Saturday of Week 1 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Hebrews 4:12-16

We read today two much-quoted passages from Hebrews, and the reading is in two distinct parts. The first is about the power of Scripture, and the second speaks of Jesus as our High Priest.

First, we are told of the power of God’s word. It is a word that has been conveyed all throughout the long line of prophets and other spokespersons in the Old Testament, culminating in the Word that has come to us, in and through Jesus Christ, who in his whole being and life was the Word. It also comes to us in the earliest writings of the Church, which we call the New Testament. And it continues to come to us in many various ways.

This word is able to penetrate into the deepest recesses of our thoughts and feelings—”sharper than any two-edged sword”. It is “living and active”. It is not a dead word on a printed page. By it our most inmost thoughts and intentions are evaluated and judged as we make our quest for that eternal “rest” in God’s bosom.

What a pity so many Catholics (as opposed to Christians of other denominations) are almost total strangers to this Word and have never experienced its power. By and large in our liturgy and catechesis we have done very little to help our people become familiar with this indispensable tool for their life with God, with each other and with the world in which they live.

In the second part of the reading, Jesus is introduced as our “great high priest”. The author here alone calls Jesus by this title, which is a designation used by Philo for the Logos (the Word). It is the beginning of an extended discussion of the superior priesthood of Christ over and against the priesthood of the Old Testament.

Our High Priest has “passed through the heavens”. In the Old Testament, the high priest on the Day of Atonement would pass from the sight of the people into the Holy of Holies. He was the only person who had the right to enter this sacred space, and then only once a year. Now, in a similar, but much greater way, Jesus—his work of Atonement accomplished—has passed from the sight of his disciples, and ascended through the various levels of the heavens into the sanctuary of Heaven, the place where God himself dwells.

This is the first mention of “heaven” or “heavens” (in the Greek, it is plural) where, according to the Letter, Christ exercises his priestly functions in the presence of his Father. Sitting at the Father’s right hand, the closest place of honour, he belongs there no less than God himself. His single sacrifice, done once and for all, has a perfect and eternal value, never needing to be repeated. Here we find the fulfilment of our greatest hope in God.

The high priest of the Old Testament was a privileged and remote figure (as are many senior hierarchy of our own day). But in Jesus we have a High Priest who is fully able to sympathise with all our weaknesses, for he has undergone trials and temptations similar to, and even exceeding, our own. How many of us have suffered as Jesus did?

But, in one respect, he is radically different—he is totally without the slightest taint of sin. We see how Jesus dealt with temptation to sin in the paradigm of the temptations in the desert, a story encapsulating all the events by which he might have been tempted to violate the will of his Father (see Matt 4:1-11). We are reminded that Jesus our High Priest is not some remote, lofty personage, but someone who has shared intensely the experience of human living, including the weaknesses and temptations to which we are all subjected—though without sin. It is important to realise that weakness and temptation are not to be confused with sin.

Given that we have such a High Priest, we are encouraged to approach God’s throne “with boldness”. There we will find the compassion we need for our failures, and the sources of strength in our times of trial.

In our Eucharist, we continue to meet our High Priest, and indeed the celebrant who presides over the Eucharist is said to be, in a very real way, in loco Christi (in the place of Christ). By our breaking together of the Eucharistic bread, we express our deepest desire to be united with the self-giving sacrifice of our High Priest, a union that is manifested in the way we live out the Gospel message in our daily lives.

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Saturday of Week 1 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 2:13-17

Jesus certainly chose some very strange people to be his followers. Levi was a tax collector, one of a much despised group of people. The Romans did not collect taxes themselves from their subject people. Instead, a local person would pay a lump sum or deposit to the Romans to be designated a publican (tax collector) for a particular area. Along with the job, publicans were given the right to recoup their initial deposit from the taxes they collected. Since they also wanted to make a profit, this laid the system open to widespread abuse and corruption. Tax collectors were regarded as traitors to their own people in collecting taxes for Rome, the hated colonial power. They and their families were social outcasts. No self-respecting and observant Jew would have anything to do with such people.

Yet, here is Jesus offering one such person an invitation, “Follow me”. We need to know that Jesus never goes by stereotypes. Nor does he judge people by their past behaviour. He is only interested in what they can be in the now and in the future. There and then, Levi drops everything and goes after Jesus. That is what following Jesus means. It is what Peter and Andrew, and James and John had also done.

Later, when Jesus is dining at Levi’s house, several known sinners and tax collectors are at table with Jesus and his disciples. In some translations of the Bible, Jesus is said to be dining in “his” house, which is (deliberately?) ambiguous. Is it the house of Levi or the house of Jesus? In either case, it is very meaningful—Jesus eats in a sinner’s house, or he invites a sinner to eat in his house. Perhaps they are celebrating Levi’s becoming a follower. And who else could Levi have invited if not the only people who would mix with him—other tax collectors and outcasts? But in addition, the Gospel says that:

…many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many [tax collectors and their like] who followed him.

This is a real source of scandal for the scribes and Pharisees. If Jesus really was a Rabbi, he would have had nothing to do with such people. To sit down and eat with such ‘unclean’ people was to be contaminated oneself. Jesus replies:

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.

As we have already seen, Jesus’ whole mission is one of salvation and redemption of restoring people to wholeness. And how is he to help sinners change unless he is in direct contact with them? By being with sinners, Jesus is not approving or condoning or turning a blind eye to their behaviour. He describes them as “sick”; they are in need of healing and rehabilitation. This can only be done by reaching out to them.

Of course, one can ask if those judging Jesus were not also sick and in need of healing themselves. The difference was that the ‘sinners’ approached Jesus, while the Pharisees could not see or acknowledge their particular kind of sin and consequent need of healing.

Perhaps our Church should look more closely at this passage. So much of our Church work involves serving the already converted or the semi-converted. We are often not present where people are most in need of hearing the gospel message. We tend to side with the Pharisees and feel we should keep away from the ‘sinful’ and the ‘immoral’. We also need to learn the ways by which the gospel message and the gospel vision can most effectively be communicated to those who have lost touch with God and the meaning of life.

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