2nd Sunday of Lent, Cycle A
GENESIS 12:1-4
In those days, the Lord said to Abraham:
– Go forth from your land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Abraham went forth as the Lord had told him.
We encounter the account that has been called “the vocation of Abraham,” although he still bears his original name, Abram. He lives in Haran, a city in Mesopotamia, at the sources of the Euphrates River, where his ancestors had migrated from Ur in Chaldea. They are Arameans, Semites, shepherds who wander around the great civilized agricultural areas.
Abram is invited by God to leave his land, with the promise of becoming the father of a new people. The account has two readings: a historical reading; the ancestors of the people of Israel came from a migration of the Arameans, seminomadic shepherds of Upper Mesopotamia: another religious reading; God “takes” Abraham out of the ordinariness of his life to make him His instrument, as the father of the people of Israel.
However, we cannot help but lament a phrase: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” It is in the sad and destructive line of “the privileged people,” “the terrible God who kills enemies” … Once again, the Old Testament. It is not yet Jesus and it is the Word of God with many reservations.
2 TIMOTHY 1:8-10
Join in the hard work of proclaiming the Gospel, depending on the strength that God gives you.
He saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
The three letters (2 to Timothy and one to Titus), initially attributed to Paul, are today considered as “from his school,” even “placed under his name” by people who continue his teaching.
In this fragment, a kind of abbreviated summary of Christology is presented: Jesus, the free source of grace, who saves us, destroys death, and manifests life.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.