Ordinary Time

From time immemorial, people of religious faith have seen the hills and mountains as signifying the meeting of heaven and earth. In the scriptures, such meetings took definitive form. At Mount Horeb, Moses received God’s revelation from the middle of the burning bush; on Sinai he received the Ten Commandments from God. To Elijah at Mount Horeb God was revealed not in mighty wind, earthquake or fire, but in a gentle breeze. Jesus went into the hills to pray. He fasted in a mountainous wilderness, was transfigured on a mountain and preached the Sermon on the Mount.

When the small boy gave Jesus the loaves and fish, heaven and earth met on a mountainside. From his poverty the boy have Him all he had and Jesus transformed his offering beyond all understanding. Jesus said that unless we change and become like little children we shall never enter the kingdom of heaven. The little boy shows us how to change that we might live forever with the Lord on His holy mountain.

Today’s story both reminds us of what has gone before this episode and gives hints about what is to follow. As it opens, we are told that Jesus’ disciples have been away. As the story ends, the set-up is complete for the account of one of the most famous miracles ever: the feeding of 5,000. In between, and using no more words than are absolutely necessary, St. Mark the evangelist describes both the arrival of people, and the place where they gather, in a way that will give added significance to the feeding miracle, which we will hear next week in St. John’s version. We are told that Jesus instructed His disciples to come away to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. The desert reminds us immediately of the Israelite’s 40 years in the desert. The disciples have not had anything to eat; the Israelites were faced with starvation until God fed them with manna.

Every single image, every single word in this Gospel story has significance. It reminds us of Israel’s history; it recalls the prayer of Israel – which is what the psalms were – and it is like St. Mark wanted his readers to think of the Eucharist. He needed to reassure his readers that the one who shepherded the crowd, who fed those who were hungry and who had compassion on those who lacked a shepherd, is not absent from this world. He continues to be present and to minister to each generation in the same way. It is especially in the Eucharist we celebrate that the Lord who is shepherd, teacher and source of food continues to be present to us today.

In today’s Gospel story of Jesus sending His disciples out on mission, St. Mark tells us that the one thing they were allowed to take with them was a staff for the journey, nothing else. The disciples were not going on holiday. They did not need to pack anything. In fact, all they needed was the assurance of Jesus and the power that He gave to them to teach and to heal. All other requirements they could expect to receive from the people they visited – shelter, a place to sleep and food to eat. These things they could reasonably expect in return for the work they were doing, preaching the word of God and healing those who were sick. Their purpose is to save; to save people going astray or who find themselves lost in this life. The instructions that Jesus gave are geared to keeping the focus on the importance of what the disciples say and do. That is why they are commanded to find a place to stay and to stay there. They are there to serve and save people. That is why the command is given to shake dust from their feet if they are rejected in their work. It is meant, not as retaliation, but to be a sign. Even in being dismissed they can still preach the Gospel and indicate its importance.

Some priests and religious people are career people. Religion is their preferred way of life, but no matter of salvation. It’s a job. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, in today’s first reading, was such a person. When he tells Amos it is clear that he is preaching because he has to. He is not doing it for the good of his health! The Lord demands this of him that he should preach the real word of God to people, and not some idle nonsense. When people climb holy mountains, they do so because they feel a call to climb, a summons to go higher, a desire to see more clearly and a yearning to be a better person. The word of God calls us all the time. The faith we have been given is the stick that helps our climb, the staff that supports our journey. Let us take up our staff every day and journey together to the mountain of the Lord.

Jesus offers us two examples of healing and new life through faith. First, Jairus, the synagogue official, asks Jesus to come and lay His hands on his little girl to make her better and save her life. In the sacrament of anointing of the sick the priest lays his hands in silence on the sick person before the oil is applied to head and hands. The the young woman suffering from the haemorrhage knows she has to touch Jesus for healing, even though such an act in Jewish law will make Him unclean because of her condition. Jesus commands her faith, a faith that has enabled her to put trust in Him and go beyond the accepted boundaries of convention. In later Greek tradition the woman was given the name Berenice, which translates into the Latin Veronica, the woman who in the Stations of the Cross wipes the face of Jesus on His journey to Calvary, leaving the imprint of that face on the cloth.

We are taught both to receive life from Jesus and to convey His gift of life to others. We are invited to be touched by Him and remain in touch with Him. Without His love in our hearts we are not fully alive, and we are certainly not able to offer that love to others. Our hearts and minds are touched as we listen to His word during the liturgy, and we are nourished spiritually as we receive the gift of His body and blood in communion. By the simple act of a handshake when we exchange a sign of peace we proclaim the peace that exists between us. We may not be, for the most part, doctors or nurses, but the way we greet each other, the way we smile, the way we listen, the way we hold each other in friendship or compassion, are all carrying out of love of Christ and our witness to Him.

Whether we’re young or old, we stand in need of encouragement. And that is true especially of our spiritual life. In our efforts to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, it’s easy to get discouraged, to feel that we are making little or no progress. If that’s how we feel, today’s readings could serve as a spiritual pick-me-up.

The prophet Ezekiel, who gave us our first reading, lived at one of the most disastrous periods of Israel’s history, when its people had been hauled off into exile far away from their homeland and many were feeling that God had abandoned them. Ezekiel assures them that this is not so. On the contrary, the Lord has a plan for His people. In the Gospel, Jesus tells a parable, a story with a message not unlike that of Ezekiel. He speaks of a tiny mustard seed, which grows so huge that it provides a resting place for all birds of the air. And He tells us that the Kingdom of God is like that. While this parable gives us the big picture of God at work, Jesus tells another parable, which might be described as God’s work in miniature. God works not only on the grand scale, not only in nations and among nations, but also on the small scale, in the lives of individuals. And so Jesus tells the story of a farmer who sows his seed and then, until the harvest arrives, must patiently wait. All he knows is that secretly, night and day, the seed is growing, always growing, though he doesn’t know how; one day it will produce the blade, then the ear and finally the full grain of wheat.

In our lives, too, the Lord has sown His seed and is permanently at work within us. And while we are called to cooperate, the work of salvation is God’s achievement, not ours. In fact God is longing for us to grow in faith and hope and love, in freedom and goodness, more than we do ourselves.

St. John’s version of the calling of the disciples is concerned with how we grow in faith and so become disciples. As in today’s first reading, about the calling of Samuel, it is a process. John the Baptist passes on two of his disciples to Jesus, repeating his declaration from the time of Jesus’ baptism that this is the “lam of God”, the one who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is not just a teacher. He confirms this by His recognition of who Simon is, where he has come from and who he will be. In St. John’s Gospel, faith is at times expressed as a coming to Jesus, and seeing in depth is compared with being blind or missing the point. This is how we too grow in faith. If we come to Jesus and spend time with Him, we too may go beyond thinking of Him as our teacher and come to see Him as the Messiah and more.

To discover our true calling and how to be a disciple we are called to follow the same pattern described in St. John’s account. We bring ourselves, with whatever our particular strengths and weaknesses may be. We can know that we are invited to come to Jesus himself and spend time with Him. This may be time spent in prayer, in learning about Him, in just giving time to being with Him. We may not be the rock Jesus calls Simon Peter to be, but we will have a significant role to play. If we find it difficult to believe God has this special interest in us, we can also help each other discover our callings.

A good deal of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels is about the kingdom of heaven – the great promise of a future in which the Father draws all creation into harmony. The images that Jesus uses to describe this kingdom draw on familiar, domestic life: the woman who loses a coin; the seed that grows to a great tree; the family and friends gathered to celebrate a marriage. To be people of the kingdom, Jesus’ parable suggests, is to be a people aware that we carry great gifts that belong not to us, but to our Lord. It is the constant concern for what is put into our hands that is so vividly set before us in the image of the “perfect wife” in the first reading. The woman’s hard work in the ordinary fabric of daily living, far from being “just” domestic, or “mere housework,” is recognized as the virtue that it is: a kind of practical wisdom that enables life to flourish, and generous charity to find a place in our homes. It is ordinary doing of love and faithfulness.

Today we are all being called to a new kind of mission – a fresh witness to the world about the love of God in Jesus, and the joy that life in His Spirit brings. I will pray, instead, for God to raise up others to great tasks. Those prayers are important; but today’s readings remind us that, first and foremost, it is in the daily routines of life that the power of the kingdom can find a home in our world. Next time we are cleaning, picking up the phone to a colleague or friend, cooking for our children, or waiting for a bus, let’s call to mind our great vocation to serve God’s kingdom in ordinary things. In such small steps, the world will be consecrated more and more to Christ.