Proper 7 Year A
Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A
Description
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A
Ordinary Time
Proper 7
Genesis 21.8–21
Romans 6.1b–11
Matthew 10.24–39
The prince of peace comes with a sword. To that theological oxymoron we must add the sad, and still tragic, story of Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael. Go down into the Genesis story, down the dark staircases of imagination, and even then you will perhaps never plumb the depths of Hagar’s misery, of Abraham’s dilemma, of Sarah’s memories, of Ishmael’s destiny. The next chapter, Isaac’s nightmare, belongs closely with this one, but that hardly constitutes an explanation. If God is to heal the world appropriately it must be through the obedient covenant people. But what if the covenant people are themselves disobedient? They themselves must share the pain of the healing process. The fact that it is also God’s pain does not make it easier.
Jesus’ challenge here is not that his followers should be anti-social for the sake of it, but that they should live out of a new identity, in comparison with which the normal Jewish identity, based tightly upon kinship, is to be set aside...
Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A by N T Wright
Published by SPCKt