Ordinary time year B

Teaching with Authority
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
In few verses, St. Mark highlights the people's reaction to Jesus. His teaching made a deep impression on them. The people remained amazed at what he had to say because He taught with authority.
When Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts, he was running hard for a second term in office. One day, after a busy morning chasing votes and no lunch he arrived at a church barbecue. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished. As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.
“Excuse me,” Governor Herter said, “do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”
“Sorry,” the woman told him. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”
“But I’m starved,” the governor said.
“Sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one to a customer.”
Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that
this time he would throw a little weight around.
“Do you know who I am?” he said. “I am the governor of this state.”
“Do you know who I am?” the woman said. “I’m the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister.” (Bits & Pieces, May 28, 1992, pp. 5-6.)
What does it mean to teach with authority? Very simply teaching with authority means that a person lives what he or she says. Teaching with authority means that what we say is reflected in how we live. That there is no difference between our way of acting and our way of believing and living. This is what people recognized in Jesus. Jesus was a person of integrity. It is hard to be an original teacher, with authority, if you live around the people you teach! Jesus did!
Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the great literary figures of nineteenth century America. He wrote, "Only so much do I know as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has lived. One person speaks from within, or from experience as a possessor of the fact; another person speaks from without, as a spectator, or as acquainted with the facts on the evidence of a third person. It is no use to preach to me from without. I can do that myself." You will notice from the Gospel, it wasn’t the casting out of the evil spirits that astonished the people it was Jesus’ teaching. Not his actions but his words.
In today's gospel Jesus was confronted with a very troubled person crying out "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? In effect this man was saying to him. I have no hope, I have no good in me. I am not worthy of your care and interest. No one understands me. I am crippled and can do nothing more. What was Jesus' reaction? No, you are good, you are important. There are certain things in your life that are preventing you from being the person that I created you to be. I want to free you. I want to make you reach your full potential. Be cured. Be healed. Frequently, my dear brothers and sisters, the choices we make produce the evil we lament. St. Paul touches on this contradiction in his letter to the Romans 7:19 "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want I do".
The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis observed that we could make two errors when it comes to demons: giving them too little attention, and giving them too much. Denying the existence of demons is not wise. It’s like pretending terrorists don’t exist. But giving them too much attention is also a bad idea, because it can distract from much more serious problems.
Jesus confronts a fair number of demons in his ministry. But he confronts far more sinners with hardened hearts. The refrain for today’s Psalm is, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” That is by far the bigger challenge Jesus faces. Few of us ever need to worry about demonic possession. All of us need to worry about hard hearts. Compared to the hard hearts, the demons are easy for Jesus. In today’s gospel, Jesus commands the demon, and the demon instantly obeys. Jesus commands, and the demon flees. To the demon, Jesus says, “Quiet! Come out of him!” and the demon obeys. To us, Jesus says, “Repent your sins! Feed the poor! Forgive your neighbor!”, and we say, “Yes, right, absolutely, I will definitely get around to that soon. When my schedule opens up in a few weeks. When things quiet down after the holidays...”
No Exorcist in the time of Jesus exorcised a demon using five words delivered in the space of about 10 seconds; yet, this is exactly what Jesus does. No incense, no chanting, no elaborate dances or gestures, no bleedings, no use of external objects thought to contain exorcising power. Instead, five words delivered with infinite authority. His authority to teach is personal as well as his power to exorcise. It does not rely upon externals. For me, this is the PUNCH of the gospel. It is a forceful display of the absolute power of Jesus. To understand this authority, we must not only listen, we must also look.
Authority isn’t always recognized. For centuries people believed that Aristotle was right when he said that the heavier an object, the faster it would fall to earth. Aristotle was regarded as the greatest thinker of all time, and surely, he would not be wrong. Anyone, of course, could have taken two objects, one heavy and one light, and dropped them from a great height to see whether or not the heavier object landed first. But no one did until nearly 2,000 years after Aristotle’s death. In 1589 Galileo summoned learned professors to the base of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Then he went to the top and pushed off a ten- pound and a one-pound weight. Both landed at the same instant. The power of 2,000 years of belief was so strong, however, that the professors denied their eyesight. They continued to say Aristotle was right. (Bits & Pieces, January 9, 1992, pp. 22-23.)Yes dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Those who were crazy called Jesus the Holy One; those who were sane put him to death.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Repent and Believe in the Good News.

My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
You may know the story called Dumb Kid.
A young boy enters a barbershop and the barber whispers to his customer:-'This is the dumbest kid in town.... watch while I prove it to you.'
The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks;
'Which do you want, son?'
The boy takes the quarters and leaves.'What did I tell you?' said the barber. 'That kid never learns!'Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store.
'Hey, son! May I ask you a question... why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?'
The boy licked his ice cream cone and replied 'Because the day I take the dollar, the game's over!'
In the minds of some, Jesus’ mission of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and calling people to repentance might have been better entrusted to educated professionals. Their training in preaching, teaching and catechesis would seem to have prepared them for communicating the importance of conversion. But Jesus called the fishermen and they responded, and in that dynamic of call and response, they began to be what Jesus intended: fishers who would draw into the saving net of God’s grace to all who agreed to repent and believe.
The two sets of brothers responded incredibly by immediately leaving everything: nets, boats, and family. Walking away from everything that defined their lives, they followed Jesus. And that made all the difference.
According to Mark's Gospel, Jesus begins his public ministry soon after John the Baptist is arrested. He preaches a sermon which is powerful and prophetic, and has only 19 words: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the good news."
Mark explains that Jesus has a basic keynote speech with four specific messages: "The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel."
The New Testament, as you know was written in Greek, and it has two words for time, chronos, meaning "chronological time," and kairos, meaning, "the urgent, present moment, the time beyond time, the time of fulfillment, the end time, the time of God." Christ always speaks of the kairos moment. "The Kairos is here," he announces. We are no longer living in chronos time but kairos time, the time of God.
Then, he says, "The kingdom of God is at hand." Throughout the Gospels, Jesus talks about the kingdom of God. For Jesus, the kingdom of God means God is at the center of life, which means we are filled with God's love, that we walk in the light and love of God, which means we love everyone, we serve everyone, forgive everyone, live in perfect nonviolence and peace with everyone.
Then, Jesus starts saying exactly what John the Baptist commanded, "Repent." Repentance comes from the Greek word "Metanoia," which means, "turn around, stop what you are doing and go in the other direction, change the direction of your life." Jonah called the people of Ninevah to repent and they did. Jesus calls us to repent, to stop rejecting God, to stop hurting one another, to stop supporting the Gospel of empire, to stop supporting the war making culture and to welcome God's kingdom of love. Repentance does not mean entering upon a guilt trip about your past, or your present. It means changing your life--your mind, your spirit, your attitudes, your behavior, your relationships, your plans--long range and short term. It means coming to a new understanding of life's purpose and direction and acting differently from now on.
Conversion is not instantaneous. It is a process; a process in which God’s grace changes one. Conversion is the heart of the Christian experience. Conversion is best described in the New Testament in the Letters of St. Paul, and with good reason - no one experienced a more dramatic conversion than St. Paul on the road to Damascus! And today we celebrate the conversion of St Paul. { St. Paul used the word metanoia for repentance in four Epistles. In Romans 2:4 ; in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10;in 2 Corinthians 12:21;In 2 Timothy 2:25 . Metanoia is also noted three times in the Letter to the Hebrews.} Repentance for St. Paul means one has faith in God through Christ Jesus, which leads one to obedience.
Finally, Jesus says, "Believe in the Gospel." We are supposed to believe what Jesus says in the Gospels.
Then Jesus calls the fishermen, saying, "Come after me and I will make you fishers of men and women." They drop everything, leave their work, and follow him. We, too, have been called by Jesus. The greatest act of self-renunciation that he asks for is the sacrifice of one’s own intellect and will. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “nothing is dearer to man than the freedom of his own will, for this is what makes him master over others; …so by surrendering the freedom of his own will, by which he is master of himself, he renounces himself.”
The fishermen of Galilee teach us something very important about discipleship: following requires abandoning.
Have we abandoned whatever keeps us from following Jesus, my dear brothers and sisters? Every day is a new opportunity to embrace our discipleship courageously and to respond generously to Jesus’ life-defining call: “Come, follow me.” How we respond will make all the difference.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Martin Luther King, Jr

We celebrate today the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr It was early December 1955. Rosa Parks had just been arrested for not giving up her seat on the city bus. As a result of her arrest, a bus boycott had been called by the local NAACP and young Martin was asked to lead the effort.
In 1957 , he was elected president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the vanguard of the nonviolent struggle for justice in the South. He was spit upon, ridiculed, jailed, fire-bombed, yet he kept on moving -- across the South, then on to Washington for his famous "I Have a Dream" in August of 1963, and then to Oslo, Norway, where he was hailed by the world as the Nobel Peace Prize recipient for 1964, somewhat as Jesus was hailed as he entered Jerusalem riding a donkey on that last fateful journey. The closer he got to Washington, the more dangerous he became to those in power. Dr. King left that moment of glory in Oslo and responded to God’s call to become an even bolder prophet for justice and peace. His vision and struggle was expanded to include all victims of poverty and violence. It was his "Poor People’s Campaign" headed toward Washington and his condemnation of the war in Vietnam that probably led to the fatal bullets on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Dr. King didn’t know his commitment to justice and peace would make him a "lamb of God" like Jesus, but he embraced the call from Jesus to live his faith as fully as he could, each day, no matter where it would lead.I end with these leveling words of Dr. King as we thank God for him…
If you want to be important, wonderful.
If you want to be recognized, wonderful.
If you want to be great, wonderful.
But recognize that He who is greatest among you
shall be your servant.
That’s a new definition of greatness.
This morning the thing that I like about this is,
by giving that definition of greatness,
that means that everybody can be great,
because everybody can serve.
You don't have to have a college degree to serve.
You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.
You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.
You don't have to know Einstein's "Theory of Relativity" to serve.
You don't have to know the Second Theory of Thermal Dynamics in Physics to serve.
You only need a heart full of grace,
a soul generated by love,
and you can be that servant." MLK Jr.

Behold the Lamb of God

My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
“What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?”
A Washington Post reporter wanted to see what would happen if they hired a world famous violinist to play during rush hour on a Washington subway platform. Would anybody notice? Would anybody stop and listen? Would they toss any money into his violin case?To take part in this experiment, they enlisted Joshua Bell – by many accounts, one of the greatest violinists of his generation. He’s recorded a number of best-selling albums, plays around the world and routinely collects thousands of dollars for one performance. He’s young – just 39 – and recognizable. Bell thought the idea sounded like fun, so he agreed to do it.
So one morning, he put on jeans and sweatshirt and went down into the DC subway during rush hour. He unpacked one of his most prized possessions -- a Stradivarius violin, worth an estimated three million dollars. He opened the case to collect some money, and started playing. He played Bach. He played Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” He played a series of classical pieces by Manuel Ponce and Jules Massenet. Once in a while, someone would hurry past and throw some pennies in his case. At one point, a little boy paused, enthralled, but his mother pulled him away. No one stopped to listen to the most beautiful music in the world being played by one of the most gifted musicians in the world on a three million dollar violin.
Nobody noticed. They were too busy running to work.
For his 45 minutes, Joshua Bell collected $32 dollars in change.
When the Washington Post published the article about all this, the reporter quoted the poet W.H. Davies:
“What is this life if, full of care ,We have no time to stand and stare?”
In today’s gospel, we encounter John the Baptist at a moment when he does have time to stand and stare. He sees Jesus walking toward him and says, very simply, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” He recognizes Jesus for who He is.
If we saw Christ approaching us…would we realize who He was? Or would we – like the thousands of people who passed by Joshua Bell during rush hour – just keep going, blind and deaf to what was before us? Which are more important: words or actions? We say, “Actions speak louder than words.” But sometimes, something must be said, and so silence is wrong. There is Jesus walking by. He isn’t speaking, he’s just walking. Who is he? Is he important? He doesn’t appear special, he doesn’t look significant. But then John the Baptist speaks: “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” And the two disciples with John hear this, and they begin to follow Jesus.
John’s words are so effective that his disciples leave him to follow someone else. Without those words, Jesus would have walked by and John’s disciples would not have followed.
One of those disciples was Andrew. After spending some time with Jesus, what is the first thing he does? He goes and finds his brother, Peter, and tells him, “We have found the Messiah.” And because of Andrew’s words, Peter acts. Peter leaves everything behind and follows Christ. Nothing in Peter’s life is the same because of his brother’s words, “We have found the Messiah!” Nothing in human history is the same because of how Peter acts on those words.
We are called upon to do the same: to point Christ out to people, as John and Andrew did.
We who already follow Christ must proclaim to others, “We have found the Messiah!” There is a mighty challenge here for all of us. If we are honest, the only time many of us speak Christ’s name outside of a church is when we stub a toe, get cut off in traffic, or watch our favorite team make a bad play. As Christians, we bear Christ’s name, but we barely use his name.
I think Jesus comes in a similar way today, as a humble lamb, and because Jesus comes in so many ways today as a humble lamb we might miss his coming unless some John the Baptist pointed out and said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ Vatican II acted as a John the Baptist telling us that Jesus comes to us in four ways when we gather here for our Sunday Mass:
Jesus comes in the word of God in the readings, in the Eucharist, in the congregation and in the priest (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7).
When the readings are being proclaimed, God is speaking to you. If a line from the text strikes you we normally understand this as God speaking to you.
In Holy Communion Jesus comes to you in the fullness of his body, blood, soul and divinity.
Jesus is present in the congregation because where two or three are gathered in his name he is present in their midst.
And Jesus is present in the priest who offers Jesus to the Father just as Jesus offered himself to the Father on the cross.
Jesus comes to us in four ways when we gather here for our Sunday Mass: in the word of God, in the Eucharist, in the congregation and in the priest.

Yes dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, You are never too old to begin fulfilling God’s dream for you.
What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?The advice priest Eli gives the boy Samuel is the best advice anyone who has care of, or cares about, can ever give: when God speaks, answer with total readiness. "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening".