NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 16 in Ordinary Time, Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We continue with the Gospel of Saint Mark, but we've had a jump from where we were last time. Last time, if you remember, Jesus sends out the disciples two by two and gives them instructions, and that's where the Gospel ended last week. This Sunday they come back and gather around Jesus. In between there has been the story of John the Baptist. Now why is this important? Because it's part of the Gospel that we don't get today. It is the very first part of the Gospel concerning the death of John the Baptist, which is Herod's reaction to the news of the disciples going around preaching. In other words, it was something in what the disciples were doing and saying — and presumably the news that they were doing it and saying it because of Jesus — that reached Herod. Because it said: "King Herod heard of it, for Jesus's name had become known. Some were saying, 'John the Baptizer has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.' But others said, 'It is Elijah,' and others said, 'It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.' But when Herod heard of it he said, 'John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.'" So please notice that the travelling of the disciples had an effect. It caused attention to be drawn to Jesus and what Jesus was doing, such that different interpretations were held at court of what was going on. It's when Herod says, "This is John the Baptist raised from the dead," that we get the account of the death of John the Baptist. All of this fits into an Old Testament pattern. Let's remember that before we were looking at how Moses had sent out visitors to the Promised Land — the spies — how Joshua had done the same. And we're moving through the last chapters of the book of Numbers, which you will see in just a second when we come to the most important line in today's Gospel, which is: "He had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd." You see, that's a direct quote from the book of Numbers, and we'll see why that's important. Because what happened before Joshua — which is to say, Yeshua, which is to say Jesus — started taking the people into the Promised Land was, well, there were various deaths. First of all, there was the death of Aaron the high priest. And with the death of Aaron the high priest, we get a hint of the death of John the Baptist, who, remember, was of priestly family. So it's not for nothing that John the Baptist's death is described here. And then of course Moses dies towards the end — actually he dies towards the end of Deuteronomy; his death is not described as such in the book of Numbers. But in the book of Numbers it does very, very clearly say that he's going to die. And this is what's really important for today's Gospel. "The Lord said to Moses, go up this mountain and see the land that I've given to the Israelites. When you've seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people as your brother Aaron was, because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin." Moses spoke to the Lord saying, "Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint someone over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep without a shepherd." So the Lord said to Moses, "Take Joshua the son of Nun." You can see, therefore, where it's going from there. So what's really important in today's Gospel is that Jesus is enacting the fulfillment of Moses's prayer. It's the Lord himself who has come as Shepherd. Joshua was a bit of a failure in his attempt to get across the promised land, and as we'll see, Mark's Gospel follows various incidents in Joshua's career, which wasn't entirely successful. Jesus's enactment of Joshua is going to be far greater than that, because it's the enactment of the Lord himself. But before, it's got to be made clear that the one whom Moses prayed for is here. We get this in the very first verse of today's Gospel when the apostles come back. It says the apostles gathered around Jesus — the verb from sunago. It's the same verb from which we get the word synagogue. And you remember last time that Jesus left the synagogue for the last time — three synagogue visits in Mark's Gospel — and started working outside the synagogue. So here they are gathering around Jesus. One greater than Moses is here. And they told him all that they had done and taught. And this is interesting, because this is the reversal of what you would expect. They've come to gather around Jesus, and rather than him lecturing them, they tell him what they've done. It's a very interesting reversal of ordinary synagogue practices, the new form of teaching which is going to be going on. And he says to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." In other words, rest for the missionaries. Deserted place — always a meaningful moment for those who'd gone through the wilderness. It says, "For many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat." In fact, that crops up from time to time in Mark's Gospel. When there's a crowd, they can't eat. And the eating in Mark's Gospel is always twofold: the eating of actual food, and the ability to hear. the word. Two sorts of eating going on at once. So they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Okay, so it doesn't say they've crossed over again, they've just gone to a deserted place. It was probably on the pagan side, but we can't be sure. It doesn't make much reference to that. But many of the people saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. Okay, so this is part of the fruit of their mission, that they've caused excitement. People have seen that something's going to happen. They've seen that people are being called out to something new. That repentance has been announced and something big is about to happen. What is it that it's going to be? Well, it's not clear, but it appears to be something in fulfillment of the prophets of old. That's what Jesus' disciples have appeared to suggest with their preaching and their teaching and their casting out of demons. So this has caused a great deal of excitement. They want to see what's going to happen next. So as he went ashore — initially he meant to be in a deserted place with his disciples for a bit of R&R — he saw a great crowd and he had compassion for them. So this is the Yahweh word: esplanchnisthē. He was gut-wrenched for them; he had his tripes wrenched, gutted before them. This is the word referring to the Lord's feelings, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and that's the direct quote from the book of Numbers. So he'd come visiting, hoping to see that the first Joshua's work had been done. But it hadn't. The sheep were like sheep without a shepherd. Joshua turned out not to be, and his successors turned out not to be, those who are capable of leading people in and out and giving them pasture — another passage which will get picked up in St. John's Gospel when Jesus talks about being the gate and the shepherd. But here, as he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So this is Mark saying very strongly: we've done the visitation. Now the one who is the true Yeshua, the true one whose name means "Yahweh saves," has come amongst his sheep, and he's going to teach them, he's going to show them how to go in and out and find rest — and not only his immediately chosen ones but all those who are around him. Then it says, "And he began to teach them many things." Actually, the word there probably means he began to teach them at great length, rather than that it was so much the content as the length of time that he spent teaching. And that's where today's Gospel leaves us, which is a A very odd place to leave us, because this is in fact the beginning of the feeding of the 5000. But for reasons which aren't entirely clear to me, the Church wants us only to focus on the shepherd meaning of this. The actual feeding we'll look at next week, but the Church jumps from Mark's version of it to John's version of it. So we get the Johannine version of the feeding of the 5000, the great texts on the bread from heaven, the manna in John's Gospel. We're going to get that for the next three weeks — or more, in fact; actually three weeks, because the Assumption falls on a Sunday this year — before we go back to Mark. So what the Church asks us to do is to remember the presence amongst us of the one who has come himself to shepherd us, who teaches us himself. We gather around him, we share what we have done, and he is going to feed us as a shepherd. We're then going to see how his feeding works over the next Sunday through the meditation on John. So let's call to mind the shepherd amongst us, ask him to show how he's shepherding us, ask him to allow us to share in that shepherding of others, so fulfilling the mission which the new Joshua is always bringing into being as he takes us into the promised land. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.