In this month's liturgical Bible study, we examine the covenant as the dominant theme of the Bible. You could say it is the fundamental plot of the Scriptures-the element that propels the story to its conclusion. God and man's pursuit of a covenant relationship drives the disparate stories of the Old and New Testaments. The biblical understanding of a covenant is a family or blood bond that is contracted by an oath sworn before witnesses, often with an accompanying spilling of blood to signify the kind of bond that has been formed. It is perpetually binding and can only expire when one of the parties to the covenant dies.

The question at the heart of man is essentially a convenantal question. What is our destiny and purpose-How do we enter into this covenant with God-into this communion of love? The sacraments that Christ gives us in the Church provide the answer. We might say that the sacraments form the final act of the covenantal drama with the concluding scene being the eternal, covenantal embrace with God in heaven. The lifeblood of our covenantal family is the sanctifying grace given through the sacraments. In the readings for the 24th Sunday of the year, we see that the covenantal family has been extended beyond the chosen people of Israel to the whole human family. A loving Father has prepared the Eucharistic feast of His Son for all those who will come to Him for mercy.

Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14

These Scripture passages recount one of the central scenes of the Old Testament, and yet its significance is often overlooked. Moses Maimonides, the revered 12th-century philosopher and rabbi who has been called "the second Moses," points to the incident of the golden calf as a turning point in the life of Israel. He is not alone among commentators in suggesting that the complicated ceremonial requirements of the Mosaic Law (amounting to 613 precepts) are the result of this breach of faith on the part of the newly liberated Israelites. St. Thomas Aquinas, who was influenced by the work of the Jewish rabbi Maimonides, likewise saw the Mosaic Law as a punitive law or a punishment for the worship of the golden calf. (See S. Th. I-II, Q. 102, Art. 3).

St. Paul may well have been thinking in the same manner when in Galatians 3 and 4 he speaks of the Sinai Covenant as consisting of a kind of provisional or temporary slavery (cf. 3:23; 4:24). This would explain why Paul is so opposed to the "works of the law" (Rom. 3:28) and "the written code [that] kills" (2 Cor. 3:6) from which he insists we have been set free by Christ.

What is so horrible about the worship of the golden calf that it precipitates 1,300 years of a legal system that served, according to St. Paul, as a custodian or guardian "until that descendant of offspring came to whom the promise had been given" (Gal. 3:19)? The Egyptians and the Canaanites worshipped bull or calf deities as symbols of fertility, wealth, and power. Yahweh, on the other hand, who has just led the Jewish people out of Egypt "with a strong hand," displayed power on a scale that demonstrated He is not merely a power in nature, but the power behind all nature. He is the God of gods who defeated the powerful gods of Egypt. It has been suggested that the 10 plagues prior to the Exodus were precisely judgments upon the nature deities of Egypt.

But, cast into doubt by Moses' long absence on Mt. Sinai, the people have Aaron form the likeness of a calf as an object of worship. "In their hearts they turned to Egypt" (Acts 7:39). In spite of all that God had done for the Israelites, they fell back on the familiar patterns of their former lives in slavery to Egypt. To paraphrase the old adage, better the slavery you know than the freedom you don't. Ironically, Yahweh seems to have said, in effect, "If you want to live like slaves, you will, but you will be slaves to a law that Moses will give you rather than to the gods of Egypt."

Do we fall into the same sins as did Israel? Do we fail in faith by relying on our own power or the power that we can derive from nature, rather than giving ourselves in loving trust to God?

1 Timothy 1:12-17

In this reading, St. Paul perfectly exemplifies the necessity of our depending not on our own power but on the mercy of God. Paul suggests that Christ has used him so that "I might become an example."

Interestingly, Paul represents in a kind of typological way the whole of Israel. His fierce loyalty to the Law and the God of the Law had led him to reject the claims of Christ. He was struck blind on the Damascus Road and heard Jesus identify Himself with the Church: "I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5). Later he will say of Israel, "they are zealous for God though their zeal is unenlightened" and "blindness has come upon part of Israel" (Rom. 10:2; 11:25). Christ blinded Paul for a time so that Paul might see in a new way when he received the Gospel. In Acts 9:15, God tells Ananias that Paul "is the instrument I have chosen to bring my name to the Gentiles." Just as Israel had served to reveal the name of God to all the peoples of the world, so too would Paul the Israelite.

Israel proved time and again to be unworthy of the task God set before her. Likewise, Paul protests that he is the worst of sinners-in spite of the exalted task set before him. We, too, have received our salvation and faith without any merit on our part. All is grace. In spite of our sin, we have been chosen and grafted onto Israel. Israel is rightly proud of its irrevocable status as the chosen people, and we also are proud of all the wonderful things that we have been given as Catholics. We fall into blindness, however, when we begin to think that these gifts are ours by right and not by grace. If we fail to give glory to God for His gifts, we also fail to be "an example to those who would later have faith in him and gain everlasting life."

Luke 15:1-32

The story of the prodigal son has become a veritable icon of the Father's universal mercy. This commentary on it, however, will focus on the mercy received by the Gentiles-those of us who are not of Jewish blood.

There is good reason to believe that Luke uses this story as a parable of the eventual offer of salvation to the Gentiles. Luke, while vitally interested in the Jewish aspects of the Gospel, is also speaking to a wider audience. In his Gospel he shows a dual interest-Israel's story represents for Luke the key to the rest of the world's story. Luke's situating of the Gospel within Roman history in 2:1 and 3:1 and tracing Jesus' genealogy back to Adam are just two manifestations of this wider, international interest.

In the discourses of Jesus, Luke has Him shifting back and fourth between addresses to the Pharisees, a rigorous Jewish sect, and the disciples or the crowds who gather to hear Him. The latter groups often are shown to include public sinners, which scandalizes the Pharisees. The parables delivered to the Pharisees frequently highlight the special relationship of Israel to God, and so are more familial in tone with kinship to Abraham being stressed. The discourses and parables that Jesus delivers to the "less righteous" tend to present a relationship with God analogous to a relationship between a master and his servants, rather than that within a family.

Hence, Jesus says to the Pharisees that the kingdom is "in your midst," (Lk. 17:21), that is, right within Israel. But He says to the disciples that the kingdom is to be received, as though it were a thing given or entered from the outside (cf. Lk. 16:16; 17:17). Speaking in broad terms, the Pharisees and other officials seem to represent the people of Israel through whom the Gospel has come, while the disciples and sinners seem to represent those to whom the Gospel has come. Even though the disciples may have been entirely Jewish, they take on the role of standing in for the wider Gentile world to whom Luke knows the Gospel will be spread.

The parable of the prodigal son is told to an audience of Pharisees, but with tax collectors and sinners gathered around as well. Jesus first tells two stories about leaving the 99 to search for the one lost sheep, and another about sweeping the house to find the one lost silver piece out of 10. Then, Jesus tells the story of a father who had two sons, one of them the prodigal. The value of the lost item increases with each story. In logic this would be called an a fortiori argument or an appeal to the stronger or weightier case. If a sheep or a coin is worth the struggle to save it, certainly a human soul-still more, a son's soul-is worth nothing less.

Again, the element of the family is present, as is usually the case in this section of Luke when Jesus is talking to Pharisees. But when the prodigal returns he tells his father that he deserves to be treated like a servant rather than a son. That is, there is something here also for the disciples and sinners who are listening. The father in the story refers twice to the son as having been formerly "dead" and having "come back to life." This calls to mind the warning that Moses had issued to Israel about keeping the covenant before entering the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 30:19: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live."

Indeed, the prodigal leaves the family and thereby falls into the position of a servant, the same as that of someone who is dead or outside the covenant family of Israel. This is the servant status of those whom Jesus addresses in Luke's Gospel who find themselves outside of the covenant-the Gentiles, tax collectors, and sinners, the crowds who listen to Jesus. The prodigal son is so downcast that he finds himself tending pigs, an unclean animal to the Jews which precisely signifies loss of covenant status.

Another element of this story highlights Jesus' message to those who are outside of the covenant family. The land where the prodigal goes in search of a high time experiences a famine. The famine is a stock literary device in Genesis, occurring in the lifetimes of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen. 12, 26, 42). In those stories, however, famine strikes Israel, forcing the patriarchs to leave their land and go to Egypt. (The story of Isaac is significant in that he doesn't leave for Egypt, but trusts in Yahweh to supply his needs in the Promised Land.) In the case of the prodigal, however, the situation is reversed. He experiences famine in a foreign land and returns home for food. This suggests that his situation is just the opposite of the covenant experience of Israel and would, therefore, parallel that of the Gentile nations.

The punch line of the story, if you will, is that in spite of the servant status the prodigal has earned for himself outside of the covenant family, the father welcomes him back to covenant family life. The parable suggests that whether one is a member of the covenant family of Israel who has fallen out of the covenant, or one who is beyond the reach of the covenant promises made to Israel (as is the case with the Gentiles), "there is the same kind of joy before the angels of God over one repentant sinner."

Reflection Questions:

Upon putting yourself in the various roles in the story of the prodigal son, what elements of the text seem most significant to you?

Do you think of your participation in Catholic life as covenant family life or more in terms of institutional or political life?

What do you need to take to the loving embrace of the Father in the Sacrament of Reconciliation?