Growing relationships

The teaching of Jesus in the part of the Gospel of Matthew known as the Sermon on the Mount continues today in the texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary. The significance of setting a teaching on a mountain is that it recalls for us the salvation history of Israel in which the intervention of God to guide the people was centered around mountaintop experiences. In the passage today from the Book of Kings, Elijah sends his servant up a mountain to verify that the sound of rain which Elijah heard would become a downpour to relieve the drought which had befallen Israel as a consequence of seeking false fertility through the worship of baal. Friar Jude Winkler describes the significance of the appearance of the cloud in the time immediately after the defeat of the gods of baal on Mt Carmel. Mary Longo reminds us of the deep life giving necessity of water which we all now also see as a force which in storms and floods may be indicating to humanity that greater attention is need to our stewardship of the earth in these times of climate change. There are two relationships in the Gospel of Matthew which require nourishing for our full life in the Kingdom. Jesus points out that the Scribes and Pharisees had found a way to be scrupulous about attending to the letter of the Law yet they had neglected the spirit of the Law which ties the sincerity of our Love of God to our practice of Love in selflessness, inclusion, forgiveness and compassion in our relationship with those around us.