Download August 1, 2015 Alphonsus Liguori First Reading Leviticus 25: 1, 8

August 1, 2015 Alphonsus Liguori
First Reading Leviticus 25: 1, 8-17
God directs Moses to set every 50 years as a Jubilee year by “proclaiming liberty.”
That year the Israelites are not to work their land, but take only what grows from last
year’s tilling.
Gospel Matthew 14: 1-12
Herod had been keeping John the Baptist in prison, before Herod had him
beheaded. When Herod hears about Jesus’ preaching and miracles, Herod thinks it is
John the Baptist raised from the dead. Then the story is told of John’s beheading and
Salome’s dance in a flashback.
We’re probably a full year into Jesus’ public life at this point in Matthew’s
Gospel. For a time both John and Jesus were preaching, sometime in the same area.
John, of course, always pointed people toward Jesus, but helped them with the first phase
of their conversion, cleansing them of their sins. Because of John’s criticism of Herod’s
conduct, Herodias, Herod’s wife, needled Herod to arrest John, which he did. But Herod
was sort of fascinated by John and would talk and listen to him in prison. Then Salome’s
dance clinches John’s fate in death, which Herod commands reluctantly. That strange
fascination for the prophet by the sinner was still there, apparently. So much so, that
Herod thinks John has returned from the dead, when Herod hears about Jesus’ preaching
and miracles.
This part of Jesus’ life story seems like a small excursion into psychology. Herod,
Herodias, Salome, and even John seem to have had a mix of motives compelling them to
action. Herod’s strange combination of admiration and dislike and fear of John amounted
almost to an obsession. John’s continuing his work of baptizing and preaching after
Jesus’ arrival on the scene seems odd. Why not just say: “See Jesus”?, which he did at
times. Salome was part temptress, part obedient daughter. Herodias’ motives seems a
little more straight-forward – John had questioned her morals, so she would get rid of him
by proxy.
Of course, we are not simple moral machines which automatically must choose a
specific course of action. Faced with the same moral choices, one person may choose
one course of action, and another, another. (Remember the old commercial about the
confusion caused when a cashier asks the supermarket customer, “Paper or plastic?” The
customer imagines forests being cut down vs the proliferation of non-biodegradable
plastic in landfills, and he’s stymied. Many of our choices these days are like that.)
That’s what makes living morally these days so difficult and why there’s so much
contention among Christians who reject the choices of other Christians as immoral. I’m
just pointing up the questions – I don’t have the answers. But it seems obvious we
shouldn’t criticize others who chose “plastic,” when we think “paper” is the moral
choice. I’m sure God rewards the efforts we make to arrive at a decision, rather than the
decision itself.