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Reflection on the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time (October 16)

by Greg Swiderski

The readings for this Sunday:

Isaiah 45:1-6

II Thessalonians 1:1-5

Matthew 22:15-21

The full text of the readings can be found here.

What happens to you when the unexpected and surprising experience, person,
or encounter teaches you, stretches you?
Since I'm usually not prepared or expecting a "lesson", I may seem
momentarily disturbed; even on the defensive.
Is Isaiah addressing such disarming and challenging mysteries?
Cyrus was literally, not part of the tribe; how or why would the Divine
select, even grasp by the right hand and anoint the outsider?
Perhaps the answer to this question is not the point; the experience alone
seems beyond my own limitations.

Further on Isaiah castigates those who question: "Shame on him (her too) who
argues with his/her Maker...Shall the clay say to the potter, 'What are you
doing? Your work has no handles'? Shame on him who asks his father, 'What
are you begetting?' Or a woman, 'What are you bearing?'"
The commentary in the Jewish Study Bible observes: "People ... are surprised by
God's plan to bring salvation to the exiles by means of a Persian king. God
rebukes them for their chutzpah in questioning the means through whom God
chose to work."

Imagine that you discover that your roommate in the hospital is a
prostitute. Can he or she be an instrument of teaching; a valued, sacred
encounter? (A friend found herself in exactly that position and told her
roommate that she was welcome in her room.)
Has a child asked a seemingly winsome yet probing question? (My friend's
daughter noticed that they passed the homeless as they walked in San
Francisco. She asked her mother why they had passed these people and not
looked at them.)

What would have happened had the Europeans who came to this hemisphere in
1492 asked what they could learn from the peoples living, thriving here?
Instead our ancestors dominated the natives; looked upon them as curiosities
and obliterated their culture. Eventually millions of those peoples died in
one tragic disease after another.

The dictionary defines chutzpah as "unmitigated effrontery or impudence." As
people in the dominant religious system in this country who live within the
most powerful nation on earth, the temptation to chutzpah seems great,
overwhelming. Can we resist? Can we learn from the one who speaks, acts from
the outside? Is this why Jesus hung with the powerless nobodies?

I welcome your response.