First Reading – Deuteronomy 18:15-20 ©
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm
94(95):1-2, 6-9 ©
Second Reading - 1 Corinthians
7:32-35 ©
Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 11:25
Alternative
Acclamation – Matthew 4:16
The Gospel According to Mark 1:21 – 28
©
(NJB)
There are
no prophets, there is no prophecy, there are only human beings. Human beings
have the innate ability to perceive and recognize what is true. But we are all,
each of us compromised; every expression of the truth coming from a human being
is conditioned by that compromise, and therefore it is necessarily flawed, and yet
despite these flaws we sometimes do good work, but because of these flaws all
human works are suspect.
Listen to
the psalmist!
It is God
who makes us well, who creates in us the possibility of wellbeing. God is our
wellbeing, but God is not a king, and there are no other gods.
All of
creation belongs to God, all that is good and all that frightens us; everything,
no matter how distressing or troubling, everything comes from God and will
redound to the good.
It is good
to show our respect for the creator and to sing songs in praise of God,
remember! Always remember that God is our loving parent, and has prepared each
of us for the divine blessing.
Be mindful!
Even the
apostle is liable to asserting his personal beliefs and foibles into the
rubrics of the Church. Not everything he says should be accepted on its face as
wise and good.
Paul
believed that people should withdraw from public life, stop procreation and
wait on God to deliver humanity from the miseries of the world. If he could
have, he would have had all of us living chaste and celibate lives behind the
walls of the cloister, men living with men and women living with women.
The apostle
errs, but the church is not obligated to follow him in this error, the more humble
thing would be to acknowledge the truth and move on.
This is the
truth:
It is the
desire of God, the creator of the universe, it is the desire of God that we
follow the way that Jesus taught, to be merciful, love justice and walk humbly
all the days of our life, to prosper and multiply.
Know this!
The
teachings of Jesus cannot be treated like a shell game, though they are, and
have been since the beginning, as Matthew’s illustrates.
The way of
Jesus is not a long con, it is not a bait and switch, it is a simple teaching
that cannot be controlled or owned by any one group of people.
God, the
creator of the universe, God has hidden nothing from us. The truth is in the
open for anyone to see. The wise and the powerful, the learned and the clever,
the weak and the meek, everyone has access to the same truth, to the knowledge
of God, of justice, of hope and love.
Who are the
wise and powerful, who are the learned and the clever, who are the faithful and
childlike? In every generation, you will see a new group labeling the elder
group as out of touch, blind, privileged, in the dark, corrupt. It is an
endless cycle, and the truth remains the same; love justice, be merciful, do
good, serve God through the loving service you provide to one another: your
family, your friend, your neighbor, the stranger, even your enemy.
Just
because a person may be wise and powerful, learned and clever, or a child of
the Church, does not mean they recognize the truth when they see it, or act
upon it when they do.
It is not
your station in society, it is not how other people regard you, it is not the
titles you have earned or the ways that you have been marginalized that give us
the tell on how you will fulfill the calling to follow Jesus. What matters is
what is in your heart and your willingness to trust in the content of your
hope.
When you
speak from the scriptures be careful.
When you observe the authors attempting to fit their
narrative of the life of Jesus into a picture that makes it look as if he is
fulfilling a prediction about the future, be wary; this is always a falsehood.
Even if a prediction had been made, and even if
Jesus did the thing that was predicted, it is a false narrative to suggest that
Jesus’ actions were in fulfillment of prophecy.
Prophets only speak of the future for two reasons;
to engender hope and to warn of danger.
The words of a prophet are always addressed to the
people in their own time, in their own place. Prophecy is never meant to guide
the lives of future generations, except in the cases when the prophet is addressing
an issue of universal truth, such as the nature of justice, which is itself
unchanging.
Know this!
The Gospel writers were propagandists; they
fabricated many of the details of Jesus’ life. They fabricated those details to
suit their narrative about who Jesus was, why he was necessary, and what his
life and death meant for the early church.
In this narrative the Gospel writers place Jesus
directly in the tradition of John the Baptist, with the words “Repent, for the
Kingdom of God is at hand.”
This is a continuation of that narrative, meant to
harness the energy of John’s movement, after his arrest and murder.
Consider the Gospel for today, it
is packed with nuance.
Begin
by unpacking:
This
is the first record of Jesus in his ministry as a public teacher.
He
is still in Palestine but he has travelled to the northern shore of the Sea of
Galilee. He is beyond the borders of Judea, half-way between Jerusalem and
Damascus.
He
gives his teaching in a synagogue, indicating his status as a Rabbi. The
synagogues belong to the diaspora, Jewish communities outside of the Holy Land.
Synagogues are the seat of the Pharisaic sect of Judaism, and Rabbis are
teachers in that movement. Pharisees are a distinct group of teachers; they promulgate
the law. They are different from the Scribes, and the priests of the temple. All
of these distinctions are communicated in the opening paragraph:
Jesus
the Pharisee, Jesus the Rabbi is teaching with authority, unlike the Scribes in
Jerusalem.
One
man calls him out. Not because he is possessed by demons, but because he afraid
of what Jesus’ teaching represents.
He
asks a good question, “What do you have to do with us?” This indicates that
Jesus is an outsider.
He
asks, “Are you here to destroy us?” This indicates that he perceives Jesus’
teaching to be a threat to the established order, and therefore quite possibly
to his entire community.
He
addresses the claim that Jesus’ followers are promoting, that he is the “Holy
One of God.” He asserts this in an unfriendly manner, quite possibly as a
charge against Jesus: a charge of hubris at the least, though it is potentially
a charge of blasphemy.
By
raising this charge he intends to undermine Jesus’ authority in the synagogue. Jesus
commands the man to silence, and Jesus prevails. This scene is depicted
dramatically in the gospel, as if Jesus were commanding an unclean spirit to
come out of the man, a spirit of disobedience and falsehood. It is presented as
Jesus casting out a demon or demons, and healing a man who was possessed. Though
it should be presented as Jesus commanding his authority to convert a dissident
into a believer.
The
narrative does not depict a supernatural challenge to Jesus’ authority, but an
ordinary challenge from a member of the community. It was not easy for Jesus to
convince the man, it was a convulsive struggle, but Jesus prevailed; he
prevailed because the community had been ready to receive Jesus’ teaching at
the outset, and his victory in the disputation with the man who argued with him,
how he managed the situation as a healer bolstered his authority all the more.
Be like Jesus in
your ministry, be a healer; it is the best way to serve the interests of the
divine.
First Reading – Deuteronomy 18:15-20 ©
I Will
Raise Up a Prophet and Put My Words into His Mouth
Moses said to the
people: ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like myself, from
among yourselves, from your own brothers; to him you must listen. This is what
you yourselves asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the Assembly.
“Do not let me hear again” you said “the voice of the Lord my God, nor look any
longer on this great fire, or I shall die”; and the Lord said to me, “All they
have spoken is well said. I will raise up a prophet like yourself for them from
their own brothers; I will put my words into his mouth and he shall tell them
all I command him. The man who does not listen to my words that he speaks in my
name, shall be held answerable to me for it. But the prophet who presumes to
say in my name a thing I have not commanded him to say, or who speaks in the
name of other gods, that prophet shall die.”’
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 94(95):1-2, 6-9 ©
O that today you
would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Come, ring out our
joy to the Lord;
hail the rock who saves us.
Let us come before
him, giving thanks,
with songs let us hail the Lord.
O that today you would
listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Come in; let us bow
and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us:
for he is our God
and we
the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.
O that today you
would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
O that today you
would listen to his voice!
‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the desert
when your fathers
put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work.’
O that today you
would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Second
Reading - 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 ©
Give Your
Undivided Attention to the Lord
I would like to see
you free from all worry. An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s
affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord; but a married man has to
bother about the world’s affairs and devote himself to pleasing his wife: he is
torn two ways. In the same way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can
devote herself to the Lord’s affairs; all she need worry about is being holy in
body and spirit. The married woman, on the other hand, has to worry about the
world’s affairs and devote herself to pleasing her husband. I say this only to
help you, not to put a halter round your necks, but simply to make sure that
everything is as it should be, and that you give your undivided attention to
the Lord.
Gospel
Acclamation – Matthew 11:25
Alleluia, alleluia!
Blessed are you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to
mere children.
Alleluia!
Alternative
Acclamation – Matthew 4:16
Alleluia, alleluia!
The people that
lived in darkness has seen a great light; on those who dwell in the land and
shadow of death a light has dawned.
Alleluia!
The Gospel According to Mark 1:21 – 28 ©
Unlike
the Scribes, He Taught Them with Authority
Jesus
and his disciples went as far as Capernaum, and as soon as the sabbath came he
went to the synagogue and began to teach. And his teaching made a deep
impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority.
In
their synagogue just then there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit and it
shouted, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy
us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus said sharply, ‘Be
quiet! Come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions
and with a loud cry went out of him. The people were so astonished that they
started asking each other what it all meant. ‘Here is a teaching that is new’
they said ‘and with authority behind it: he gives orders even to unclean
spirits and they obey him.’ And his reputation rapidly spread everywhere,
through all the surrounding Galilean countryside.
The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time
(Year B)
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