Faith

Is 12 the new 13? Monday, 14th Week in ordinary time – Mt 9:18-26

The gospel of today is also found in Mark 5: 21-43 and Luke 8: 40-56 and put together with Matthew reveal layers of interesting detail.  When seen together (the meaning of Synoptic) we know that the synagogue officials name was Jarius whose twelve year old daughter was raised from the dead and that a woman, suffering with a haemorrhage for twelve years, was cured.

Interestingly, the gospel of Nicodemus, an apocryphal gospel, also known as the Acts of Pilate (Πράξεις Πιλάτου), mentions the name of the haemorrhaging woman as Bernice. Eusebius of Caesarea, a Greek historian of Christianity, an exegete, and Christian polemicist mentions that the woman was a gentile from Caesarea Philippi.

So is there some magic to the number twelve? None whatsoever unless you also believe there is a curse in the number thirteen. While Jarius was ‘blessed’ with a daughter for twelve years, the woman was ‘cursed’ with a bleeding for twelve years. So rather than looking for solace in numbers, Jarius and the woman chose to look to the Lord, with eyes of faith.

Interestingly the interaction with the dead girl and the woman with the haemorrhage would have rendered Jesus ritually unclean. A pious Jew would think twice before touching a dead person. Remember the priest and the Levite who walked past the man beaten and left for dead in the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’? Their ‘heartless’ actions were perhaps a reaction to the fact that they were on their way to Jerusalem. To touch a potentially dead man would only involve more ceremonial cleansing. They followed the maxim, be safe rather than sorry, and walked on. Sensitivity was lost to ceremonials.

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Name or Nature?  14th Sunday in ordinary time  -Mark 6: 1-6

We move from belief to disbelief, and the fact that this disbelief comes from Jesus’ own hometown in Nazareth, makes this incident all the more shocking. But this brings to a close on Mark’s collation of the rejection of Jesus in Galilee, a rejection that began in Chapter 3:7 and reaches a crescendo in 6:6.

Jesus moves from the western shore of Galilee, inland towards Nazareth, and here the rejection is personal. Rejection is always harder when it source is one’s own family. His own did not accept Him while strangers in Capernaum did!

Jesus comes to the synagogue in Nazareth and begins to teach. The initial reaction of being ‘astounded’  to such wisdom, gives way to more negative comments which are personal in nature. Unlike Jarius and the haemorrhaging woman, they can only see a face, not faith – they recognise a name, not His nature. One would never understand why the ‘son of the town’ who has such wisdom, would not be celebrated? But then again human beings are fickle!

The description of Jesus as the ‘son of Mary’ was more an insult than a desire to identify Him. Jews were customarily known by their father’s name; they should have called Him the ‘son of Joseph’.  But it is their own thoughts that scandalize them (vs3). Interestingly the translation of ‘they took offense’ is ‘skandalon’ or in English scandal, whose roots reveal that a scandal is more a ’stumbling block’. It is not the words or the person of Jesus that cause His hometown folk to be scandalized, but their own thoughts that become a ‘stumbling block’ to His acceptance. 

Perhaps we need to look at our own stumbling blocks, the coloured glasses that we look at people with. Often we glibly dismiss people for their colour, creed, and sexual orientations. We see their actions as a scandal, and so reject them. Remember the words of Pope Francis, “who am I to judge?” In doing so, we dehumanize a human person and fail to see the ‘prophet’ in them. We close our doors to them and our hearts to Jesus, reducing them all to mere ‘carpenters’.  

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Sinners at my table ! – Friday, 13th week in ordinary time- Mt 9:9-13

Someone once well put it, Jesus ate His way through the gospels and He certainly must have eaten a lot. His detractors even accused Him of being a friend of gluttons and drunkards. Not without reason did Jesus sit at table to eat. In Judaism, table fellowship was not merely a time to tuck into stew of vegetables, lentils and chickpeas spiced with herbs. To be invited to someone’s home for a meal, was to be invited into their inner circle.

Matthew would have had more than just a vegetable stew the day he invited Jesus over to dine. He had every reason to celebrate, for the famous son of Capernaum, now a wonder working Rabbi had asked him to be His follower. Just the thought of it was unimaginable for tax collectors such as Matthew were a hated lot and considered to be traitors, for they worked for the enemy, the Romans.

Matthew had more reason to be hated. He was tax collector in Capernaum, which was situated on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, and it connected major population centres of the world. It was famously known as the Via maris or the way of the sea. Matthew surely made a killing in overcharging taxes from those who passed that way.

All this had now changed and amidst the lavish meal of roast lamb and broiled fish with figs, olives and pomegranates, Matthew and his ‘many’ tax collector and ‘sinner’ friends must have heard a pin drop when the Pharisees asked the disciples of Jesus why He shared such company.

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Body and Soul, both made whole-Thursday, 13th week in ordinary time – Matthew 9: 1-8

There are two ways to approach this passage – from a pastoral reflection point of view, or from the evangelist’s intended purpose.  This morning, I will briefly dwell on both approaches.

In order to understand evangelist’s purpose, we must place ourselves somewhere between the years 80-90 AD, when Matthew penned this Gospel. Matthew is not the first to write New Testament literature. Paul had been writing letters and Mark has already completed his account of the Gospel in around 64-69 AD.

The circumstances that surround the accounts of Mark and Matthew are very different. By the time Matthew has written his Gospel, the Romans have attacked Jerusalem, pillaged it and destroyed the temple. The Jewish authorities, seeing the lack of co-operation from the followers of Christ in defending the city and temple, now excommunicate the ‘followers of Christ’ who still considered themselves to be Jewish.

A bitter family feud between the Jews and the Jewish followers of Christ breaks out. Matthew, writing in these troubled times, uses as his foundation, the Gospel of Mark, albeit with the circumstances of his community in mind.  For Matthew, Jesus is the Son of God come to fulfil the law and the prophets, corrupted by the Jewish authorities who likewise, have an intense hatred for Him.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus, in healing a paralytic in His own home town earns the ire of the scribes when He says, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Immediately the charge of blasphemy is brought up. This is the very charge that will cost Jesus His life in Matthew, 26:65.

Unlike Mark, who will narrate this Gospel passage, peppered with great detail, Matthew chooses to get to the point; a point that Mark did not make. For the Jews, an illness such as paralysis was a punishment from God for sin. Matthew wants to present Jesus as not merely a miracle worker, but the Son of God who has the ‘authority’ to extend this power to forgive sins, to his Church.

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If pigs could fly – Wednesday, 13th Week in ordinary time – Mt 8:28-34

Jesus is now in Gentile country and Gadara is about six miles from the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was in this part of the land that the Decapolis was established—the league of ten, largely Gentile, cities. This explains the pigs!

Had they been in Jewish country there would be no pigs at all; for not only were pigs considered unclean, they were also seen as funny. The Gentiles on the other hand had no such problem, for they reared pigs and ate them and knowing of the Jews’ horror of swine, made this a subject of laughter and teasing (JBC).

The passage of today is not limited only to pigs; we also have demons to compound the matter. The Fourth Lateran council which began in Rome in 1215, clearly acknowledges the role of Satan and his fallen angels who are called demons. It’s a pity that some Christians dismiss with ‘great authority’ the role of Satan or demons as merely a creation of a superstitious mind.

The activities of the two demons (a single demon mentioned in the Gospels of Mark and Luke), are described in great detail here in Matthew’s Gospel. Sufficient to say that they recognize Jesus  as the Son of God and fear that He has come to judge them, yet strangely two verses before, the disciples in the boat asked themselves ‘what sort of man Jesus was’. The demons answered that one! He is the Son of God.

So what are the demons up to? The demons took residence in two healthy humans. Jesus has come to rescue us from the power of satan! The demons know the mission of Jesus and know that they are to be expelled from the humans before their time. So what option do they have? The answer is simple; to be sent into that which is considered unclean, the pigs.

In the previous pericope we discussed how the sea was considered the place of evil and the dwelling of demons. It’s no wonder that the two thousand herd of swine, (Mark’s gospel provides this detail) now possessed by the demons, head to the sea. They rush down a steep bank into the sea and perish. That seems like a happy ending, but it was not!

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