfortunate example of the lack of power of a vow. This makes it harder for us to understand Jephthah's terrible vow, but Jephthah's actions may help us to understand what WE think a vow means, especially one made to God. AMEN