Scripture in Depth

Reading I: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14

This passage is obviously a commentary on the fifth (fourth) commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother. It adds the point that obedience to this commandment atones for sins (Sir 3:3, 14), an ideal typical of later Judaism.

This latter point should not be taken with full theological seriousness. The central message of the New Testament is, of course, that atonement for sins is through Christ alone.

The point should be taken merely as an incentive or inducement to obey this commandment, for in a loose, non-theological sense it may well be said that love of one’s parents makes up for many sins.

Responsorial Psalm: 128:1-2, 3, 4-5

This wisdom psalm, with its introductory beatitude (“Blessed is every one who fears the Lord”) presents the fear of the Lord as the basis of family, social, and economic prosperity.

On a superficial level, it seems to express a naive, Deuteronomic confidence that obedience to the law will be an insurance against disaster, and a conviction that disaster can always be explained as punishment for disobedience, views seriously questioned already in the Book of Job.

Yet, there is something to it.

Where there is a wholesome respect for God and his will, human relationships do stand a better chance of being well ordered and harmonious. Those who fear the Lord are not tempted to put themselves in the place of God, to boast in their personal achievements.

Such persons are therefore freed to love their neighbor and make it easier for the neighbor to love in return.

Psalm 105: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

The response highlights the theme of covenant, an image not actually present in the Old Testament reading, though the first part of it (Gen 15:1-6) is followed immediately by a covenant ceremony.

 Reading II: Colossians 3:12-21 or 3:12-17

This is part of the “parenesis,” or ethical section, of the letter to the Colossians. Such exhortations follow a regular pattern that is widely believed to reproduce the structure of a primitive Christian catechism.

The passage begins with a list of virtues, introduced by the imperative “Put on.” This language reflects the vesting of the candidate as he or she came up out of the baptismal font. This imperative may be preceded by another, namely, “Put off,” followed by a list of vices. This recalls the stripping of the candidate prior to baptism.

Following these general exhortations, there is often, especially in the later New Testament letters, a “Haustafel,” or household code, listing the various members of family and society and their respective duties.

Such codes were apparently derived from Stoic teaching via Hellenistic Judaism, whence they passed into Greek-speaking Christianity. That is why they reflect the subordinationist ethic of contemporary society (“Wives, be subject”—not an idea that is likely to appeal to feminists!).

But this subjectionist element, derived as it is from Stoicism, is not the distinctively Christian element in the code. That is found in the words “in the Lord”; in the injunction to husbands to love their wives; in the earlier definition of love as forgiveness; and in specifying the motivation for forgiveness as Christ’s forgiveness of sinners.

Here we should be able to find the raw materials for the formulation of a Christian ethic for a society that is not organized on a hierarchical, subordinationist pattern.

Gospel: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Only by a questionable extrapolation from the text, involving an illegitimate historicization, would it be possible to relate this gospel to the theme of the Holy Family. Matthew’s concern is rather to present Jesus as recapitulating in his life the history of Israel.

The quotation from Hosea, “Out of Egypt I have called my son,” originally applied to the calling of Israel in the Exodus.

For Matthew, Jesus is the second Moses and the true Israel—ideas that he expresses by means of a midrashic narrative based on the text from Hosea.

Matthew next has to bring Jesus from Bethlehem to Nazareth. This is achieved differently by Luke, who represents the Holy Family as permanently domiciled in Nazareth and as only visitors to Bethlehem for the census. Matthew does it by means of an otherwise unknown text, said to be from Scripture.

It is commonly thought that whatever its immediate origin (some lost apocryphal work?), it is ultimately based on Isaiah 11:1, where the Davidic Messiah is described as “a shoot [Hebrew: neser, suggesting “Nazarene” and “Nazareth”] from the stump of Jesse.”

Once again Matthew sees the movements of the Holy Family as the fulfillment of Scripture.

Reginald H. Fuller

**From Saint Louis University