Mark 1: 29-39 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark presents Jesus as the Messiah
The Messiah crucified
Who by his suffering and death would redeem humankind
And so fulfil the Plan of the Father
This Jesus is acknowledged as the Son of God
By the Spirit in the form of a dove following his baptism in the river Jordan
By the demon expelled by Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum
By the Centurion as Jesus expired on the cross
This Jesus takes on the forgiveness of sin
Vindicating his power and mission by a multitude of miracles and exorcisms
And choosing parables as his method of pedagogy
This Jesus is refuted, laughed at and mocked
By the crowd
By his own family members in Nazareth
By the Jewish leaders who wanted a warrior-king against Rome
Volumes of scholarship are at our disposal so we might understand who Mark was, what was his purpose in writing this Gospel, how and why this gospel is both the same as but different to the other gospels.
But the task before us now, if we would not be left sitting uncommitted on an academic fence, is to enter into this gospel – this Good News about Jesus Christ the Son of God – and determine how this Good News is to be lived out now, in our own times, in our world, in our own communities, in our own lives.
If Simon Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever, we can truly feel with her, for there is a fever embedded across our world right now, among all peoples, threatening all nations. People afflicted by COVID-19 are desperate to be healed as Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was healed so that they in turn can be available to serve others.
In our church communities as in our socio-political communities there is no lack of unclean spirits hard at work to possess and overthrow our right judgement, our moral sense, our need for justice and integrity, our determination to do good works for our neighbour. Our neighbour being the person in our household, the person across the street, the persons in the next sitio or barrio or town or province. These demons exercise raucous voices across a wide spectrum of media to drown out the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Who can argue that in our times there are not multitudes afflicted by diseases of one kind or another, who seek respite and healing from faith healers, government agencies, medical practitioners, social action groups and charitable organizations? These multitudes appear as individuals, as distinct groups in society, as outcasts because of colour and race, as maligned and silenced.
In Mark’s gospel, as in the other gospels, Jesus often goes alone to a lonely place to pray following a time of exercising his ministry. We need recall that in the Jewish society of his times, under harsh rabbinical law, Jesus would be deemed unclean because of his contact with the sick and the possessed, with a demand for him to become ritually clean over a legislated period of time. There were no masks then, no PPE, no social distancing, no societal lock down to prevent viral spread. Have we not witnessed in others and felt within ourselves the need at times to “step apart”, to recover energy and strength of spirit, as we engage with the fevers of the world, the demons shouting and the clamour of those with diseases of all kinds?
The road travelled by Jesus in Mark’s gospel was not easy, it was always leading toward, edging nearer to the suffering of the servant Messiah. The shadow of the cross lay across his entire ministry.
As we read, listen attentively to and contemplate this Gospel – a Gospel of Good News with shades of threat and violence – we may well recognise an invitation, a call, a demand to respond, to take upon ourselves the burden as well as the joy of this Gospel. To do that in our own times, so historically different yet so remarkably the same as the context of Jesus’ times.
Fevers, unclean spirits, diseases of every kind: do we not came face to face with these every day? Can we read the scriptures and still fail to respond to action?
There is a stream of spirituality that directs our faith to inform, to influence, to instruct our politics and our economics. It does not demand that we become politicians or economists, rather our faith colours the way we interact with the world, our society and its multiplicity of structures. Our spirituality encompasses our world, it takes us out of our self-centredness to bring us into unity with all peoples and with all faiths.
Such spirituality allows us to seek healing for our own fevers and illnesses – of body, mind and spirit – and calls us to be cleansed of our own unclean spirits – of selfishness, arrogance, immorality. But it does much, much more: it opens the gates of our personal enclosures and taunts us to join the world-wide search for wholeness, healing and concerted action for our neighbour.
Hence, we open our mind and spirit to how the world is affected by the Great Fever COVID-19. Beyond our own gate, how are others affected? Where and to whom will vaccines be distributed? How has the life or our neighbours been affected, what can we do in community to assist?
The unclean spirits are not mga masamang espiritu but the political and economic structures established within our local, national and world society that negatively impact upon peoples at every level: political nepotism, structures of wealth distribution, having a voice in society, labour practices, access to quality housing, food and transport, care of our natural world.
Fr Rudy Romano, Redemptorist Priest from Cebu, was a person who embodied such a spirituality. Together with Jesus he paid the price of death as the shadow of the cross fell upon him. Rudy was abducted by unknown men in July 1985 as he worked for the marginalized and struggling poor within the violent vortex of Martial Law under Marcos. Thirty-six years later his death remains unaccounted for.
As of writing now, we have learnt of the death, execution-style, of Fr Rene Regalado of Malaybalay in Bukidnon. Has the shadow of the cross taken hold also of Fr Renee? We pray in deep silence, in solidarity with his personal and diocesan family, that he may now be in the welcoming arms of his Father, and that proper justice be served upon the perpetrators.
An alternative stream of spirituality is where faith is held tightly and personally, within a believing community, instructing the person in holiness, responsive to the commandments of God and the mandates of the church. Such spirituality expresses itself in prayer and sacrament and directs the person to charity work on behalf of neighbour. It is refreshed and energised by devotion to the saints, especially to Mary the mother of Jesus. However, its natural reflex is to isolate faith from the surrounding world. It neither questions nor challenges the leaders, the laws or the structures. It does not seek out the root causes of social, political and economic disease. Thus, it avoids the shadow of the cross falling across its path.
Such spirituality can enable a believer to support authoritarian states and leaders as long as their faith expression is not threatened. Such faith reality has supported despots and tyrants throughout history, including in the Philippines and in the United States. As is evidenced in our own days.
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Tony Conway
Concerned Christians of Australia
