A Homily – The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading – Numbers 11:25-29

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 18(19):8,10,12-14

Second Reading – James 5:1-6

Gospel Acclamation – John 17:17

The Gospel According to Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 ©       

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 Prophecy is not concerned with the divination of portents, clairaudience, clairvoyance or clairsentience; prophecy is not prescience.

 Prophecy is concerned with seeing the truth in the present moment and speaking it out loud; the prophet is concerned with matters of justice, the inclusion of the marginalized, the restoration of the disenfranchised, the return outcast and the exile. Prophecy calls us to fulfill the promise of the good, to be agents of providence, ensuring its fair distribution to everyone.

 The advent of a true prophet is rare, though the potential to be a prophet exists in all of us.

 Know this:

 God is the creator of all that is, of the entire universe and all of us who live within it.

 Consider the teaching of James, the brother of Jesus and bishop of Jerusalem; remember the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and know that everything is vanity. For the rich and the poor alike, everything ends in corruption; the earth and the moon, the sun and the stars, everything fades away before becoming a new creation.

 Be mindful.

 The fire awaits us all, not the fire of destruction but the fire of refinement; when we pass through it, corruption shall never take hold again and we will shine.

 Understand this!

 You cannot lie and serve God at one and the same time.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today, it comes from a period when the church was experiencing a significant amount of division among its leadership and members. The authors of Mark’s gospel, wrote it at least fifty years after Jesus died, about twenty years after Paul wrote his letters, at least ten years after Jerusalem and its temple had been destroyed by the Roman’s, its population dispersed and the last of Jesus’ disciples died.

 At this point in time the Church was in a precarious state. It was seen by most observers to be a minor sect of Judaism undergoing a lawful persecution by the traditional leadership of Jewish synagogues throughout the Empire.

 However, in reality the Church it had spread well past the ideology of Judaism and the Pharisaic movement within Judaism which had nurtured it. By this time the Christian movement had spread across North Africa, into the Italian peninsula, northward to Gaul, and eastward throughout Anatolia and Asia Minor.

 The Church was just as much gentile as it was Jewish, and it was thoroughly cosmopolitan. There were many who believed in their personal authority to teach in Jesus’ name, even though they were not connected to the Church through the mode of Apostolic succession; this was the lay of the land.

 The message from Today’s reading is not that the “heirs” of the church should have run down those whom they do not see as having a legitimate claim to teach in the name of Jesus, and to obstruct them, but to make common cause with them, advancing together in the way.

 

First Reading – Numbers 11:25-29

If Only the Whole People of the Lord were Prophets!

The Lord came down in the Cloud. He spoke with Moses, but took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the spirit came on them they prophesied, but not again.

  Two men had stayed back in the camp; one was called Eldad and the other Medad. The spirit came down on them; though they had not gone to the Tent, their names were enrolled among the rest. These began to prophesy in the camp. The young man ran to tell this to Moses, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.’ Then said Joshua the son of Nun, who had served Moses from his youth, ‘My Lord Moses, stop them!’ Moses answered him, ‘Are you jealous on my account? If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to them all!’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 18(19):8,10,12-14

Praise of God the Creator

Blessed Are You, Lord, in the Vault of Heaven.

Alleluia, alleluia!

The skies tell the story of the glory of God,

  the firmament proclaims the work of his hands;

day pours out the news to day,

  night passes to night the knowledge.

Not a speech, not a word,

  not a voice goes unheard.

Their sound is spread throughout the earth,

  their message to all the corners of the world.

At the ends of the earth he has set up

  a dwelling place for the sun.

Like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,

  it rejoices like an athlete at the race to be run.

It appears at the edge of the sky,

  runs its course to the sky’s furthest edge.

Nothing can hide from its heat.

Amen.

Blessed Are You, Lord, in the Vault of Heaven.

Alleluia, alleluia!

 

Second Reading – James 5:1-6

The Lord Hears the Cries of Those You Have Cheated

An answer for the rich. Start crying, weep for the miseries that are coming to you. Your wealth is all rotting, your clothes are all eaten up by moths. All your gold and your silver are corroding away, and the same corrosion will be your own sentence, and eat into your body. It was a burning fire that you stored up as your treasure for the last days. Labourers mowed your fields, and you cheated them – listen to the wages that you kept back, calling out; realise that the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. On earth you have had a life of comfort and luxury; in the time of slaughter you went on eating to your heart’s content. It was you who condemned the innocent and killed them; they offered you no resistance.

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 17:17

Alleluia, alleluia!

Your word is truth, O Lord: consecrate us in the truth.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 ©

Do Not Stop Anyone from Working a Miracle in My Name

John said to Jesus, ‘Master, we saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him.’ But Jesus said, ‘You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.

 

‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward.

 

‘But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck. And if your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that cannot be put out. And if your foot should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life lame, than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye should cause you to sin, tear it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where their worm does not die nor their fire go out.’

 

A Homily – The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)