Sixteenth Sunday in the Year of Mark

A few of us will remember the front page news of almost exactly 40 years ago today. Neil Armstrong, his team and the Apollo 11 space craft landed on the moon. I was eighteen and I can remember the day.  “In the ecstasy of this prophetic day” as Pope Paul VI described it, a new hope was born. If we could reach the moon, then there was no limit to our ability to overcome all difficulties and challenges to human well being through science and technology. Yet, in a tiny corner in most of the front pages, the Pope said this “On this prophetic day, a real triumph of human skill, for the dominion of the universe-we must not forget humanity’s need to dominate itself…” At the time there were three conflicts raging, in Vietnam, Nigeria and the Middle East and another brewing between El Salvador and Honduras. The Pope went on “Hunger still afflicts entire populations. What would be the true progress if these misfortunes persist and worsen?”

As far as I can see, those misfortunes do persist and have worsened. In addition we can add something that was unfamiliar to Pope Paul but which was implicit in his warning: climate change and the disregard for the environment and the finely balanced and beautiful ecology of creation.

So it is that with Pope Paul VI and with the Lord Jesus we can look out at our world and see humanity as Jesus saw it “like sheep without a shepherd”. Paul VI said that as the power of technology increases so should our freedom and faith in God. Our ability has certainly increased and many people benefit but there are still many who have not, there are still wars and fear, starvation and disease and continuing damage to our environment.

Jesus stresses that the problem is that the sheep do not have a shepherd. The people of Jesus’ time would have understood the shepherd to mean the king and the political leadership of the country and Mark, who tells the story, puts it directly after the story of one of the most infamous kings in history. The king was Herod and he was a son of Herod the Great. The story tells of a great banquet he held at his palace in the Dead Sea Valley south of Jerusalem. It was his birthday and he invited the political elite of the land. The story showed how the king was not only foolish and inept but was corrupt and selfish. John the Baptist had criticised his marriage to Herodias who was his brother’s wife and Herodias, in one of Herod’s weak moments, caused him to bring about the execution of John the Baptist. The story is a troubling one of a leadership which had no interest in the well being of the people.

And so Jesus sees human suffering and points to a weak and Godless leadership as being the cause. He forgets about his original plan for rest and a quiet place and is moved with a compassion, a burning affection, which for him was a most powerful feeling coming from the depths of his heart. He turns his attention to the people and teaches them at some length.

Benefitting as we do from science and technology and space exploration we know that something is wrong. Without commenting on political leadership, we know that humanity remains like sheep without a shepherd. Wandering in all directions which lead to suffering and misfortune of all kinds.

The solution to close the vast gap between how things are and how they could be is made clear in the Gospel. It is the teaching of Jesus Christ and his message of Good News. The temptation might be to think that mere words will not change the world or human beings for the better but we know that words can be very powerful. We know as well that the Word of God which comes to us in Jesus Christ is the power of God. Was it not the Word of God that brought everything into existence? Is it not the power of the Word of God that keeps us alive? Did not the Word of God become flesh in the womb of Mary? Is it not the power of the Word of God that transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ as we celebrate the Eucharist?

So our celebration today brings with it an invitation to renew our faith and trust in the power of the Word of God which is alive and active and cuts more finely than a double edged sword.

Today also brings a challenge to make our lives a little more open to the power of Christ’s transforming Word.

By not forgetting that it is in prayer, in time taken to be in silence and a place apart that the message of Christ grows in its power to transform us and our lives and relationships

By coming to see that the Word of God is the lens through which we see our experience revealing the presence and action of God in our lives.

By allowing the Word to guide our thoughts and decisions knowing that it brings into our world the truth that Jesus is and provides the way to the fullness of life. In fact we know and believe that without the message of Christ all our strivings and skill will come to nothing and, as Paul VI implied, will lead to increased danger and destruction.

In Christ we are given the wisdom that can bring our world to the fullness of life. St. Bonaventure says this:

“If you want to understand how this happens, ask it of grace, not of learning; ask it of desire, not of understanding; ask it of prayer, not of attentive reading; ask it of the betrothed, not of the teacher; ask it of God, not of man; ask it of darkness, not of radiance. Ask it not of light, but of fire that completely inflames you and transports you to God with extreme sweetness and burning affection. This fire is God himself; the furnace that is in Jerusalem; and Christ kindles it with all the burning fervour of his passion.” (From the treatise of St. Bonaventure-Chapter 7)