{"id":392,"date":"2013-08-22T12:47:31","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T17:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=392"},"modified":"2013-09-09T08:01:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T13:01:45","slug":"392","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=392","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Bargain Foolishly With God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the 21st<\/sup> Week in Ordinary Time<\/h2>\n

Judges 11: 29-39a; Mt 22: 1-14<\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/h2>\n

Harsh!\u00a0 That\u2019s what the first reading sounds like to me- very harsh.\u00a0 I just couldn\u2019t get by the literal meaning of sacrificing a daughter, no matter how I looked at it.\u00a0 And so, I decided a little study was in order.<\/p>\n

Scholars tell us that Jephthah got somewhat bold in his zeal.\u00a0 So much so that he tries to bargain with the Lord; and rather than offer a sacrifice to the Lord; he tries to bargain with God by going to an extreme- human sacrifice.\u00a0 But he bargains by offering to perform the sacrifice only if he gets what he wants first.\u00a0 Not only that, his bargaining was tainted. \u00a0\u00a0He was being shrewd by not making a commitment ahead of time on the sacrificial victim.\u00a0 Only all of that backfired on him because God saw through him and made him face the worst of all possibilities, the sacrifice of his only daughter.<\/p>\n

As I read through the commentaries, it was clear that there was much controversy about this incident.\u00a0 Some of the Church fathers believe that his daughter was sacrificed only to perpetual virginity, and not death.\u00a0 Others believe the daughter was ransomed, a common practice.\u00a0 Some say he actually performed the sacrifice because God wanted his obedience.\u00a0 And the more modern scholars say it is all symbolic.\u00a0 One thing is really clear no matter which of the meanings you accept.\u00a0 It was a foolish thing for Jephthah to do, to make such a foolish vow.\u00a0 But you know what, many people try to bargain with God this way.<\/p>\n

How many times do we hear about such bargaining with God?\u00a0 Sometimes we hear things like this:\u00a0 \u201cI promised God that if He just gives me this one favor, I will come to Mass on Sunday\u201d.\u00a0 But God wants a full commitment; he does not bargain with us.<\/p>\n

In the Gospel parable, people are making foolish decisions as well.\u00a0 Jesus is using the King to represent God.\u00a0 Those who are invited, in this case Jesus is referring to the Jews and the Pharisees, reject the invitation for no good reason.\u00a0 How foolish, and they suffer the consequences for it.\u00a0 And lastly, the street person who didn\u2019t prepare properly for the wedding suffers a similar fate.\u00a0 He represents the Gentiles who are now invited to the Kingdom, but don\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n

I suspect that many of us are guilty of such foolishness.\u00a0 We are invited to God\u2019s Kingdom now; when we die, it may be too late.\u00a0 Are we postponing our invitation till it is convenient for us by always having something more important to do?\u00a0 Are we here at the Church, but not really participating in spirit?\u00a0 Because these are foolish responses to the invitations by the Lord.<\/p>\n

All of us would be well advised to learn a lesson about God from these stories.\u00a0 We should not try to make foolish pledges or bargains with God and we should not treat our invitation to the Kingdom of God lightly.\u00a0 God always deserves our utmost respect and our full attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time Judges 11: 29-39a; Mt 22: 1-14 Dc. Larry Brockman Harsh!\u00a0 That\u2019s what the first reading sounds like to me- very harsh.\u00a0 I just couldn\u2019t get by the literal meaning of sacrificing a daughter, no matter how I looked at it.\u00a0 And so, I decided a little study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[234],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=392"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}