The 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jonah 3:1-5, 10 | 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 | Mark 1:14-20

Grant us, Lord our God, that we may honor you with all our mind and love everyone in truth of heart.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

 This is the year of Mark, and we have the beginning of the ministry of Jesus described in the experience of Mark.  And what he’s opening us up to and what he wants us to understand is how different, how different this time is when Jesus entered the world and became the prophet that was promised, that we had a whole new way of hearing who God is and what God longs for us.  There’s an Old Testament and a New Testament.  They’re both essential for us to understand, but there must be a transition from the old to the new, which is not always easy.  I see in the opening prayer a reflection of both testaments.  In the Old Testament, we honor God with all our mind.  We listen to him.  We recognize who he is.  He created us, and he teaches us about justice.  And the mind understands justice.  It’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  It makes sense to the mind.  It works, and what we see so much in the Old Testament is that God reveals himself as one who is there to teach us about who we are and how we should treat one another.  And it begins with the most basic level of evolution of human beings from self-centered human beings to other-centered where in the middle of that place is a place of justice.  We understand that we have an obligation to be fair, and the mind understands fairness.  That’s why it is — it is sort of made for justice, but also, in a way, the mind is made for revenge, because that’s a way of imagining justice.  Someone does something bad to you; you can do something bad back to them.  And in a way, that’s what God describes himself as in the Old Testament. 

Listen to this first reading.  The first reading is about God, who is saying, “All right, you people are asking for something more.  You don’t really want to hear my voice directly.”  I love that image, because one of the things that is interesting about God’s voice, in the minds of the early followers of Jesus, is it’s a harsh voice.  It’s a scary voice.  It has fire in it.  And so they’re saying, “We’d rather have somebody reach us that understands a little bit more about who we are and isn’t so harsh on us.”  And so God said, “Okay, I will do that for you.”  But listen to the way he describes giving them a prophet who is like them, who would be more compassionate and understanding of what it means to be human, but you’ll still hear something in that Old Testament passage that’s so perfect for you to realize what the Old Testament is really trying to do for people: give them a sense of obligation to a power greater than them, that if they displease this power, that power gets angry and punishes.  So listen to what he said.  “You want this prophet?  Okay, I’ll send you one, but if you don’t listen to the prophet I’m sending, I’ll take care of you.  I will hold it against you.”  That’s what’s implied, but then he’s still harsher on the prophet.  He said, “If you’re a prophet and you prophesy in my name but you’re not really teaching what I told you to teach, I’ll kill you.  I’ll get rid of you.  I’ll destroy you.”  Now, I know I’m saying that rather dramatically, but still, I’m trying to give you a sense of how people would have listened to this, how they heard it.  You’d say what God is really saying is that, “A prophet that isn’t able to do what I’ve given him to do will no longer be a prophet.”  That’s a death, but I think you really have to look at the Old Testament and see how it impacts people to know that there’s a God in the Old Testament that is someone that needs to be feared, and if you don’t do what he says, he is going to crush you, send you to hell forever.  And that isn’t who God is.  It’s a part of God, because the God of the Old Testament that speaks to the mind is speaking to things like logic and justice.  And that’s where we began, and that’s how we evolved slowly from that.  So in a way, the Old Testament had to be what it was in order to reach the people that it was destined to reach.  It worked.  It needed to be what it was.  But I think, back to that opening prayer, it also said, along with honoring God with our minds, we have to love everyone in truth of heart.  Notice, the Old Testament is about honoring God, worshiping him, doing things for him.  The New Testament is more about how we treat one another. 

So we are called in the New Testament to a new way of seeing.  Our eyes are opened to a truth, and the truth resides in our heart.  And what the heart is made for, it goes beyond justice.  It’s called mercy, understanding, compassion, forgiveness.  The two really do work together.  One is the foundation.  The other is the perfection of that foundation, and so as much as we’re called to being people who do what they’re told and obey the truth, we’re also called to be instruments of something that goes way beyond truth — well, maybe say way beyond justice but enters into the depth of truth.  And the truth is we are human beings made in God’s image, and the fullness of the image of God is revealed in Jesus.  And Jesus is the one who comes into the world without an intention of judging and condemning those who are not who they are but loving those who are not who they are so that they can be transformed.  Justice frees the innocent and can only punish the guilty.  Mercy can free the innocent but also free the guilty by not punishing them but transforming them.

Listen to the second reading with this image of Old Testament/New Testament.  It’ll help you, because Paul is caught — he was a Pharisee, and he was caught in a lot of the Old Testament.  I mean — caught in it, he was trained in it.  You just don’t all of a sudden become somebody radically different because God enters your life.  You still have a part of you that lives in the past, and we still have that ourselves, a part that’s more selfish, more self-centered.  We live with it.  It doesn’t go away, but we learn how to be different than that.  We’re empowered to be different than that.  But listen to the way Paul is imagining Jesus coming back again.  He’s coming back next week maybe or the week after, and so he’s saying, “We should be paying attention to that.”  But what I find interesting is he’s saying, “What God would really like is for you to give him your full attention.  Just make him the only concern you have and ignore the people around you.  Don’t pay attention to your relationships.  Pay attention to God.”  Now, that is just so interesting when you think about it, because that would be the antithesis of the New Testament.  A mystic, St. Catherine of Siena, once asked, “How can I love you, God?  How can I love you?  I want to love you more and more and more.”  And he said, “I don’t need that kind of love from you, but the way you would please me, the way you would be who I want you to be is love each other.  Then you’re showing me that you’ve become who I’ve called you to be through my love for you and my acceptance of you as you are.  And do that for each other, because I want you to pay more attention to your love of your neighbor than for me,” not in the sense of saying the two don’t go together, but a lot of people go around saying, “I love God, but I hate my neighbor,” and Jesus calls them liars.  You can’t do that.  If you love God, you are — no.  If you are loved by God, understand his mercy and his acceptance, you will have that thing for your brothers and sisters.  it’s just natural.  It just flows that way. 

So let’s go to the heart of the gospel.  Jesus comes into the world, and he is the prophet that was promised.  He’s the one that’s going to change the world, and when he comes in, he astounds the people that are listening to him, because he has something different than the scribes and Pharisees.  What do we know about the scribes and Pharisees?  They were hypocrites.  They were saying what was right, but they weren’t living what was called for, and you know what that’s like.  Those crazy-making people in your life that act and speak the truth, but in reality, they’re anything but the truth.  They’re liars, and they’re users, but they speak the right language.  Jesus has something that is essential for anyone who is going to be in the world affecting change for the good, and that is authenticity, another word, authority.  He’s living the truth, not a lie.  Truth has one major impact on the people that are engaged in it.  It unifies, makes one.  The opposite of truth is lies, and lies are always going to have a profound effect on those that are engaged in it, and it will be separation and isolation.  When you find out somebody’s been lying to you, it immediately separates you from them.  It’s a very, very frightening experience to have someone in your life that you’ve trusted and find out that they’re not telling you the truth, and the relationship then becomes deeply, deeply damaged and, in a sense, divided.  And the only thing that can unify it again is forgiveness and understanding, but the forgiveness and understanding is offered only because it can be effective in changing someone.  If the person doesn’t change, the relationship can’t exist.

So here is Jesus coming into the world and revealing himself as different, and the difference is authority, authenticity.  And what does that mean?  His intention.  Intention is felt from someone.  Your intention is something that we underestimate, because if you have an intention to be with someone and to give them life versus you’re with someone and you want to impress them or use them or demand from them something that you need, the difference of that is the difference between authenticity and being a fake.  So what are we looking at here?  We’re saying Jesus comes into the world with an authentic heart who has an intention that all he wants to do is bring people to life.  And how is he going to do that?  How is he going to bring people then to life?  Speak the truth.  Okay, when he speaks the truth for the first time, in the Gospel of Mark, what does Mark say that is the first sign for the disciples to watch?  Because the disciples were told by Jesus, “Follow me.  Watch me.  See what I do.”  The first experience in Mark’s gospel is they’re watching him walk into a synagogue, into a holy place, and in that place, there is a liar, someone possessed, someone with an unclean spirit.  And the fascinating thing about this passage is that that unclean spirit knows instantly that Jesus has power over him, and he said, “I know who you are, and you’re here to destroy us, right?”  I think that’s so fascinating.  When you think about it, here’s a human being speaking in the name of evil.  That means evil has a way of becoming a part of us where we’re not even aware that it is the source of things, but whenever something comes out of the core of our being that is designed to destroy, to use, to abuse, it’s evil.  Not that I’m saying we are evil, but the evil is in us.  That’s something I want to try to get to in this homily if I can, that we are this strange combination of good and evil, selfishness and self-centeredness.  We’ve got to embrace it all.  It is part of the work of being an integrated human being.  We’re not good or bad.  We’re both.  So here it is, this unclean spirit recognizing that a person who has the intention of nothing but love is so intolerant to evil that their very presence shakes them and destroys them.  So when the disciples see a man who comes into the world, who they believe is the Messiah, and they see that he is filled with something called truth, called love, called mercy, the minute he comes into contact with evil, evil knows it is busted.  It is destroyed.  Imagine the power we have when we stay in the truth, in love and in mercy, to overcome the influence of evil.  Evil can’t stand to be around love and mercy.  It lives in hearts and minds that are bent on revenge and anger and fear.  So we have this new teaching with authority. 

So his fame begins to spread everywhere, and if you continue in the Gospel of Mark, and we probably will as the next couple of readings, but what is interesting is not only does he show that he has power over evil, but he is able to heal people of distress and disease.  So from this experience he goes and heals Peter’s mother-in-law.  Then all the neighbors come, and they line up outside, saying, “Here’s a man who can heal us.”  It’s just like the lines for vaccines.  It’s like they were here.  “I want this man.  I want him to give me whatever he has so that I can be immune from the infection of evil and revenge and hatred.”  I love the fact — it’s so human for Jesus when I think about it.  So he’s there, and he’s exhausted by the end of the night, and so the next morning, all these people are lined up.  And he slipped away at night and goes away to pray, like he’s saying, “All right, I have this power, but I’m here to give it to you to do it to each other.  I’m not going to be the source always with you to do it. “ It’s not going to reside in one or two persons who have a role in religion that is going to save the world.  No, it’s religious people being truly prophetic and awakening people to the power that’s in them, called love and mercy, that transforms the world.  The world is never going to be changed from the top down.  It’s going to be changed from the bottom up.  That’s the way it works.  Each individual representing this awesome new power that God is giving to human beings by creating the prophet Jesus, who is nothing more than the example of what you and I are to become.  We are the incarnation of Jesus in the sense that we are like him, meaning divinity lives in us doing its work, and we still remain human, broken, filled with all kinds of negativity.  But that’s the way it’s supposed to be, and that’s the way it works.

Father, your invitation for us to be instruments of your love, your mercy, your forgiveness to our brothers and sisters is often something that seems too difficult, but when we accept our humanity and its weaknesses and still know that you can work through us with your love, then we are safe and sure and confident in this work. It is you through us that brings life to others, not ourselves. As we grow in that knowledge, we will grow in the joy of watching those around us be touched by your mercy and your love. And we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.