26th Sunday B

 

26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

 

Readings: Numbers 11:25-29   James 5:1-6    Mark 9:38-48

 

“Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!”  (Num 11:29)

Moses’ words to Joshua in the reading from the Book of Numbers challenge us to avoid jealousy and to rejoice in the spread of God’s spirit, even when it comes from outside our religious community.  We are reminded that the power of God’s spirit transcends our often petty understanding of what constitutes legitimate ministry.

In the first reading from Numbers the Lord is responding to Moses’ request that he be given help in bearing the burden of leading the rebellious Israelites on their journey through the wilderness (see Num 11:4-15).  After instructing Moses to assemble seventy true and authoritative elders at the meeting tent, the Lord promises to come down upon them and bestow a share in Moses’ spirit (Num 11:16-17).  But when God’s spirit actually descends upon Israel, it expresses itself in a superabundant way; Eldad and Medad, who were left in camp because they were not able to go out to the tent of meeting, are also given the gift of prophecy along with the seventy designated elders. 

Joshua and Moses have very different reactions to this extraordinary gift.  For Joshua, a long time aide of Moses, God’s spirit constitutes a threat because it does not conform to his expectations.  When Eldad and Medad prophesy, he complains in exasperation: “Moses, my lord, stop them.”  But Moses does not cling to his privileged position and even wishes that God’s prophetic spirit be extended to all God’s people: “Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!”

In the Epistle James warns the rich against the presumption that their present comfortable status will give them lasting security.  In fact, the corrosion of their illusory wealth and fine wardrobes will be testimony against them on the Day of Judgment.  The cries of farmhands from whom they have withheld wages “have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.”  The rich, who have “lived on earth in luxury and pleasure,” have only succeeded in fatting themselves “for the day of slaughter.”

In Mark’s Gospel selection, John and the other disciples, like Joshua in Numbers, attempt to limit the action of God’s spirit because it does not conform to their expectations.  John reports to Jesus that he and the others tried to stop a man who was expelling demons ‘in your name.’  Jesus, like Moses in Numbers, is open to the many ways in which God’s power may operate. “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.” 

            Jesus goes on to promise his disciples that “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ . . . will surely not lose his reward.”  But then he warns that one who causes “one of these little ones who believe in me to sin” would be better off if “a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”  Jesus concludes by using a series of hyperboles to exhort his disciples to remove the cause of sin, be it hand, foot, or eye, rather than having the whole body thrown into the fires of Gehenna.