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.
Today we are reminded of God’s providence. We live in a world that feeds us and shelters us and supplies us with everything that we need to grow and to thrive, and all of this comes to us from the hand of God. God certainly cares passionately for each of us (not even a sparrow falls without God knowing it), but God’s concern is for the whole people. We are first and foremost members of a people. As unique as we may be, we are a unique expression of a communal reality. God created a race; God formed a people; Jesus died for the world. By the grace of God, we belong to the community. As members of the people of God, we are called to a way of life that is noble, not selfish. We are to live with each other in humility and gentleness, with patience. We are to bear with one another in love. Through baptism we all live by the same Spirit of Jesus; we are all united through the bond of God’s love. The bread that we receive from the hand of God is the bread of full life, life in all its dimensions, life in Christ.
There are so many searching people in the world today, people hungering for instruction, good people looking for direction. They are people who are looking for answers and for meaning. They are like sheep without a shepherd, and Jesus looks to us to shepherd them. In the midst of this confusion, there are reliable shepherds who walk with us in the dark valleys. They are willing to share the dangers through which we pass, even at the risk of their own safety. They do not pit one segment of the community or one theological perspective against another, scattering the sheep and driving them away. Instead, they work to dismantle the walls that divide us. They speak the word that gathers us together. They reconcile us with God and with each other. They may not give us easy answers, but their primary concern is to lead us to Jesus, the one who is our peace.
Jesus inaugurated the reign of God on earth. He chose disciples and sent them out to continue the work that he had begun, to preach his gospel and, through healings and exorcisms, to conquer the forces of evil that threatened that reign. And now we have been called; in him we have been chosen, in all of our brokenness and vulnerability. The task to which we have been called is awe-inspiring; and every spiritual blessing in the heavens has been bestowed upon us so that we will be able to accomplish it. If we allow Christ’s saving power to take possession of us, we too will further his prophetic ministry. We will bring the saving grace of God to the world that is terrified and that writhes in pain; we will bring it to those places where healing is needed and where demons still hold sway. We will bring all things under the headship of Christ.
True believers recognise and admit their human frailty. They also know that genuine weakness does not impede the saving action of God. In fact, God seems to prefer to act where pride and self-satisfaction do not prevail, for such attitudes are obstacles to personal transformation. However, when we open ourselves in humility and honest piety, the power of God can flood our minds and our hearts and shine forth from us to all around. When this happens, there will be no doubt in any mind as to the origin of this wondrous reality. It will be very clear that though it comes through us, it comes from God.
God’s graciousness toward us should prompt us to be generous toward others. What we receive as life-enhancing gifts, we must share with those in need, those to whom life has not been kind. As we have been favoured by the healing touch of God, so we must extend that same loving touch to others. The love of Christ impels us to be openhanded as we approach those in need. Following Jesus’ lead, we must not only give to them, we must also allow them to take from us. At times this will require that we share material resources; at other times it might mean that our energy will be drained in our service of them. In all of this, Jesus has set the example for us to follow.
Job’s new insights enlightened his understanding of creation, of the Creator, and of himself, a finite creature. Several of the disciples were seasoned fishermen. They knew that sea quite well. Living close to Jesus, they knew him too. Now they saw him in a different light. In both cases, faith opened their eyes. Like the disciples, we begin to realise that this man who shares in all of our human vulnerability is able to direct the power of the Creator. We need eyes of faith to recognise the power of God at work in the events of our lives. Like Job, faith moves us from viewing God as a deity who is so distant from us that the circumstances of our lives appear to be irrelevant, to realising that everything is ultimately in God’s hands and everything follows the course on which God has set it. For our part, all we can or need do is entrust ourselves to this loving God who cares if even a sparrow falls to the ground.
In many ways, parables are brain-teasers. Jesus states that the reign of God is like seed that takes root and grows and produces in secret places within human reality. In fact it is usually found in places where one would least expect to find it – among the poor and despised, in the hearts of those who suffer, in the lives of the persecuted. The potential of the reign of God is often contained in what appears to be inconsequential. Yet it thrives in its own mysterious ways. The parables of Jesus forced his hearers to stretch their imaginations and to make connections that they might not ordinarily make. The presumption was that those who followed Jesus were always willing or able to do this.
Throughout the Gospel of Mark, the author explores the question of who people believe Jesus to be. Whilst his disciples have a less than perfect understanding of the question, ‘Who do you say I am?’, those whose faith reveals the truth of Jesus are quickly sworn to secrecy. In today’s gospel, the misunderstanding of Jesus’ family and the misunderstanding of the Scribes show their incomplete grasp of who Jesus is. Whilst the language about Satan, evil and unclean spirits is unfamiliar language today, the gospel writer uses this imagery to further his point that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who saves the world.