Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin

 Lectionary: 387

Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.

As Jacob/Israel set out for Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan and to meet his lost son Joseph, he might have feared being a stranger in a strange land. He remembered the sorry fate of his uncle Lot who had settled with his wife and daughters in Sodom. Despite the Lord's delivering them from its destruction, Lot's wife perished there, and the daughters displayed some of the immoral traits of their lost neighbors, while Lot's last appearance in Genesis was in a drunken stupor. 

Egypt would be kind to Jacob and his family so long as the memory of Joseph lasted, but their descendants soon became despised slaves of the Pharaoh. Memories of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were fast fading by the time Moses was born. By then they knew only their wretched condition, and had little concern for their solidarity. When Moses intervened between two quarreling Hebrews, he discovered his personal loyalty to his people had been reported to the Pharaoh; and he was forced to flee. 

But the Lord had reassured Jacob about his migration to Egypt, 

I am God, the God of your father.

Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt,

for there I will make you a great nation.

Not only will I go down to Egypt with you;

I will also bring you back here, after Joseph has closed your eyes."

In today's gospel, we hear the same reassurance as Jesus sends us from Jerusalem and throughout the world, 

Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;

so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.

But beware of men,

for they will hand you over to courts

and scourge you in their synagogues,

and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake

as a witness before them and the pagans. 

Catholics in the United States often feel like sheep among wolves. We're reminded daily that our values differ from the bizarre way of life of our neighbors, friends, and colleagues. We don't entertain fetishes around guns, consumer goods, or sexuality. We're not fascinated with violence; we're appalled by the American culture of death. We must beware, and we must teach our children to be wary of, the alien values which saturate our world and penetrate our homes.

We remain out of patriotic loyalty to our homeland and because the Lord sent us here. And we're reassured because the Lord gives us what to say when we oppose abortion, capital punishment, and exploitation of people and the environment. 

Nearly four millennia since Abraham's day have shown us that the fittest do not survive, but the faithful do. We are not afraid to live here because, as he promised Jacob, the Lord has come with us. He lives in the tabernacles of our churches, the sanctuaries of our homes, and the sacred silence of our hearts.