We are brothers and sisters of Christ in more than one way. First, through his incarnation, he became one of us, a little lower than the angels. He shared our human existence; he knew the highs and lows of human life. Then he redefined family relationships, claiming that blood bonds were no longer the determinant for establishing kinship. Instead, those who hear the word of God and keep it, those who commit themselves to God in faithful discipleship, are his brothers and sisters. Marriage and other forms of discipleship make religious demands on us. Because we are taking a step into the unknown, they require a profound act of trust – trust in ourselves, trust in each other and, most importantly, trust in God. They also expect openness on our part – openness to give and openness to receive. Unfortunately we associate these characteristics with unpretentious children. While children may possess them because they are innocent, adults must repossess them because we have been recreated in Christ.
As we move into the final week of the Season of Creation, Jesus’ choice of imagery and his message about dramatic action are especially pertinent. As Pope Francis declares in his encyclical Laudato Si’, climate change is an imminent threat to our world. For Christians, this raises two issues directly relevant to this passage from Mark. On the one hand, we have a duty to protect ourselves and each other from catastrophe by checking our own sinful behaviours and habits. We should seriously consider what we can do to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels through personal usage, investment options, and political choices. We cannot dodge responsibility on this issue. Our faith demands action. On the other hand, we also have a duty to find common cause with everyone else who shares this concern. Pope Francis encourages us to work with people of other religions ‘for the sake of protecting nature, defending the poor, and building networks of respect and fraternity.’ When it comes to protecting our common home, ‘Anyone who is not against us is for us.’
Righteousness is a pillar of the reign of God. Those who would enter that reign must be gentle and merciful, faithful and sincere, lovers of peace. They must be willing to take the last place, to be the servant of all. The righteous are not often held in high regard. They are often ridiculed and even persecuted. When they are considered a reproach to the standards of society, they may even be put to death. There are times when we might be inclined to envy and resentment, not wanting to feel morally inferior, and we might relish the opportunity of putting the virtue of others to the test. We may say that we want to draw forth their strengths, when we really hope their weaknesses will be revealed and they will prove to be no better than we are. Sometimes the righteous have nowhere else to turn but to Jesus, whose life they are following and into whose death they have been plunged.
Today’s gospel reading leads us into a section of Mark’s gospel that explores challenges confronting all disciples on their journey of faith. The first challenge is to clarify the nature of our commitment as disciples of Jesus. If we fail to understand who Jesus is, then we have little chance of understanding the nature of our own call to follow him. To know and follow Jesus as the Christos or Messiah is to seek and support more moderate and lasting responses to both perceived and real injustice. It is to listen to the wisdom of those with insight and experience, to calculate with the utmost care the consequences of violent reactions to the problems in our world, in contemporary society, and in our homes. That may well involve hard work, personal misunderstanding, physical and emotional trauma or, in other words, it may mean “losing one’s life” for the sake of the gospel. It may call us to ensure that all have access to a more equitable share of earth resources. It certainly calls for profound trust in the saving power of God. In this Season of Creation, the gospel calls us into the ways of respect, of commitment, and of peaceful negotiation, to ever deeper insight into the ways of Jesus the Christ, the anointed agent of God’s empire.
Jesus opens our eyes to the reality of God’s presence in our midst, in the goodness of people and in the tenderness of life, even in its vulnerability. He opens our ears to hear the word of God spoken to us by others, revealed to us through the created world. Although the messianic future is already present to us, it is only unfolding, it has not yet opened completely. We still judge each other by appearances. We still miss the presence of God in the poor and the dispossessed, in those who suffer from disease or war or loneliness. We still shun those of another race, or those who have been shaped by another culture, or those who worship God in a different way. We have not yet put aside all of the biases of the past and we have not yet been fully transformed. But God has spoken, God has come to save us. God is trustworthy; God keeps faith forever.
When the word of God has taken root in us, everything becomes a religious practice. This word can come to us through the teachings of our faith, through the example of good people around us, through the wonder and mystery of creation. When it does take hold of us, our inner eye is opened, our hearts are softened, and we turn instinctively to God like a flower turns to the sun. When we are brought to birth in this way, covenant law becomes sacred, religious practices are cherished, and we are filled with the power that saves.
The choices we make determine the character of our union with God who called us out of the slavery of sin and protected us throughout the journey of our lives. Jesus walked with us through the challenges of life and performed wonders for us. Why should we look elsewhere? The new challenges we face and the new demands placed on us may be so great, or the commitment required of us may be so demanding that we feel that we can no longer walk with him. The church may be changing in ways we do not appreciate, or it may not be changing in the ways we believe it should, and so we may feel that we can walk with him no longer. If we decide to commit ourselves, we will enter into a union with God that is deeper than anything we have previously known. However, this union will be based on our faith in Jesus which does not come easily or naturally, as it is a grace given by God. We may understand no more than we did in the past, things may be no more to our liking. Jesus is God’s holy one; he has the words of eternal life.
Wisdom invites us to her banquet. Since she is the way to God, those who accept her invitation will feast on the things of God. The banquet of wisdom is an apt symbol of the generosity of God, open to all, enriching all. The banquet that Jesus offers is like the banquet of Wisdom. However, it far exceeds even Wisdom’s table. At Jesus’ banquet, we feast on his body and his blood. If we feed at the table of the Lord, we will have life because of him, and we will be raised up on the last day to live forever. This is truly a bold claim and a hard saying. We are told that the food we eat is his body, and what we drink is his blood. We are told that his body, not merely his teaching, is the true bread that came down from heaven. We are told that only if we eat and drink what he offers will we have eternal life. He makes the claim and extends the invitation. How will we hear it? How will we respond?
There are other times when we are challenged to change our way of thinking and to accept what seems to make extraordinary demands on us. A new way of understanding church may call us to be open to the cultural diversity within the community. Or it might claim that we have a responsibility toward the poor and homeless in our midst. New biblical insights make us question our familiar understanding of God or of Jesus or of ourselves. We want evidence to substantiate these radical new claims. But the evidence that Jesus offered could only be accepted in faith. And so it is with us. When we ask God for some kind of sign that will assure us that this new challenge is really what God wants, the answers received must themselves be accepted and understood in faith. The only assurance we have is rooted in faith, and those who are not open in faith will not understand. God does indeed ask a great deal from us.
Jesus insists that he is the true bread from heaven; he is the real basis of our survival. If we fill ourselves with all that the world provides as nourishment we will still hunger. Only faith in Jesus can satisfy our deepest hungers, and we will not be able to survive apart from him. Acceptance of Jesus as the source of our life and the very nourishment of our spirits effects a total transformation in us. We will no longer be content to live with full bellies but empty minds. We will put aside our old selves steeped in ignorance and self-interest and put on a new self, created in his image. Having fed on the bread from heaven, we will be mysteriously transformed into it. The spirit of our minds will be renewed by his teaching. As a result, we will be able to launch out into a way of living that witnesses to our new understanding, our new life.