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In liturgical assemblies, shared meals, trips in a caravan, public meetings, and any get-together, in Jewish society, there was a discussion about who was the greatest, to whom greater honor belonged. The blessed in heaven were involved in this race for the top places. They were categorized into seven classes, led by the martyrs. It is the same with the God of Israel, who could not be outdone by Eastern deities, Greek and Egyptian, to whom the title ‘great’ was inevitably given. For this reason, Solomon proclaimed: “Yahweh is greater than all the gods” (Ex 18:11), and Moses assured the Israelites: “Yahweh is the God of gods and the Lord of lords. He is the great God, the strong and terrible God” (Deut 10:17).
In the last centuries before Christ, statements about the greatness of God had multiplied dramatically. He was “the Most High God, the great” (Est 8:12q). “Lord, you are great and glorious, wonderful, strong, invincible” (Jdt 16:13), and he was expected, therefore, to manifest his greatness. We read on Christmas Eve: “We await our blessed hope—the glorious manifestation of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus” (Tit 2:13).
And he appeared, in all his grandeur: a weak, poor, defenseless child “wrapped in swaddling clothes” by a sweet and caring mother of fourteen. It was just the beginning of his manifestation, which culminated on the cross. From that day, all criteria of greatness have been turned upside down.
To internalize the message, we repeat: “Only the children can grasp the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.”
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First Reading: Zechariah 9:9-10
Thus says the Lord: Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; the warrior’s bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaimpeace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
This prophecy was announced when Israel was not even an independent nation. It was not even at war with anyone, so it was an insignificant entity on the international stage. It was colonized, exploited, and oppressed by foreign powers. This historical period immediately followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. In this challenging time, the daughter of Zion, the daughter of Jerusalem, is invited to rejoice greatly and be jubilant (v. 9). Zion was the name of the hill on which the city of David arose. Later it became a synonym for Jerusalem. The expression ‘daughter of Zion’ or ‘daughter of Jerusalem’ marked the poorest district of the city, the suburb that had arisen in the north (as an offshoot, a daughter of the capital) when fugitives came from Samaria, destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.
It is to these displaced, impoverished, and needy people that the prophet addresses: to announce joy and hope: a righteous and victorious king is coming. He will inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity. The dynasty of David had been gone for centuries. The king “who delivers the needy who call upon him, the afflicted with no one to help them. His mercy is upon the weak and the poor, he saves the life of the poor. He rescues them from oppression and strife” (Ps 72:12-14), could not be a man, but it had to be God himself.
So far, there is nothing new regarding what the other prophets promised: Zephaniah had already predicted: “Yahweh has lifted your sentence and has driven your enemies away. Yahweh, the king of Israel is with you” (Zep 3:15). The surprise comes now: The Savior will not come at the head of a strong army, riding fiery horses, driving chariots, trampling enemies taken prisoners, but will enter into Jerusalem “humble, riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of an ass” (v. 9).
Equipping the army of an impetuous cavalry had always been the dream of the kings of Israel. To procure it, they came to the point of selling their children as slaves and mercenaries of the Egyptians (Deut 17:16). But God wants to put an end to these delusions of power and grandeur. Micah foretold: “I will drive away your horses; I will wreck your chariots” (Mic 5:9).
In the second part of the reading (v. 10), the peaceful kingdom inaugurated by the Lord is described: the battle bow will be broken, and peace will be proclaimed to all nations. The kingdom will extend from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. According to the geography of the time, these were the ends of the earth.
With this prophecy, Zechariah overturns the concept of kingship. The King is not the one who is served but one who puts others at the center of his attention. The weak are not to be submissive to him; he puts himself at their service. His strength is what people consider a weakness. Jesus will fulfill this prophecy to the letter when he enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey. With this gesture, he will show that he is the peace-loving king announced by Zechariah.
Second Reading: Romans 8:9,11-13
Brothers and sisters: You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. Consequently, brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
People die, and so did Jesus; being human himself had to die, and in fact, did die. However, he resurrected. What power enabled him to resurrect? In today’s reading, Paul says that this happened because he had in himself the fullness of the Spirit, the power of God (v. 11). Human life has a beginning and an end, but the life of God has no beginning and will have no end. Jesus is dead to material life, but the Spirit, which was in him raised him, and let him continue to live the life of God.
From this truth, Paul deduces that having received as a gift this same Spirit, we can no longer die. When the time comes when our biological life will end, the Spirit who raised Jesus will also raise our mortal bodies (v. 11).
In the second part of the reading (vv. 12-13), the apostle mentions the moral consequences arising from the baptized's new situation. He has to act in tune with the life of God, with the impulses of the Spirit. If he continues to ‘live according to the flesh,’ his choice is death.
Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30
At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
At the beginning of his public life, along the Sea of ??Galilee, Jesus aroused much enthusiasm. He had considerable success, but then conflict, misunderstanding, and hostility began. Many disciples were baffled by his proposals. They were discouraged and abandoned him (Jn 6:66). Even his family was wary of him (Jn 7:5). Only a small group of poor disciples, despised by the Jewish society, remained with him (Jn 6:67-69).
Our passage constitutes the ending of a chapter loaded with tension and controversy. It opened with the Baptist’s crisis of faith. He sent some disciples to ask Jesus: “Are you he who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Mt 11:3). It continued with Jesus’ stern judgment on his generation (Mt 11:16-19) and with a threat: “Alas for you Chorazin and Bethsaida” (Mt 11:21-24).
Halfway through his public life, the balance could not be considered disappointing. Faced with similar failure, we could well have given up. Jesus, instead, rejoiced and blessed the Father for what happened. The solemn exclamation with which today's Gospel begins is one of the few prayers of Jesus reported in the Gospels: “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I praise you because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to simple people” (v. 25).
The wise and the intelligent are often lumped together in the Bible and, on many occasions, in a pejorative sense. They are those who profess themselves as devout researchers of wisdom. They even think they have a monopoly on it. In fact, they flirt with folly and revel with vain discussion. Against them, the prophet Isaiah had declared: “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and take themselves for sages” (Is 5:20-21). Jesus does not say they are excluded from salvation. He merely states that the poor, the humble, and the marginalized are the first to welcome his word of deliverance. It is expected—he says—that this happens because the small ones, more than any other, feel the need of God’s tenderness.
They hunger and thirst for righteousness, cry, live in grief and wait for the Lord to intervene, to raise their heads, and fill them with joy. They are blessed because for them the Kingdom of God has come. Then he adds: this fact falls within the plan of the Father: “Yes Father, this was your gracious will” (v. 26).
The deeply rooted conviction is that God is a friend only of the good and righteous, prefers those who behave well, and bears the fatigue of those who sin. This is the God created by the ‘wise’ and the ‘intelligent.’ It is the product of human logic and criteria. The Father of Jesus instead goes to recover those that we throw into the trash. He prefers those despised and not paid attention to by anyone, the public sinners (Mt 11:19) and prostitutes (Mt 21:31) because they are the most in need of his love. The rich, the satiated, those who are proud of their knowledge, do not need this Father. They hold tight to their God. They will also receive salvation, but only when they make themselves ‘small ones.’ The trouble with them is arriving late and losing precious time.
In the second part of the passage (v. 27), an important statement of Jesus is introduced: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” The verb ‘to know’ in the Bible does not mean having met or contacted a person a few times. It means ‘to have had a profound experience of the person.’ It is used, for example, to indicate the intimate relationship that exists between husband and wife (cf. Luke 1:34).
Complete knowledge of the Father is possible only for the Son. However, he may communicate this experience to anyone he wants. Who will have the proper disposition to accept his revelation? The small ones, of course! The scribes, rabbis, are educated in every detail of the law, are convinced that they have a complete knowledge of God. They maintain they know how to discern what is good. They present themselves as guides for the blind, as light to those who are in darkness, as educators of the ignorant, as masters of the simple ones (Rom 2:18-20). As long as they do not give up their attitude of being ‘wise’ and ‘intelligent’ people, they preclude the true and rewarding experience of God’s love.
The last part of the passage (vv. 28-30) refers to the oppression of the ‘small ones,’ the simple people of the land, the poor, who suffer from the ‘wise and intelligent.’ They (the scribes and Pharisees) have structured a highly complicated religion, made up of minute rules and prescriptions impossible to observe. They loaded the shoulders of ignorant people with “unbearable burdens that they do not even move a finger to help them”(Lk 11:46).
The law of God, yes, is a yoke and the wise Sirach recommended to his son to: “Put her constraints on your feet and her yoke on your neck, do not rebel against the chains. you will find in her your rest” (Sirach 6:24-28). But the religion preached by the masters of Israel has transformed it into an oppressive yoke. Because of this, the poor felt wretched in this world and rejected by God, and excluded from the world to come. They know of not being able to observe the provisions dictated by the rabbis, and they are convinced that they are impure: “Only this cursed people who have no knowledge of the law,” declared the high priest Caiaphas (Jn 7:49).
To these poor, lost, and disoriented, Jesus addressed the invitation to be free from fear and the distress of the religion that has been instilled into them. He recommends: Accept my law, the new one summed up in a single commandment: love of the brothers and sisters. He does not propose an easier, more permissive moral way, but an ethic that points directly to the essential. It does not waste energies in the observance of prescriptions “that have the appearance of wisdom,” but they have no value (Col 2:23).
His yoke is sweet. First, because it is his: not in the sense that he imposed it, but because he was the first to carry it. Jesus always bent to the Father’s will. He freely embraced it, but he never imposed human precepts on anyone (Mk 7). His yoke is sweet because only those who accept the wisdom of the Beatitudes can experience joy and peace.
Finally, the invitation: “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart” (v. 29). Perhaps this statement leaves us a bit confused because it suggests a sense of celebration, but that is inappropriate. These words amount to little more than boasting. “Learn from me” simply means do not follow the teachers who act as masters of your consciences. They preach a God who is not on the side of the poor, the sinners, or the last of the little ones. They teach a religion that, with its fussiness and absurdity, takes away joy. Jesus is presented as meek and humble of heart. These are the terms that we find in the Beatitudes. They do not indicate the timid, the meek, the quiet, but those who are poor and oppressed, those who, while suffering injustice, do not resort to violence.
To all these poor people of the land, Jesus says: I am on your side, one of you, poor and rejected. The passage in today’s Gospel is a reason for both personal and community reflection. Which God do we believe in? Is he that one of the ‘wise’ or the one revealed to us by Jesus? For whom is our community a sign of hope? Who do we believe merits the top place? Who do we judge as being unworthy to cross the threshold of the Church?
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READ: There is every reason to rejoice because God is a king who dictates peace, and not war, to the nations. Christ invites the weary and the burdened to seek refuge and rest in him. In and through the working of the Spirit, God claims us as His own.
REFLECT: Those who have the Spirit of God do the works of God. If we bear the Spirit of God, how well do we share in God’s work?
PRAY: Your prayer is always to God, the Father of Jesus and also your father, through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Christian prayer is Trinitarian.
ACT: A kind person emphasizes what is positive in another. A mean person picks out what is wrong. Practice kindness until it becomes a habit.
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