Saturday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 436

Learn from myself and Apollos not to go beyond what is written, so that none of you will be inflated with pride...

There may be no more fascinating character in history than Jesus of Nazareth. Literally millions of books have been written about the man, not to mention exponentially more sermons and homilies, plus songs and poetry. Need I add images in oil, cloth, pencil, clay and marble?  

And everyone who speaks, writes, and draws images of Jesus feels compelled to add some helpful details to fill out the picture, to help others understand more clearly. Sometime they add what the Gospels should have said.  That's when they venture beyond the edges of the map to that famous medieval place, Hic sunc dracones. ("Here be dragons!") 

Some authors and preachers, feeling a little shaky in their convictions, appeal to gnostic gospels which appeared in the second century, documents which the Church found useless and tried to forget. 

Realizing the harm the administrator of the mysteries of God may do, I appreciate the warning in today's first reading, do not go beyond what is written, so that none of you will be inflated with pride. Pride would would stamp the image of oneself on the gospel.

Modern day forgers sometimes create paintings and other works of art in the mode of a famous artist. They hope that foolish people might buy it, thinking they have found a priceless original. Periodically we hear news stories about these fakes exposed. 

I have found the reason forgeries are discovered fascinating: the forger cannot simply copy a famous piece; that would be too obvious. They must create something that so strongly resembles a Caravaggio, Rembrandt, or Van Gogh it might appear as a lost-and-rediscovered original by the long dead genius. 

Experts in discerning forgeries tell us it's impossible to create something new without introducing something new. A fraudulent painting which mimics the style of a long dead artist inevitably has traces of the real creator. It might be as obvious as the subject matter, an image the artist would not have painted because no such thing existed at that time. It may be the chemical makeup of the paint, or the brushstrokes which are shorter or longer than the artist's manner. Inevitably, the forger's creative self and the current milieu creep into new creations and reveal the  presence of an interloper. 

When we announce the Gospel we should try to keep the "administrator of the mysteries of God" from interfering or intruding. It's not about me. We address the current moment, of course. Today's congregation might not relate to crises of first century Christians. But we should also avoid interpretting what the text is trying to say or should have said. 

A personal example: the gospels recall the Saduccees' confronting Jesus with a story about a woman who buried seven husbands. They asked the Lord, "In heaven, which one will be her husband?" He patiently explained, there is no marriage in heaven for the denizens of heaven are like angels.

But maybe he should have said "Whichever one she chooses!" Now that would change history, wouldn't it? 

But Jesus, the first century Galilean prophet, could not have addressed a 21st century issue. Had he answered like that, it would have been so off the wall no one could have remembered it. It would be like, "He didn't say that, did he?" 

We do better to stick to the text and not go beyond it. We cannot recreate Jesus as a twenty-first century prophet addressing issues of our time. However, we can recognize that the Bible's spiritual questions and answers are rooted in ancient history, and appreciate what the Lord said through the prophets at that time. (in illo tempore.) 

And then we invite the Holy Spirit to speak to us today, amid our controversies and confusion, and guide us in the Way of Wisdom. If we don't know where this is going and are not infallibly sure we're on the right path, we trust in God's mercy to make it right somehow.