No good deed....

Tobit 1:1-2, 2:1-8

         First, I have to say that it isn't every day that a reading from Tobit comes up in the daily readings. Then reading it I find myself thinking I've found a long lost treasure and I want more. This reading seems rich with truths of faithful, engaged people. Aren't we all faithful and engaging? And what do we get for it? It seems no good deed goes unpunished. That might be the synopsis of todays reading.

          Here we have a faithful man with a good heart, perhaps not unlike any one of us. He returns home and in addition to enjoying a welcome home meal with his family he is so thankful he sends his son out to bring in a guest to join them. He is thankful and generous. And what happens, life intrudes, perhaps again, and his son returns to report that a violence has be committed. Being the man of faith and love he is and not being able to change who he is in his core, he retrieves the body to do what he knows is the right thing to do and his neighbors laughed at him.

          I think we always try to do the right thing no matter who we are. As a faithful person, thankful for all the graces we have been given, perhaps we try harder to do the right thing. Yet we know that things don't always work out the way we'd like them to. Life intervene's. Bad things happen, accidental and evil. We could easily let our spirit go down. We might easily let that expression pass our lips, no good deed goes unpunished. Some people will not appreciate assistance. Some people will misconstrue our intentions. Sometimes things just will not work out as we'd like.

           But here's the thing, two things actually. One, this 'problem' has been going on since probably forever. Certainly it happened to Tobit. The second things is, we should never stop trying to do the right thing. We should never stop trying to do good out of our thankfulness and and loving hearts.  When we do stop, we are doomed. We have to be content that we know we are doing the right thing.
We may never think we are on the same plain as a Rosa Parks or a hero of 9/11 but in our hearts the motivation is the same. Sometimes things will not work out the way we think it should or the way we'd like.

          None the less, we need live our lives in a normal way and to be true to our faithful loving hearts.           

1

This book tells the story of Tobit son of Tobiel son of Hananiel son of Aduel son of Gabael son of Raphael of the descendants of Asiel, of the tribe of Naphtali, who in the days of King Shalmaneser of the Assyrians was taken into captivity from Thisbe, which is to the south of Kedesh Naphtali in Upper Galilee, above Asher towards the west, and north of Phogor.

2

Then during the reign of Esar-haddon I returned home, and my wife Anna and my son Tobias were restored to me. At our festival of Pentecost, which is the sacred festival of weeks, a good dinner was prepared for me and I reclined to eat. When the table was set for me and an abundance of food placed before me, I said to my son Tobias, ‘Go, my child, and bring whatever poor person you may find of our people among the exiles in Nineveh, who is wholeheartedly mindful of God, and he shall eat together with me. I will wait for you, until you come back.’ So Tobias went to look for some poor person of our people. When he had returned he said, ‘Father!’ And I replied, ‘Here I am, my child.’ Then he went on to say, ‘Look, father, one of our own people has been murdered and thrown into the market-place, and now he lies there strangled.’ Then I sprang up, left the dinner before even tasting it, and removed the body from the square and laid it in one of the rooms until sunset when I might bury it. When I returned, I washed myself and ate my food in sorrow. Then I remembered the prophecy of Amos, how he said against Bethel,
   ‘Your festivals shall be turned into mourning,
   and all your songs into lamentation.’
And I wept.

When the sun had set, I went and dug a grave and buried him. And my neighbours laughed and said, ‘Is he still not afraid? He has already been hunted down to be put to death for doing this, and he ran away; yet here he is again burying the dead!’