Proper 9 Year A
Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A
Description
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A
Ordinary Time
Proper 9
Genesis 24.34–38, 42–49, 58–67
Romans 7.15–25a
Matthew 11.16–19, 25–30
An American sent me a strange book the other day. Jesus, he argued, was an alcoholic. Roused from his drunkenness by the preaching of John the Baptist, he struggled to kick the habit, and finally made it. Telltale ‘evidence’ is provided by Matthew 11: did they not say that Jesus was ‘a glutton and a drunkard’?
Well, yes, they did, and the early Church wouldn’t have made it up. But the book (which may be a source of hope to some, though I doubt it) misses the point here as much as elsewhere. ‘Glutton and drunkard’ is what, according to Deuteronomy 21.20, the parents of a rebellious son will say of him to the elders of Israel. It is part of a capital charge. Jesus knew that his celebration of the Kingdom with all and
sundry was incurring the righteous indignation, and even the condemnation, of the respectable and religious. He was out of line. The Torah had things to say about people like him...
Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A by N T Wright
Published by SPCK