Wednesday in the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle II
Memorial of St John Bosco
2 Sam 24, 2-17; Mk 6: 1-6
I believe it was the French scientist and Christian Apologist Blaise Pascal who once said something along these lines, "God does not conceal himself from us fully lest he be completely imperceptible to those who want to seek Him; but neither does God reveal himself fully to us so as not to impose himself on those who want to reject Him." The omnipotent God, our creator makes Himself vulnerable in the hands and minds of his own creatures. This is the extent of God's love towards us: he loves us and wants us to be His, yet He is not possessive over us even though we are His. Our ability as human beings to reject God is the ultimate sign the gift of freedom that God has given us. In the end, it depends on us whether we accept Christ in our life or not.
Over the past few weeks, as we read through the Gospel of Mark, we have seen various features of this Evangelist's style. One of the most prominent is that he is hypercritical of Jesus's disciples, especially of those closest to him. He expects more of them: to have more faith, to be humbler, to accept Jesus more in their life. Instead, he shows us how those who are at the peripheries of society accept Jesus more readily.
However this theme of the rejection of Jesus - and which we read again in today's reading, where he is rejected in the Synagogue in the very same neighbourhood where he was brought up - is actually a recurrent theme through all the gospels. We can recall, for example, how in the very beginning of the Gospel of John, in the Prologue, we read, "He came to his own, but his people did not accept him" (1:11).
We need not go too far. In fact, we can all recall moments in our life when we were rejected, for some reason or other, either in our childhood when we were not chosen to be in the football team, or when we were not cool enough to hand out with the cool guys. Or perhaps even later on in life, when we were rejected by our colleagues at work because we held certain principles or even by our own family because we held a particular opinion or chose a particular lifestyle.
However we call also recall moments in life when we were the ones who rejected others. Perhaps we disregarded what so and so said for no other reason except because it was he or she who said so. What they said might have been right and true but we allowed our prejudices take the better of us and we simply disregarded it.
I am struck by the two similar words found in today's gospel, but with two completely different, almost opposing meanings. The people were astonished when they heard Jesus, while Jesus, on the other hand, was amazed at their lack of faith. How do these words sit with me? How am I left after listening to Jesus speak, and how do you think that Jesus feels when he observes the faith I have?
Therefore we can almost say that God is as big as the measure of my faith! It sounds awkward to make such a statement but it is true. God humbles Himself such that he asks us permission to be our God. We grant him permission through that faith. At Augustine was fond of saying, "He who created you without you cannot save you without you." In other words, God's omnipotence is limited by our "Yes" to Him. The people in today's Gospel reject Jesus because they knew that he is going to change their way of thinking and reasoning. They saw him as a threat because it means that God does not come in power and might, as they thought that their Messiah would. Rather, God comes to us in simple daily means, in familiar faces which we do not think much about and in familiar neighbourhoods where nothing really spectacular ever happened.
But Jesus chooses precisely these daily means and familiar places to carry out his works of wonder.... If only we had the faith!
Comments
Post a Comment