Today we conclude our study of Mark’s Gospel with a reflection of the greatest of all commandments. With Mark’s crystalline clarity, we see through all the excess regulations and rules as we also intone: Hear, O Israel!
Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6, “Hear, O Israel . . .” They were and are some of the most sacred words that a man or woman of the Jewish faith can utter. It is the basic principle of the Mosaic Law. Some very conservative Jews today take these words so seriously that they actually “bind them at [their] wrist as a sign and let them be a pendant on [the] forehead.” Perhaps we might write them on our own doorposts as Yahweh commands.
If even Jesus himself sees this as the most basic and most important principle of faith, we must spend more time with this idea. What have we a put before God in our lives? With what have we replaced God? And how do we hope to express this greatest of commandments in our lives today.
Using the scripture links above, we take time to reflect on why Jesus might choose these verses to explain the greatest of all commandments. Enter the word Shemainto the blog search bar for other reflections on Deuteronomy 6.
Adapted from a reflection written on April 27, 2007.
Our talents are gifts from God and they are meant to be shared with the community – not hidden and kept away for ourselves. The last verse sounds so harsh, perhaps silly. Its true meaning is that once we begin to share what we have, we will be given the further gift of wanting to share. We will increase, we will convert, and we will find intimate union with God.
If our great fear is fear to commit, then once we begin to commit to others, the action becomes easier. If we do not take those steps toward others, if we build walls, then we will end up with less than we had when we arrived here. We will be alone in our tower – a tower built with our own hands.
Using another example, if we have a fear of paying attentionto others because we want all the attention for ourselves, we will never be fulfilled. If, on the other hand, we practice stepping out of ourselves and giving to others, we will receive further gifts which will enable us to truly forget ourselves and do for others. If we do not take these steps, we will end by being alone – separated from humans and from God – and again, all by our own hand.
Fill in the italicized words above with any human fear and Jesus’ message is this: Once we take the steps to convert ourselves in the area where we know we need improvement, we will receive more and more gifts which will empower us to continue our conversion. If we refuse to enter into this difficult process of conversion, we will lack more and more – until we have and are nothing. We will have diminished rather than increased. We will have separated ourselves from God. We will have descended the ladder of Beatitude into a lonely place – rather than ascended it to intimate union with God.
Mark’s Gospel is the most brief and succinct. His descriptions are precise. Jesus’ actions are seen in a clean, clear trajectory of purpose. His words are unadorned and plain, but strong and resolute. Mark’s story of Jesus is powerful.
May the power of these words be with each of you today.
This is a familiar story we frequently hear. The other synoptic (meaning “seen as one”) gospels of Matthew and Luke have this same parable with little variations. Matthew also tells of the farmer who sows wheat in the day time but then an evil person sows weeds at night in the same field. When the workers want to pull the weeds, the owner says no; he knows that they may also pull up the wheat. The weed in this story is most likely the darnel plant that looks exactly like wheat until it matures. The allegory, therefore, is that we should not judge who is wheat and who is weed in our own little fields because we all look alike until the end of the journey. And only God can discern which is which – who is who.
Our scripture group recently shared ideas about how we each are a type of seed. We lack understanding when we allow “the evil one” to steal us away from God (the seed on the path). We allow persecution and tribulation to wear us down (the seed on the rocks). We allow our worldly goods and worries to separate us from God (the seed in the thorns). We all hope to be seed with a proper disposition – the seed which falls on fertile soil; yet we cannot tell who is who.
We also spoke of the ancient custom of plowing after sowing – so once the seed is disbursed it has to endure the plow before it germinates and grows; but the message of two thousand years ago is the same message we hear today: discipleship is difficult, troublesome, and usually unpopular. We have received the Word, but allowing it to flourish in our hearts and then govern our hands, feet, lips, and minds can be another thing entirely. When we are feeling as though discipleship is too onerous for us, we always go back to the one idea which is central to our lives: With God, all things are possible. Life may look impossible when we are down, but we can still reach our potential as a disciple. We can still be Christ-like. We can transform ourselves with the purifying fire of the struggles we experience. We can be touched and healed if we open ourselves to the possibility of miracles. And we can, in turn, offer our simple life to Christ by opening it to others.
They brought to him all who were ill and possessed by demons . . .
The word “demon”, we understand, comes from the diminutive form of the Greek word for “god,” or from the Latin “daimonium” – thus signifying an inferior divinity. These little teeny gods must certainly be jealous of the one and true God who is all-powerful and everywhere.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases . . .
The small “godette” demons invade us without our knowing and steer us in directions that lead us away from God. Perhaps I might pray for myself and others that we loosen and free ourselves from demons as often as I pray for our physical well-being.
And rising up long before daybreak, he went out and departed into a deserted place . . .
Many people and causes begin as good and wholesome but turn sour when they fulfill something other than the intent of God.
where he prayed . . .
We might form special petitions to the God of Healing and Hope for the curing of those who focus on something or someone other than God as the reason for their being.
[They] pursued him and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you” . .
We mightpetition for those who are ill in any way . . . for those who appear to be well but who are not.
So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee . . .
We might petition for those who cannot shake themselves from their personal demons, for those who are looking for Christ, and for those who have ceased to pray.
They brought to him all who were ill and possessed by demons . . .
We live in the realm where demons abound and so we must remember that the only antidotes for demons are . . . God and prayer.
Adapted from a favorite written on December 11, 2010.
I am wondering what I might have thought if I had seen and heard John the Baptist telling the good news that freedom from fear was arriving.
I am wondering what I might have said if I had watched or even experienced the healing work of Christ and his apostles.
I am wondering what I might have done if I had been called into the river to immerse myself in the waters.
And then I realize that . . .
I have heard and seen . . .
I havewatched and even experienced . . .
I havebeen called into the river . . .
And at times I wade into waters that are sometimes dark, murky and swirling. At other times I thrill at the clarity and purity of the water. And always my God walks with me to heal, to proclaim and to call. I have but to answer with my hands, my feet, my heart and my will.
Abbot Handerson Thayer: Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
We have spent a number of days reflecting on the Gospel of Mark and today we remember the struggle of darkness and light that Jesus endures as he brings freedom, light and the good news to the faithful. Today we see how Jesus began.
We are accustomed to associating the words in the beginningwith the opening words of Genesis of the soaring Gospel of John; today we see it and hear it in connection with the shortest and possibly the most powerful of the Gospels. Mark recounts that Jesus began his ministry when John the Baptizer was executed, when he saw that God’s plan was ready for the Good News, when he knew that fulfillment of God’s promise was at hand . . . through him.
In Luke’s Gospel we are told of how the people attending a service where Jesus proclaims God’s promise fulfilled in himself rose up, drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed away through the midst of them and went away.Luke 4:29-30
Many of us may have decided that the world is too crazy and too volatile to try to bring the message of hope to cranky and churlish people; yet these Gospels both record that after Jesus escaped this ugly mob, he went out among the people and immediately cured a “demoniac” in Capernaum. He then healed Simon’s mother and finally . . . at sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. (Luke 4:40) When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at his door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove our many demons, not permitting them to speak because he knew them. (Mark 1:32-34)
We today are grateful that Jesus does not give up in the beginning when he was rejected by the rabble.
And so we pray . . .
We today are grateful that God never turns away from us when we have gone astray.
We today are grateful that the Spirit always resides in us to bring comfort as we confront our hectic days.
We today are grateful that Jesus is constantly beside us to rescue us from the coming whirlwind.
We today are grateful that from the beginning there is a plan, and that this plan is good and solid . . . even though we cannot fully comprehend its height, and breadth and depth.
We today are grateful that from the beginning there is a plan, and that this plan is authentic and beautiful . . . even though we cannot fully comprehend its present, past or future.
We today are grateful that from the beginning there is a plan, and that this plan is, and was and always will be . . . one which turns all harm to good, all darkness to light, all anger to peace, all deception to fidelity, all fear to trust, and all hatred to love . . . if we only allow it.
Paraphrasing from La Biblia de América (1538): The condemned man remains silent during this scene. The soldiers convert Jesus into a symbol of mockery and Mark does not record a single word about Jesus’ comportment. Jesus says and does nothing. He does not react. He is the defenseless victim of the soldiers who, in an attempt to mock Jesus, adore him as God.
This paradox is the paradox we are all asked to live each day. We are asked to witness to the injustice we experience – or to the injustice we see others experience. Living in this way, we begin to understand that the persecution we suffer is not the pain and punishment our accusers wish to inflict on us; rather it is the martyrdom Jesus asks us to bear when he says (Mark 5:11-12), Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
When we are mocked for Jesus’ sake, we step into God’s blessed gift of paradox . . . for the punishment our accusers wish to inflict upon us they suffer themselves. And the joy they wish to remove from us . . . they pour on us abundantly.
LA BIBLIA DE LA AMÉRICA. 8th. Madrid: La Casa de la Biblia, 1994. Print.
[Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome] were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”
Not long ago I heard a Ted Talk on rewildingon a day when I also had spent time reflecting on the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel. As a child I took for granted that the women who returned to Jesus’ tomb to dress his body might rely on finding someone to roll away the heavy stone for them. As an adult, I now better understand the trust these women, either knowingly or unwittingly, placed in God’s plan that they might be given the opportunity to serve as an integral part of the resurrection story. They thought they were going to anoint the dead body of a well-loved prophet and healer; but what God has in mind is their role as the first proclaimers of the Good News that Jesus has risen.
On that warm afternoon in August I considered how off the mark we are when we make plans with definitive outcomes without considering God’s input. And I determined to readjust my thinking yet again to leave my thinking more open to God’s powerful dreams and possibilities.
If we ever doubt God’s desire to love us into goodness, we need only remember the outcomes of giant dreams and enormous possibilities presented in these and other video presentations. Today we pause in our study of Mark’s story and remember why, and when and how the little roles we imagine for ourselves in kingdom building become opportunities for intimate relationship with our loving and healing God.
Watch one or all of the short clips below and consider how and when and why God rolls back the heavy stones in our lives. Reflect on the power of God to heal, restore and change . . . and how we humans fit into God’s amazing plan.
From time to time we reflect on the establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem; today we look at the foretelling of its destruction and rebuilding in a new way. The people who hear Jesus misunderstand him completely. The apostles ask Jesus to describe what will happen and he does; but they find it difficult to comprehend. They are thinking with a mind of thisworld which regards wealth, fame and good looks as the standards with which we measure success. Jesus, of course, speaks of the wealth of the real world, the world of the true and everlasting kingdom.
Yesterday’s Mass readings reminded us about what is real and what is unreal. Amos 6, Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:11-16, and Luke 16:19-31. Today’s Morning Prayer takes us to Matthew 6:19-21, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . , and Matthew 19:21, if you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come, follow me.
Jesus is constantly reminding us, through the losses we suffer, that nothing we store up here will be taken with us. It is our behavior we will wear in the next world, and that we actually wear in this one, that describes who and what we are. The clothes we see ourselves wearing today are not the clothes of the world Jesus describes. It is the actions we initiate, and the perseverance with which we persist, that will mark us as the perfect faithful. It is the fidelity we exercise, the hope we engender, and the charity toward enemies that mark us as those who have given away all they formerly had to follow Christ . . . and that make us living stones of the Living Temple. These stones will never be thrown down, never be torn asunder, never be scorched by the fires of destruction. They will remain with and in Christ forever.
This is the Jesus who explains reality to the faithful. This is the Jesus who is the new temple. This is the Jesus we willingly follow.
The Noontimes 