5 June 2017 - love for the people

Today's Readings

Saint Boniface

And I wept.
Then at sunset I went out, dug a grave, and buried him.

Why is Tobit so interested in burying the dead, indeed, the dead to whom he is only distantly related, that he is willing to put his own safety in jeopardy?

Once before he was hunted down for execution
because of this very thing;
yet now that he has scarcely escaped,
here he is again burying the dead!

Tobit has a love for the people of God. He has deep sorrow at their misfortune. To the modern mind, burying the dead might seem like a waste of time. After all, what good is really being done for someone once they are dead? But what Tobit knows, that we forget, is that the body is holy, a creation of God almighty. Whether he realizes it fully or not he is signifying and preparing for the day when the bodies of all the dead will rise.

We don't relate for two reasons. The first is that we don't have much compassion for the people of God. We are able to show love only to a very narrow sphere of acquaintances. This attitude is different than that of the peoples of the Old Testament. Listen to the words of the psalmist:

I say of the holy people who are in the land,
"They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight."

The second reason is that we are basically Gnostic. The world itself seems so corrupt with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, that we retreat into the life of the mind. We try to run to that which is merely spiritual. We forget that creation belongs to God. Even if it is tainted by death we must still do our best to offer it back to him.
Trouble comes when we forget that creation belongs to God. In imagining ourselves to be becoming spiritual we actually become even more fleshly. We use creation greedily, without reference to its origin and purpose.

At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants
to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard.
But they seized him, beat him,
and sent him away empty-handed.

If we, like Tobit, have a love for the people of God and a love for the creation of God it helps to ensure that we give God the fruit he has entrusted to us back to him in due season. It helps us avoid the fate of the tenants of the vineyard. It ensures that we don't accidentally reject the cornerstone chosen by God.

Blessed the man who fears the LORD,
who greatly delights in his commands.
His posterity shall be mighty upon the earth;
the upright generation shall be blessed.