Treasured Possession and Compassionate Calling

Love letters are often kept secret between the two lovers. Except, as we read in today’s lectionary, when the letter expresses the love between God and his treasured possession. Then the Lord called to Moses from the mountain: “This is what you will say to the house of Jacob; tell the Israelites: You have seen how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me completely and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession among all peoples. Indeed, all the earth is mine, but you will be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:4-6, emended). Hebrew sĕgullāh, “treasured possession,” is sometimes used of a king with the nuance that the king has set it aside for personal not public use, something like “stash.” Abraham’s descendants in Egypt were reduced to slavery and close to extinction. The people barely managed to escape to Mount Sinai, where they encountered the God who rescued them.

The people agree to the covenant, and the Lord comes down with awe-inspiring thunder and lightning, speaking the Ten Commandments directly to the people. In a covenant ceremony, the deity or king describes the act that brought the parties together and then articulates the stipulations for the covenant between them. Note what initiates the covenant – the Lord’s faithfulness to a promise made long ago to Abraham to enlarge the nation and provide it with a homeland.

Just as the plight of the helpless and endangered people in Egypt moved the Lord to remember his promise to Abraham, so also does it move Jesus in today’s Gospel to commission the twelve disciples. Differently from the account of choosing and commissioning in Mark and Luke, Matthew prefaces his account with a striking sentence: “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew goes out of his way to emphasize Jesus’s emotions, choosing to use the Greek verb esplangchnisthē for the compassion that overwhelms him at the sight of the crowds. Matthew’s wording, like the description of us as God’s “treasured possession,” reminds us that God’s choosing of us is out of compassion and faithfulness.

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.