Faith

Speaking truth to power – Thursday, 2nd week in ordinary time- Mark 3:7-12

There is a stark contrast among the Jewish leadership and the Jewish people towards Jesus. The last section ended with the Pharisees and the friends and supporters of Herod Antipas plotting to destroy Him. The people on the other hand love Him. But St Mark will also bring out the fickleness of humankind who blow as the wind does; one day it’s “Hosanna” and the other it is “crucify Him”.

Mark develops this fickleness in 3:7 to 6:6. At first the people in general flock to Him in droves. From these He chooses the twelve that ‘He wanted’ and calls them apostles (one who is sent) But then the opposition  to Jesus’ ministry comes sift and fast and from all quarters; His family, the scribes and finally He is rejected by the people of His own hometown, Galilee.

Today’s reading focuses on the wave of an overwhelming positive response shown to Jesus. He has moved from Capernaum to some site near the Sea of Galilee. Those who flock to meet Jesus are people from every corner. Idumea, Tyre and Sidon, mentioned in the Gospel today, are places that were situated outside the lands of Israel. These however had a sizeable Jewish population who having heard of Jesus flock to hear and touch Him, so much so he takes refuge on a boat.

St Mark mentions that Jesus healed “many”. The Greek translation (pollou) interprets this word as, he healed “some but not all”. This led some in the early Church to interpret the word to suggest that Jesus could not heal all because of some personal deficiency and was corrected by Matthew when he wrote his Gospel, changing ‘pollous’ to ‘pantas’ meaning “all”.

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Faith

Withered hands, hardened hearts- Wednesday, 2nd week in ordinary time – Mark 3: 1-6

We are now in the fifth and final controversy stories that are stacked up one after the other in Mark’s Gospel. The narratives build up into a crescendo of hate with a plot to destroy Jesus. The setting is the Sabbath and the place is the synagogue of Capernaum (indicated by the word ‘again’). Jesus has just had a ‘Sabbath run-in’ with the Pharisees on eating grain in the grain field on the Sabbath and now entering the synagogue He encounters a man with a withered hand. The compassionate Jesus cannot turn His eyes away even if it means that he defies the human interpretations of the law.

Like the first controversy (2: 1-12), the fifth controversy is an interweaving of a miracle and a debate showing that Jesus is powerful in both word and deed. Mark’s audience, for whom the Gospel was written, were constantly drawn into a debate with Rabbinic Judaism of the first century on their ‘Christian observances’ of the Sabbath which were more liberal compared to strict Pharisaic practices. This narrative would thus serve as a point of defence of the Early Church’s free attitude towards the Sabbath.

The problem in this episode lies in the nature of illness and the timing of the miracle. Jewish Rabbis were known to permit healings on the Sabbath in cases where the life of a person was threatened by illnesses.  In this case the man’s had was withered, a condition that could have been so from birth and hence not life threatening.  The Pharisees had figured out the compassionate heart of Jesus and knew that He of all people would never walk by; and so they “watched Him” so that they might “accuse Him”.

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Faith

Inward out- Tuesday, second week in ordinary time- Mark 2: 23-28

The setting of the fourth controversy story, in a set of five, deals with the Holy Day of the Sabbath. For the Jews, the Sabbath was a big deal.  Judaism was set apart by two characteristic things, the Sabbath and circumcision. These were outward signs of what should have brought inward grace. Unfortunately for the Jews these continued to be external traditions.

The Sabbath law was very complicated for it even determined how many steps one could take. To complicate this even more the Jews began a collection of oral traditions which they attached to the scriptures. These they recorded in a book called the Mishnah which had no less than 12 tractates, 39 different prohibitions; things you could not do on the Sabbath. Among the many such prohibitions, four are connected with today’s Gospel; you could not reap, thresh, winnow or prepare a meal. However, according to the law, it was okay to pluck heads of grain by hand (Deuteronomy 23:25). Read also the ‘law of gleaning’ in the book of Ruth.

Interestingly the Pharisees criticized the disciples of Jesus and not Him directly. Besides eating grain in the gratified they should have picked on Him for breaking other laws of the Sabbath like exceeding the distance covered on the Sabbath (which incidentally the Pharisees broke too as they were shadowing Jesus). However, they chose rather to limit themselves to the actions of His disciples which they construed as working on the Sabbath.

 Jesus’ response begins with the classic lines, “Have you never read?”. Nine times, throughout the New Testament, Jesus said this to His opponents. It is they who should have known their scriptures yet they had become slaves to traditions rather than the scriptures themselves.  His response however is from an Old Testament analogy from 1 Samuel 21:1-6 and here in we find ourselves with certain textual problems.

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Faith

A time to fast- Monday, 2nd Week in ordinary time – Mark 2:18-22

Today we read the third of the five conflict stories that the evangelist narrates and this time the opponents of Jesus are the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees. While the focus of the passage seems to be about the religious practice of fasting, Mark uses this opportunity to present Jesus as the Messiah whose public ministry takes place in this ‘special time’ in which the old forms of religious practices were not appropriate.

The issue at hand seems to be that of fasting. John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast while Jesus’ disciples do not. Interestingly the targets of Jesus’ opponents are now made out to be His disciples and not Him. However, it is clear that He is the intended target, for his disciples were merely a reflection of Him and if they did not fast, then the suggestion implied was that He did not fast.

The fasting practiced by the Jews was merely a traditional religious practice. The only fast that was stipulated in the Old Testament was the Day of Atonement. The Pharisees however observed additional fasts on the second and fifth day of the week and imposed the same on everyone else.

So what then is this passage all about? Jesus begins his ministry in Mark’s Gospel with the proclamation that “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near!” Having announced that time, He now announces that He is the messianic bridegroom, His public ministry is a ‘special time’ in which the old forms of religious practices were not appropriate.

One should not assume that Jesus is merely some itinerant preacher running around trying to subvert ritual boundaries by destroying the traditional practices by introducing something completely new. He is here to align the real practice of the faith with what God wants for His people. These human religious traditions often have little to do with God and much to do with pandering to human need.

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Art/ Heritage

THE POINTER: ‘St John the Baptist showing Christ to St. Andrew’ by Ottavio Vannini’

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed ‘Look, here is the lamb of God!’’ (John 1: 35). The opening words of today’s Gospel are rendered breath through the painting in consideration .

Composed in the 17th century by Ottavio Vannini, this work of art decorates the Church  of San Gaetano in Florence. While in the Synoptic Gospels Jesus calls his disciples while they were fishing by the Sea of Galilee, here in the Gospel of John, the disciples themselves follow Christ through the witness of the Baptist. Garbed in camel’s hair, John stands in contrapposto with most of his weight on one foot while the second rests on a rock. Both the camel’s hair and the rock symbolise temperance,endurance and rejection of worldly affairs. His red cloak announces his imminent martyrdom and his holy zeal for the Lord.

Intriguing indeed are his gestures. In his right hand he clutches a bamboo reed indicating his simplicity and humility. While with his left hand, he points out to the Lamb of God. Now this expression bears striking resemblance to the ‘Hand of God’ by Michelangelo. The action absorbs the significance as well. It highlights the ‘transfer’ of attention and the apostles from John the Baptist to Jesus.

John announces not himself but Christ. The declaration of the Lamb of God recalls the Paschal lamb whose blood saved the Israelites from death and paved the way for their deliverance from Egypt (Exodus 12). It also bears witness  to the Lamb provided by God to Abraham in place of the sacrifice of his son Isaac. Finally it brings to mind the Suffering Songs of Isaiah who prophesized the Sacrifice of Jesus and  the salvation of human race. Heeding John’s voice and direction is St. Andrew and an anonymous disciple.

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