A Homily – The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading – Job 38:1,8-11

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 106(107):23-26,28-32

Second Reading – 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

Gospel Acclamation – Ephesians 1:17, 18

Alternative Acclamation – Luke 7:16

The Gospel According to Mark 4:35 – 41

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 The sentiment expressed in today’s reading from Job is misguided.

 God, the creator of the universe, God does not intervene in the lives of human beings, God is not capricious or vindictive. God made us and all that is free from divine coercion…and yet, in the end, all things move toward the same end.

 Let us affirm our trust in God; God is not a partisan, and God is good.

 Consider the teaching of the apostle. Paul is mistaken about the meaning of Jesus’ death.

 Jesus was not crucified in order to raise all people to eternal life. His death was a political murder, a rather ordinary tragedy in the age he lived. Jesus went to his death willingly so that the lives of his companions might be spared and to avoid further bloodshed among the people who followed him, both of which would have certainly followed if he had resisted.

 By accepting his death his demonstrated his faith in God, not only in God’s plan for him, but in God’s plan for all people. Jesus encouraged his people to keep that same faith, to live in that place of trust, wherein we are free from our concerns, from life’s fears, even the hunger of the flesh; this is the way. Along the way we experience freedom as a foretaste of what life in the heavenly garden was meant to be.

 Remember.

 Our salvation is the work of God, it is accomplished in and through Christ; the work began as the introduction to John’s gospel explains, in the first moment of creation.

 The fall, whatever it might have been, happens subsequent to and in the context of God’s saving work. Jesus revealed the truth of it, and has entrusted all future generations of those who aim to follow him along the way with the task of sharing that Good news.

 Know this!

 You are reconciled to God; there is no debt to pay. Allow the burden of the fear of sin, and God’s judgement, to fall away from you.

 Be glad.

 It was always God’s plan that we fall and rise together, as one, because we are one.

 Consider the life of Jesus, and God; whom he called papa.

 Is God glorious?

 Yes, God is the creator of the universe. And yet God’s greatest glory is not in the raw power of the creator, but in relationship to us as a loving parent.

 There is hope in the knowledge of God, extend the hopes you have for yourself and those you love to everyone, even those you do not love; this is the way that leads to God.

 If you think that God has promised riches and glories to be the inheritance of the saints; remember Jesus’ teaching that the first will be last and the last will be first, and that divine riches are not counted in gold and silver and precious things.

 Be mindful of the miracle narrative.

 In the gospels magic and miracle making, wonder working and acts of power are equivalent to, perhaps greater than the works of the prophets of old.

 However, none of the authors of Luke’s Gospel met Jesus. At least half a century had passed from the time of Jesus’ death, to the time that Luke’s Gospel was written, and by that Palestine (Judea and Samaria) were completely under Roman control. The temple had destroyed, Jerusalem was in ruins and its population scattered across the Empire in the second great Diaspora.

 There were no witnesses the raising of the widow’s son. No one to give the story of the reaction of the crowd. The story itself is a fabrication, pure mythology, it never happened, but it became a part of the tradition and has been handed down as evidence that Jesus was a man of great compassion and great power.

 In raising the dead at Nain, the authors of Luke assert the principle that widow should not be left alone with no husband, and no son to protect her. The resurrection of the widow’s son is a metaphor not a miracle, meaning that in place of the woman’s son the Church will take up the familial obligations, protect and look after her.

 This is the role of the Church; we are meant to be caretakers and guardians of the meek. That we could create such an enduring institution is the miracle, because its mission is in contradistinction to the common way of life, which would have forced the widow out into the margins of society.

 Be mindful.

 God is not a sorcerer, God does not violate the laws of nature; not once, not ever. If we are going to accept such stories as part of the Gospel we must find a way of reading them that rules out the supernatural…because there is no such thing as magic.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today another example of pure mythology…another metaphor, this time the gospel writers intended to cast Jesus in the role of the Roman Jupiter or Jove, the Mesopotamian Marduk or Zeus of the Helenes…they depict him as kings of the gods like the pagan peoples do, one who commands the wind and waves, the lightning and thunder…such representations are idolatrous and should be set aside.

 

First Reading – Job 38:1,8-11

From the Heart of the Tempest the Lord Gives Job His Answer

He said:

Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous out of the womb, when I wrapped it in a robe of mist and made black clouds its swaddling bands; when I marked the bounds it was not to cross and made it fast with a bolted gate?

Come thus far, I said, and no farther:

here your proud waves shall break.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 106(107):23-26,28-32

Let Them Thank the Lord For His love, For the Wonders He Does For Men.

Alleluia.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,

  for his kindness is for ever.

Let them say this, the people the Lord has redeemed,

  those whom he rescued from their enemies

  whom he gathered together from all lands,

  from east and west, from the north and the south.

They wandered through desert and wilderness,

  they could find no way to a city they could dwell in.

Their souls were weary within them,

  weary from hunger and thirst.

They cried to the Lord in their trouble

  and he rescued them from their distress.

He set them on the right path

  towards a city they could dwell in.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his kindness,

  for the wonders he works for men:

the Lord, who feeds hungry creatures

  and gives water to the thirsty to drink.

They sat in the darkness and shadow of death,

  imprisoned in chains and in misery,

because they had rebelled against the words of God

  and spurned the counsels of the Most High.

He wore out their hearts with labour:

  they were weak, there was no-one to help.

They cried to the Lord in their trouble

  and he rescued them from their distress.

He led them out of the darkness and shadow of death,

  he shattered their chains.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his kindness,

  for the wonders he works for men:

the Lord, who shatters doors of bronze,

  who breaks bars of iron.

The people were sick because they transgressed,

  afflicted because of their sins.

All food was distasteful to them,

  they were on the verge of death.

They cried to the Lord in their trouble

  and he rescued them from their distress.

He sent forth his word and healed them,

  delivered them from their ruin.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his kindness,

  for the wonders he works for men:

Let them offer a sacrifice of praise

  and proclaim his works with rejoicing.

Those who go down to the sea in ships,

  those who trade across the great waters –

they have seen the works of the Lord,

  the wonders he performs in the deep.

He spoke, and a storm arose,

  and the waves of the sea rose up.

They rose up as far as the heavens

  and descended down to the depths:

the sailors’ hearts melted from fear,

  they staggered and reeled like drunkards,

  terror drove them out of their minds.

But they cried to the Lord in their trouble

  and he rescued them from their distress.

He turned the storm into a breeze

  and silenced the waves.

They rejoiced at the ending of the storm

  and he led them to the port that they wanted.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his kindness,

  for the wonders he works for men:

let them exalt him in the assembly of the people,

  give him praise in the council of the elders.

The Lord has turned rivers into wilderness,

  he has made well-watered lands into desert,

  fruitful ground into salty waste

  because of the evil of those who dwelt there.

But he has made wilderness into ponds,

  deserts into the sources of rivers,

he has called together the hungry

  and they have founded a city to dwell in.

They have sowed the fields, planted the vines;

  they grow and harvest their produce.

He has blessed them and they have multiplied;

  he does not let their cattle decrease.

But those others became few and oppressed

  through trouble, evil, and sorrow.

He poured his contempt on their princes

  and set them to wander the trackless waste.

But the poor he has saved from their poverty

  and their families grow numerous as sheep.

The upright shall see, and be glad,

  and all wickedness shall block up its mouth.

Whoever is wise will remember these things

  and understand the mercies of the Lord.

Alleluia!

 

Second Reading – 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

We Do Not Judge Anyone by the Standards of the Flesh

The love of Christ overwhelms us when we reflect that if one man has died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.

  From now onwards, therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh. Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, that is not how we know him now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Ephesians 1:17, 18

Alleluia, alleluia!

May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our mind, so that we can see what hope his call holds for us.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Luke 7:16

Alleluia, alleluia!

A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 4:35 – 41

'Even the Wind and the Sea Obey Him'

With the coming of evening, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let us cross over to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him. Then it began to blow a gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped. But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion, asleep. They woke him and said to him, ‘Master, do you not care? We are going down!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Quiet now! Be calm!’ And the wind dropped, and all was calm again. Then he said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?’ They were filled with awe and said to one another, ‘Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.’

 

The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)