Saturday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 418

“Fathers have eaten green grapes,
thus their children’s teeth are on edge”?
      As I live, says the Lord GOD:
I swear that there shall no longer be anyone among you
who will repeat this proverb in Israel.
For all lives are mine;
the life of the father is like the life of the son, both are mine;
only the one who sins shall die.

The proverb about fathers' eating green grapes certainly reflects a hard truth about life. Millions of American children suffer because their fathers abdicate their responsibilities and abandon their mothers. Or, in some cases, never existed as women bought human semon and induced conception artificially. In those cases, certainly, the children were deprived of their natural right to a father and mother who are dedicated to their marriage and the raising of children.

But fatherhood is complicated. Some fathers remain to abuse their wives and children. Other men might be excellent spouses and fathers but, impoverished by a vastly unjust system of labor, cannot provide the spiritual, psychological, and material resources their children need. 

The unripe grapes proverb also recalls some familiar curses of the Scripture, like Exodus 34:7. After promising grace, mercy, and love for a thousand generations to the faithful, there is an ominous warning,  

....yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but bringing punishment for their parents’ wickedness on children and children’s children to the third and fourth generation.

I think also of the doom that fell upon David's progeny after he had ravished Bathsheba and murdered her husband Uriah. Although he regretted his sin when the prophet Nathan called him out, the curse remained, 

Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.

Never is a very long time and the descendants of David, including Jesus, have suffered that curse to this day. Simeon saw it clearly when he spoke to Mary, "...you yourself a sword will pierce." 

Having reflected on the sour grapes, we can turn to the promises, which are typical of God. 

If a man is virtuous—if he does what is right and just,
if he does not eat on the mountains,
nor raise his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel....
if he gives food to the hungry and clothes the naked;
if he does not lend at interest nor exact usury....
that man is virtuous—he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD. 

The scriptures and our Church remind us continually of the superabundant, lavish, astonishing generosity of God. "...gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap." 

How many times do we find in the scriptures God's abundant goodness after his people have sinned and suffered the consequences of their sin? He does not forget them, nor does he abandon or desert them. Even when they are driven into exile he goes with them, as Ezekiel witnessed when he saw the Lord of the Universe soaring across the Babylon sky in a fiery chariot. 

As we endure the punishment which follows exploiting the earth and its peoples, the faithful must remember God's goodness and his promises. Our punishment will not last forever. When we decide to live with the unexpected demands of a perpetually dynamic planet, when we cease our ruthless exploitation of its resources and its peoples, and after we have endured centuries of atonement in accordance with God's will, we will enjoy his superabundant mercy with predictable weather and a bountiful harvest for all earth's creatures. 

In the meanwhile, the promise itself is profoundly satisfying for people who believe in God.