The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, Shrove Tuesday or Carnival, challenge us to identify the elements that bring chaos and threaten to replace love with fear in our lives.
Life and leaven
The reading from the Book of Genesis describes the preparations for the Great Flood.
* [6:5–8:22] The story of the great flood is commonly regarded as a composite narrative based on separate sources woven together. To the Yahwist source, with some later editorial additions, are usually assigned 6:5–8; 7:1–5, 7–10, 12, 16b, 17b, 22–23; 8:2b–3a, 6–12, 13b, 20–22. The other sections are usually attributed to the Priestly writer. There are differences between the two sources: the Priestly source has two pairs of every animal, whereas the Yahwist source has seven pairs of clean animals and two pairs of unclean; the floodwater in the Priestly source is the waters under and over the earth that burst forth, whereas in the Yahwist source the floodwater is the rain lasting forty days and nights. In spite of many obvious discrepancies in these two sources, one should read the story as a coherent narrative. The biblical story ultimately draws upon an ancient Mesopotamian tradition of a great flood, preserved in the Sumerian flood story, the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic, and (embedded in a longer creation story) the Atrahasis Epic.1
Psalm 29 praises the Voice of God in a Great Storm.
* [Psalm 29] The hymn invites the members of the heavenly court to acknowledge God’s supremacy by ascribing glory and might to God alone (Ps 29:1–2a, 9b). Divine glory and might are dramatically visible in the storm (Ps 29:3–9a). The storm apparently comes from the Mediterranean onto the coast of Syria-Palestine and then moves inland. In Ps 29:10 the divine beings acclaim God’s eternal kingship. The Psalm concludes with a prayer that God will impart the power just displayed to the Israelite king and through the king to Israel.2
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus warns the disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.
* [8:15] The leaven of the Pharisees…of Herod: the corruptive action of leaven (1 Cor 5:6–8; Gal 5:9) was an apt symbol of the evil dispositions both of the Pharisees (Mk 8:11–13; 7:5–13) and of Herod (Mk 6:14–29) toward Jesus. The disciples of Jesus are warned against sharing such rebellious attitudes toward Jesus; cf. Mk 8:17, 21.3
David Crawford suggests that on this Shrove Tuesday, we prepare our minds, bodies and souls for the holy season ahead. Let us enact our own Bedikat Chametz.
Let us prayerfully examine our lives. We who follow Jesus – the Light of the World (see John 8:12) – have access to a spiritual light that can shine into the hidden recesses of our hearts. This may not be comfortable, and I for one am a little nervous about what I will find. But take comfort! Jesus is not only the light, He cleans up what we, on our own, can not. “If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)4
Don Schwager quotes “Heed the truth of the Gospel,” by Hilary of Poitiers (315-367 AD).
"The apostles are ordered to watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They are warned not to be involved in the disputes of the Jews. The works of the law are now to be viewed in the light of faith. They are forewarned that they, into whose time and age the truth had appeared incarnate, should judge nothing except which lies within the position of hope in likeness of the truth that is revealed. They are warned against allowing the doctrine of the Pharisees, who are unaware of Christ, to corrupt the effectiveness of the truth of the gospel." (excerpt from commentary ON MATTHEW 16.3)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 8:14-21 asks why was Jesus talking about the “leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (Mark 8:15)? Perhaps he was using their forgotten provisions to make a point.
Whatever the case, while the disciples’ focus was turned toward something immediate—lack of bread—Jesus wanted to share heavenly truth. On this day in that boat, he was cautioning them to be on guard against vain self-reliance, which can easily spread like leaven in bread. The opposite of this leaven, according to Jesus, is trusting in his Father’s power and provision, a habit that also spreads and grows. “Do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand?” he asked them (Mark 8:18-19). When Jesus multiplied food for the crowds, he gave us the perfect example of confidently turning to God for his needs and the needs of the people around him. Jesus always kept his Father in mind, and his miracles were signs meant to strengthen the disciples’—and our own—faith in his Father. They were meant to teach us what it looks like when we place our faith in God.6
Friar Jude Winkler comments on the disgust of God with how sin had multiplied since Cain killed Abel. The Priestly author with lawyer characteristics is contrasted with the more anthropomorphic description of God by the Elhoist author. Friar Jude cites the rabbinic saying linking sin and punishment with the chaos of the flood.
The Ministry Matters web site notes that the classic proposal is that there were three authors of the Book of Genesis. None of these figures should be considered authors in the modern sense, but rather skilled communicators who preserved and passed along traditions that had been developed over time by many before them. The two earliest of these are the Yahwist and the Elohist.
The Yahwist, it is believed, lived during the Davidic monarchy, founded around 1025 BCE, an important and influential ancient Near Eastern kingdom (1 and 2 Sam; 1 and 2 Kgs). Scholars gave him his name because he used Israel’s personal name of God, “Yahweh,” rendered in the CEB as “the Lord,” a title traditionally substituted for Yahweh. The Elohist, it is believed, lived during the monarchy as well and has been associated with the northern kingdom of Israel. His name comes from his avoidance of God’s personal name in Genesis and his use of the common Hebrew word elohim, “God.” The third author is the Priestly writer, so called because his contributions to Genesis reflect the practices of Israelite religion, like the Sabbath and circumcision, and his interest in thorough record keeping. He lived either during or after the Babylonian exile, which began in 587 BCE, a time when the Israelites hoped for the restoration of their monarchy and the reconstruction of their temple.7
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, would like to reclaim an ancient, evolving, and very Franciscan metaphor: the Great Chain of Being. This image helps us rightly name the nature of the universe, God, and the self, and to direct our future thinking.
The Great Chain of Being of the early Middle Ages was a positive intellectual vision not defined by being against another or having enemies, but by the clarity and beauty of form. It was a cosmic egg of meaning, a vision of Creator and a multitude of creatures that excluded nothing. The Great Chain of Being was the first holistic metaphor for the new seeing offered us by the Incarnation: Jesus as the living icon of integration, “the coincidence of opposites” who “holds all things in unity” within himself (Colossians 1:15–20). God is One. Each one of us is a reflecting mirror of that wholeness and so is everything else. Science now has at least a couple of words that try to describe the same in the whole universe: holons and fractals.8
As we sweep our spiritual consciousness before Lent, we celebrate our vision and hope of living in the Spirit that testifies to our connection to each other and all of Creation.
References
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