Come away and rest a while....

Gospel for 22nd July 2012 (Mark 6:30-34) The disciples return from their ‘sending out’ and tell all that they have done. They ‘rejoin Jesus’. They have been so busy that Jesus invites them away to a deserted place for some time out. This is the first important point in this passage – even though we are sent out in many different ways we must always come back to the source, stay connected with the message, give time for rest, reflection, prayer and those ‘deserted places’. Only when we do this can we serve the needs of others. Jesus takes pity on the crowd who were “like sheep without a shepherd”. They have no leadership or perhaps fruitless leadership and follow the disciples and Jesus desperate for some new direction. The crowd take a risk in following them. We should not be afraid to follow those paths that may be counter cultural: “The biggest mistake is to sometimes play things safe in this life and end up being moral failures” Dorothy Day. A very apt text this Sunday for those of us taking holidays and finding some deserted places of our own. Here's a few of mine - have a great summer!

Prophets and home towns

Gospel July 8th 2012: I'm sure we can all relate to this Gospel as we imagine the scene of Jesus returning to his family, friends, those whom he grew up with, played with as a child, worked for. The local boy returns after his travels and tell all gathered in the synagogue (or local pub) of all his successes, how well he is doing abroad, how much he has changed and so on. And the response is still the same: “Who does that fella think he is?” “He is an idealist now?” “Today’s story of Jesus visiting Nazareth is well known and probably well related to for many people. There is that saying that the Irish do well abroad… try arriving home to tell the people down the local of your success and you won’t be popular for long. Jesus is having such an experience in today’s gospel as the people of his hometown simply won’t accept him. He may have achieved wonderful things, only last week we heard of the mircales he worked. But the time has come to return home to the home country and to teach there. People simply do not see him in the same way. We can sympathise with Jesus in this story, or perhaps recognise ourselves in those who refuse to accept that the local carpenter is now calling himself the son of God. Locals question him – his authority. He is unable to be a prophet in his own country. Jesus can’t work miracles there because miracles require faith. The Nazarenes are unable to see God working through someone who they knew well. How many times has Jesus been sent to us in the form of someone we knew well but we could not see Him?

"Talitha Cum"

Mark sometimes likes to interrupt a story he is telling with another story – we call it a Markan sandwich. We hear an example of it today (Sunday 1st July) with the healing of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with a haemorrhage. At first glance these stories might not seem to have a lot in common. The woman, a complete social outcast because of her condition is called ‘daughter’ by Jesus. Her social status is completely reversed, she is a child of God, not some outcast that can be shunned by the community. The synagogue official surprises us, pleasantly, with his faith in Jesus and his message, not something that those in religious leadership were credited for. What these two characters have in common is faith against all the odds. There are those in the story who laugh when Jesus says he can bring back Jairus’ daughter. They are sent away. Jesus’ healing breaks down all the barriers that isolate us from one another and from God. Not only that, faith in Jesus can even give us new life and help us to overcome things that keep us from being free: “Do not fear; just keep on believing”. Mark leaves untranslated Jesus’ own native language when he says: “Talitha cum” – a beautiful phrase meaning: “Little girl, get up!”. The girl has been given new life, the woman has been given new life also. Both have overcome those barriers that were keeping them from being free. We know what those barriers are for each of us as we reach out searching in faith and hope. “Talitha cum”.