Scripture Readings for February 17, 2025

Genesis 4:1-15, 25, Psalm 50:1, 8, 16bc-17, 20-2, Mark 8: 11-13

In order to get the most from today’s Gospel I think we have to look at the Scripture passages that come immediately before and after the section we read this morning. The questioning by the Pharisees is preceded by the multiplication of the loaves and the feeding of 4,000 people with 7 loaves of bread. It is then followed by a conversation in which his disciples misunderstand his comments about the destructive power of hidden agendas.

We must also remember that the Gospels were not written to be a history of Jesus’ life but rather as a tool for explaining to people what faith in Jesus was about. Certainly the events in the Gospels have an historical basis but the evangelists, the writers of the Gospels, were well, evangelizing, trying to spread the message. So let’s look at this part of Mark’s gospel just as a first time reader might.

You’ve just read that 4,000 people were fed on seven loaves of bread and a few fish and the leftovers filled seven baskets. Then the very next thing that happens is a group of Pharisees asks Jesus for a sign from heaven as proof that his message is from God. Wouldn’t you think, you’d just read about the best sign of heavenly generosity you could think of? But what is really puzzling is Jesus’ answer, “no sign will be given to this generation.” Isn’t this the same guy who just fed those 4,000 and has been curing and healing people all over the countryside?

I think the key to this question is that Jesus “sighed from the depth of his spirit.” The story is an example of how people cannot see what is right in front of them. In this case, Mark is talking about how we recognize God’s presence.

Jesus’ sigh signals his frustration with people’s tendency to rely on some outside event to prove for them it is OK to believe. Jesus reply is an acknowledgement that there never is proof certain for someone who can’t hear and see for themselves. The person who requires outside proof is someone who isn’t listening to his or her own heart, his or her own experience. In that case there is no way to prove faith. When it comes to recognizing God’s presence in our lives we are the only one who can see it for ourselves.

This point is reinforced by what follows the Pharisees questioning. The disciples and Jesus go across the lake and Jesus warns them about the destructive influence of the Pharisees. He refers to their influence as yeast in the bread and the Apostles misinterpret what he says, thinking they forgot to bring enough bread for the journey. Jesus then questions their ability to understand his mission. He asks, “Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?”

This is exactly what Jesus found so frustrating with the Pharisees. You can feed 4,000 people and your own disciples can’t seem to see the message of God’s generous providence to all of us.

For me the core of today’s Gospel is Jesus’ own sadness that so many people couldn’t recognize the gift that was in the middle of their lives. Isn’t that exactly one of the issues that still plague us? Do we recognize God’s love present in our midst and then live accordingly?

How do we learn to see what God is trying to do and hear what God is trying to say in our lives? Based on today’s Gospel, that has been an issue from the very beginning of Jesus mission among us. So let’s remember the key lesson here. Don’t look outside yourself for some absolute answer or proof that will clear everything up. That’s exactly what won’t happen. Instead the only place to look for answers is within us and our everyday experience, our feelings. Like the sigh of Jesus from the depth of his spirit, it tells us so much about who we really are.

Scripture Readings, February 13, 2025

Genesis 2:18-25, Psalm 128:1-5, Mark 7:24-30

            Today’s Gospel has a wonderfully earthy, even gritty, character that appeals to me.

            Mark tells us about a Gentile woman turning the tables on Jesus. When Mark writes this he is letting the Gentiles know that God’s blessings are meant for them too. God is not just a Jewish god but everybody’s God. For us, I think it helps to see that Jesus was a person of his time. Son of God, yes, but fully human, a Jew of the first century with all the attitudes that come with that.  Therefore, it can be a message about how God acts in our time.

For Jesus, this woman is an outsider, a non-Jew. Jesus therefore, labels her as a Gentile dog. The derogatory way Jews often referred to Gentiles. Jesus is here for the salvation of the Jews and she doesn’t qualify. But this woman, who has come begging for help for her daughter, is willing to accept the status she has been assigned and fit her request into that narrative. She isn’t going to give up because this man tells her something she already knows. She may be a Gentile dog but she’ll take any scraps the chosen children of Israel drop from the table. She is asking simply as a person in need. She is not claiming any basis for her request except the need to save her daughter. She’s here on her own, no husband to speak for her. The request is not even for a son who might one day be her protector but a daughter. This woman has no status, her only chance is if this man shows her mercy. The mercy of this man who apparently can heal people. Jesus recognizes the honest need of a person who has no claim on him whatsoever. He is willing to give what is completely unearned, even undeserved by the norms of the time. Jesus heals the daughter as an act of pure mercy to this woman. Mark is telling us that’s how God acts. That’s what the presence of God looks like, mercy, pure generous mercy to those who ask.

Scripture Readings, February 3, 2025

Hebrews 11: 32-40, Psalm 31:20-24, Mark 5:1-20

The gospel today is clearly a story of transformation. A frightening transformation, at least for the people of the time. We have a man possessed by unclean spirits who has been repeatedly chained and fettered to no avail. He has lived in caves and done harm to himself. Everyone knows the situation.

When Jesus arrives the spirits that possess the man supplicate themselves to Jesus immediately. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God and are summarily dismissed into a herd of pigs that drown themselves in the lake.

That sounds to me like a good story, a possessed man truly freed from his chains and the spirits that bound him. A story about the power of God over the present evil. However, what caught my attention is how the towns people saw it. Mark says, “people came out to see what had happened … they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion, sitting there properly dressed and in his full senses, and they were afraid … they began to beg Jesus to leave their district.”

I believe Mark’s story is more than a story of Jesus freeing a man from unclean spirits. I think this story is trying to demonstrate how big the change is when we let God’s presence be active in our lives. I think it can be frightening to face real, deep, substantive change in life. The man as possessed was the normal condition. The town’s people knew how to deal with that. That same person as free, at peace and looking like everyone else, was a threat to what they understood as the way the world was. To change how the world operates is frightening. But that’s what Jesus brings, a completely new way for this world to operate. That’s Mark’s message, that to accept Jesus as Son of God is to admit to a huge change, one that will upset our world view. If we want things to stay the same, then frightened, we send Jesus away. The question is, can we accept the kind of change in ourselves that is God’s call or is it too frightening?

Scripture Readings, January 30, 2025

Hebrews 10:19-25, Psalm 24:1-6, Mark 4:21-25

Sometimes I think we can reduce Christian and Catholic faith to a moral code. The thinking runs along the line that religion is primarily about setting up rules for human behavior. That thinking tends to see Jesus as someone who came to show us how to live. Now I’m not saying that generous, loving behavior is not part of Catholic faith, I’m saying it’s the biproduct of the primary purpose of Jesus’s life. His primary purpose: demonstrate that God is an active loving presence in our lives. That we are meant to have a personal, direct relationship with God simply because that’s what God wants … to be a loving companion with us. Isn’t it true that once you feel loved everything changes? Well, that’s the point, first you have to feel loved and that’s what today’s readings are trying to tell us.

Hebrews starts by pointing out that we have “entrance to the sanctuary” because of Jesus’ death and that “his promise is trustworthy.” To enter the sanctuary is to have access to God. In Judaism only the high priest could enter the sanctuary where supposedly God resided. Now this access is available to everyone.

It is this being in God’s presence that the author of Hebrews is saying provides the hope we long for. Coming together in our faith, in the assembly helps sustain our belief in what Jesus promised, that God is with us.

          Finally, Jesus in Mark’s Gospel has just told the story of the sower and the seed. How spreading God’s Word depends as much on the one who is listening as the person spreading the message. He explains that God’s loving message is not meant to be hidden but people need to listen and if they listen then more will be given to them than they would expect. There is also the warning that not paying attention has consequences. The story is not about behavior or being rich or poor but rather about opening oneself to the message of God’s love and care. It’s about hearing what Jesus’ life says about God with us and only then acting on that belief. We all need to hear the message and hold on to it over our lifetime. Holding on to a message of love is where behavior comes in: how we live day to day, being in conversation with other believers, recognizing the gift of life we have been given. The Psalmist says it directly, “Lord, this is the people who long to see your face.” What is love but the longing to be with our loved one.

Scripture Readings, January 27, 2025

Hebrews 9: 15, 24-28, Psalm 98:1-6, Mark 3:22-30

          Is the world a good place or a bad place? Some days it’s hard to tell. As Catholics our faith says it’s a good place, God’s place. People familiar with the Bible might point to the creation story in Genesis as proof that God made everything good, very good. That’s one place you can go. I think today’s readings are another.

          The Psalm says it most clearly, “The LORD has made his salvation known: in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.” We believe that the person, Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and lived among us to demonstrate what salvation, joy and the kingdom of God really looked like. Everyone could see and experience him and what he did. Today even more than in his own time, the entire world knows about Jesus and what he stands for. So God certainly has revealed his justice and salvation for all to see.

          However, that doesn’t mean that recognizing the Kingdom of God is obvious for everyone. It hasn’t been obvious at any point, including when Jesus was alive for all to see. That’s what the story in the Gospel today is all about.

          The scribes who had come from Jerusalem had seen and heard about the miracles that Jesus was working and they came to the conclusion that what he was doing couldn’t be explained on natural grounds alone. These religious leaders who had an entire faith tradition of God’s saving actions and who were explicitly waiting for a messiah, came to the conclusion that what they were seeing was the work of the devil. That should tell us that recognizing God’s presence among us is not obvious. If seeing Jesus cure people, give people sight and drive out demons makes some people think it’s the devils work we should not be surprised that it isn’t obvious that the world is a good and holy place.

          We, however, believe that Jesus is the Son of God which means we accept that God is here, in this life making a difference just as Jesus did when he was physically here on earth. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus points out that the good he does couldn’t be the devil’s work or the devil would be working against himself. More importantly, Jesus makes a remarkable statement of how the strong man of the house must be tied up. The point is that Jesus has tied up the strong man, the devil, so that Jesus can plunder his house, so that he can change what has gone on in the world. Which is to say that there are bad things, evil things in the world but that in the end God wins, whereas the devil, evil is vanquished. The only thing that stands in the way is to blaspheme against the Spirit. Meaning that if you don’t recognize the work of the Spirit you can’t enjoy the benefits of what that means.

Recognizing the holiness of life means being able to see God in all of God’s creation. The Spirit of God can change lives, heal wounds, give us new life but we have to be open enough to recognize it as God’s gift. Think of all that has changed in two thousand years: medicine to cure diseases, indoor plumbing, airplanes, phones to talk to anyone, anywhere in the world instantly, better understanding of human behavior, individual freedom, you could go on and on. The world is a more human friendly place than it was two thousand years ago. We should be able to say the world is good, we should be open enough to recognize God’s love all around us.

Scripture Readings for January 13, 2025

Hebrews 1:1-6, Psalm 97:1, 2, 6-7, 9, Mark 1:14-20

          After I spent some time reading and thinking about what is said in today’s two readings I came to the conclusion they are trying to tell us about the time of fulfillment. Hebrews is written to people who are having doubts about whether they should continue to follow Jesus or go back to following the Jewish law. In Mark, we hear about the very beginnings of Jesus’ ministry after John the Baptist was arrested.

The introduction to the letter to the Hebrews is establishing who Jesus is because the author is going to say that because Jesus is the Son of God what comes from him is more important than any other source of information about God. For me, what is important is that Hebrews says Jesus has arrived therefore we are in the last days. Now we are in the final era when God no longer speaks in partial ways but shows us the complete picture through His Son.

This fits quite nicely with Mark’s Gospel because there Jesus says explicitly, “This is the time of fulfillment.” My question is, if both Hebrews and Mark say that Jesus’ arrival signals the time of fulfillment, what does that mean for us? What’s different from what existed before Jesus? Especially since we’re now two thousand years into this fulfillment and I’m not sure how fulfilled we all feel.

The easy part of the answer is to say that Jesus is God’s final word. That’s what Hebrews is saying to readers and it’s what all the Gospel’s tell us, especially John’s Gospel which talks about Jesus as the Word of God. It’s why the Church often talks about having the truth. Meaning that if you look at Jesus you have God’s ultimate message to us. Don’t go anywhere else. The person of Jesus is the expression of God, the truth about God, the truth about the universe. The problem, of course, is that different people see different things in Jesus. So it’s usually not self-evident what the truth really is.

But for the moment let’s put aside those conflicts and see what the beginning of Mark’s gospel has to say about Jesus and fulfillment. The first thing I see is that Jesus is out gathering disciples. Now in New Testament times teachers never go recruiting students, students go looking for teachers and ask to study with them. Jesus is reversing that custom. If we accept that Jesus is the expression of God then this behavior suggests that God is out seeking us. We ought to expect that God wants us to be part of what God is trying to do. We shouldn’t have to be searching afar for life’s meaning. Rather God’s presence in life is trying to call us to what is meaningful and important.

In other words, this story about the calling of Andrew, Peter, John and James is not just about calling people to ministry in the Church. It’s not just for those who think about being priests or nuns or humanitarians. It’s about how God operates.

The other part of this story is how it affects the four brothers. Without hesitation they leave family and the security of the family business which owned boats, nets and had employees. For me this suggests that when we hear God’s call it changes our lives. It changes our lives in a way that needs little or no explanation or evaluation. The brothers take off and go with Jesus without hesitation. When we hear God’s call it may take us from what is familiar and secure but it’s likely to be clear to us that it fits who we are. Notice Jesus calls fishermen to become fishers of men. The path they are asked to follow is analogous to what they are currently doing. So I think God’s call is consistent and affirming of who we are. God’s call takes us to where we become our best selves. You might say, to hear God’s call, is to be called to fulfillment. I think that’s the fulfillment Jesus and Hebrews is talking about, a fulfilled life. The only question remaining is, are we paying enough attention to life and therefore listening so we can hear our call?