5 July 2019
Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
A wife for Isaac cannot come from the land where Isaac now dwells. Isaac cannot go to Abraham’s ancestral land where Abraham wants a wife to be found for his son. It would seem that the servant whom Abraham is sending on this matchmaking mission has been given a task that he is likely not able to fulfill. Abraham, however, remains full of faith in his old age. “The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and the land of my kin, and who confirmed by oath the promise he then made to me, ‘I will give this land to your descendants’– he will send his messenger before you, and you will obtain a wife for my son there.” (Gen 24:7) In this explanation Abraham shows the whole point of the conditions: to continue to be faithful to God’s call. God is calling a whole people, not only Abraham, out from where they have dwelt before to draw near and to dwell with Him in the Land of Promise.
Matthew in the Gospel is drawn from being far off, to dwelling in unity with the Lord. When Christ calls him, Matthew has been living as a tax collector, separated from his people by the financial extortions he has perpetrated against them to line the pockets of the Romans and his own. This injustice has also led him further and further from God. Yet, “Those who are well do not need a physician, the sick do.” (Mt. 9:12) And so, our Physician draws near to Matthew, he heals his malady of sin and separation, and strengthens him to carry the news of this Healing to the whole world as His apostle. Let us be attentive to the Lord’s call to dwell with Him, even if it means trusting Him through tremendous changes of place or habit.