Tuesday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 8:14-21
Yesterday we saw the blindness of the Pharisees in asking Jesus to give some sign of his authority from God. Today we see the blindness of Jesus’ own disciples. This, of course, is pointing to our own blindness in not recognising the clear presence of God in our own lives.
The disciples are travelling across the lake in the boat. They had forgotten to bring food with them and there was only one loaf between them all. As they cross the lake, Jesus is talking to them saying:
Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.
For the Jews, yeast was a corrupting agent because it caused fermentation. That was why at the Pasch they ate unleavened, incorrupt bread. And Paul tells the Corinthians:
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, as you really are unleavened. (1 Cor 5:7)
Jesus is telling his disciples to avoid two opposing kinds of corruption: that of the Pharisees, which is based on narrow-minded and intolerant legalism, and that of Herod, which is based on amoral and hedonistic pleasure-seeking.
However, the disciples are not really listening to their Master. They latch on to the word “yeast” and link it with their present obsession—not enough bread. Their lunch is the only thing on their minds. Jesus, of course, knows what is going on in their minds.
He scolds them:
Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?
They answer, “Twelve”, and Jesus says:
And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?
And they responded, “Seven”.
Then Jesus said to them:
Do you not yet understand?
Five loaves for 5,000 with 12 baskets over, seven loaves for 4,000 with seven baskets over, and they, a mere dozen people, are worried about being short of food when Jesus is with them?
Mark tends to be very hard on the disciples. They cannot see, they cannot hear, and they fail to understand what is happening before their very eyes. But they are learning gradually, as we shall see.
Of course, Mark is firing his shots not just at the disciples, but at you and me. How much faith do we have in God’s care for us? Can we hear? Can we see? Are we also without understanding?
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Wednesday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 8:22-26
We are approaching a high point in Mark’s Gospel. And it is preceded by today’s strategically placed story. At first glance it looks like a simple healing story of a blind man but, as in most of Mark’s miracles, there is a deeply symbolic meaning inside.
People bring a blind man to Jesus so that Jesus could apply his healing touch (how much of our touching is healing—or are we afraid of physical touch?). Jesus takes the man aside away from the crowds. He puts spittle on the man’s eyes and asks:
Can you see anything?
The man, who is beginning now to see, says he can see people:
…but they look like trees, walking.
Jesus lays his hands on the man’s eyes again and now:
…his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Jesus tells him to go directly home, not through the village. He wants no misplaced sensationalism about who he is. The truth of that is going to be revealed very soon.
The story is clearly linked with other events that have just been taking place. We have seen the blindness of the Pharisees unable to recognise the power of God in the words and works of Jesus. We can see the blindness of his own disciples when he asked them in the boat:
Do you still not perceive or understand? Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear? (Mark 8:17-18)
This story, coming where it is, is a parable about the gradual opening of the disciples’ eyes as it begins to dawn on them just who Jesus is. We will see in tomorrow’s Gospel a giant step in their seeing and understanding, while at the same time being aware that they still have a long way to go.
Our understanding of Jesus is also a gradual process and it never ends. Many seem to settle into a complacent level of understanding beyond which they never go. As a result, their spiritual growth is blocked, and also their ability to have a growing faith enrich their lives.
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Monday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 8:11-13
The Pharisees, disturbed by what Jesus is saying and doing, demand a “sign from heaven” to indicate that his authority comes from God. He refuses to acquiesce to their request; they will not get a sign on their terms.
The irony, of course, is that Jesus’ whole life is a sign—a sign of God’s loving presence among us. In Mark, the ordinary people can see this clearly. Only the leaders and (in Mark) Jesus’ own disciples are slow to learn.
In the immediately foregoing passage, Jesus has just fed 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread and a few fish. The signs are there in abundance, but the Pharisees cannot see because they do not want to see. Their blindness is a central theme to this part of Mark, as we shall see. We too need to be aware of our own blindness and our failure to see the signs of God’s love operating in our everyday lives.
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Friday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 8:34—9:1
Having warned his disciples of the future that lies ahead for him, Jesus now calls the crowds and his disciples together, and lets them know in no uncertain terms what following him entails. To be a follower of Jesus is to be ready to go exactly the way that he went:
If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wishes to save his life, will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it.
Yet, this is the paradox. Self-preservation and self-centred aggrandisement leads to nothing, only to a kind of death. Surrendering one’s life totally through a commitment to Jesus and to his Way (as expressed in the Gospel) leads to an enrichment which nothing else can supply.
This is a clear challenge: that anyone who wants to follow Jesus must be ready both to suffer and give their lives in love for others. Those who make every effort to preserve their lives, and hang on to what they have with no regard for transcendent values or the needs of others, are destined to lose everything, not least their integrity, dignity and self-respect.
This was very practical teaching for people who were frequently being persecuted for their Christian faith. Those who betrayed that faith to save their lives or their property had lost something more valuable—their integrity, their wholeness, their consistency. Undoubtedly many could not live with themselves afterwards. There are certain things which are more important than human life or material possessions.
What gain, then, is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin [the true meaning of] his life? And indeed what can a man offer in exchange for his life?
We have a long list of martyrs (from the Greek, meaning ‘witnesses’) to the faith whose memories we cherish, and whose example we respect and admire. We have no list, and no desire, to remember those who avoided martyrdom and compromised their faith and their values, and who may have enjoyed wealth and position as a result. They lived on for a while and then disappeared; the martyrs are still very much alive.
There are overtones here of a Church in persecution. There must have been those who, when their faith was challenged, “were ashamed of Jesus and his words” and denied their faith to save their immediate lives. They will hear the terrible words cited in Matthew’s Gospel:
Truly I tell you, I do not know you. (Matt 25:12)
The final phrase is ambivalent:
There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.
This can refer to the establishment of the Christian communities, as witnesses to the Kingdom’s being established in the world, which will be the result of the great experience at Pentecost. It can also refer, of course, to a belief among many in the early Church, that the Second Coming of Jesus, the Parousia, would take place in their lifetime.
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Thursday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 8:27-33
We now come to a high point in Mark’s Gospel which the texts of previous days have been leading up to. Since the beginning of this Gospel the question has been continually asked: “Who is Jesus?” Today we get the answer. The blind and deaf disciples show that they are beginning to see more clearly.
So Jesus himself puts the question that has been underlying all that has gone before:
Who do people say that I am?
The disciples give a number of answers reflecting the speculations of the people. These include:
- John the Baptist come to life again
- Elijah, who was expected to return to earth just before the arrival of the Messiah
- One of the other prophets
Then Jesus asks his disciples what they believe:
But who do you say that I am?
Peter speaks up in the name of all:
You are the Messiah.
This is indeed a dramatic moment. Jesus is not just an ordinary rabbi, not just a prophet. He is the long-awaited Christ, the Messiah, the anointed King of Israel. This is a tremendous breakthrough for the disciples. However, they are told to keep this to themselves for the time being. There were many expectations about the Messiah and Jesus did not want to be identified with them.
But it is not the end of the story. There is a sudden and unexpected twist for which they were not at all prepared. Jesus immediately begins to tell them what is going to happen to him in the days ahead: that he will suffer grievously, be rejected by the religious leaders of his own people, be put to death and—perhaps most surprising of all—after three days rise again. And there was no mistaking his meaning for:
He said all this quite openly.
The religious leaders mentioned here are part of the Sanhedrin, a 71-member ruling council of the Jews consisting of elders, the chief priests and the scribes. Under Roman rule, the Sanhedrin had authority in religious matters.
For the first time in this Gospel, Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man”. He will do this many more times. The title was first used in the book of Daniel (7:13-14) as a symbol of “the holy ones of the Most High” (Dan 7:27), referring to those faithful Israelites who receive the everlasting kingdom from the “Most High” (i.e. God).
In the apocryphal books of 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, the title “Son of Man” does not refer to a group, but to a unique figure of extraordinary spiritual endowments—who will be revealed as the one through whom the everlasting kingdom decreed by God will be established. Of itself, this expression means simply “a human being”, or, indefinitely, “someone”, and there are instances of this use in pre-Christian times. Its use in the New Testament is probably due to Jesus’ speaking of himself in that way, “a human being”, and the later Church’s taking this in the sense of the Jewish apocrypha and applying it to him with that meaning.
It is not difficult to imagine how the disciples must have been profoundly shocked, and could not believe their ears at what Jesus was telling them. Peter, their impetuous leader, immediately begins to protest. They have just pronounced Jesus to be the long-awaited leader of the Jewish people, and now he says he is going to be rejected and executed by their very own leaders. It made absolutely no sense whatever. Jesus turns round, looks at his disciples and scolds Peter with the terrible words:
Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.
This is what the gradual opening of the eyes of the blind man in yesterday’s story indicated. They had reached the stage where they had made the exciting discovery that their Master was none other than the long-awaited Messiah. They had answered the first question of Mark’s Gospel: Who is Jesus? But they were still immersed in all the traditional expectations that had grown up around the coming of the Messiah as the victorious and triumphing king who would put all Israel’s enemies to flight.
But they would have to unlearn all this. The rest of Mark will answer the second question: What kind of Messiah is Jesus? or what does it mean for Jesus to be Messiah?
And a further question follows from that: What will all that mean for the disciples—and for us? We will see some answers to that tomorrow.
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Tuesday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on James 1:12-18
It is clear that the Christians James is writing to in this lovely passage today are under strong pressures in the living of their faith. As in our own day, there were the pulls of a society which set great store by material wealth, social status and influence. In addition, there were the difficulties of living in a society where one’s Christian faith could bring harassment and persecution. At times, it would seem much easier to abandon it and follow the crowd. James writes:
Blessed is anyone who endures temptation.
It is the ‘blessedness’ that Jesus spoke about in the Beatitudes. James praises those who come triumphantly through such times of trial and testing. They will:
…receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
The “crown” (Greek, stephanos, from which the name ‘Stephen’ comes) was the term for the wreath placed on the head of a victorious athlete or military leader (one often sees pictures of Julius Caesar wearing such a wreath). In the Second Letter to Timothy, Paul is quoted as being confident of getting such a crown:
I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness…
(2 Tim 4:6-8; see also 1 Pet 5:4; Rev 2:10)
However, James reminds us that no one should ever think that these tests or temptations come directly from God. God can never be the source of an urge to do or say what is evil and wrong.
God himself, of course, cannot be tempted. In a God who is infinite Goodness, there is nothing that could entice him as more desirable than what he already is and has. Nor does he tempt anyone in the sense of leading a person to do what is morally evil. Again, because God is all Goodness, such a situation is impossible. Of course, we may find ourselves in situations where our faith and integrity are challenged. God does not prevent such situations arising. But if we fail, it is the result of our own choice.
This is the clear message of the creation story in Genesis. The Fall was due solely to the choice made by the Man and his wife. God is all good and the source only of what is good.
All our temptations originate in ourselves, in the various passions that drive us. The passage mentions three stages: desire, sin and death. These we see in the sin of the first woman and her husband. We see the same in David’s infatuation with Bathsheba (see the commentary for Friday of Week 3 of Ordinary Time). This is something we have all experienced in some form.
On the contrary, every good thing we experience comes directly from the “Father of lights”, the Father who presides over the whole universe with its myriad stars and constellations. And, unlike them, he never suffers change or eclipse. He is above all a creating God.
In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave birth to us by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
The “word of truth” is everything God has revealed to the human race; it is the supreme Law. For us now, the word of Truth is the gospel, the Way that Jesus the Son of God proclaimed.
And we are to be the “first fruits” of his creatures. Just as the first sheaf of the harvest was an indication that the whole harvest would eventually follow, so the early Christians were an indication that a great number of people would eventually be born again. This is our great responsibility towards the world around us.
It is through his Word, the Logos, that God brings forth everything that has been made and we human beings are in a special category. For we are made in his likeness, in our ability to love and to know, in our ability to co-create with him. So today, let us look at the sources of evil which are in us and see where they have been leading us.
At the same time, let us also count our blessings, and become aware of the wonderful gifts that God has given and continues to give us every single day. Let us also remember our responsibility to help in the building of the Kingdom, making this world a better place for all.
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Thursday of week 6 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on James 2:1-9
There is some very straight speaking from James today and there will be few of us who will not feel a twinge of conscience as we read or listen.
He begins by reminding us that our faith in, our commitment to Jesus Christ means that all forms of favouritism or discrimination must be removed from our hearts. God himself shows no favouritism. “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous… Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:45-48).
He gives a very practical example in the way that the rich and powerful are treated in contrast with the poor and uneducated. The scene is the place where Christians meet. The word used is ‘synagogue’. James is writing to Jewish Christians so it is possible they may even have still been attending Jewish synagogues, or it may be his word for the Christian ‘assembly’ for liturgical worship. The word ‘synagogue’ (from the Greek sunagwgh) literally means a place where people gather together.
Two people walk into the Christian assembly at the same time. One is rich and well-dressed, the other is poor and shabby. The rich person is treated with a great deal of respect and deference while the poor person is ignored or shoved into a corner. A very similar situation is described very critically by Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s Supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk… Do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?… For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against themselves” (1 Cor 11:20-21,22,29). Have we not seen this happen umpteen times? Have we not done something like that ourselves? Do we not associate wealth with respectability and poverty with fecklessness and crime? When we act like this, James asks, are we not practising discrimination and setting ourselves up as judges purely on the basis of external appearance?
James then gives three arguments against our bias towards the materially rich. The third reason does not appear in our reading. The three reasons are:
1. the rich persecute the poor – who are specially loved by God;
2. favouritism violates the royal law of love and thus is sin;
3. favouritism will be judged.
From 1, “in God’s eyes are not the poor called blessed” (happy, fortunate)? They have nothing to give but everything to receive. They have no sense of self-sufficiency which the rich can sometimes boast of, thinking they are independent. “‘Lucky man! You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?’” (Luke 12:19-20) Yet, it is the poor that we look down on and treat so badly.
But Paul told the Christians of Corinth: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:28-29). It is a fact that the Christian faith originated from people who had no power or status in their society.
The poor, as poor, have nothing to be ashamed of; the rich, as rich, have nothing to boast about. The poor may be poor materially but they can be rich in faith. And, of course, in the kind of situation James calls for in this letter, their real needs will be taken care of.
In 2, “Are not the rich oppressing you?” are not those very people we treat with such courtesy, the rich and powerful, the ones who really exploit us? How come so many of them become rich in the first place? Often by taking and keeping to themselves what in justice belongs to others. In the Scripture that is the real definition of a rich person – not just one who has a lot of material wealth, but one who holds on to that surplus wealth while surrounded by many who are denied the most basic needs.
“Do they themselves not haul you off to court?” They are the people who can afford the big lawyers to crush their opponents and use every legal technicality to avoid punishment for their own most serious and damaging behaviour?
Is it not the rich “who blaspheme the noble name that was invoked over you”? In the Old Testament the name of Yahweh pronounced over someone dedicated him to the divine protection.
Also from today’s Gospel, it is the poor, the needy, the unjustly deprived who have God’s name over them. But it is a protection the possessive rich do not recognise, although they are the ones most in a position to give it.
It is for all of us then to observe the “royal law”: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” It is called ‘royal’ because it is the supreme law that is the source of all
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