A reading from the prophet Isaiah (2:1-5)
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
It will happen in the last days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
will be established as the head of the mountains
and will be lifted above the heights.
Then all the nations will stream to it,
many peoples will come to it and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths.’
For the Law will come from Zion
and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Then he will judge between the nations
and arbitrate between many peoples.
They will hammer their swords into ploughshares
and their spears into sickles.
Nation will not lift sword against nation;
no longer will they learn to make war.
House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
This reading announces movement in two directions. All the nations will go up to Sion, the mountain of God, and to the ‘house’ (bayit) of the Lord. The house is the temple in Jerusalem where the God of all creation and of all peoples has set his dwelling place. It is the dream of the prophet that God will be recognised beyond the people first chosen so that the men, women and children of the world will flock to God’s house. Then there is the movement of the Law, the teaching (torah) coming from God, coming out from God’s dwelling place. The Word (dabar) of God too will come down to teach and feed God’s people. The result is peace, for people will reject the ways of war and transform their weapons, their swords and spears, into ploughshares and sickles, to tend and cultivate the earth. In this way God provides ‘light’ for the peoples of the world.
FIRST READING IN YEAR A
A reading from the prophet Isaiah (4:2-6)
That day, the Lord’s seedling shall be beauty and glory,
the fruit of the land shall be the pride and ornament
of Israel’s survivors.
Those who are left in Zion and remain in Jerusalem
will be called holy,
all those in Jerusalem marked out for life.
When the Lord has washed away the filth of Zion’s daughters
and, with the wind of judgement and the wind of burning, cleansed
Jerusalem of the blood shed in her,
the Lord will create, over every dwelling on Mount Zion
and over its places of assembly,
a cloud by day and by night smoke with the brightness of a flaring fire.
For over all the glory will be a canopy
and a tent to give shade by day from the heat,
and refuge and shelter from the storm and the rain.
The prophet uses botanical imagery, speaking of the ‘seedling’ (tsemah) of the Lord and the ‘fruit of the land’, quite possibly to evoke the messianic figure who will rule the ‘survivors’, the remnant of the people. These will be God’s ‘holy people’ who are ‘marked out for life’. Once they have been purged in suffering they will be protected by the Exodus symbols of cloud by day, and fire by night (Ex 13:21), newly ‘created’ by the Lord. The Lord’s glory, in the holy city, will be a ‘canopy’ and a ‘tent’ to shield from the heat, and a ‘refuge’ and ‘shelter’ to protect from the storm and the rain. God continues to keep the people safe.
Psalm 122 (121) The psalm echoes the reading from Isaiah 2 with the multitudes coming to the temple of the Lord, and the longing for peace. As in both readings from Isaiah, the focus is on the holy city of Jerusalem.
A reading from the holy gospel according to Matthew (8:5-11)
When he went into Capernaum a centurion came up and pleaded with him, saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed and in terrible pain.’ Jesus said to him, ‘I will come myself and cure him.’ The centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; just give the word and my servant will be cured. For I am under authority myself and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man, “Go,” and he goes; to another, “Come,” and he comes; to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those following him, ‘Amen I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found faith as great as this. And I tell you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of Heaven.
It is their faith which brings people ‘from east and west’ to take their places at the feast of the kingdom. It is faith that has brought the pagan centurion to Jesus, pleading for his paralysed servant, who is in great pain. His faith leads him to trust that, despite Jesus’ willingness to visit him, Jesus does not need to go to the servant but can heal simply by speaking a word of command. That the centurion is not a member of the chosen people leads Jesus to be ‘astonished’ at his faith. It is right to see the connection between the ‘many peoples’ in Isaiah 2 and those ‘from east and west’ in the words of Jesus here.
Does my vision of the Church erect boundaries between people, or remove them?
Pray for a deepening sense of gratitude for the universal Church.