WE BELONG TO GOD

II SUNDAY OF LENT - Mark 1:12-15

In the Bible, we can find stories that seize our attention and force us to reflect upon ourselves in relation to God, to others and the world. Some stories leave us perplexed, forcing us to ask questions for which there seems to be no clear answer. The sacrifice of Isaac is such a story.

What kind of god is this God who demands the sacrifice of one’s son as proof of faithfulness? Indeed, we are baffled by God’s demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son. In which way is Yahweh different from so many other gods who demanded human blood to be appeased?

Many of the biblical stories must be approached from different angles to be able the grasp their meaning. Thus, the sacrifice of Isaac must be heard in the religious and social context of the times. Abraham was a Chaldean living in a foreign land, the land of Canaan, where human sacrifice was common. In difficult times. to appease the gods, they would sacrifice even their firstborn son. It is well possible that Abraham went through difficult moments and even a crisis of faith, which led to the conviction that God was demanding the sacrifice of his son. In the end, God presented Abraham with a substitute to offer in place of his son. Later, in the Law given to Moses, God forbade the offering of a son in sacrifice, considering that to be an abomination: “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way” (Dt 12:31).

According to the Law, the firstborn belongs to God: “... all the firstborn are mine.” (Numbers 3:13). Abraham was called to give back to God his son. There is a Bemba proverb that says: Umweo wa nkoko waba kuli cibinda (the life of the chicken is in the hands of the owner). Only God is the centre of everything. Only He is supreme and everything else is relative and exists anchored on him. That is something that we must never forget. Many times, parents behave as if they took for themselves God’s place. I remember hearing many times people saying: Abafyashi ni baLesa wa cibili (parents are a second god). However, that is not true. As human beings, they have in them the image of God, but they are not God. They are at the service of life and the service of their children. The moment will arrive when they must cut their children loose and let their children go. They become adults and must assume responsibility for their lives. And this applies to everybody. There are moments in life when to go forward, we must relinquish what is dearest to us.

Isaac represents Jesus, the beloved Son, who accepted to carry the cross and be sacrificed for us. Through his death on the cross, we find life and salvation.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

I SUNDAY OF LENT - Mark 1:12-15

Temptation is part of human life. We may ask ourselves what is temptation. It is a proposal of an alternative path and an easy way to live our lives and get quick joy, self-satisfaction, pleasure and fulfilment. This may come from within or from outside, be it from other people or from the circumstances we find ourselves in. These proposals run against other proposals that lead us to a life lived in truth and righteousness. Within us, there is a continuous struggle in which we are forced to choose between good and evil. However, we may be easily deluded, because temptation makes the evil options sound like the good ones, leading us to mistake the evil for good and vice-versa. To make the right choice, we must enlightened by God’s light, which gives us the wisdom to see through the evil intent in the temptation. In the temptation, evil is masked as good, seducing us and leading us astray. The temptation of Adam and Eve is a good example of that. The disobedience and the revolt were instigated by false statements that sounded true. They suspected God of hiding from them the possibility of becoming a god and counted God’s prohibition as oppression. On the other side, the serpent’s proposal sounded reasonable and worthy of pursuit. Since then, humanity has been tempted, being seduced by temptation.

Jesus went through the common human experience of temptation and stayed firm, remaining faithful to God. It is that faithfulness that makes possible the harmony that had been destroyed by the revolt of Adam and Eve.

In the prayer taught to us by Jesus, we are told to pray: deliver us from evil and don’t allow us to fall into temptation. May the Lord grant us his Spirit to strengthen our resolve to overcome temptation.

IF YOU WANT, YOU CAN CURE ME.

VI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Mark 1:40-45

This Sunday’s gospel is about a leper who went out of his way to meet Jesus. Nothing is said about that leper. We don’t know the name, the sex or the age. The only information that sets him aside is that he is a leper. Being a leper, he was an outcast, who had to live alone, far from society. Without a family and a community, it is as if he is already dead. Still alive, but already in hell. In his body, he experiences decay and, in his heart, he has to deal with sorrow and loneliness. Everybody stays away from him and even God has abandoned him. The first reading, taken from the book of Leviticus, presents the harsh laws that dealt with leprosy. “A man infected with leprosy must wear his clothing torn and his hair disordered; he must shield his upper lip and cry, “Unclean, unclean.” (Lev 13:44-46). 

To understand the harshness of those laws, we must remember that leprosy is a contagious and incurable disease. The community should be protected and, without a cure, the only protection was to exclude the leper from the community. The sickness of leprosy had a religious connotation of uncleanness. Thus the leper was punished by society and by God.

In the gospel, the leper stands for all those who are ignored, despised and excluded. They are rejected and considered as garbage. They have no place in society or even in the Church. Certainly, there are many situations of exclusion. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we went through a similar experience. Everybody lived in fear and tried to keep away from others who were seen as dangerous. We were not even allowed in churches.

The leper of the Gospel tried to break free of the constraints imposed by tradition and law. Out of despair, he approached Jesus and cried out: “If you want to, you can cure me.” It all depended on Jesus. And he entrusted his fate to Jesus. Then, going against law and tradition, “Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” By doing that, Jesus became unclean and should keep away from other people until he performed a rite of purification. However, he did not bother about that. At the leper’s request, Jesus answered: “Of course I want to! Be cured!” Then, he ordered the leper to present himself to the priest, for his healing to be recognised and to become again an active member of the community.

Jesus was well aware that his action would have repercussions. That’s why the leper was told to keep quiet and “say nothing to anyone”. However, his joy was so great that he could not keep it a secret. He had to announce what Jesus had done for him. As a consequence of this announcement, “Jesus could no longer go openly into any town but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived.” It is as if Jesus himself had become an outcast. Despite that, many people looked for Jesus: “… people from all around would come to him.”

Let us proclaim with thanks what Jesus has done for us and let us learn with his mercy and compassion.

FROM THE SYNAGOGUE TO THE CHURCH

V SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Mark 1:29-39

On the Sabbath, like any other Jew, Jesus used to go to the synagogue. There, he read from the Scriptures, shared the Word of God and proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus was a committed member of the community, in which he assumed a leading role. However, the synagogue community was going to give place to the Church community. In a way, that is well expressed in Mark's chapter one. Jesus began his ministry with a public proclamation. Then, he called his first disciples and moved to Capernaum. On the Sabbath, he went to the synagogue and there he set free a man who was possessed by evil spirits. It is as if Jesus came to dispel the darkness found in the synagogue. From there, with James and John, Jesus went straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. It was the new community centred on the family and not on the synagogue. In this new community, we find human beings touched by weakness and shortcomings. That is the case of Simon’s mother-in-law, who needs Jesus to take her by the hand to raise her. We have fallen and need Jesus to renew us so that we may serve as she did. There and then, Simon’s house became the centre of attention and the point of reference. Crowding around the door, we have an injured humanity in need of healing and salvation. 

In an instant, Jesus became famous and everybody was looking for him. However, Jesus refused to take advantage of this fame. Early in the morning, “he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.” To have long and intense periods of prayer was the antidote to any human desire for fame and popularity. When, after a search, the disciples found him, Jesus made it clear that he was not interested in being surrounded by crowds that looked to him as a healer. He came to preach, calling people to repentance. “And he went all through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out devils.” To a world dominated by the power of evil Jesus brings the Good News of salvation, destroying that power and establishing a new community  - the community of disciples, ready to serve. It is not surprising that, since its beginnings, the Church has cared for the well-being of people, as she proclaims the Good News of Jesus Christ. In Jerusalem, the first Christian community cared for the widows and through the centuries, the Church has always paid attention to the poor and the sick, getting involved in schools and health services. Only whole people can manifest the glory of God.

JESUS IS THE PROMISED PROPHET

IV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Mark 1:21-28

According to Mark, Jesus became famous and people from all Galilee came to him. They were impressed by his miracles and many people went to him for healing. And they were impressed as well by his teaching, because “he taught them with authority” and he showed this authority by giving orders to unclean spirits and they obeyed him. Jesus had a great aura about him that made him remarkable and set him aside from the scribes. That’s why people were ready to listen to him and follow him. Many of them asked if he was not the prophet God had promised to Moses, that is the Messiah.

The promised Messiah was expected to be king, priest and prophet. Being a descendant of David, he would sit on his throne and be the eternal king who would rule the world. And he would be a priest in the line of Melchizedek who was priest and king at the same time. Finally, he would be a prophet like Moses. In that role, he would be the voice of God - that is the Word that can be heard without instilling fear in the hearts of people. As indicated to Moses, this Word would become incarnate and be understood by human ears. Being that Voice of God in the middle of his people, he came close to them, thus touching their hearts and their lives.

In the book of Deuteronomy (18:15-20), God warns Moses of the possibility of false prophets and over the centuries many false prophets have appeared. Many of them announce themselves and ignore the centrality of Christ, proposing false doctrines that are not God’s way. Unfaithful to the Word of God, they present their words as the true teaching. Many times, they use words and concepts that sound Christian but are not. By doing so, they bring confusion and lead people astray. The new ideologies that plan to take over the world justify themselves by presenting ideals like diversity, equity and inclusion, behind which they divide the world into oppressor and oppressed and do it along the lines of race and gender.

Only Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life and if we live in the hope of being accepted into the Kingdom of God, we must follow him and become his disciples. We cannot distort His Word and set ourselves up in his place.

O that today you would listen to his voice!

  ‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

  as on that day at Massah in the desert

when your fathers put me to the test;

  when they tried me, though they saw my work.’ (Ps 95)

REPENT, AND BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS

III SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Jonah 3:1-5,10

The story of Jonah trying to run away from God is well known. He was called and ordered by God to go to Nineveh, but he did not agree with the mission entrusted to him. Before such an attitude, we may ask what kind of prophet was he. Indeed, he does not fit the profile of a prophet. He heard the call and he understood the mission given to him, but he decided to ignore that call and go as far away as possible from Nineveh. Jonah was forced to realise that it is impossible to run away from God and that we cannot impose our ways on him. In the end, God’s will prevails. 

We may ask: Why such a strange attitude from Jonah? Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, that had destroyed the kingdom of Israel in the North and had tried to conquer Jerusalem in the South. Following their policy on the conquered lands, they took most of the population into captivity. Thus, Nineveh represented the enemy intent on eradicating the people of Israel from their homeland. They were evil people who profited from exploitation and oppression. Nineveh represents a Godless society which has become a disordered society, dominated by the lust for pleasure, the fight for power and the ambition for wealth. In the end, human rights are despised and human dignity is trampled upon. A society that ignores God’s commandments is on the way to becoming less and less human. The situation in Nineveh leads us to look at our modern society, which has rejected God and turned its back on the great values of truth, justice and uprightness, essential for us to build a world of peace. A society that follows such a path is on the way to annihilation. And God sent Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh of what would happen to them. Jonah was not pleased since he thought that the inhabitants of Nineveh did not desire God’s care, compassion and mercy. He wanted their punishment, not their salvation. However, God’s ways are different from our ways and he judges lovingly. He does not feel pleasure in the destruction of the sinner and he waits patiently for his conversion. The warning was serious, but its purpose was not condemnation but salvation. And this salvation is offered to all peoples, even to those who try to live without God. God gives an opportunity to all, without exception.

In the end, Jonah had to go and carry out his mission because it is impossible to run away from God. The people of Nineveh heard the message, were touched by it, recognised their sins, made penance and turned back to God. And God was merciful to them and withdrew the punishment announced to them. We are called upon to behave like the people of Nineveh.

In the Gospel, Mark presents the message of Jesus’ first preaching: “Repent, and believe the Good News.” That is the way to enter the Kingdom of God. We must repent from our sins and believe in Jesus Christ, the Saviour who came to reconcile us with God.

Jesus goes on calling disciples to send them with the mission to announce the Good News to all peoples of the world. May we answer as Andrew and Simon, James and John did.

HEARING GOD’S CALL

II SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - John 1:35-42

In the Holy Scriptures, we can find many examples of God’s calling, each one of them presenting a special aspect of God’s presence and intervention in one’s life. In this Sunday’s liturgy, we are presented, in the first reading, with the call of Samuel, who being consecrated to God by his mother, grew up in the temple. Being very young, he had not experienced yet God’s relationship with him: “Samuel had as yet no knowledge of the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” (1 Sam 3:3-10). So he could not recognise God’s voice and mistook it for the voice of Eli, the High Priest. However, in Samuel, we find the readiness to answer immediately, once called. Called three times, and three times he answered: “Here I am”. He did not delay or find excuses. In Bemba, there is a proverb that expresses well this quick answer to being called: “Uwaitwa, tafwala bwino.” - Who is called, has no time to go and dress well. He must answer there and then. Samuel did that. After so much insistence, Eli recognised that it was the Lord who was calling the young lad and instructed Samuel to give the proper answer: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” Samuel needed someone to guide him in the ways of the Lord, prompting him to give the right answer and have the right attitude. We must be ready to listen, so that we may what God wants from us.

The gospel presents also another instance of the guidance received from others to be able to meet the Lord and follow him. Seeing Jesus passing by, John the Baptist pointed him out to two of his disciples: “Look, there is the lamb of God.” Hearing this proclamation of faith, they went after Jesus. Aware that he was being followed, Jesus asked: “What do you want?” They wanted to know him and discover what was so special about him.  Jesus’ invitation was simple and straightforward: “Come and see.” Even today, Jesus addresses to us the same invitation: “Come and see.” We must have the personal experience of encountering Jesus, allowing our lives to be touched by him.

Having made the experience, they could not keep it a secret and one of them, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, passed the message to his brother, taking him to Jesus. The gospel of John stresses the essential role of those who have met Jesus in taking others to Him, for them to have the same experience, thus becoming his disciples. All of us are given the role of Eli, of John the Baptist and Andrew, helping the others to listen to God’s voice and taking them to Christo so that in him they may find salvation.