Wednesday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 8, 2020

Matthew 10:1-7

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.  Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ ”

Each of the so-called synoptic Gospel writers thought it important enough to list the twelve Apostles.  Luke even lists them again in the Acts of the Apostles.  The names held significance for the early Christians, and so did their number.  John even refers to them simply as “the twelve”, and after Judas defects, they convene in order to choose a successor so that they might remain twelve.  The Gospels tell us that there are two sets of brothers, while tradition holds that Simon the Canaanean (also known as “the zealot”), Thaddeus (also known as “Jude”) and James the son of Alphaeus were brothers.  It is also possible that Philip and Bartholomew were brothers or were related, since they plainly knew each other and since the first four Apostles mentioned consisted of two sets of brothers.  Notably, Matthew alone is designated by his occupation, that of tax collector.  The other Apostles were identified with an attribute in order to distinguish them from their fellows having the same name, such as Simon, called “the Canaanean” as opposed to Simon Peter; and Judas Iscariot as opposed to Jude, also known as Thaddeus.  Comparing the lists to the call-stories of the Apostles, it seems that they are listed more or less in the order in which they were called, with the exception of Andrew, who was called ahead of Peter.  Curiously, the Roman Canon, in use from the third century, gives a differently ordered list.

“Do not go into pagan territory”.  The Lord only ventured outside of Jewish lands twice, according to the Gospels.  He gave nearly all of his three years of public life to converting the Jews, the Chosen People.  That he did so shows how God remains true to his covenant with them, but also their obstinacy, particularly that of their leaders.  Finally, the Lord gives his followers an example to follow of persevering in prayer and good works for the people among whom he places them.  “Or enter a Samaritan town”, which the Lord himself did not do during his lifetime, although he engaged with a Samaritan woman at a well outside a town.  The Lord does not here show the Samaritans the contempt with which the Jews treated them, but rather the urgency to first convert the Jewish people.  Throughout his Gospel, Matthew quotes the Lord to the effect that he would return “soon” and that these days were the last days.  Matthew may have believed that Jesus would indeed return before the first generation of Christians died out.  At times, St.Paul in his letters seems to indicate that he believes this.  While Jesus does urge his Apostles to work with energy and zeal, St. Peter reminds us that with the Lord, a thousand years are as one day (cf. 2 Peter 3, 8).  

 ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  This is a mistranslation.  The phrase should read, The kingdom of heaven is approaching.  The difference between the two is worth considering.  In the translation, the kingdom of heaven is presented as something immobile, as a kingdom normally is.  That it is “at hand” indicates that it has appeared, or become visible.  In fact, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out in his commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus himself is “the kingdom of heaven”, and thus it is he who is approaching.  Otherwise, we can understand this to mean that the boundaries of the kingdom are expanding as conquests are added to it, and very quickly a person will either have to fight against this kingdom, or to willingly join himself to it.

May we advance the boundaries of the kingdom of heaven as the Lord’s faithful heralds!