1 Samuel 18:6-9; 19:1-7
On their way back, as David was returning after killing the Philistine, the women came out to meet King Saul from all the towns of Israel, singing and dancing to the sound of tambourine and lyre and cries of joy; and as they danced the women sang:
“Saul has killed his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands.”
Saul was very angry; the incident was not to his liking. “They have given David the tens of thousands,” he said, “but me only the thousands; he has all but the kingship now.” And Saul turned a jealous eye on David from that day forward.
Saul told Jonathan his son and all his servants of his intention to kill David. Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, held David in great affection; and so Jonathan warned David; “My father Saul is looking for a way to kill you,” he said, “so be on your guard tomorrow morning; hide away in some secret place. Then I will go and keep my father company in the fields where you are hiding, and will talk to my father about you; I will find out what the situation is and let you know.”
So Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father; he said, “Let not the king sin against his servant David; for he has not sinned against you, and what he has done has been greatly to your advantage. He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine, and the Lord brought a great victory for all Israel. You saw it yourself and rejoiced; why then sin against innocent blood in killing David without cause?” Saul was impressed by Jonathan’s words and took an oath, “As the Lord lives, I will not kill him.” Jonathan called David and told him all these things. Then Jonathan brought him to Saul, and David attended on him as before.
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Mark 3:7-12
Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lakeside, and great crowds from Galilee followed him. From Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordania and the region of Tyre and Sidon, great numbers who had heard of all he was doing came to him. And he asked his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, to keep him from being crushed. For he had cured so many that all who were afflicted in any way were crowding forward to touch him. And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” But he warned them strongly not to make him known.
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Jealousy is such a strange emotion, and yet it can really blind us. Take a look at Saul in the first reading today. Saul was the king of Israel, and on coming back from the Israelite victory over the Philistines, the women had all come out to meet him. Sure they were singing songs of praise of David’s feats, but they were also singing songs of praise of Saul’s feats. However, blinded by jealousy and selective hearing, Saul only heard what they were singing about David. Jealousy made him blind to all that he had as king over Israel, and made him focus only on what he did not have. This is what jealousy does to us – it makes us blind.
The second thing that jealousy does to us is that it makes us suspicious. Because our vision is already greatly narrowed, we become suspicious of every little thing that the person we are jealous of does. We begin to question the person’s motives, and we begin to pick out his flaws and to plot his downfall. This is the third thing – jealousy drives us to sin and to kill the other person. Sometimes we may not physically kill another person that we are jealous of, but we may be driven to hurt the person emotionally, or harm his reputation. Jealousy can make us kill others in ways that are not criminal, but equally sinful.
In the gospel reading, we see another occurrence of jealousy. We see the unclean spirits acting out of jealousy of the Son of Man. Remember that the reason the spirits are unclean is because they were jealous of man. Who is man that God himself should become one of us? The angels, led by Lucifer, were jealous of what man had, and what God’s plan for man was, and thus fell from grace. Even so, their jealousy continues to consume them even today, and they do all that they can to bring about the downfall of every single man, woman and child, just because we share in the same humanity of Jesus Christ, and so share in his divinity.
Jealousy is very common in our world today. I too have been jealous of others, as I am sure you must have had at some point or other. Remember that jealousy blinds us to what we already have and makes us focus on what we do not have. Some common examples of jealousy in people today would be the feminist movement: women who want what men have, forgetting all that women already have; the push for homosexual civil unions: homosexuals who want what normal heterosexual people have, forgetting all the gifts that God has given them; the pro-choice movement: people who want to give women a choice, forgetting that having a pregnancy is something that only a woman can have.
There are many ways that we are still being jealous today, such as when we complain about the rich people in the government not doing anything to help the lower income people like ourselves. Is that not jealousy speaking? Is that not a narrow-minded view of the situation? And does it not lead us to hate our government, going so far as to make fun of it every chance we get? This doesn’t solve matters, for it only leads to a greater division and strife.
What then is the solution to jealousy? We see a prime example in the model of Jonathan – someone who is caught in the middle, between his father and his best friend. It therefore falls to the middleman, a mediator, to help both sides. Someone who understands the position of the victim of jealousy to approach the jealous ones and allay their fears, and to help them to see all that they already have. Only when we start to focus and see what we really have, and stop looking at other people, will we come to realize that in reality, we have nothing to be jealous about and, in fact, have plenty to be thankful for.
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Prayer:
Dear Lord, we pray for all the people who are blinded by jealousy. We pray that you might send them mediators who understand the situation especially from the point of the victimized, and that they will try to help the jealous persons to realize how blessed they already are. Amen.
Give Thanks to the Lord for: Mediators.
Filed under: Daily Reflections
