New consolation! for Isaac and Matthew

 Fri, 7 July 2023/ / / Gen 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67. Mt 9:9-13.

1. The events at Abraham’s home move fast. Sarah dies. Sarah’s tomb is the first property of Abraham in the Promised Land. Thus, God’s promise is getting fulfilled. Isaac becomes a young adult. Abraham bids his servant to find a spouse for Isaac from his own kin. The servant finds Rebekah, who is brought to Abraham’s house. Isaac takes her to the tent of Sarah and marries her. She becomes the consolation to Isaac who has been mourning his mother’s death. From a psychological perspective, after the event of the attempted sacrifice, the boy Isaac would have developed antipathy or anger towards Abraham and might have distanced himself from him. His detachment from his father might have made himself attached to Sarah. Therefore, he is not able to bear Sarah’s absence. In the heart of his heart, he might have felt very lonely. The greatest agony is to feel lonely in our own home. Isaac who is not consoled after Sarah’s death after he embraces Rebekah. Rebekah becomes his new consolation.

2. Jesus encounters Matthew sitting at the tax booth. The name Matthew is the shortened form of Matthathias (‘Gift of God’). He is also called Levi. The type of tax he collected is tax on foreign goods and journeys. He is collecting taxes from the farmers, the merchants, and the caravans that enter the city. Usually the tax collector pays the tax amount to the Roman Procurator in advance, and later collects it or more from others. This work was considered an unclean job. Matthew earns the hatred of his own people. The joy, the money, the contacts with Rome could not console Mattthew. There is a vacuum in him. When Jesus calls him, he immediately leaves everything and follows him – as if he waits for this day. He celebrates this by hosting a dinner to Jesus. Matthew receives new consolation from Jesus. 

3. Isaac, after the death of his mother, gets his new consolation from Rebekah. Matthew, in his life of boredom, hatred, and emptiness, receives new consolation from Jesus. At times in the life of human persons, always God becomes the source of consolation. What is the type of loneliness or emptiness that I suffer from? Jesus comes to give us consolation. What should we do to receive Jesus’ consolation? Like Isaac we need to go out to the fields to see him; or like Matthew, we need to be immersed in our own work. A person who receives God’s consolation is bound to share it with others.