23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

The opening lines of the gospel show us something typically true about Jesus, namely, he is always travelling. Up and down through Palestine he goes, through towns and villages, one after the other, pausing only for brief periods to pray alone with his Apostles or to visit friends.

In contrast we observe so many of the self-proclaimed 'gurus' of our day who are hidden away with their followers in compounds, barricaded behind high security gates with guards and minders. Jesus was not like this; his mission was the world.

Jesus was a man for all, as God is for all. If, at times, Jesus hid himself from the crowds it was mostly to strengthen himself with prayer for the arduous teaching and healing journeys which lay ahead of him.

And so he is travelling when a man is brought to him.

On TV the other night there was a show about a strongman. They brought him a phone book, a big heavy one and asked him to tear it in half. He took it, but then first gave it back to them to try it so that they could all see how weak they were. Then in front of them all, because this was all about him and his powers, he tore the book apart. The applause was deafening.

So they brought Jesus a man, a deaf man with an impediment in his speech, and they asked Jesus to heal him, to lay his hands on him. They brought Jesus a man .. they asked Jesus to heal him .. . My evangelising antennae are up and buzzing; I would love to have them (whoever they were) in my parish - people who bring people to Jesus.

The crowd is usually not very helpful to Jesus, in fact, it often gets in the way, blocking the door to the house for the paralytic, obscuring Zacchaeus' view and making him climb a tree, telling poor Bartimaeus to keep quiet... . This is a man not a phone book and Jesus takes him aside in private, away from the crowd.

Notice how Mark insists on this action of Jesus by repeating it three times - Jesus took him aside, in private, away from the crowd.

This is not a performance - this is GOD AT WORK!

The deaf and dumb man, like all those in the gospels who are brought, or who come to Jesus for healing, represents at the same time each one of us and poor suffering humanity as a whole. In this way the gospel operates at a number of different levels of meaning and effectiveness and fruitfully sustains our meditation.

As Jesus stands alone with the man, holding his face between his hands to heal him, we can see Jesus embracing the whole of creation in his tender touch, gazing with profound compassion into our eyes, longing to heal us all.

And also that man is me. The Master clasps my face in his divine hands and looks into my eyes, seeing all my need for healing, liberation and redemption.

The deaf mute cannot hear him and so he communicates his intentions through touch. He puts his fingers into the man's ears. Is Jesus thinking: It is not just to my voice I want to open your ears but to my word?

Then Jesus takes some spittle from his mouth and places it on the man's tongue. Is Jesus thinking: Soon I will be able to place on your tongue not just my spittle so that you may speak but my whole self, body, blood, soul and divinity so that you may live forever.

Jesus looks up and gazes heavenward, communing with his Father. I do only what I see my Father doing, I do the works I was sent to do.

He sighed and spoke the word ephphatha which itself sounds like a sigh.

As the Father had created in the beginning with the words: Let there be light ... and there was light, so now Jesus recreates, restores, redeems with the words: Be opened ... and his ears were opened. Jesus has spoken - God has spoken.

The works I do in my Father's name are my witness (John 10:25) ...and whatever the Father does the Son does too. (John 5:19)

Their admiration was unbounded, and so is ours. We praise God for sending his only Son among us to seek us out and restore us to his Father and ours. He has done all things well.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Deuteronomy 4:1-2. 6-8; James 1:17-18. 21-22. 27; Mark 7:1-8. 14-15. 21-23

What a wonderful thing it would be if we could wash our sins away in the shower; if we could become pure in God’s eyes with the right kind of soap! Unfortunately, even the ‘deep-cleansing’ concoctions which teenagers use to rid themselves of troublesome skin problems just won’t reach down deep enough to get rid of sin.

The Pharisees and Scribes of today’s gospel were pre-occupied with ritual purity which centred on the external action of ritual washing. This involved a complicated washing of fingers, hands and arms according to tedious regulations which sometimes became laughable in their solemn trivial-mindedness.

As the gospel says: The Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves.

There’s something sadly amusing, even humiliating, about that phrase 'sprinkling themselves' chosen by the translators of the Jerusalem Bible. Others put it more kindly as 'purifying themselves'. In any case, this concern for purity embraced the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes, as well as cutlery and even beds.

So these Pharisees and Scribes asked Jesus: Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands? When you've been doing something for many years you somehow cease being able to imagine that it might not be right, or no longer appropriate.

Well, before we go to Jesus’ response we have to understand a little more of these ‘traditions of the elders’ and why he found them so reprehensible. The truth is that they were not God’s laws but man’s laws. They had begun, as with most religious abuses, from a good intention; they were intended to bring the ordinary activities of human existence into the realm of worshipping God. In other words, they were meant to ‘sanctify’ or ‘make holy’ the everyday household activities as acts which praised God.

However, like the trimmings on the Rosary, these regulations grew and grew, until they actually became impossible for an ordinary Jew to fully observe. Only the idle rich had the time and money to do so and gradually a ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality developed among the Pharisees and Scribes. Because they kept the ‘traditions of the elders’ they thought themselves righteous in God’s eyes, whereas the ‘others’ were not.

Jesus found this attitude entirely repugnant and exclaimed: This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations. You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.

Significantly, Jesus called the people to him. The teachers of the Law had failed the people and so now he fulfils the prophecy - they will all be taught by God (John 6:45) - and tells them: Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean; it is the things that come out of a man that make him unclean. For it is from within, from men's hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.

Through this teaching Jesus placed purity and righteousness back within the reach of the 'little man', of every human being, even pagans. A similar motive caused him to clear the Temple in Jerusalem of all the trading and money-changing that was happening there in the Court of the Gentiles, the Outer Court. Jesus wanted the Temple to be a place of prayer for every human being but the traders had deprived the Gentiles of this quiet place of prayer as they had deprived the poor of the possibility of righteousness. Prayer, like cleanliness of the heart, is possible for everyone. Ritual cleanliness was possible only for the rich and the idle.

Moreover, Jesus showed the Pharisees and the Scribes that their cleanliness was really no cleanliness at all. They had external cleanliness which did not reach their inner selves.

Naturally, they did not like to hear this.

The apostle James, who we will have for the next 3 weeks asks: Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves (hearts)?

If all sin comes from the heart, from our inner selves, then the battleground of the spiritual life must also be the human heart. If we are to have peace, love, forgiveness, purity, faithfulness and so on in the world, we need to have peace, love, forgiveness, purity, faithfulness and so on in our hearts.

Any external actions we do, even actions that are good in themselves, if they do not have their origin in good hearts, make us hypocrites and corrupt our hearts even further. That was what was wrong with the Pharisees. They were like the smile of an air hostess I once saw – a ‘paid’ smile, with no joy behind it. Jesus said: This people honours me only with lip service, while their hearts are far from me.

Clearly, to be considered good in the eyes of Jesus our good actions must come from good hearts; we must be converted in our hearts. How do we do this? You already know the answer to that question but I'll remind you.

Faithfulness to Sunday Mass, our great act of worship of God, must always come first. Then – a good life, regular confession, daily prayer, a little penance, study of the faith, perseverance. Conversion of heart usually takes time and effort but God’s merciful help is always waiting for us. His grace can get down into those ‘hard to reach’ places within us, and give us a purity and beauty which only he can bestow.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69

My father went to see the priest about the Baptism of his first child. He had not been looking forward to the interview. He wasn't practising the Faith.

The priest asked him to go home and pray and to ask God to help him decide whether he believed or not. He told my father to consider:

• If you don't believe, stop pretending!
• If you do believe - practise your faith!
• Don't drag your faith around like a dead cat on a piece of string.

This question of choosing is just as much a crucial question for you and me as it was for my father, or for Joshua and the Hebrews at Shechem.

Joshua called the People together and said: ... choose today whom you wish to serve ... .

As Bob Dylan sings in Gotta Serve Somebody - 'It may be the devil,or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.'

All we have to do is choose - but this is not as easy as it sounds - even when the People say with one voice: We ... will serve the Lord, for he is our God.

Their decision to serve (we will serve) goes hand in hand with their statement of belief (for he is our God). It makes it very clear that the modern distinction between believing and serving (practising) is totally unscriptural.

'Oh, of course, Father, I believe, and so does my husband. It's just that, well, we don't go to Mass because we don't believe it's necessary. We pray at home. We have our faith.'

Note what the couple is really saying: 'We believe ... it's just that ... well ... we don't believe.'

Ok, so what's going on here? Let me ask this couple some questions:

• Do you believe you have a grave obligation to attend the Eucharist with the faith community each Sunday? - NO!
• Do you believe it's a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday? - NO!
• Do you believe you need to confess missing Mass deliberately before you can go to Holy Communion? - NO!

So now at least we know one thing clearly - this couple do not, in fact, believe what the Church teaches. This is why they do not practise. They may be baptised, they may have been brought up in a Catholic home, they may have attended a Catholic school, but they do not believe what the Church believes.

Please understand me, this is not an accusation! I'm not judging this couple. I have no idea of their spiritual journey and what has brought them to this point. I am merely making a very important diagnosis. This couple does not hold the faith of the Church.

They are living according to their faith but not according to the Faith.

Well, what now? What are some of our options?

• Go ahead and baptise the child and hope the parents will find faith at some later time and raise the child as a practising Catholic?
• Give the parents an hour's worth of instruction on the meaning of being a Catholic and then hope for the best and baptise the child?
• Tell the parents how important it is to attend Mass on Sundays and then baptise the child?
• Delay the Baptism till the parents come to some faith of their own?
• Refuse the baptism because they have no intention of raising the child in the practice of the Faith?

My own answer to this very difficult question is that we should offer this couple an opportunity to choose.

This is what my father was offered; this is what Joshua offered the People; this is what Jesus offers his followers in today's Gospel: What about you, do you want to go away too?

On a practical level this will involve a prolonged, prayerful, gentle catechesis similar to the Catechumenate - during which couples can be renewed in their understanding of the Catholic Faith.

Somewhere within this process the couple will choose.

If they choose not to enter the process they have still chosen. All concerned will find this a difficult decision to accept but it must be respected. Jesus, too, experienced the disappointment of watching people walk away.

Faith is a grace-filled choice. We cannot make it for others, nor can we insulate people from the need to make it. This has been one of our most unhelpful tactics in the determination we have to keep people somehow attached to the Church at all costs. We sacramentalise them because we don't know how to evangelise them.

My father chose for the Church he knew so well but which he had left. The faithfulness with which he lived his decision over the years was an example and an encouragement for each one of his children, all eight of whom still practise the faith.

I thank that priest for allowing my father to choose.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58

Without a doubt, for anyone to walk into a Jewish synagogue 2000 years ago and seriously propose the eating of human flesh and the drinking of human blood would be suicide. I guess that’s why the image of a suicide bomber suddenly came to my mind as I considered today’s Gospel.

A suicide bomber enters a restaurant, a market place, or even a synagogue with deadly explosives strapped to his waist. These explosives are fastened together with all the destructive hatred and murderous intent of their makers. When they explode they cause immense destruction to human bodies and spirits, the kind we have seen all too often on our television screens.

To the Jews listening to him it seemed that Jesus, too, had detonated some kind of bomb in their midst.

I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day.

This is a New Testament ‘bombshell’ but instead of bringing ruin it brings life. It is a ‘construction’ bomb. It does not bring hatred but love, not disorder but order, not confusion but ‘knowledge of God’. The teaching of Jesus is an outburst of divine revelation suddenly unleashed among men who thought they had the ‘god question’ all sewn up. In one moment Jesus has overturned everything, especially their confidence that their understanding of things was the correct one.

‘The Jews’, those people opposed to Jesus, are thrown into disarray. They receive his words as harmful and wicked and rise up (blow up) in anger. One cannot help but think of the words of Hosea 6:5-6: This is why I have torn them to pieces by the prophets, why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth, since what I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.

When Jesus walked into the Temple in Jerusalem (Jn 2:13ff.) and began overturning tables, letting loose animals and scattering the money changer’s coins, it must have looked very much like he was bringing disturbance and confusion to the house of God – but the opposite is true – he was ‘cleansing’ the Temple and returning it to good order; to the way God intended it to be.

And so there he stands in the synagogue in Capernaum surrounded by the angry crowd and his (probably) disconcerted disciples. He has come to the end of his teaching and can only await their response. It’s an amazing thing that this tiny seed of doctrine, planted in the tiny synagogue of Capernaum among a tiny handful of men, most of whom rejected it, has spread throughout the ages and throughout the world and been accepted and celebrated by billions of Catholic and Orthodox Christians for two thousand years.

And do you notice Jesus doesn’t ‘explain’ his teaching? There is actually nothing to explain – there is something to believe, or to put it more exactly, there is a Person to believe in. A person whose words, because we believe in him, are to be accepted as true – without explanation.

Now I can imagine someone might say ‘So why doesn’t Jesus explain how he is going to change bread and wine into his flesh and blood and then ask us to eat him in that sacramental form?’

So you think that would help, do you? Really? You think that ‘the Jews’ and the millions of Protestants around the world will say ‘Oh, okay, so why didn’t anyone tell us that THAT’S how he meant to do it? All these years we thought he was somehow going to slice off his flesh and pour out a cup of his blood for us to drink.’

No, there is nothing to explain - there is a man to believe in – a man of whom Peter, the Rock, will say next week: Lord … we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God. (John 6:69)

I recall a story told by Fr Bill, a priest of our diocese, about an elderly man who was dying and who wanted to be baptised. Fr Bill asked him ‘Do you believe in Jesus?’ and he answered, ‘I believe in you, Fr Bill’. Naturally enough that man was baptised because he was really saying, ‘I believe in you, Fr Bill, and if you tell me something about Jesus I will believe it.’

Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe...

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

1Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5.2; John 6:41-51

Last week Jesus offered the people true bread, the bread of God, which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They had responded enthusiastically: Sir … give us that bread always.

Jesus’ reply was unexpected and challenging: I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst.

Now the atmosphere has changed and the people are uneasy; it appears the teaching has become too challenging. The Jews begin complaining to each other. The 'Jews’, of course, are not the Jewish People as a whole; John is speaking only about their leaders and supporters who were opposed to the Lord and rejected him.

So they complained to each other: Surely this is … We know his … How can he now.. ?

It all boils down to this ‘we’ against ‘him’, doesn’t it; the consensus of men or the revelation of God?

On another occasion Jesus had asked the Apostles: ’Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ (Mt 16:13) And they said, 'Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets'. 'But you,' he said 'who do you say I am?' Then Simon Peter spoke up, 'You are the Christ,' he said 'the Son of the living God'. Jesus replied, 'Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.’

Us or God – we or him – men or revelation – opinion or truth – flesh and blood or the Father in heaven? Who decides what is true? The electorate, the majority, the consumers, community standards? Jesus is not looking for our opinions, or our clinical tests, or our consensus – he is seeking disciples who can say with Peter: Lord … you have the message of eternal life, and we believe… .

So the Jews were complaining against Jesus and we note that they turned to one another for support. Truth can stand alone, error requires noise and numbers, as though what is believed by a hundred shouting men must be truer than what is believed by only one. When noise and numbers attack truth steels itself, raises its eyes to heaven and patiently waits. As Pope Benedict has told us, truth is the most powerful reality in existence. It needs no armies to defend it and, ultimately, it always prevails.

So Jesus stands his ground unflinchingly. He doesn’t run away or back down, he is not even distracted: Stop complaining to each other… No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me…

This is not the only time Jesus would speak these words to his opponents. In chapter 8 of John’s gospel he will tell them: If God were your father, you would love me, since I have come here from God… The devil is your father, and you prefer to do what your father wants.

As we learned last week, Jesus is ‘the work’ of the Father; sent by the Father to speak his words and to do his will. Only those who acknowledge the Father as their God can accept his Son and the truth he teaches.

In today’s Gospel Jesus continues to insist on his unique relationship to the Father: They will all be taught by God, and to hear the teaching of the Father, and learn from it, is to come to me. Not that anybody has seen the Father, except the one who comes from God: he has seen the Father.

It is only because he has come from the Father as the Son that eternal life comes to those who believe in him. I tell you most solemnly, everybody who believes has eternal life.

The ‘Jews’ refuse to come to Jesus. The substance of their complaints is that Jesus claims to be bread from heaven. His teaching unfolds to them with unambiguous simplicity:

• God, the Father, desires to feed his people.
• He has sent me, his only Son, to accomplish this work.
• I have come to give you living bread from my Father in heaven.
• I am that living bread.
• You must come to me, believe in me and eat me.
• The bread that I give is my flesh.