February 8, 2015: The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Job 7:14, 6-7: Job spoke, saying … “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind. I shall not see happiness again.
Psalm 147: Praise the Lord, who heals the broken-hearted.
1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23: Brothers and sisters: If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast … woe to me if I do not preach it! …. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.
Mark 1:29-39: Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. …[Jesus] approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her. … When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.
February is the Month of the Passion of the Lord.
Someone rumbles in the waters of Niagara and the Rhine. Someone drums the beat of the winds and speaks in the rustle of the leaves.
There is more than water beating the rhythms of the Great Lakes, and there is more than air and gas whirling in the night sky. Listen, St. Benedict whispers.
`If you want to hear this Voice, listen.
–Kathleen Norris
Diane’s Reflection For February 8, 2015
The tale of Job
I’m not sure where people came up with all that talk about “the patience of Job.” Job was about as patient as I am, which is to say, not particularly. He was extraordinarily strong, to be sure; he endured an incredible amount of trouble and sorrow and tried his very best to understand it, but ultimately he lost his temper and demanded to talk to God. That’s why I love the guy so. It’s certainly not because he never complained. Listen to our first reading: Job spoke, saying: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of hirelings? He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages. So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me. If in bed I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.”
Now that’s what I call some serious complaining. I only wish I could be that articulate when I’m having a bad day, or when I’m lying awake during those endless dark hours around 3 a.m. when the monsters do their best to devour your soul. But then Job’s problems were so much worse than I can begin to imagine. First, he loses everything he owns; all his oxen and asses and camels are stolen. Then his herdsmen are put to the sword, and then lightning strikes all the sheep and all of the shepherds. Then, a great wind destroys the house in which all of Job’s children are feasting – and every single one of them is killed. The survivor who bears the bad news tells Job: “And I alone have escaped to tell thee.” Job bears up with astonishing strength; he says those beautiful famous words “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” – but he says them through tears and blinding pain, he says them while he rips at his clothing and throws himself down to the ground, howling. Perhaps in the frightening numbness of grief, he thinks nothing bad can ever happen to him again. But one of the sorrows of this poor world is that things can always get worse: Job is now hit with a painful disfiguring disease. Even his strong faithful wife is ready to give up. Watching her husband squat in the ashes – all that is left of their once-fine home – scraping at his boils with a potshard, she cries out in her own despair: “Why go on? Curse God and die!” But even now, Job won’t give up; he says, We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil? And these are wise and beautiful words – but he says them through teeth that are clenched with pain, while the tears still stream from his red swollen eyes.
And then the coup de grace is administered at the hands of Job’s so-called comforters – a little self-important cluster of upright, righteous and annoying men, who come to make Job feel better by telling him it’s all his fault. We call this “blaming the victim” now; it’s always been known, in whatever language, as “behaving pretty much like a self-righteous jerk.” Job takes it about as well as can be expected, i.e., not terribly well. They take turns telling him, page after page, that really bad things only happen to really bad people; i.e., Job must be a terrible sinner for the Lord to have done this to him. But Job is not only honest, he’s stubborn – and he doesn’t buy it. He may not be perfect, but he knows that the awful things that have happened, not just to him but, even worse, to those he loves, really aren’t his fault. What follows is a serious debate on the nature of good and evil, with the friends taking the classic religious position of the time – one still shared, I’m sorry to say, by some of today’s more irritating preachers. And Job gets genuinely angry at last – angry at God, who after all started it– and he finally demands that God come and listen to his case: ”This is my final plea: Let the Almighty answer me!”
And God does appear and answer him. The Lord comes blazing out of the whirlwind, and rips those so-called comforters up one side and down the other. God says Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance, which is about as good a put-down as I can think of. God ultimately restores all Job’s property to him and heals his boils and gives him all kinds of cool things to make him feel somewhat better about life. But the one thing God doesn’t ever give Job is a straight answer to his questions. Instead, God displays all the wonders of Creation, in poetry so glorious it sings across three thousand years. Where were you when I founded the earth… while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? God brings out his strange and frightening creations, things alien to humanity, sea monsters and giant scary crocodiles; he brings out the lions and the eagles and the wild mountain goats. God points to the stars and the storms and the seasons, and says little more to Job than “LOOK at THIS.” It’s as if Job asks, “Why is there suffering?” and God says to him, “Hey, here’s a hippopotamus.”
Scripture Notes from the Sourcebook:
THE FIRST READING: Job’s story of restlessness, sleeplessness, and sadness is the story of many people. His reflections on life’s drudgery, however, are not his entire story. While he never answers the question why God seems to permit suffering, his experience teaches us that God is faithful. What God asks of him and of us is to be faithful in the midst of suffering, because as humans, all of us will encounter suffering in one form or another.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM 147: Today’s psalm is a psalm of praise to the Lord. Knowing the reality of human suffering, we sing praise to the Lord who heals the brokenhearted. God’s goodness and graciousness are signs of his faithfulness to us as we live out our lives. God’s might and power is as personal as his knowing how many stars there are and calling each star by name.
SECOND READING: Paul preaches the Gospel without want of any reward. His desire is only that all, whether weak or strong, might hear the freedom the Gospel offers. Our mission is nothing less than Paul’s mission: the proclamation of God’s grace in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. We carry this mission out with the confidence of Paul that we, too, will share in the Gospel’s grace.
THE GOSPEL: At the conclusion of last Sunday’s Gospel, we heard of the rapid expansion of Jesus’s reputation based on his healing of the man with an unclean spirit,. Today’s Gospel is another passage about healing with begins with the individual healing of Simon’s mother-in-law and then narrates the healing of many in the entire town. After doing this work, Jesus prays alone in a deserted place, yet Simon and others follow him, telling him that everyone is looking for him. Jesus knows he must continue to preach and heal, and so he goes forth from his short-lived place of solitude.
--Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons & Weekends (2015 edition.)
A MODERN JOB
In Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, I stayed for a time next door to an elderly one-eyed man, who was horribly ill. Mosquitoes in that part of the world carry cerebral malaria, which can be fatal, and I would often see him suffering another attack: sitting on the ground in the shade, shivering and perspiring, trying to smile, trying to speak French, trying to say things that would please me. His name was Job. He prayed to Mary all day long and read The Imitation of Christ. One day, when he had the book in his hand, I asked about it, and he read me two or three sentences. Here is a translation: “Oh that the eternal day had dawned already over the ruins of time! The blessed take their delight in the beyond, but we poor banished children of Eve groan under the bitterness and boredom of this present life.” He sat on the ground, caressed the book with his large root-like hands, and turned on me a single fevered eye that seemed to focus all the pain of existence itself.
His resemblance to his namesake in the first reading of today’s Mass was uncanny. The fictional Job in this reading had as painful an existence as the real Job in Bangui. The Book of Job is an intense meditation on the problem of innocent suffering. Job compares human life in general to forced military service, to the work of a day labourer, and to simple slavery – three proverbially wretched states of life. But his ‘comforters’ provided no comfort, only the aggravation of pat answers, which Job rejects at once. They tell him to repent, believing (as people did at that time) that all suffering was because of sin. Instead Job appeals to the love God has for him; his human friends have failed him, but he takes it for granted that his divine friend will come looking for him. It is crucial that in the Book of Job there is no evidence of belief in a next life. This bars all the obvious pat answers. Nevertheless Job refuses to give up his trust in God's love, and very soon he is talking to God and not to his ‘comforters’.
This is surely the key: there are no pat answers to the problem of suffering; it cannot be put to rest by any theories or explanations. Suffering is not just a problem for the mind; it touches our whole being: body, soul, and spirit. What it calls for is not an answer but a response. In the Christian faith, Jesus is God’s response to human suffering. God did not send us an abstract answer. He sent his own Son, who came and “lived among us” (Jn 1:14), who “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Phil 2:7).
Leo the Great (5th century) wrote: “Jesus is the hand of God's compassion stretched out to us.” In today’s Gospel reading we see “the whole town crowding around the door” – suffering humanity coming to Jesus, who is God's response to our plight. For ‘the whole town’ say the whole world, for the eye of God's compassion is focused on every human being.
–Donagh O’Shea, from Today’s Good News, the website of the Irish Dominicans
He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.
–Mark 1.31
People I love are hurting. So in light of this week’s passage from Mark’s Gospel, I wanted to write a blessing especially with them in mind—a blessing for healing, a big blessing, a blessing wide enough and deep enough to match their need.
What came was this: a blessing small enough to carry in the hand or in the heart. If you are in need, may this be for you a word in the wound, in the illness, in the ache. May you be made well.
And All Be Made Well
A Healing Blessing
That each ill
be released from you
and each sorrow
be shed from you
and each pain
be made comfort for you
and each wound
be made whole in you
that joy will
arise in you
and strength will
take hold of you
and hope will
take wing for you
and all be made well.
–Jan Richardson
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/01/epiphany-5-that-all-be-made-well/#sthash.JO0nf8du.dpuf
__________________________________________________________ RAISED UP TO SERVE
Isn’t it odd that we know next to nothing about the families of those who became followers of Jesus? ...
We do know, however, that Peter has a mother-in-law and, presumably, a wife. … Peter’s mother-in-law is in bed with a very high fever (as if, the Greek word suggests, she is on fire). Jesus takes her by the hand, and lifts her up. As far as her family and friends can tell, she is completely healed. She immediately makes her way into the kitchen, and begins to serve all those who had gathered there with Jesus.
There are some who have expressed concern about her response. Why is it that the first thing she does when Jesus heals her is to fire up the oven and get to work? Is that where women are supposed to be and to stay? In the kitchen, preparing food for guests?
In a word: no. Since there are no other examples in the New Testament where Jesus indicates that there is a different set of rules for men and women, this isn’t likely to be the one case where he does. Besides, he’ll make that clear enough when he commends Mary for sitting at his feet, and rebukes Martha for being distracted by the many tasks that had to be done in the kitchen.
Why does Peter’s mother-in-law immediately begin to serve tables? Or better yet, what might we (men and women) learn from this story? In a chapter where Jesus liberates many people from what binds them, and frees them up to be what God intends them to be, this looks quite a bit like a concrete example of how that plays out in a believer’s life. Peter’s mother-in-law clearly is one whose calling in life is to offer generous hospitality to those who are in her home. Her illness has prevented her from doing so for some time, but when Jesus heals her, she immediately goes back to what she does best. In doing so, we observe that she is whole again.
Likewise, Jesus frees us from what binds us, and sets us right again, so that we can offer our lives in service to others. The story of Peter’s mother-in-law is our story. When we experience healing from God’s hand, we may not all rush into the kitchen and start working on a casserole (although some of us might!). Be we do find ourselves drawn back to what God asks of us; only now we go about it with a much deeper sense of purpose. Our service becomes a response to God’s grace — our sacred opportunity to give thanks to the one who has blessed us in so many ways.
David J. Risendal, http://onelittleword.org/
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FREEDOM “FOR” AS WELL AS FREEDOM “FROM”
I think I have often indeed preached about the freedom our life in Christ imparts. …Freedom from sin, of course. But also freedom from various manifestations of sin we might name as fear, loss, despair, insecurity, and all manner of things that plague us. In my bolder moments, I have also invited us to hear God’s promise – and to help make it true through our actions – to free us and all people from hunger and discrimination and equality of all kinds.
All of this is well and good and, indeed, at the heart of the Gospel and certainly part of today’s passage. Jesus frees Peter’s mother-in-law from illness. He frees crowds of people from disease and possession as well.
But …Jesus frees us not only from things that seek to oppress us, but also for a life of purpose, meaning, and good works. (Yes, good works, not those things that we do in the vain hope of justifying ourselves before God or others, but rather those things that we do as a response to the Gospel to serve our neighbor stemming from a sense of joy, love, and freedom.)
In today’s passage, Peter’s mother-in-law is restored to her community and vocation. I realize we may be troubled by the fact that the moment she’s well she gets up to serve Jesus and his disciples. (I mean, goodness, couldn’t Peter have pitched in to give her a little more time to recuperate.) But as Sarah Henrich wrote:
[I]llness bore a heavy social cost: not only would a person be unable to earn a living or contribute to the well-being of a household, but their ability to take their proper role in the community, to be honored as a valuable member of a household, town, or village, would be taken from them. Peter’s mother-in-law is an excellent case in point. It was her calling and her honor to show hospitality to guests in her home. Cut off from that role by an illness cut her off from doing that which integrated her into her world. Who was she when no longer able to engage in her calling? Jesus restored her to her social world and brought her back to a life of value by freeing her from that fever. It is very important to see that healing is about restoration to community and restoration of a calling, a role as well as restoration to life. For life without community and calling is bleak indeed.
Which makes me wonder. What did the man from whom the unclean spirit was cast out a week ago do after his healing? What did all the people Jesus heals in this week’s story do once they are freed from the various ailments of mind, body, and spirit that had captivated them? Some, I imagine, were simply so grateful to be made well – so grateful, that is, that they had been freed from something debilitating or destructive – that they returned as quickly as possible to their old lives and routines and relationships. But some, I’m willing to bet, including Simon’s mother-in-law, recognize that they weren’t only freed from something, they were also freed for something, for lives of purpose and meaning and service and generosity and more. – David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PRAY FOR HEALING?
If your prayer [for healing] isn’t answered, this may tell you more about you and your prayer than it does about God. Don’t try too heard to feel religious, to generate some healing power of your own. Think of yourself instead (if you have to think of yourself at all) as a rather small-gauge, clogged-up pipe that a little of God’s power may be able to filter through if you can just stay loose enough. Tell the one you’re praying for to stay loose too.
If God doesn’t seem to be giving you what you ask, maybe he’s giving you something else.
– Frederick Buechner