CT - Catholic Telegraph

God’s style of homecoming

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Jeremiah 31:7-9.

The prophetic career of Jeremiah was a long one, extending from about 626 B.C. to about 580 B.C. The Northern Kingdom had fallen to the Assyrians a little more than a hundred years before Jeremiah was called to be a spokesman for the Lord. The end of his ministry came after the destruction of the Southern Kingdom in 587 B.C.

Chapters 30 and 31 seem to be from the beginning of Jeremiah’s prophetic activity. (Note that the material in the prophetic books of the Old Testament is not always presented in strict chronological order. Sometimes earlier proclamations come later in the book and vice versa.) The Assyrians had fallen into decline and hopes began to arise that the descendants of those who had been carried into exile in 721 B.C. might return to their homeland. These two chapters of Jeremiah originally sang of the return of these exiles.

As the years passed, it became clearer that the 10 tribes which formed the people of the former Northern Kingdom would not be returning, but that the Southern Kingdom might soon share their fate, this time at the hands of the Babylonians. These songs of return would also be applied to the not far distant Babylonian exile. Somehow God would bring His people home from wherever they had been carried off to.

This Sunday’s reading, then, dealt originally with the return of the exiles of the Northern Kingdom. At the beginning, the prophet speaks of Jacob; at the end, of Ephraim. Both are synonyms for the Northern Kingdom.

At the beginning of our text comes the statement of the theme of this passage: The Lord delivers His people. Then we have a description of the returnees: They will be reassembled as a people by God who will bring them back from their exile in the distant north (Assyria). God will bring them home from the ends of the earth. The assembly will include even those for whom travel is difficult: The blind, the lame, pregnant women — they’ll all return. God will console them all, leading them along easy paths where fresh water runs. No one will find the journey too demanding. And why is the Lord doing all this? Because God loves His people.

Scholars point out that the theme of homecoming is one of the recurrent motifs of the Old Testament. God promises Abraham a home for himself and his family. God leads the Israelites out of Egypt to their traditional homeland. When God allows the people to be punished, the punishment consists of being deprived of their homeland.

In the end, however, God always brings them home again, maybe not according to the timetable they would prefer, maybe not in the ways they might have imagined, maybe not to a homeland that immediately fulfills their every dream, but God does bring them home simply because He is God, simply because God loves His people.

This reading connects with the Gospel (Mark 10:46-52) in two ways. First, there is Bartimaeus the blind man. The Lord has pity on him just as the Lord had pity on the blind and the lame who would be returning from exile. But there is also the journey theme that is common to both readings. Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem and, at the end of the Gospel reading, Bartimaeus follows along with Him. This journey of Jesus would end in the salvation of all humankind, just as the Old Testament journey would end in the restoration of the people.

God does whatever is necessary to guarantee the final well-being of His people. He is determined to save them, to bring them to happiness and fulfillment. Toward that end, He reverses their exile and brings them back to their homeland. For that purpose, He gives sight to the blind and makes the lame able to walk. No handicap is too great to be overcome by God’s care. No journey is too long, too demanding for God’s plan of salvation.

We have already heard these themes in our Sunday readings. Just a few weeks ago, on the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, we had a song of return from Isaiah, a song that included the tongue of the mute made capable of song. In the Gospel for that Sunday, we saw Jesus giving speech to a man with a speech impediment. What Isaiah had promised, Jesus delivered. What Jeremiah looked forward to, Jesus fulfilled.

But all this is not just material from the past. God is still busy leading us home, healing our disabilities, bringing us out of exile. Why? Just because God loves us. Just because He is our father.

For reflection and discussion

From what has God delivered me?

In what direction is God guiding me?