February 1, 2015: The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deuteronomy 18:15-20: Moses spoke to all the people, saying: “A prophet like me the LORD, your God, will raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen.”
Psalm 95: If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart.
1 Corinthians 7:32-35: Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties.
Mark 1:21-28: Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit. … Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!”
February is the Month of the Passion of the Lord.
Underneath the snow, down in the dark ground, the bulbs of daffodils and tulips and crocuses and hyacinths are quietly gathering strength. The cold winter is an important part of their life, part of the series of signals which will lead to the first brave blossoms in spring. … If it were never cold and dark, the flowers would never bloom. – Barbara Cawthorne Crafton
Diane’s Reflection For February 1, 2015
Winter Ordinary Time
Sometimes I think that Winter Ordinary Time is the dreariest time in the whole church year. Here we are, (technically, at least) still in the heart of the bleak midwinter – this year in a winter that doesn’t have the decency to act its age and behave like winter -- and sometimes the days feel cold and gray and tired as a sink full of dirty dishwater. The few shrinking patches of snow that remain are pocked and pitted by the thin slow rain, and the water that runs down the street is as sad and brown as a cup of cold coffee. Christmas with all its sparkle and snow seems like something that happened long ago, and the lilies of Easter still seem unimaginably remote. This is always a strange, in-between time of year, but this year it feels even stranger than usual, given the weather around here: Unnaturally warm and (until today) almost unnervingly dry. And yet there is no doubt that we are still in Winter. I long for snow: I love rain, but on days like this I can feel it thrumming in the bones of my back, spreading rust. On a day like today I can almost feel the days of my life falling slowly, sadly, back to earth.
“Ordinary Time” we call this time of year, as if to say: This is the way it is, in an ordinary life. Don’t expect too much; it’s supposed to be particularly fun or interesting. You might as well hibernate for the next six weeks. But “ordinary time” has never meant that time itself is ordinary; it’s just a way of marking the year between our major liturgical seasons – Advent and Christmas and Lent and Easter and all. It is a fallow time, a quiet time, a time for gathering oneself before the next important season. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t important in itself. There is no such thing as “ordinary” time in the eyes of the God who made us. Not a second of our lives will ever be “ordinary”: Every moment of every day is charged with grace and potential for glory.
I think “Ordinary Time” is the time for the fields in our souls to lie fallow and be replenished. Soon enough, it will be time for plowing and planting. We might think of our souls as February gardens, buried beneath old layers of snow (or maybe mud): From the outside it looks as if nothing is happening – but underneath, deep in the dark soft quiet, all kinds of invisible green growing things are awaiting the return of the sun.
And the next great holy time is coming up, almost any minute now: Ash Wednesday is only three weeks away, on the 18th of February. Not that too many people look forward to Lent. The season needs to hire some new PR people. Throughout much of the year we’re giddily reminded that Christmas is coming and we better get ready -- all those ads proclaiming ONLY 17 MORE SHOPPING DAYS! But Lent sneaks up on a person like a cat in the shadows. Nobody pays too much attention to its arrival. It wasn’t always so: In the old days, this was the season of Carnival – it ran all the way from Epiphany, or the Baptism of the Lord, until Ash Wednesday. In the old-time Carnival Season, you were allowed to party for weeks, if you could; Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) got its name because it was the very last day of Carnival. It was called “Fat” Tuesday because this was your very last chance to scarf up all the yummy fatty treats you were going to have to give up for Lent. Say “Adios” to all those bacon cheeseburgers; we’ve got a long fast until Easter comes around.
But we live in a different culture nowadays. Nobody walks around reminding people that THERE ARE ONLY 17 MORE SHOPPING (OR MAYBE SINNING) DAYS UNTIL IT’S TIME TO REPENT FOR LENT. (Not that we should be spending this time, or any time, sinning, but the awareness of Lent does explain part of the lure of Mardi Gras.) Today we give little thought to the holiness of time. We live in a world of seamless hours: Witness the difference between digital time, where minutes flash in figures, unconnected to each other, compared to the slow sweep of hands on an old-fashioned clock. It’s a merciless kind of schedule we’ve invented, 24 hours, 7 days a week, with very little difference between day and night, work or leisure. These days, it’s hard to even honor the Sabbath, much less an entire season like Lent.
Which is one of the reasons why it’s good to have Winter Ordinary Time. It gives us a time to catch our breath and prepare. It’s a chance to gird our loins, as it were; to tidy up all the loose ends from last year, and take a breath before we plunge into Lent. And Lent is not a punishment; it’s an opportunity for spiritual transfiguration.
I suspect that I am one of the few people who actually looks forward to Lent. Not that I don’t find it challenging; every time I go through the Stations of the Cross, I feel as if another piece of my heart has been chipped off and shattered. It’s more like: I may not actually “enjoy” Lent, but I know that I really, truly NEED it. Yes, I know I have the rest of the year, to fast and pray and think about God, to get my life in order. But the fact is: I don’t spend the rest of the year doing that. I’m too distracted, just too darn busy; it’s as if I’ve somehow convinced myself that I just don’t have enough time to think about God. Lent reminds me that I have it all backwards, that time – in limited, unpredictable amounts – is almost the only thing I have. It reminds me, as Paul reminds us every Ash Wednesday, that “NOW is a very acceptable time.” Lent was made for folks like me, who are always things putting off. Lent slams down across my everyday life like a barrier I can’t cross; I have to slow down, and stop, and think about where I’m going.
Lent reminds us, as Jesus did, that only one thing is truly necessary. Lent catches us by surprise like an icy, eye-opening splash of water; it is like the clear and brilliant cold of an early morning at the brink of spring. It’s designed to wake us up and sharpen our dull dim souls, and at the same time calm us down and smooth out our ragged edges. Lent encourages us to get up and shut the door on some of the noisy distractions of life – so that we can open a larger door to the One Thing Necessary.
Every year, of course, I tell myself that I am going to do Lent right this time: I’ll become so holy and virtuous that I can brush my teeth at night by the light of my own halo. I never do, of course. This year, I’m trying not to make the kind of extravagant promises that I know I’ll never keep. But I have promised God one thing: I am determined to be here for Lent this year. Entirely here: I want to be present in body and soul whenever the roll is called. Because I really do want to become the person that Jesus wants me to be.
Which is why I am learning to relish Ordinary Time. I’m not a runner, but I see it as a chance to slowly, carefully stretch before I start the marathon. Take a deep breath, brothers and sisters. Time is passing even as we speak – and nothing in it is ordinary. In Jesus’ name. – Diane Sylvain
--- Diane Sylvain
Scripture Notes from the Sourcebook:
THE FIRST READING: Moses, the first among the prophets for the Israelites, speaks about another prophet that the Lord will raise up. The Lord’s words will come from the mouth of this prophet. A true prophet speaks the words of the Lord; those who speak what the Lord has not commanded will perish. Christians see God’s promise delivered by Moses to raise up another prophet fulfilled in Jesus.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM 95: The psalm’s antiphon encourages us to respond to God’s voice when we hear it, not to harden our hearts. With thanksgiving and joy, the psalm calls us to sing God’s praise. God is our Creator and God is our Savior who shepherds us and guides us.
SECOND READING: Today’s Second Reading continues immediately from last Sunday’s. With belief in the imminent return of Christ in the background, Paul responds to practical questions about the issues of marriage and virginity. Paul’s main point is not to uphold the married life as better than the married life, but rather to encourage people to remain in their present state of life as they prepare themselves for the Lord’s coming. To change one’s state of life would, for Paul, create more anxiety in preparation for the end times.
THE GOSPEL: The newly called disciples follow Jesus to Capernaum, where they begin to witness firsthand who he is. Jesus enters the synagogue and teaches with an authority different from that of the scribes. He exorcises an unclean spirit from a man possessed. It was the man with an unclean spirit who, even before Jesus cast out the demon, proclaimed him as the Holy One of God.
--Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons & Weekends (2015 edition.)
TEACHING WITH AUTHORITY
Jesus taught "with authority," that is, he was the author of what he said; it never became his habit to quote rabbis and other authors, as the scribes used to do. His message itself too must have had its own inherent authority (though Mark does not tell us anything here about its content). What he said, if we are to guess from all the gospels, went straight to the hearts of his listeners. The only rhetorical devise we know he used was the parable. A parable is not an interpretation of some text, it is a fresh way of looking at ordinary experience. His parables were drawn from the world of farming, fishing, viniculture … their world. It is inherently subversive to show people that their ordinary experience can be an open path to God; the scribes of every age would prefer that only their sacred text should do this. People realised that here was a teacher who understood and respected them, and not a scribe discharging his erudition over them. They were "astonished," because this was so unusual.
His teaching had authority in a further sense: it made things happen. He cast out demons. In other words he liberated people who were tormented and demented in every way. "Poetry makes nothing happen," wrote W.H. Auden, in a poem about Yeats. But it does, as Yeats himself knew when he wrote, "Did that play of mine send out certain men the English shot?" When preaching is only commentary it seldom makes anything happen. But when Jesus preaches "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them" (Luke 7:22). In Matthew 11:5 the description is identical, word for word. These were of the Messianic age: in other words, they were indications that Jesus was indeed the long-awaited one, the Messiah.
In today's reading, the demon which is being cast out shouts, "I know who you are, the Holy One of God." This may sound like a profession of faith, but how could it be? Instead it was a reflection of the belief that if you could name someone you had power over them. The demon was claiming to have power over Jesus. It was also the significance of Jesus' asking a particularly intractable demon, later on in Mark's gospel, "What is your name?" (5:9).
Jesus did not disrespect the Scriptures; he used them for their intended purpose, to set people free, not to tie them up. "To be ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ," wrote St Jerome (c. 347 - 419 AD). We could add that the converse is equally true: to be ignorant of Christ is to be ignorant of the Scriptures. If we did not read them in the spirit of Christ we would be certain to misuse them. "If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36).
–Donagh O’Shea, from Today’s Good News, the website of the Irish Dominicans
JESUS BEGINS HIS MINISTRY
… Mark begins his account of Jesus’ public ministry with a confrontation.
First events give insight into the larger themes and, particularly, a distinct understanding of Jesus’ mission and character in each of the Gospels. In Matthew, Jesus is a teacher and (new) lawgiver like Moses. In John, he creates unexpected and unimaginable abundance. In Luke, he is the one who releases those held captive, heals the ill and infirm, and proclaims good news to the poor and the Lord’s favor to all. And in Mark…he picks a fight with an unclean spirit.
Mark’s Gospel, that is, starts with a confrontation. Whatever dramatic value beginning with a fight scene might initially promise, however, there is little doubt of who will win. …
Keeping in mind the importance of first events, we can read this scene as Mark’s signal that Jesus has come to oppose all the forces that keep the children of God from the abundant life God desires for all of us. And that message matters because it is still the case: God wants the most for us from this life and stands in opposition to anything that robs us of the joy and community and purpose for which we were created.
… [W]e might take this matter of “possession” more seriously and wonder what kinds of things possess us – anger, fear, workaholism, affluenza, substance abuse….
A second possibility is to recognize that God – especially in Mark’s Gospel – regularly shows us where we least expect God to be. In authoritative teaching? Sure, but also in the plight of a man possessed by an unclean spirit. In the tearing open of the heavens we read about three weeks ago? Sounds pretty biblical, but also in the piercing cry of despair from Jesus on the cross when the only one that recognized God’s presence was the one who crucified him.
Our God is a God of the broken, and our church is a fellowship of the needy. That’s pretty much all it takes, as we’ll see during this year-long sojourn with Mark, to be a member of Jesus’ disciples then or now: recognition of your deep need and trust that Jesus has come to meet it.
-- David Lose, at http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/epiphany-4-b/
____________________________________________________________________
Amazing grace: How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me –
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
Was blind, but now I see.
--John Newton