Fourteenth Sunday in the Year of Mark

Paul’s thorn
We do not know what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was. Whatever it was, it was a painful nuisance that wouldn’t go away. Even his prayer would not take it away. Characteristically, Paul learns to live with it and comes to see that such a source of weakness is in fact strength because it opens him to the strength of Christ’s Word.

Jesus’ thorn
We do know what Jesus’ thorn in the flesh was. It was the resistance and rejection that he constantly received from his fellow Jews. And it did not go away. Opposition to him gradually grew until it was so strong that he was crucified. Like Paul, his weakness became his strength because Jesus’ rejection and death is our hope of resurrection and true life.

Isn’t this the carpenter?
Until this first visit to his home town since beginning his ministry in Galilee, people were amazed at what Jesus did, and said “we have never seen anything like this.” But on this particular Sabbath, as he returns to the Nazareth synagogue, which he would have known as a child, Jesus is publically rejected for the first time by those who had known him as a child. Jesus’ preaching, his success as a healer and as someone who restored people to wholeness was too much for them. “Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” they said. Not only were they familiar with him but his social status and the fact that they refer to his mother rather than his father indicate that they had no respect for anything he said. He had nothing to commend him. As Jesus points out to them, “Prophets are not without honour except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house”.

The real issue
So Jesus was a prophet and is that not the real issue? Childhood familiarity, the fact that his father was not named, his work as a carpenter were just convenient excuses. Had they forgotten God’s words to Ezekiel who was sent to the Israelites who had turned against God? No this was not about social class or paternity; this was about the power that Jesus had for good and the power his word had to change things for the better. Throughout Mark’s Gospel people are plotting how best to destroy Jesus because he restored a man to health on the Sabbath. How strange is that?

The big question
The question that emerges is hard and uncompromising. What is it about human beings that make so ready to reject God and his message of life, which is what happened in the Nazareth synagogue and happened on Calvary? Go back to the story of creation; consider the serpent’s word to the woman in the Garden as he persuaded her to eat the fruit that God had forbidden. “Eat this fruit and your eyes will be opened and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.” Deep within each of us is that tendency to think that we can in fact become like God if we do it our way and the way of individual preference. The message of Jesus is in fact that we are on our way to a share in God’s life which comes as a gift from him, but we have to receive the gift in trust and not grab it on our own terms.

The message of Jesus
The message of Jesus brings life to the full but for us all there is the constant temptation to believe that to come to fullness and life we do not need each other and we do not need the wisdom of God.

And so the people of Nazareth rejected his message, Luke describes how they were so incensed that they tried to throw him off a cliff. The word of God challenged their way of doing things and threatened to upset their comfortable little world.

Blunting the cutting edge
Surely this cannot be true for us? If Jesus spoke to us we would not reject him. We would not hurry him out of the town and throw him down the cliff. That could be true but is there not a danger that we might be in the business of blunting the cutting edge of the Word of God by the priorities and “busyness” of our lives? After all, there are so many appealing alternatives to the message of Christ. Even in a time of deep recession we have an amazing array of choices, whether it is commodities we can buy or styles of life to live. A whole catalogue of experiences and options which can give life a rich variety, ease and comfort and almost anything for which we wish. Could it be that we are so busy achieving this or that, searching for this experience or that possession that the message of Christ in all its richness is at best put off until tomorrow or at worst forgotten altogether?

So how do we avoid being like the people of Nazareth who had better things to do than listen to Jesus?

Being aware
The gifts we receive from God are given to reveal him and his love for us. It is so easy to forget that and simply see the things that fill our lives as things to be accumulated for satisfaction or security, whether it is wealth, power, possessions, education or status. All these things are important in themselves, but each in their own way bring God’s life-giving word to us if we do our best to grow in awareness of his presence in our lives. It is as simple as seeing each moment as a gift and taking a moment to look at each day and see the gifts and the goodness that has come to us directly from God. Spend a few moments each evening looking at the past day in prayer and be surprised at how God is speaking in so many events.

Weakness
Such an experience in a spirit of prayer reveals how hugely generous God is in his providence and how his message and life-giving word is particularly clear and strong when we are confused by weakness or trouble. 

Belief and Trust
Pray that in the busy and exhausting lives that we lead we may have time to stand back and see and hear the Lord speaking in our lives. Then we may realise how close his word is to us and how the more we can believe and trust in him, the more he can do for us.

St. Paul
So with St. Paul let us say “so I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.”

Only by hearing the Word of God in our hearts and when it is proclaimed at Sunday Mass will we come to know the truth of Paul’s words.