Monday of Week 1 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 1:14-20
We now begin our readings from Mark’s Gospel and we will be following him for the next several weeks. Today’s reading follows immediately on the short accounts of Jesus’ baptism and temptations in the desert that Mark gives. It is the beginning of his public ministry. The reading consists of two main parts—a summary of Jesus’ teaching and the first response to it.
As the passage opens, we are told that John (the Baptist) has been arrested (the reason for his arrest will be given later). The word for ‘arrest’ is literally ‘handed over’, a key word which will be used later of Jesus himself, his disciples, and indeed of many others down the centuries. The term is also used in our Eucharist when the celebrant at the consecration says:
This is my Body which will be given up for you.
Our translation of ‘given up’ represents the Latin word tradetur, which literally means ‘handed over’. Jesus is daily handed over to us, or rather, he hands himself over to us and expects us to do the same for our brothers and sisters.
Jesus begins his ministry by proclaiming the gospel, the good news, of God. It is summed up in the words:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.
It is a deceptively simple statement which, in fact, is rich in meaning. One can say that the whole of the gospel message is contained in those two sentences.
The following words require comment:
- time
- kingdom
- repent
- believe in
The time is fulfilled
In the Scriptures, ‘time’ is translated using the Greek word kairos. Specifically, kairos refers to a moment when something is ripe to happen, a serendipitous moment. And that exactly describes the appearance of Jesus, an appearance which the whole of the Old Covenant has been preparing for and leading up to.
The Kingdom of God is at hand
The whole of Jesus’ message centres round the idea of the ‘Kingdom of God’. It was the coming of that Kingdom which he proclaimed; it was the core of his teaching. Because of Matthew’s use of the term “Kingdom of heaven”, there is a possibility that we think of the ‘Kingdom’ as only belonging to the life after death. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The word ‘Kingdom’ translates the Greek word basileia, an abstract noun which is better rendered as ‘kingship’ or ‘reign’. Kingdom here does not refer to a place. It points to the ruling power of God, a power based above all on love. Wherever the love of God prevails in our world we can say that the Kingdom is there. Love essentially involves other people, so the Kingdom is not a place or an action, but a complex of harmonious and interacting relationships. Jesus came to call every single person to belong to such a world.
We need to emphasise that the Kingdom and the Church, or the Kingdom and Christianity, do not coincide. The role of the Church is to be a sacrament of the Kingdom. It fulfils that role with varying degrees of success. There are Kingdom people everywhere, that is, people who base their lives on love and justice, on peace and freedom, who are not Christians at all—but they are Kingdom people, because their lives reflect the spirit of God. Mere membership in a Christian group does not guarantee one is a Kingdom person.
Repent
Here we have the basic steps needed to become fully a Kingdom person. First, we need to repent. This is the most common translation of the Greek verb for the noun metanoia. It is not a very happy rendering. ‘Repent’, for most people means being sorry for something done in the past. That is not excluded here; rather metanoia looks much more to the future. Metanoia really means a radical change in one’s thinking, in this case, about the meaning and purpose of life, and how that life is to be lived. Jesus is calling here for a radical conversion, and for us to take to heart his vision of life.
Believe in the good news
And how is that metanoia to be achieved? It will come about by our believing in the “good news”, i.e. the gospel. For many Christians, ‘belief’ means the total acceptance of the teachings of Christ as interpreted for us by the Church. But something more is asked of us here. We are asked not just to believe, but to believe in. It is one thing to believe something is true, but that belief may not affect our lives very much. In calling on us to believe in the message that the gospel brings, we are being asked for a total investment of ourselves, and not just the accepting of doctrines as true. We are being called on to live our lives and pattern them on the model of Jesus himself. Again, we will see what that entails as we go through the Gospel in coming weeks.
The second part of the reading gives us a dramatic example of some people who did just what Jesus was asking. As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, who were fishermen, casting their nets into the sea. They were doing their daily work. Jesus said to them:
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.
There and then, they dropped their nets, their whole means of livelihood, and went after Jesus. A little further on Jesus saw two sons of Zebedee, James and John, who were mending their nets. These two Jesus also called. They promptly left their father in the boat with his hired men and followed Jesus. Later Jesus will say:
Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)
Here we have that metanoia, that radical change of life, taking place. They follow Jesus with total trust. As they go off, they have no idea where they are going or what it will entail. They believe in Jesus, putting all their trust in him. They were to meet many trials and tribulations on the way, but they never regretted the step they took. Only by following their example will we too have the same experience. The only guarantee we have is that those who do take Jesus’ call seriously, and live it to the fullest, know that they made the right choice.
Finally, we might say that this story is to be read as a kind of parable. We say this because we know that later on, the disciples will still be in contact with their families and those boats will appear several times in the Gospel story. What is being emphasised here is the total commitment to the Way and vision of Jesus, which is symbolised by the total abandoning of the boats and family members.
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Monday of Week 1 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 1 Samuel 1:1-8
We begin this new year’s Ordinary Time First Readings with the First Book of Samuel. The book opens by introducing us to Elkanah, a good and religious man who comes from Rama-thaim. The place was also known as Ramah. It may be the same as the Ramah of Benjamin (see Jos 18:25), which was located in the hill country about 8 km (5 miles) north of Jerusalem, near the border between the territories of Ephraim and Benjamin.
Elkanah is called an Ephraimite, but he was more likely a Levite whose family belonged to the Kohathite clans to whom had been allotted towns in Ephraim. Ephraim lay north of Judah and just north-west of the Dead Sea. Jerusalem was in the territory of Benjamim (see any decent Old Testament map).
According to the custom of the time, he had two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. We first see polygamy enter the Old Testament with Lamech (Gen 4:19). Although the union of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:23-44) seems to endorse monogamy as God’s intention, we know that many of the patriarchs were polygamous and otherwise unfaithful, if not actually promiscuous. We remember how Sarai (Sarah), the barren wife of Abram, tells her husband to sleep with her slave in order to have a son. Later, of course, Sarah does have a son—Isaac, who will become the patriarch of God’s people. In Genesis (25:6) there is mention of the concubines of Abraham.
Penninah had borne several children to her husband, but Hannah was barren, perhaps the most painful experience any married women of those times could have. It was a culture where a woman’s success was measured by her being able to give children, especially sons, to her husband and his family, thus ensuring the continuance of the family line. Sometimes, of course, it is the husband who is sterile, but that is clearly not the situation here.
Every year Elkanah made a yearly pilgrimage with his family to the shrine at Shiloh and offered sacrifice there. The archeological site of Tel-Shiloh is about 19 km (12 miles) south of Nablus, between Bethel and Shechem. It was the home of the Ark in the time of Joshua, but its sanctuary there was destroyed probably by the Philistines after the defeat mentioned in chapter 4 of 1 Samuel.
Three times a year, every Israelite male was required to appear before the Lord at the central sanctuary. The term used here is “Lord of hosts” (or in some translations “Yahweh of armies”). This alluded not just to the people of Israel, but included the stars and other heavenly powers, angels and all cosmic forces—all seen as being under God’s command. This ancient title was associated with the Ark (see 1 Sam 4:3), the sacred emblem protecting Israel whenever Yahweh waged war with his people on their enemies.
With the establishment of kingship in Israel the term ‘Lord of hosts’ became particularly appropriate as a reference to God as the ‘God of armies’—both of the heavenly army and of the army of Israel. Although this is the first recorded use of the title in the Old Testament, it is used freely in the major prophets (with the exception of Ezekiel) and in the Psalms.
The festival referred to here was probably the feast of the Shelters (Tabernacles), which not only commemorated God’s care for his people during the desert journey to Canaan, but more especially celebrated, with joy and feasting, God’s blessing on the year’s crops. On such festive occasions Hannah’s deep sorrow because of her own barrenness was the more poignant.
On that day when he would offer sacrifice, Elkanah would give portions to Penninah and the children she had borne, but a double portion to Hannah*:
…because he loved her [more], though the Lord had closed her womb.
Children were seen primarily as a gift from God. The ‘sacrifice’ here refers to one which was combined with a festive meal, signifying fellowship and communion with the Lord and gratitude for his mercies.
Penninah would mock and jeer at Hannah’s barrenness and this situation went on year after year. Stricken with shame and distress, Hannah refused to eat. Elkanah, who was clearly a good and compassionate man, tried to console her by reminding her that she had a loving husband, and was he:
…not worth more to her than ten sons?
As we shall see, God is not going to abandon two such very good people. And so the stage is set for something very special to happen.
It is easy for us sometimes to regret that God has not given us some gift which we would dearly love to have. Perhaps, too, we have become the object of people’s mockery or criticism and asked “Why did God do that to me?” Yet God is working in our lives and we need to ask him to help us see where, even in our deficiencies, his love and grace are at work in us. We may be in for some surprises.
Let us then learn to light one candle rather than curse the darkness.
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*There is a difference across various biblical translations of this text. For example, the Jerusalem Bible says that Elkanah gave several portions to his wife, Peninnah, and her children, but only one to Hannah, because God had made her barren. However, the New Revised Standard Version updated edition (NRSVue) and the New American Bible both say that Elkanah gave a double portion to Hannah, even though she was barren, “because he loved her” more. Both texts, however, agree that Elkanah loved Hannah more than Penninah.