Rather than be glad he had a powerful warrior in his own camp, Saul became jealous. He wanted to destroy David - but he wound up destroying himself. Shakespeare says to beware of jealousy: "It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on."

Jealousy can be a horrible thing. For us, as humans, it is often fatal. None of us can say, "my wife, my children, my parish, my job, my car," in an absolute sense. If we reflect even for a moment, we see how foolish jealousy is. You and I have been thrown into a turbulent, chaotic world - and sooner than we think, some illness or accident will remove us. At the beginning of Lent, we had ashes smeared on the forehead. They remind us what low-cost materials make up the human body - and how easily our bodies are unmade. How foolish to think some person or thing belongs to me in a final way! No, they are gifts, entrusted to our care for a time. They belong to the One who made them. You and I - when we are at our best - recognize that we are Stewards of God's gifts.

God, on the other hand, does possess things in an absolute way. He created them - and us - out of nothing. When God says that he is "jealous," it implies no disorder. Unlike human jealousy that destroys, God's jealousy puts things back in order. We belong to him - and we will have no happiness apart from him.

A positive word for jealousy is "zeal." The two words come from the same Greek root. We hear today about Jesus' all-consuming zeal. To remove barriers between God and his people, Jesus tips over tables, scatters coins and stampedes cattle. He is willing to unleash some chaos - in order to get our attention. Seeing such zeal, such jealousy, it makes you wonder: For the sake of our souls, to what lengths will he go? In a few weeks, we will find out.

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