Lent IIB

 

 

2nd Sunday of Lent B

Readings: Genesis 22:1-2,9,10-13,15-18        Romans 8:31-34          

Mark 9:2-10 

As we continue our Lenten journey toward Jesus’ cross and death, today’s readings give us a glimpse of Jesus’ life-giving resurrection.  On the often dark and frightening road to the cross, we are called to walk in trust like Abraham in the first reading, so we can pray in the words of the responsorial psalm: “I will walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living” (Psalm 116).
Abraham’s journey to offer his beloved Isaac in sacrifice is the ultimate Biblical example of a test of faith.  Isaac is Abraham’s only hope that God will fulfill his promise of abundant descendants and blessing for the families of the earth (Gen 12:1-3).  In the previous chapter, Abraham was forced by Sarah and God to dismiss his oldest son Ishmael and his mother Hagar.  Now God commands that he sacrifice Isaac, his only remaining and beloved son, for whom he had waited twenty-five years (see Genesis 12-21).
Although the narrator never gives us Abraham’s thoughts during the journey, his actions and words indicate that he both loves Isaac and trusts in God’s providence.  When the burdens are divided for the walk to Mount Moriah, Abraham takes the dangerous fire and knife and gently places the harmless wood on Isaac’s shoulders.  And, when Isaac asks his father, “Where is the sheep for the holocaust?” Abraham replies, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust” (Gen 22:7-8).
For the Christian reader, the story’s conclusion foreshadows Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Renewed life and blessing come to the obedient Abraham.  Isaac is restored to his father, who trusted to the point of raising the knife over his son.  And, after the ram has been offered in place of the redeemed Isaac, the Lord’s messenger repeats the promise of blessing.
“I swear by myself,” declares the Lord, “that because you acted
as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son,
I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as count-
less as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.”
The second reading from Romans joyfully celebrates the consequences of Jesus’ cross and resurrection.  According to Paul’s theology, even the Law of Moses was not able to overcome the power of Sin and Death that had enslaved humanity (see Romans 7).  But now in Christ, God has mercifully justified the whole human family by accepting the obedient act of his death as atonement for the sins of all.  By his resurrection, Jesus, the obedient Son of God, has triumphed over Death and now is at God’s right hand to make intercession for us.  Because of Jesus’ victory, Paul has unlimited confidence that no cosmic power can separate the redeemed community from the love of Christ.

The Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Lent is always the account of Jesus’ transfiguration.  Mark’s version is an anticipation of Jesus’ resurrection and comes at a strategic point in his narrative.  Jesus has just taught his disciples for the first time that he is destined to “suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.”  When Peter refuses to accept a suffering mission for the Messiah, Jesus reprimands him as “Satan” and teaches the disciples, “whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mk 8:27-38).  Then he takes Peter, James and John and leads them to a high mountain where he is transfigured before their eyes into his anticipated resurrection glory.  His clothes become dazzling white, “whiter than the work of any bleacher could make them.”  Elijah and Moses, representatives of the prophets and the law-- who had mysterious departures from this world and were expected to return at the end time-- appear and are in conversation with him.  Sadly, Peter again fails to understand and proposes to build three booths to honor them all equally.  God’s heavenly voice corrects Peter by announcing: “This is my Son, my beloved.  Listen to him.”  When the revelation is finished, the disciples see only Jesus, who enjoins them not to announce what they have seen before the Son of Man has risen.  The Church’s Lenten observance is faithful to Mark’s understanding of Jesus.  If we want to share in the triumph of Jesus’ resurrection, we must follow him in trust, down from the mountain and on to Jerusalem and the cross.

Lent I B

1st Sunday of Lent B

Readings: Genesis 9:8-15  1 Peter 3:18-22  Mark 1:12-15
Lent is a time of preparation for the Christian community’s celebration of Jesus’ triumphant victory over Sin and Death through his cross and resurrection in the liturgies of Holy Week.  As catechumens prepare for full initiation into the rigors and joys of the Christian faith, the whole Christian community readies itself for the renewal of its baptismal promises at the Easter Vigil by again turning from sin to the joys and demands of the Gospel.  The readings for the Lenten season in the B cycle will lead us through God’s live-giving covenants in the course of salvation history and deepen our understanding of our baptismal commitment in an often pagan world.  In the spirit of renewal, let us pray the refrain of this Sunday’s psalm: “Your ways, O Lord are love and truth,/ to those who keep your covenant” (Ps 25).
The first reading from Genesis recounts God’s covenant with Noah and the whole created order after the purifying waters of the flood had cleansed the earth of sin.  It immediately puts our Lenten observance in a universal and ecological context.  God is committed to the restoration of harmony in the universe and calls us to live in peace with every living creature.  In contrast to pagan traditions which understood the flood as the action of capricious gods, the Genesis flood story represents God’s attempt at a new beginning, a second creation.  In the early chapters of Genesis (1-6), humanity’s sin disrupts the harmony of God’s original creation and unleashes the chaos of titanic pride, murder, blood revenge and violence.  Out of this hopelessly rebellious human family, God chooses the righteous Noah and his family to begin creation anew.  His commitment to the new created order after the flood is irrevocable and universal.  The sign of that covenant is in nature itself and is visible to all.
When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears
in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between
me and you and all living beings, so that the waters shall never
again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings.
The second reading from 1 Peter applies the flood imagery to Christian baptism which is an entrance into Jesus’ life-giving death and resurrection.  1 Peter was written for Christians in Asia Minor who found themselves in a pagan Roman environment hostile to the values of the gospel.  It calls them to live “as aliens and sojourners” in this evil world, but also to give a defense of their faith to unbelievers.  In the section immediately preceding our reading, Peter exhorts his follow Christians.
Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you
for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence,
keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned,
those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves
be put to shame.  For it is better to suffer for doing good,
if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.  (1 Peter 3:15-17)

In suffering for doing good in a hostile world, Christians are living out their baptism which was prefigured in the saving of the innocent Noah and his family by water in the wicked flood generation.  More importantly, their baptism is a sharing in the saving action of Jesus the “righteous” One, who suffered for the “unrighteous” and now has triumphed through his resurrection and reigns at the right hand of God in heaven.
The Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent is always the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness at the beginning of his public life.  In Mark’s very short version, Jesus is led by the Spirit, which has just descended upon him at his baptism, to the desert, where he is put to the test by Satan during a forty day sojourn.  The scene is filled with symbolism drawn from the Old Testament.  Unlike his ancestors who failed the test of trusting in God’s providential care during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness as they came out of Egypt, Jesus trusts in God’s protective care.  The brief statement, “He was with the wild beasts, and angels waited on him,” is drawn from the imagery of Psalm 91, promising protection to the one who trusts God.
                       For to his angels he has given command about you,
that they guard you in all your ways.
Upon their hands they shall bear you up,
                        less you dash your foot against a stone.
You shall tread upon the asp and the viper;
you shall trample down the lion and the dragon. (Ps 91:11-13)
Having endured his forty day test, Jesus then launches his attack on Satan’s dominion by going to Galilee and proclaiming: “This is the time of fulfillment.  The reign of God is at hand!  Reform your lives and believe in the good  news!”

6th Sunday OTB

 

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Leviticus 13:1-2,44-46  1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1  

Mark 1:40-45

This Sunday’s Gospel recounts Jesus’ healing of an outcast leper and restoring him to the community of God’s people.  Let us join the leper who kneels before Jesus and prays: “If you will do so, you can cure me.”  With that humble spirit, we can pray this Sunday’s psalm: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation” 

(Ps 32).
The Leviticus reading sets the religious and social background for Jesus’ healing and restoration of the leper in the gospel.  It is part of a long section treating “leprosy” which rendered persons “unclean” and forced them to dwell apart, outside the Israelite community.  As is clear from the description, “leprosy” is a term for various skin blemishes and fungi (scabs, pustules or blotches), and not Hansen’s disease.  In Israel the priests, the descendants of Aaron, had the responsibility of diagnosing the leprosy, declaring persons unclean, and then pronouncing them clean when the leprosy was healed.  Until the leprosy was healed and the proper sacrificial rituals were performed, the leper must “keep his garments rent and his head bare, and . . . muffle his beard,” and, as long as the sore is on him, he almost must “cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’”.  This, then, is the ostracized condition of the leper in our Gospel reading.
The second reading is the conclusion of Paul’s long exhortation in 1 Corinthians on the problem of whether Christians were free to eat meat that had been “offered to idols” and to attend pagan banquets (see 1 Cor 8:1-11:1).  Paul’s treatment of these issues is a good illustration of how his ethical teaching is based on the Christian command to love rather than on “knowledge” and “rights” as in a philosophical ethics.  For Paul, love “builds up” the community by being concerned with the physical and spiritual welfare of others.  But “knowledge” only “puffs up” the individual and has no regard for the needs of others.  While sarcastically agreeing with the knowledgeable that the idols have no real existence, Paul asks that they, out of consideration for the weaker brethren who are recent converts, not eat the food that has been offered to idols in their presence (10:23-28).  In the matter of the pagan banquets, Paul forbids participation because the Christian Eucharistic meal is a participation in the body and blood of Christ which precludes participation in pagan sacrifices (10:14-22).  In the midst of this section, Paul offers his own behavior as an example to the Corinthians (9:1-27).  As an apostle he has certain rights, for example, the right to support from his communities and to take a wife in marriage.  But he has freely given them up in order to be of service to those to whom he preaches the gospel.  In the same manner he asks the Corinthians to be willing to give up their liberties and privileges in matters of food for “the glory of God” and their brethren’s spiritual needs.
            Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do,
do everything for the glory of God.
Avoid giving offense, whether to the Jews or Greeks
or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone                                              
in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many,
that they may be saved.  Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
In his story of Jesus’ healing a leper, Mark continues his twin themes of Jesus opening the kingdom of God to the diseased and outcast in Israel and his desire for secrecy about the miracles. At the same time Mark is preparing for the hostility of the scribes and Pharisees in the next section (see 2:1-3:5) because Jesus’ actions imply God-like power and override the authority of the priests and Temple.  In Mark the simple faith of outsiders brings them into God’s kingdom, while the Temple-bound legalism of the scribes and Pharisees keeps them out.  In contrast to the scribes who claim that Jesus has blasphemously usurped God’s power to forgive sins (2:6-12), the leper humbly recognizes the divine power operative in Jesus and begs for healing and restoration to a state of cleanness.  “A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’”  Moved with pity, Jesus, with God-like power, simply stretches out his hand, touches the leper, and says, “I do will it. Be made clean.”  As often happens in Mark, the cure is “immediately” accomplished.  In the concluding dialogue Jesus continues to command secrecy about his miracle working (see Mk 1:25,34), but tells the cleansed leper to show himself to priest and offer the sacrifices prescribed in Leviticus for restoration to the community (see Leviticus 14).  But, in typical Marcan fashion, the man goes away and begins to publicize the whole matter.  Despite Jesus’ attempt to avoid the crush of the crowds by remaining outside the towns in deserted places, the people keep coming to him from everywhere.  Mark gives us the impression that, although Jesus wants to wait for the full revelation of the kingdom (see Mk 8:27ff), his healing ministry has thrown open the gates to the kingdom, and long rejected outcasts have coming streaming in, as the prophets had prophesied (cf. Isaiah 35)

5th Sunday Ordinary Time B

 

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Readings: Job 7:1-4,6-7  1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23  Mark 1:29-39
This Sunday’s readings plunge us into the agony and mystery of suffering which in a Christian context can never be rationally resolved, but only sublimated in the paradox of a gospel centered on the cross.  Although never directly mentioned, the healing mystery of the cross looms behind this Sunday’s readings.  The Christian gospel does not eliminate human suffering, so poignantly expressed in Job’s lament and the afflictions of the possessed in Mark’s Gospel.  Rather, it announces the victory over the demonic powers of evil that is won by a crucified Jesus who is more than simply a miracle worker and who calls his followers, like Paul, to become slaves to all.
Job’s tortured lament is a reply to the facile theology of “his friend,” Eliphaz, who has insisted, following traditional wisdom, that Job’s terrible sufferings (see Job 1-2) are somehow deserved because of his sin.
“Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
As I have seen, those who plow iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.”  (4:7-8)
In face of such “ashy maxims,” the innocent Job is force to struggle for an explanation of his suffering, while maintaining his moral integrity.  In the section of his speech chosen for our reading, he describes the human condition as that of “a slave who longs for the shade” or “a hireling who waits (vainly) for his wages.”  His own sickness does not even allow him the rest of an untroubled night’s sleep.  As his days swiftly pass away without hope, he can only cry out to God: “Remember that my life is like the winds;/ I shall not see happiness again.”  For the author, such a tortured cry to God is more faith-filled than the pious platitudes of Job’s friends (see Job 42:7-9).
In the second reading, Paul offers his own behavior in imitation of the selfless Christ as an example to the Corinthian Christians who were tempted to boast of their knowledge and ignore the spiritual and temporal needs of weaker members of the community (see 1 Corinthians 8-11).  Our reading comes in the center of this section, and in it Paul insists that as an apostle he is under an obligation to preach the gospel and that his recompense is simply to be able to offer it free of charge, rather than making use of the authority the gospel gives him.  As an apostle, Paul has certain rights to things like financial support from the Corinthian community and to marriage, but he has freely given them up in order to be of service to those to whom he preaches the gospel. Just as Paul has made himself a slave to all for the sake of sharing in the blessings of the gospel of the crucified Christ, so he asks the Corinthians to be willing to give up their liberties and privileges for the sake of one another’s spiritual and temporal needs.
In many ways the Gospel captures Mark’s unique Christology.  On the one hand, he presents a powerful Jesus who inaugurates God’s kingdom by announcing “the good news” of its arrival and by attacking, in apocalyptic fashion, the dominion of Satan through numerous miracles.  At the beginning of our reading Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever, and, as evening draws on, he cures people of various afflictions and expels demons.  By the end of the selection, Jesus has embarked on a tour of the synagogues of Galilee, preaching the good news and expelling demons.  But on the other hand, the Markan Jesus is not simply a miracle worker.  He will not permit the demons to speak, because they know him.  Jesus’ full identity cannot be proclaimed simply on the basis of his powerful miracles in plundering the dominion of Satan.  This explains Jesus’ withdrawal from the adulation of the crowd to retire for prayer in a lonely place in the desert.  In the second half of the Gospel, he will repeatedly insist that his destiny is to go to Jerusalem to be rejected by the leaders, killed, and then rise after the third day (see 8:31-33; 9:30-31; 10:32-34).  Simon and the other disciples will consistently fail to accept the role of Jesus’ death in his messianic mission (see 8:32-33; 9:33-37; 10:35-45).  Their preference for a gospel of power and glory is already foreshadowed in today’s reading.  When Jesus withdraws to be absorbed in prayer, they track him down and with exasperation exclaim: “Everyone is looking for you!”  Aware that his purpose is not to bask in adulation of those already healed, Jesus commands that they move on to preach in the neighboring villages.  “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also.  For this purpose have I come.”
This Sunday’s liturgy is a challenge to face the hard reality of the world’s suffering without resorting to the moral platitudes of Job’s friends nor the wonders of a miracle working Christ who simply sweeps away the evils of the world.  The Christian gospel is the good news of God’s

victory  over the powers of evil, but only through a self-sacrificing Messiah who “did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45).