Ask, ask the ancient times that preceded you from the day God created man on earth: Has there ever been from one end of the sky to the other a word as great as this? Has anything like it been heard?
Is there any people that has heard, as you have heard, the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, and survived?
DEUTERONOMY 4, 32-40
Ask, ask the ancient times that preceded you from the day God created man on earth: Has there ever been from one end of the sky to the other a word as great as this? Has anything like it been heard?
Is there any people that has heard, as you have heard, the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, and survived?
Has any god ever tried to come and take for himself a nation from among the others by means of trials, signs, wonders, and war, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, by great terrors, as all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt?
Know then today, and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.
Keep the statutes and the commandments that I enjoin on you today, so that you may be happy, you and your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you forever.
Is there any people that has heard, as you have heard, the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, and survived?
Has any god ever tried to come and take for himself a nation from among the others by means of trials, signs, wonders, and war, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, by great terrors, as all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt?
Terrible identification of God with terror, war, and death. Terrible appropriation of God, who saves his people by killing Egyptians.
This is a chilling text, in which the provisionality and imperfection of the Old Testament are very evident, and it shows that the best word of Jesus about it is “the new wine bursts the old wineskins.”
This is not the God of Jesus, nor are we a chosen people excluding others, nor is war the work or manifestation of God, but of sin. I think this text should not be read at the Eucharist.
To replace it, I propose:
From the first book of Kings (19, 3-13)
Elijah was afraid, got up, and fled to save his life. He came to Beer-sheba of Judah and left his servant there. He walked a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree.
He wished for death and said, “It is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” He lay down and slept under a broom tree, but an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.
He ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came again a second time, touched him, and said to him, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” He got up, ate, and drank, and with the strength of that food he walked forty days and forty nights to the mount of God, Horeb.
There he entered a cave and spent the night in it. The word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I am very zealous for the Lord, because the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” He said to him, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord.”
And behold, the Lord passed by. There was a great and strong wind, which split the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake, fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, the sound of a gentle breeze. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak, went out, and stood at the entrance of the cave.
This text allows us to speak of the change of God: from the hurricane and the fire to the gentle breeze. From the terrible God to Abbá.
ROMANS 8, 14-17
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
It is a beautiful synthesis of our knowledge of God. The Father – the Son – the Spirit. The “Spirit of God” breathes in us. It is the Spirit sent by the Father, who makes us children as the Son is Jesus.
It is worth paying attention to the word “adoptive.” It is too evident that Paul is moving in the field of symbols, not realities. We are not children of another, adopted by God; it is not about who begot us.
It is emphasizing the difference between Jesus and us, using the symbol of natural son – adoptive son. The symbol may seem more or less accurate to us, but it is essential not to leave the field of the symbolic, of the metaphor, not to draw objective conclusions as if we were dogmatizing about the “generation” of Jesus and ours.
And the gospel completes the message with the Mission, the mission of the children, the Mission of the Son: to save the world by announcing the Good News.
José Enrique Galarreta