Intimate vindication

The author of Deutero Isaiah, according to the comments of Friar Jude Winkler, speaks of God in the first person, “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go”. (Isaiah 48:17). This text from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today draws us to meditate on our experience of intimacy with God and others. We are inclined to like to teach others for their own good. Perhaps we give others seasonal lessons in how to act in queues or how to drive on busy streets or how to behave at Christmas time. In Chapter 11 of Matthew’s Gospel, from which the passage today is taken, Jesus tries to express the relationship between Himself and John. The disciples of John seek this understanding and they are instructed by observing the action of Jesus. Some of the people in the cities Jesus visits, where He brings healing and forgiveness reject Him. The Scribes and the Pharisees according to Don Schwager are blinded by jealousy from experiencing Jesus.  Who are the people, in Jesus generation and ours, who respond with joy to the message of the Gospel?  The psalmist today suggests there are two ways. Those who meditate on their relationship with God and allow the intended intimacy of that communion to delight mystify and awaken us to our humble and needy position in life follow one path. Those who scorn and scoff indifferently follow another. This intimacy will strip us of the lust for power, position and privilege and we will learn the truth expressed by Matthew as “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19)