13th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Talitha Cumi

                 13th 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.”

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Jonathan Edward Shaw 

 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Job 38:1,8-11,  2 Corinthians 5:14-17             Mark 4:35-41

            This Sunday’s readings plunge us into the storm of suffering and fear which is a part of our lives as Christians, but we are also assured of God’s saving power through Christ in the midst of our distress.  The verses of the responsorial psalm capture the hope of this Sunday’s liturgy: “They cried to the Lord in their distress;/ from their straits he rescued them./  He hushed the storm to a gentle breeze,/ and the billows of the sea were stilled” (Ps 107:28-29).  Let us joyfully thank God for our deliverance from the power of sin and evil through Christ’s death and resurrection in the words of the refrain to our responsorial psalm: “Give thanks to the Lord, his love is everlasting.”

            The Old Testament reading is from the Lord’s awe inspiring speeches to Job out of the storm at the conclusion of that book.  Although Job is perfectly righteous, we learn in the prologue (chapters 1-2) that he has been singled out by Satan for testing to see if his righteousness is based solely on the blessings that God has bestowed on him.  Job loses all his possessions and children and is afflicted with sores “from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”  Throughout the long dialogue with his three so-called “friends”, Job struggles mightily to fathom the reason for his sufferings.  He rejects their “ashy maxims” which insist that he must have sinned and is being punished.  He bravely demands justice from God and concludes by asking God for an indictment, stating his sins (see chapter 31).  Finally, the Lord speaks to Job and not to his friends who have refused to consider that he may be innocent.  In his speeches the Lord does not answer Job’s questions about the reason for his sufferings.  Rather he questions Job about the limits of human wisdom and thereby reveals His mighty power in bringing order to all creation, including the chaotic waters of the sea.  Job’s suffering and endurance bring him face to face with the Lord in his awesome rule over creation.  In the section included in our reading Job is asked, “Who shut within doors the sea/ when it burst forth from the womb . . .?”  In ancient Near Eastern mythology, the sea is a god who is associated with chaos and is the dwelling place of frightening animals like Leviathan (see Job 40:25-41:26).  But now the Lord reminds Job that He is the one who “set limits for it/ and fastened the bar of its door,/ and said: thus far shall you come but no farther,/ and here shall your proud waves be stilled.”  Job’s encounter with the Lord’s awe inspiring rule over creation restores his relation to him, even without receiving an explanation for his suffering.  Job’s final words are an expression of submission and trust: “I know that You can do everything,/ that nothing you propose is impossible for You. . . . Indeed, I spoke without understanding/ of things beyond me, which I did not know. . . .  I had heard of You with my ears,/ but now I see You with my eyes;/ therefore I recant and relent/, being but dust and ashes” (42:1-6).

The Epistle reading is taken from a section of Second Corinthians in which Paul is defending his gospel and apostolic ministry to this troubled community.  So-called “super-apostles” have come to Corinth boasting of their ability to work miracles and preaching a gospel of glory (see 2 Cor 10-13).  They have attempted to undermine Paul’s reputation and authority.  Paul, in contrast, preaches a gospel featuring Christ’s saving death and resurrection in behalf of all which impels the true apostle to a selfless love entailing suffering in behalf of the gospel. “The love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died.  He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”  The victory of Christ’s resurrection as a second Adam has defeated the power of “the flesh” and begun the new creation. Paul’s own encounter with the risen Christ has completely changed his outlook.  He is now an ambassador for Christ and the new creation.  He boldly proclaims: “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”

             The Gospel account of Jesus’ calming of the storm is the conclusion of Mark’s long parable chapter. It focuses our attention on the terror of the disciples in the midst of the storm and Jesus’ God-like power in rebuking the wind and calming the sea. The disciples have left their homes and livelihoods to follow Jesus, have witnessed his exorcisms and healing miracles and have even been given a share in his healing ministry (chapters 1-3).  Jesus has said to them earlier in chapter 4, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you” (4:13).  They have heard his parables of the sower, the lamp, the seed growing secretly, and the mustard seed which spoke of the ultimate triumph of the kingdom of God, despite opposition and small beginnings (4:1-34).  But now as evening comes, Jesus says to them, “Let us cross to the other side (of the Sea of Galilee).”  They are now going to the Gentile territory of the Gerasenes on the other side of the Sea where Jesus will exorcise a legion of demons from a possessed man by allowing them to go into a herd of swine who rush into the sea (5:1-20).  As they take Jesus in the boat along with other boats, he is asleep in the stern and a violent storm comes up and the waves begin to fill up the boat.  Suddenly the disciples are panic stricken and franticly awake Jesus with the words “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  These words capture the fears of the Church in every generation as she tries to follow Jesus into new and difficult situations.  Jesus’ subsequent actions and words are both consoling and challenging.  He awakens and rebukes and wind and commands the sea, like the Lord in the Job reading: “Quiet!  Be still!” But when the wind has ceased and there is a great calm, he chastises the disciples for their lack of faith, “Why are your terrified?  Do you not yet have faith?”  At this point in Mark’s narrative, they do not yet fully realize who they have with them in their trials and difficulties.  Mark concludes the episode by noting, “They were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?’  May we believing Christians have the faith to answer this question.     

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

 11th 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.  “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 largest 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.”  It is 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.”

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

 

10th 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 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 hide 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

            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.