XVI
Sunday in Ordinary Time-July 22
Textual Comments
Today's passage, like those of the last two Sundays, is an
account of the ministry of Jesus and contains several messages that are
important for us today. We can feel free to identify with one of the three
characters in the story: - Jesus, - the apostles, - the crowds.
Verse 30. Jesus highlights the contrast
between two aspects of teaching: -
"what we do” - “what we
teach". These are two distinct
realities and in our teaching we should reflect on both. We need to share how
we feel about things - within ourselves, with one another, and finally with our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. What we
teach must include how we relate to what we have experienced. The emphasis is
usually quite different and does not reflect how we ourselves respond. There
are therefore two important conclusions. The words “they returned to their
master” remind us that we need to emphasize both of them in how we relate with
Jesus.
Verses 31 and 32 . Jesus makes another
distinction, this time between - our
“teaching” - our “going away to a lonely
place” so that we can “rest for a while”. This “resting” would include what we do on our
own. These are the times when we know that no one is there to look after us or
to see that we do nothing wrong. We all have to take time off for rest. We take the verb “eating” here in a very wide
sense. It must include activities such as getting a good rest from our work,
enjoying the good things of life. The fact that the apostles did not have time
to eat is of course very significant. It means that the need to look after
themselves has become very great. They must learn how to find rest for
themselves.
Verses 33 and 34 . Jesus' plan is thwarted by
the people. The passage stresses that the crowd gathered almost by chance; the
people came by accident. “ And “he took pity on them, because they were like
sheep without a shepherd”. This is very important. We need to listen to what
people are asking for. We must respond to them remembering that they don't have
people around them who can give them training or leadership. They have no one
who can console them or give them a new direction to follow in their lives. And so he set himself to answer their great
needs. The passage stresses two
important realities - accommodating our
need for rest, to get something to eat -
responding to the needs of others. The
passage also concerns “the crowds”. We too can always expect that Jesus will be
there to look after us. He wants to understand our needs and to respond to
them. We must make sure that our
meditation is true to our experience. We must not move to a conclusion too
quickly. We will then find, by the end of the passage, that we have been really
helped to understand our lives better.
Prayer
Reflection
"The one who loves the community destroys the
community; the one who loves the brothers and sisters builds community."
Dietrich Bonhoffer
Lord, all of us work for people: - at work we have school principals, heads of government, directors of firms;
- within our circle of friends there are those who organise functions;
- in the Church community there are priests, choir leaders, youth group leaders.
We thank you that once in a way you send us someone like
Jesus, someone who, when we speak about all we have done for the organisation, will
notice that there is so much coming and going in our lives that we have no time
even to eat, and will say to us that we must come away to some lonely place, all
by ourselves, and rest for a while.
Lord, we thank you that this is how you relate with us. "God loves us too much to allow us to
be satisfied and contented with mere images or signs of his presence." Abhishiktananda
Lord, prayer is that moment in our lives when we come into
your presence to tell you all we have
done and taught, and you see that with
all the coming and going about us we are
not finding time to be nourished ourselves; so you say to us that we need to come away to
some lonely place by ourselves, even if
when we step ashore there is a large crowd waiting for us, there is no need for us to panic because eventually we will find that we can
teach them at some length.
"The abbot is to temper all things so that the
strong may still have something to strive after and the weak may not draw back
in alarm." The Rule of St Benedict
Lord, great people are like Jesus
- they know that it is necessary at times to go away to a lonely place and rest for a while;
- but they know too that there are times when we have to
forego our moment of rest because there
are people out there who are like sheep
without a shepherd, and we must take pity on them. Help us to be more like your shepherd.
Lord, you know how difficult we find it when we want to include our deep feelings into
what we teach. We would like to include
both but so often we neglect what we really believe because we are afraid of betraying the deep
teaching of Jesus.
"The biggest
mistake sometimes is to play things safe in this life and end up being moral
failures." Dorothy Day
Lord, the world is so
complex that we feel to run away from it, to take off in a boat where we can be
safe.
Indeed, it is necessary to do that from time to time. But that is dangerous too, because once we
step ashore, we will see that a large
crowd has gathered there, like sheep without
a shepherd, and your will is that we
should be like Jesus for them and set
ourselves to teach them at some length.
*************************************
Thomas
O'Loughlin
Introduction to
the Celebration
The desire to be in the presence of the Lord and to listen
to his teaching is what draws us together each time we assemble as a church —
just as we are doing now. Today we hear of early groups of people who also had
the desire to be with Jesus and how he took pity on them 'because they were like
sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length'. Let
us set the tone for our celebration by thinking about our need to listen to the
teachings of Jesus so that they can bring light into our lives.
Today's passage is the prologue to the story of the feeding
of five thousand men with five loaves and two fish (6:30-44) — a story whose
perfect form is found in Mark. As the prologue, it is there to establish the
reason why the people were there and in need of feeding.
As a distinct element within the story, it shows us Mark
combining the images of shepherd (one who guides and protects), teacher (one
who feeds understanding and guides) and the one who cares (feeds with food and
looks out for the people) in the person and work of Jesus.
The opening verses of this passage 'come away ... and rest
awhile' have launched a thousand retreats — but with scarce respect for the
actual meaning of Mark's text. The whole point of Mark's story is that while it
might be nice for Jesus and the disciples to have time 'away from it all', that
is not to be for the simple reason that there is a people in need of pity which
manifests itself in teaching.
Homily Notes
2. On a practical level there is nothing remarkable about the scene: it all takes place over distances of just a couple of miles along the shore of a small lake and there were plenty of lonely places just behind the small village settlements that are referred to in the gospels as 'cities'. Moreover, we are so used to hearing of miracles or healings or exorcisms — all of which can cause us to wonder 'what was that really like' or which make us feel uneasy; or hearing bits of Jesus's preaching we find hard to apply to our own lives, that we are apt to dismiss something like today's gospel as an irrelevance!
3. However, the fact that 'Jesus took pity on them ... and set himself to teach them at some length' contains a lesson for us that is of the first importance. This is what we must explore in the homily today.
4. It is very easy to think of Jesus taking pity on people. Sinners, poor people, sick people, hungry people, people in mourning, paralytics, outcasts such as Zacchaeus (or some other tax-collector), people possessed by evil spirits: in each of these cases we can think of Jesus taking pity and then either doing something about it or teaching us about our duties of pity. He pitied sinners and forgave them; he pitied the sick and healed them; he pitied the widow and raised her son to life; he had pity for outcasts and made them welcome at his table; and he preached that we, his disciples, should take pity on the hungry, the poor, and those who are suffering. But the pity he shows today does not fit this pattern. He takes pity on the whole people — rich and poor, healthy and sick — and the form that his pity takes is teaching.
5. The idea that Jesus takes pity on people because they are like 'sheep without a shepherd', and the idea that teaching could be an expression of pity / mercy, are two ideas that are very alien to us. On the one hand, we do not like the idea that we need to be taught: we are in love with the notion of our own autonomy. This is expressed in the atheist sentiment: don't walk in front, I may not follow; don't walk behind, I may not lead; let's just walk beside each other! On the other hand, teaching conjures up someone who knows what we do not and tells us — implicitly showing up our imperfection — and teaching also seems to be just a technical skill: imparting boring skills be they how to cook, do arithmetic, a language, or car-maintenance. Teaching is no more than 'transferring skills' — to use modern educational jargon.
6. But these notions of autonomy and of our human need to be taught are incompatible with the basis not just of Christianity, but all monotheistic belief. It is our belief that the universe — be it the outer universe of atoms or galaxies or the inner universe of our human existence — cannot be understood without reference to God. God is the maker of all that is, seen and unseen, and without thinking about God and the divine origin and purpose of the universe, there is something lacking in our understanding, in our judgements on how we should act, and in the depths of our hearts. As Augustine said: 'You, 0 God, have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless without you.'
7. Yet, modern society tries to live in a God-free zone and make out that the divine is an optional extra, no more than a personal choice. While, at the same time, the'body, mind, spirit' shelves of bookshops groan under the number of books by lifestyle consultants that promise happiness by a mix of diets, mind-games, and ways of re-arranging the furniture in your home. The God-free zone is also a happiness-free zone.
8. We only become fully human when we recognise that there is more to life than the sum of the bits we can manage, the bits we can cope with, and the bits we can see. This recognition is rarely a blinding flash of understanding that there is a 'God-shaped aperture' in our existence, rather it is, more often than not, a painful discovery that we would almost be glad to avoid. Yet in this discovery we need also to appreciate the wisdom who teaches us — here lies the mission of Jesus the prophet and teacher. He teaches us to become aware of the deeper needs of our humanity: to see ourselves as the Father's children, to work together to build the kingdom, and the need to journey through life towards our true home. Jesus both teaches us of our fundamental dependency on God, and of the love that God constantly offers us.
9. We as a community continue that teaching: not just
transferring skills such as how to pray or how to help the poor, but teaching
in the sense of bringing people to wisdom. This is the wisdom that knows that
our lives are incomplete without acknowledging who we are as creatures within a
God-given universe.
10. The people
hurried after him, and he set about teaching them at length. Here is a hard
question: are we willing to sit as students (the same word as 'disciples'
except it is less pious) at the feet of Jesus — and be taught at length?
**********************************
Sean
Goan
This text follows on from what happened last Sunday when
Jesus missioned them as his apostles. If their success depends on their being
sent by Jesus, then to some extent it also depends on their returning to him.
In other words, it only makes sense because of their relationship to him and
this is what is demonstrated in this short text. They return to him, no doubt
full of all that had happened to them but also tired and so he suggests time
apart. Such is the hunger for the good news of the kingdom that they don't even
have time to eat. However, the people know the lake shore and can guess where
they are headed for and so, on arrival, Jesus and the apostles are greeted by a
large crowd. Jesus' response, however, is not one of frustration but of
compassion and the apostles learn once again from the Master what it means to
be a shepherd. It is also noteworthy that what Jesus does for this large crowd
is not to perform miracles but to teach them at length, thus highlighting again
that vital aspect of Jesus' ministry.
