13th Sunday B

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24  2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15  Mark 5:21-43

“Fear is useless.  What is needed is trust.”  These words of Jesus to Jairus capture the message of this Sunday’s readings.  In the midst of a world seemingly dominated by sin, disease, and death, we hear that God and Jesus offer forgiveness, healing and life that will eventually conquer these evils.  We are challenged by the faith of the woman with the hemorrhage and the grieving Jairus to set aside fear and experience Jesus’ healing and life-giving power so that we can pray in the words of the responsorial psalm: “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me” (Ps 30:2).

The Old Testament reading from the Book of Wisdom is part of an exhortation to Jews living in Egypt during the Hellenistic period who were tempted to abandon their faith in God’s creation and justice for a materialistic philosophy that advocated a decadent life of pleasure and immorality (see Wisdom 1:16-2:21).  Using a reflection on the creation stories in Genesis 1-3, the author of Wisdom insists that God fashioned humans in the divine image to have life, being and health.  The way to share in this lasting life is through the pursuit of justice which “is undying” and will triumph over physical death (see Wisdom 3:1-9).  In contrast, a choice for a life of selfish pleasure-seeking and persecution of the just will lead to spiritual death, even in this life.  In the words of the author, “But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,/ and they who are in his possession experience it.”

The 2 Corinthians reading is part of Paul’s appeal for the Corinthians to contribute to the collection he has promised for the struggling church in Jerusalem.  He gives both a theological basis for charity and a practical scriptural argument for being generous. The foundation for the Corinthians’ charity is Christ’s self-emptying incarnation and saving death in their behalf.  “You are well acquainted with the favor shown you by our Lord Jesus Christ: how for your sake he made himself poor though he was rich, so that you might become rich by his poverty.”  Because the Corinthians have been well-endowed with spiritual and material blessings, the “relief” of others should not impoverish them.  “Your plenty at the present time should supply their need so that their surplus may in turn one day supply your need, with equality as the result.”  The scriptural basis for this confidence that generosity will be result in equity is found in the story of God’s gift of manna in the Exodus 16: “It is written, ‘He who gathered much had no excess and he who gathered little had no lack.’”

The Gospel selection presents the anguish of death and disease from the perspectives of an anxious father whose 12-year-old daughter is critically ill and a desperate woman who has suffered from a hemorrhage for 12 years.  In both cases Mark emphasizes the apparent hopelessness of the situation.  The woman has received treatment from doctors of every sort and exhausted her savings, but has only grown worse.  Likewise, when Jairus arrives at his home, the people tell him, “Your daughter is dead.  Why bother the Teacher further?”

Despite these bleak prospects, both put unwavering trust in Jesus’ power to bring healing and life.  Jairus initially asks Jesus for help in the most straightforward way, “My little daughter is critically ill.  Please come and lay your hands on her so that she may get well and live.”  And when the crowd at the house begins to ridicule Jesus, Jairus and his wife believe in Jesus’ assurance that the child is not dead, but only asleep.  Likewise, the woman with the hemorrhage says to herself with great faith, “If I just touch his clothing, I will get well.”

At the center of both episodes is, of course, Jesus as the source of saving power which points to the ultimate gift of his saving death and resurrection.  In the Greek text the verbs used for “be healed” (sothē) and “live” (zesē) are technical terms in the early Church for salvation and resurrected life.  Even in his Galilean ministry, Jesus is already exercising the saving power of the resurrected Lord.  His words to the woman are really an invitation to live the newness of a faith-filled life.  “Daughter, it is your faith that has saved you.  Go in peace and be free of this illness.”  The Aramiac words which Jesus addresses to Jairus’ daughter, “Talitha cumi” are also an invitation to live the renewed life of the resurrection.  When they are translated by Mark into Greek, they become, “Little girl, arise.”

The Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist (June 24)

The Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist (June 24) 

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-6  Acts of the Apostles 13:22-26 

 Luke 1:57-66, 80

This solemnity, celebrating the birth of the great prophetic precursor to Jesus, highlights God’s wondrous plan of salvation: the promises made to our Jewish ancestors in the Old Testament and John’s preaching of a baptism of repentance in preparation for the coming of Jesus, the long-awaited savior from the line of David, who fulfills the promises to Abraham.  The great agents of God’s plan-- the servant/Israel in the Book of Isaiah, John, and Jesus himself-- are called from birth, from their mother’s wombs, to fulfill God’s purposes.  With the servant, John, and Jesus, let us praise the Lord for his saving guidance in the words of our responsorial psalm: “I praise you for I am wonderfully made” (Ps 139).

In the first reading, the prophet, living in exile in Babylon, takes on the persona of the servant/Israel and gives a first person report of Israel’s coming to a new understanding of its vocation as a people.  Calling the “coastlands” to “hear,” the prophet reviews the birth and call of the nation. “The Lord called me from birth/ from my mother’s womb he gave me my name/. . . You are my servant, he said to me,/ Israel, through whom I show my glory.” Although the servant thought that he had toiled in vain (the experience of the exile), now he is suddenly aware that he has been recompensed by God (the unexpected, glorious return to the land).  In this great moment in the Lord’s saving plan, servant Israel is given a double vocation: to restore Israel through repentance and to be a light to the nations of the earth by witnessing to the Lord’s powerful action in bringing the nation home from exile. “For now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb,/ that Jacob may be brought back to him/ and Israel gathered to him/ . . . It is too little, he says for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob,/ . . . I will make you a light to the nations,/ that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The reading from Acts is Luke’s account of Paul’s first sermon in the synagogues at Antioch in Pisidia.  He proclaims God’s offer of salvation through Jesus to the descendants of Abraham and God-fearers (Gentiles who believe in God).  Paul affirms the fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus, the savior from the line of David.  John’s role in this plan was twofold: to herald Jesus’ coming “by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel,” and, after he had completed his course, to proclaim the greatness of Jesus, the savior:  “. . . as John was completing his course, he would say, ‘What do you suppose that I am?  I am not he.  Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten  the sandals of his feet.’”

In Luke’s wonder-filled account of John’s nativity he gives us both the joyous story of the birth of a child to a pious, barren old couple, but more importantly the first fulfillment of one of his prophecies (cf. Lk 1:5-23) about the arrival of the long-awaited Messianic age.  Interestingly, Luke also introduces the theme of human resistance to God’s plan which will run throughout his Gospel and Acts. When the time arrives for Elizabeth to have her son, the neighbors and relatives “rejoice with her” because “the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her”, but at the circumcision when it is time to name the child, they want to name him Zechariah after his father and resist when Elizabeth insists his name shall be John, “the Lord is gracious,” the name that Gabriel said was to be given to him (Lk 1:13). When they turn to Zechariah, he asks for a tablet and writes, “John is his name.”  The account concludes with portentous anticipation.  The relatives are amazed as Zechariah’s dumb tongue is loosed and he blesses God (read his Benedictus in 1:68-79) which causes fear to come upon all their neighbors.  Throughout the hill country of Judea, all who hear of these things are saying, “What, then, will this child be?  For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”  Luke’s concluding verse gives us the sense that we are entering the story of “the things that have been accomplished among us” (1:1).  “The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.”

11th Sunday B

11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Ezekiel 17:22-24    2 Corinthians 5:6-10     Mark 4:26-34

            This Sunday’s readings use striking plant and animal images to express our Christian hope in the ultimate triumph of the Lord’s kingdom despite the smallness and apparent impossibility of present circumstances.  Let us in faith and gratitude embrace the Lord’s fidelity to his promises in the lyrics of our responsorial psalm: “They that are planted in the house of the Lord/ shall flourish in the court of our God” (Ps 92:14)

            In the Old Testament reading the prophet Ezekiel, who is living in exile in Babylon, encourages his troubled fellow exiles with a vision of the Lord God’s promise to establish his Messianic kingdom using the image of planting “a tender shoot” of the cedar “on a high and lofty mountain;/ on the mountain heights of Israel” where “it shall put forth branches and bear fruit/ and become a majestic cedar.”  In the first part of chapter 17 Ezekiel fashions an elaborate allegory of eagles and cedars to describe the Lord’s decision to exile his people because of the infidelity of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, to his solemn covenant with Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon (17:1-21).  But now the prophet assures the exiles of their return home and the Lord’s intention to establish a universal kingdom of peace where “Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it (the majestic cedar).”  As a consequence of the Lord’s saving actions, the prophet proclaims that all nations will come to know that the Lord’s word providentially guides all of history by punishing the proud and raising up the lowly.  “And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord,/ Bring low the high tree,/ lift high the lowly tree,/ Wither up the green tree,/ and make the withered tree bloom.”

            In the Epistle reading Paul continues the theme of hope as he meditates on the tension in his apostolic ministry between continuing to “dwell in the  body” while “away from the Lord” and being “away from the body and at home with the Lord.”  Although Paul would prefer to go to his home with the Lord, he knows that the demands of his apostolic mission mean that he must continue to “walk by faith, not by sight” but in the full “confidence” that the integrity of his work in the body, and indeed “the lives of all”, will “be revealed before the tribunal of Christ.”  

            The Gospel contains the two parables—the seed growing secretly and the mustard seed which conclude Mark’s account of Jesus’ parables (4:1-34).  Both are parables about “the reign of God” and contain sharp contrasts between small or insignificant beginnings and great, abundant endings.  They must be related to the future outcome of the reign of God that is beginning in the events of Jesus’ ministry in Mark.  Despite Jesus’ authoritative teaching and powerful miracles and exorcisms proclaiming the arrival of the reign of God, he has also met hostile opposition from the scribes and Pharisees which will culminate in his death on the cross (cf. 3:6).  The Kingdom has made only small beginnings at this point, as Jesus has gathered a band of twelve disciples to share in his mission preaching the arrival of the kingdom and driving out demons (3:13-19). 

            Both parables feature the mysterious inevitability of the triumph of God’s kingdom.  In the parable of the seed growing secretly a man simply scatters seed on the ground and then goes about his daily activities of rest and rising.  Through it all “the seed sprouts and grows without his knowing how it happens.”  The soil, not the man, “produces of itself first the blade, then the ear, finally the ripe wheat in the ear.”  Only when the crop is ready does he wield the sickle for the harvest.  Likewise, the mustard seed “is the smallest of all the earth’s seeds,” but when it is sown it becomes “the largest of shrubs” and, like the image of the mighty cedar in Ezekiel, its branches are large enough “for the birds of the sky to build nests in its shade.” 

Jesus’ parables may even be a lampoon of the extravagant political expectations associated with the arrival of the Messiah.  Instead of “a majestic cedar” who rules over the kingdoms of the earth, Jesus is a Messiah who begins the kingdom by healing the sick, calling the outcast, gathering a small band of peasant disciples, and causing opposition from the official leaders.  He is a Messiah who is destined to be rejected and die on the cross.  But, despite these scattered and small beginnings, paradoxically the kingdom of God is underway and will inevitably triumph just as the harvest follows the scattering of seed and a large mustard shrub comes from “the smallest of all the earth’s seeds.”  Mark notes at the end of our reading that Jesus spoke to the crowd “only by way of parable, while he kept explaining things privately to his disciples.”  The disciples’ task to understand the nature of the Kingdom of God and Jesus’ Messianic mission.  As Mark’s gospel continues we will see that they often fail to understand and even abandon Jesus at the hour of his arrest.  But even to these cowardly disciples the message of Jesus’ parables is that the time will come for the harvest and the small mustard seed will “become the largest of shrubs, with branches big enough for the birds of the sky to build nests in its shade.”

Into "green" time - 10th Sunday OTB

10^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Genesis 3:9-15  2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1  Mark 3:20-35

            This Sunday’s readings confront us with the harsh reality of the battle between good and evil, but they also assure us of the Lord God’s merciful victory over the power of Satan and sin.  Let us pray with faith the words of the refrain to our responsorial psalm: “With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption” (Ps 130).

            The Genesis reading recounts the Lord God’s searching out Adam and Eve after they have eaten of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.  Rather than abandoning them in their sin, shame and hiding, the Lord God asks Adam, “Where are you?”  This is not simply a question concerning his physical location but one about his existential condition now that he has sinned.  It is addressed to all of us in our choice of selfishness and sin.  Adam’s answer reflects the telltale signs of the alienation brought on by sin: “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.”  Adam and Eve’s attempt to become “like the gods knowing good and evil” (3:5) has only brought them fear and shame and caused them to hid from the Lord God.  In an attempt to get Adam to accept responsibility for his sin, the Lord asks, “Who told you that you were naked?  You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I have forbidden you to eat!”  Rather than taking full responsibility for his deed, Adam feebly blames Eve and even the Lord God for his sin: “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”  Likewise, when the woman is asked by the Lord God, “Why did you do such a thing?” she blames the serpent: “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”

            Our reading concludes with the first of three punishments the Lord pronounces on the serpent, the woman and the man (3:14-19).  The serpent as “the most cunning of all the animals the Lord God had made” (3:1) had earlier tempted the woman into sin by suggesting that God had forbidden the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil out of divine jealousy: “You certainly will not die!  No, God knows that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.”  Now the Lord God punishes the serpent to “be banned from all the animals” and crawl on his belly and eat dirt “all the days of (his) life.”  The conclusion of the serpent’s sentence speaks of the ongoing enmity between his offspring and that of the woman.  Christian tradition has called this the Proto-evangelium, the first good news of the victory of Christ over Satan who will undo the sin of Adam by his obedience to the Father’s will. “I will put enmity between you and the woman,/ and between your offspring and hers;/ he will strike at your head,/ while you strike at his heel.”   

            In the Epistle reading from 2 Corinthians Paul is defending the integrity of his apparently suffering apostolic ministry against those who claim a gospel of glory only.  Paul insists that his gospel is rooted in “that spirit of faith” which believes that God will overcome present weakness and suffering through the power of Jesus’ resurrection which is at work in the spread of the gospel.  “We believe and so we speak, knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up along with Jesus and place both us and you in his presence.”  Because of his resurrection faith Paul makes a contrast between the inner working of faith which leads to eternal glory and the visible appearance of present suffering and trial.  “We do not lose heart because your inner being is renewed each day, even though our body is being destroyed at the same time.  The present burden of our trial is light enough and earns for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. . . . We know that when the earthly tent in which we dwell is destroyed we have a dwelling provided for us by God, a dwelling in the heavens, not made by hands, but to last forever.”    

            The Gospel presents Jesus in mortal combat against Satan and the power of evil in the face of the disbelief on the part of his family and open hostility from the Jerusalem scribes.  In the early chapters of Mark Jesus has made the kingdom of God present and thereby plundered the kingdom of Satan through numerous exorcisms and healings.  But his forgiveness of sins, failure to fast and violation of the Sabbath in order to heal have also brought opposition from scribes, Pharisees, and Herodians who are now taking counsel to put him to death (1:21-3:12).  Jesus has just summoned his twelve disciples and appointed them to share his mission of preaching and driving out demons (3:13-19), but now as he returns home, his own family thinks “He is out of his mind” (3:20-21) and the scribes from Jerusalem accuse him of being possessed by Beelzebul and working his miracles by the power of the prince of demons (3:22).  Jesus defends himself in parables by asking “How can Satan expel Satan?”  If indeed Jesus is working miracles by the power of Satan, then Satan has a rebel in his ranks and his kingdom and household are divided and will not long endure.  Jesus then asserts that he has “bound” the strong man (Satan) and like a thief is plundering his house.  He concludes by solemnly stating that his learned opponents have committed the one unforgiveable sin.  The Holy Spirit of God has been active in Jesus exorcisms and healings, and they have blasphemed against it by saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

The conclusion of today’s Gospel asserts that the proper relation to Jesus is not based on intellectual credentials (the scribes) or family ties but on following Jesus and doing the will of God.  In a favorite literary technique Mark now returns to the arrival of his family (3:31-35; cf. 3:20-21).  When the crowd informs him that his mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for him, Jesus says to them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” and as he looks to those in the circle around him, he proclaims, “Here are my mother and my brothers.  Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.”   May we too be included in Jesus’ true family by doing the will of the Father in the battle against evil.