It's What Neighbors Do
The Gospel reading for today can only be understood if we know something about the culture in which these people lived. Today’s parable relies heavily on knowing about how their community functions.
While we are used to every home having a stove and an oven on which to cook and in which to bake our food, the people of Jesus’ time would not be so blessed. There would have been a communal hearth or oven that everyone in the community used to bake the loaves of bread which formed the major part of their diet. Each member of the community would be assigned a specific day of the week on which to bake their family’s bread. As a consequence, one would not always have fresh bread in the house. If an unexpected guest showed up, there was every possibility that there would not be anything fresh to serve. In addition, it is important to remember that hospitality was a very highly held value for these people.
Naturally one would turn to the neighbors for help in such a situation. When Jesus suggests that a neighbor might respond negatively to a request for fresh bread, he was speaking hypothetically. No neighbor would ever have acted in such a way. If the neighbor would refuse to help, there was every possibility that such a refusal would come back to haunt the neighbor the next time a need presented itself. The neighbor would have responded be helping out in this unforeseen situation.
Jesus’ point is this: if neighbors would respond to your need, how much more so would God respond in your hour of need. Again, the question is rhetorical. Everyone would have known the answer just as they would have understood the plight of the person who was entertaining an unexpected guest. This is not to say that God steps in and remedies every difficult situation. What it says is that God will be present in our time of need just as a neighbor would have. God does hear our prayers and gives us the Holy Spirit to help us see our way through all difficulties.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
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