NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 14 in Ordinary Time, Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the 14th week in ordinary time, and we are continuing directly on in Mark's Gospel from where we left off last time, which was Jesus telling the parents of the now healed 12-year-old girl to give her something to eat. He left that place and he comes to his hometown, the one which other gospels refer to as Nazareth. He comes to his hometown and his disciples followed him. So he's there with other people, with his new family — important, those who are becoming his sisters and brothers and mothers. And on the Sabbath he begins to teach in the synagogue. This is the third and last time that Jesus teaches in a synagogue in Mark's Gospel. And each one is significant and slightly different, because each one gives us a glimpse of the shape of the Most High who's come to visit. In the first visit to the synagogue he cured a demoniac who cried out, "You are the Son of God, the Son of the Most High." And he heals him. In other words, this is the Holy One of God. This is the Great High Priest who has finally come. He's come into the midst of what is going to be the new temple, and he's making available purity, the source of purity that heals the demonized. In the second one he goes into a synagogue and they've put a test before him, a man with a withered hand, and he sees it and he tells the man to extend his hand, thus illustrating Yahweh telling Moses to extend his hand. And what Jesus is doing is enacting Yahweh setting people free from Egypt, and posing the question to the people in the synagogue, to the leaders in the synagogue: are you like the Pharaoh demanding to keep my people back, or do you choose life, in which case you will be happy that I've healed this man on the Sabbath? So his interaction there is as the Lord of the Exodus, the Lord who sets people free. And then on this third time he comes to his hometown. And this is the most mysterious of the three, because all the language here seems to run in reverse. I hope you'll see what I mean. He begins to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astounded. Okay, so these are his hometown folks. They'd obviously heard of him, his reputation had gone around, and they're astounded to hear him teach. But is their astounding being in the sense of "Gosh, this is amazing," or is it astounding in the sense of "What on earth is this guy up to?" It's not at all clear; the verb is not clear. They're clearly astounded. Later we're told they were scandalized, and that's going to be a key word. But they then said, "Whence to this man all these things?" — "Whence rather from this man all these things?" So the great question: whence? "What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power from his hands are becoming?" So they want to know more; they're expecting something from him. But interestingly, each one of these words — run them in reverse. "Whence all these things?" This is the way of referring to the Lord. Where is the wisdom that he gives? It's the Lord who gives wisdom. "What deeds of power are these? Where do such deeds of power come from? They are coming from his hands." It is the Lord whose deeds of power come from the Lord's hands. And of course this is the language of wisdom and power — very definitely the words referring to God. It's God's wisdom and God's power. St. Paul refers to the same doublet referring to Jesus Christ crucified: the power of God and the wisdom of God. So, if you like, here we have the family completely misreading who is in their midst. It's the reverse of a sign. They've reinterpreted everything backwards, so that "Whence does he get this?" — they're imagining him as the object rather than as the subject, one who is bringing all things into being. "Who gave him this wisdom?" But he is the source of wisdom, making it available to us. "What about these works of power from his hands?" It is the one whose power brings things into being that is amongst them. Of course, none of them can see that, and we can see why. "Is not this the carpenter?" Well, that's what our translation says. The word is the artisan, the artificer. It has a number of meanings. Carpenter is one of them. One of its meanings here would be the zero-hours labourer — because not a property owner, not part of a local business, so a self-hiring person who hasn't got any basis. In other words, the very bottom of the economically viable. That's one of the meanings. But also the artificer is the artisan. One of the artisans, for instance, who built all the woodwork for the tabernacle was a son or a grandson of Miriam called Bezalel. He was an artisan; he was a tektōn. But the artificer, coming as it does from the same word — tiktō — which means "to bear," can point also at the one who brings and orders everything. "Is this not the artisan?" — possibly hence the one who makes idols, because it was artisans in the prophets who make idols, same word — "the son of Mary." And here he's referred to in the singular as the son of Mary Mark shows no particular indication of Mary's special status, but here Jesus is the singular son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judah and Simon. Of course, this is a reference back to Miriam. And Miriam of course famously got into a great row with Moses and was turned into a leper because of it. In other words, family squabble around these figures comes to light almost immediately. The moment family is close, it's difficult to see the prophet, it's difficult to see the grandeur if you're close. As it is said, no man is great to his valet — for those of us who are lucky enough to have valets, which is certainly not the case with me. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Miriam, and the brother of Jacob and Joseph and Jude and Simeon?" Okay, well we remember the family of Jacob and Joseph and Judah and Simeon. They were the ones who very nearly had Joseph killed. Judah had him sold, Simeon wanted to have him killed. This was another way of not recognizing the dreamer who they had within them. So we get to see that these people are stuck in the family dynamics and not able to see the one who's in their midst. The Lord is amongst them as a hidden Lord, as it says in Isaiah: "Truly, Lord, thou art a hidden God." And are not his sisters here with us? And he says they took offense at him, and they were scandalized by him, they were caused to stumble by him. So this is, of course, at the center of this — this is what is the psychological dynamic that causes the understanding of God to be completely reversed. Well, it's that obsessive relationship of wanting to be close to and wanting to be far from, imitating and being in rivalry with, at the same time being locked into imitative rivalry with somebody. That's the scandal, that's what it's like — that's when you're too close and therefore you can't see. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus actually gives the phrase "Blessed is he who is not scandalized by me," meaning who is able to take sufficient distance from me, that the relationship is not all screwed up by this mixture of imitation and rivalry, because then you never get to see who I am. All you get to see is the person you need to bring down in order to think of yourself as okay, and you're permanently locked into that. So that's to be avoided. Here then Jesus speaks to them, seeing them scandalized. He actually uses language that is pretty much an interpretation of the prophet Jeremiah, because the prophet Jeremiah got similar treatment from his hometown, his homies — that was Anathoth. "The people of Anathoth who seek your life and say, 'You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord, or you will die by our hands.' Therefore," says the Lord of hosts, "I'm going to punish them." And a few verses later he says: "For even your kinsfolk and your own family, even they have dealt treacherously with you." They are in full cry after you. Do not believe them though they speak friendly words to you. So Jesus is condensing here the sentiment of the prophet Jeremiah. But he does it with a special touch, because he takes it back to the very beginning of prophecy: "Prophets are not without honor except in their hometown and among their own kin and in their own house." And he almost quotes exactly the very beginning of God's call to Abraham. It's very slightly different, because there it says "from your land and from your father's house," whereas he says "from your fatherland and then your parents and your house." But this is Genesis 12, and this is the call to go out. And the Lord said to Abram — this was even before his change of name — "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you." So what is Jesus amazed about? He's amazed that these children of Abraham are completely removed in their synagogue from a prophetic understanding. They are so interlocked with their own family squabbles that they don't even see how that links in with the very worst of the family squabbles of the whole people of Israel. And they're unable to understand the hidden God who is in their midst. He could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. That's a very strange, very striking phrase. The Lord in his visitation came for the third and final time to the synagogue, to the house of Israel, longing to see if the faith was alive — the faith of Abraham, of Moses, of Jeremiah, of Isaiah, of Hosea, who talked also about faithlessness. If that faith was alive. And seeing no — they just got bogged down in petty family squabbles and were unable to see the big picture. And of course, this is us. How easy it is for us to far prefer the squabble of our jealousies, our obsessions — political, social, religious — and not see the one who is in our midst, who is wanting to work signs. He can do very little, especially for those who are vulnerable and not important and not notable, like he does with the cured here. But then he has to move on and find others who will hear his word and do it. And so that is what's going to happen from now on. This is his, if you like, sad farewell. Would it be the same if he turned up in one of our churches? What must we do to undergo having our scandal removed, so that we're able to hear the wisdom and see the signs by which the Creator is bringing people, groups, things to life in our midst, and understand by whom we have been visited? In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.