All Part of the Plan

Jul 8: Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

God’s ways are not our ways. We can’t always (or even often) see what the plan is, so the best we can do is act within our conscience and God’s law as we know it.

Reading 1

Gn 27:1-5, 15-29

When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him, he called his older son Esau and said to him, "Son!"

"Yes father!" he replied.

Isaac then said, "As you can see, I am so old that I may now die at any time. Take your gear, therefore–your quiver and bow–and go out into the country to hunt some game for me. With your catch prepare an appetizing dish for me, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my special blessing before I die."

Rebekah had been listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. So, when Esau went out into the country to hunt some game for his father, Rebekah [then] took the best clothes of her older son Esau that she had in the house, and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear; and with the skins of the kids she covered up his hands and the hairless parts of his neck. Then she handed her son Jacob the appetizing dish and the bread she had prepared.

Bringing them to his father, Jacob said, "Father!"

"Yes?" replied Isaac.  "Which of my sons are you?"

Jacob answered his father:  "I am Esau, your first-born. I did as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your special blessing."

But Isaac asked, "How did you succeed so quickly, son?"

He answered, "The LORD, your God, let things turn out well with me."

Isaac then said to Jacob, "Come closer, son, that I may feel you, to learn whether you really are my son Esau or not."

So Jacob moved up closer to his father. When Isaac felt him, he said, "Although the voice is Jacob's, the hands are Esau's." (He failed to identify him because his hands were hairy, like those of his brother Esau; so in the end he gave him his blessing.)

Again he asked Jacob, "Are you really my son Esau?"

"Certainly," Jacob replied.

Then Isaac said, "Serve me your game, son, that I may eat of it and then give you my blessing." Jacob served it to him, and Isaac ate; he brought him wine, and he drank.

Finally his father Isaac said to Jacob, "Come closer, son, and kiss me." As Jacob went up and kissed him, Isaac smelled the fragrance of his clothes. With that, he blessed him saying, "Ah, the fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of a field that the LORD has blessed!

"May God give to you of the dew of the heavens And of the fertility of the earth abundance of grain and wine.

"Let peoples serve you, and nations pay you homage; Be master of your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you."

This is one of those stories I always found weirdly unbelievable. Sure, there are miracles, like Abraham and Sarah having a a kid in their old age, but those always explicitly require divine intervention.

Isaac being fooled by goat hair? That just seems stupid.

So I did a little research, and it turns out unlike European goats, goats in the middle east have hair that’s very similar to humans. In fact, Romans used them for toupees!

Rebekah and Jacob use that fact as part of their plan to trick Isaac into giving him his blessing. Why isn’t this blessing just disregarded once Isaac realizes he was tricked?

Because God works through human choices, flawed and even bad as they may be. God knew what Jacob and Rebekah would do, and took that into his plans to build a great nation of Abraham.

Of course, it’s much better if our good actions are part of the plan, so we should focus on doing that, rather than tricking our way into inheritance.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 135:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6

R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
Praise the name of the LORD;
Praise, you servants of the LORD
Who stand in the house of the LORD,
in the courts of the house of our God.
R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;
sing praise to his name, which we love;
For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,
Israel for his own possession.
R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
For I know that the LORD is great;
our LORD is greater than all gods.
All that the LORD wills he does
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and in all the deeps.
R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!

God chose Jacob (later renamed Israel), for reasons of His own. This wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone when Jacob and Esau were children. But God’s plans aren’t our plans, and we can only do the best we can with what we do know.

Alleluia

Jn 10:27

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

One way to know what we should do is follow Jesus’ voice. He left some very clear instructions.

Gospel

Mt 9:14-17

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?"

Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."

Jesus isn’t what anyone expected in a Messiah. Some wanted a warrior, some wanted a judge. And while He did fight and did exercise judgement, it wasn’t in the way people would have predicted.

As with yesterday’s reading, Jesus doesn’t care for others’ judgement. He knows when it’s an appropriate time to celebrate, and when it’s an appropriate time to mourn.

When we’re with Jesus, it’s not mourning time. That’s why we celebrate mass.