This is being sent out a week early since I'll be visiting our sister parish in Mexico for ten days.
Gospel, Mark 1:29-39 This took place in the synagogue at Capernaum. As I mentioned last week, Capernaum had a population of around 1,500 people, nearly all Jewish. Jesus had cast an evil spirit out of a man in the synagogue. It was the Sabbath when Jewish people were not allowed to do unnecessary work, so no one had asked Jesus to perform any healings right after the service. Instead, they went to their homes, in every one of which what Jesus had done in the synagogue was the topic of discussion. If he could cast out an evil spirit, people thought, he could surely heal grandma or Uncle Jacob. The Jewish day ended at sunset. People waited. After sunset they headed for Peter’s house, perhaps surprised that everyone else in town had the same idea. These were the first healing that Jesus did in Capernaum.
Glance through the gospels and you’ll find a great number of healings recounted in the four gospels took place in that village. Jesus went out on several tours of the surrounding region, but always returned to Capernaum to find both townspeople and those who had come to await his return gathering in great numbers. The people of Capernaum understandably wanted Jesus to stay around. In addition to physical healings, how else could a person with such God-given power bless their lives? Lots of people were unemployed and didn’t know how they were going to feed their families and take care of their basic needs. Jesus met lots of needs, but how many people only saw him as a miracle worker rather than a prophet and teacher of the ways of God? How many crossed the bridge from favors received to faith in Jesus as spiritual guide? Much later in his public ministry, we’ll hear some of Jesus’ frustration expressed right there in Capernaum after crossing from the other side of the Sea of Galilee where 5,000 people had filled their stomachs on bread and fish: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled (John 6:26)”. Jesus’ desire to move on to other villages carries a hint of this tension he will experience throughout his ministry.
Reading 1, Job 7:1-4,6-7 Popular logic in Old Testament times was that people who observed God’s commandments prospered and sinners suffered. So, after the upright Job lost nearly everything and was in physical anguish, three of his best friends came to encourage him to confess and repent of whatever he had done so God could restore him to health and prosperity. This passage is part of his response to the comments of Eliphaz, the first of the three friends to speak.
How many of the people who would come to Jesus, including those who came to Peter’s house on the evening recounted in our gospel reading, wondered for what sins God was punishing them with sickness and infirmity. The apostles even put credence in the sin-suffering logic, asking Jesus with reference to a blind man, “Who was it who sinned, him or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus gave no credence to their way of thinking, responding, “Neither, it is so the works of God might be made visible through him” (John 9:2-3). The apostles should have read the book of Job more closely.
Reading II, 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23 Are those who preach the gospel and pastor churches entitled to a salary? Certainly, they deserve to receive recompense for their ministry just as their predecessors from the time of Paul did, but people feel uncomfortable about the purity of a preacher’s faith if it seems the preaching is more motivated by the desire to make money from it. Apparently that was a concern in the time of Paul as well, since he gives such emphasis to the fact that he supports his own ministry and does not live off people’s donations. Paul mentions this to assure people of the truth of the gospel he preached and the authenticity of Paul’s fervor in preaching…so true and important that Paul was offering it “free of charge”. Paul found great personal satisfaction in this as well…the recompense he seeks is not money but a part in the very gospel he proclaimed.
It is great and inspiring. I would pick up some of the inspiration from it, to give to my people.
God bless you and your ministry.
Posted by: Nelson | February 07, 2009 at 01:16 PM