Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
I remember when I was a teenager, I was often embarrassed by the things my mom and dad would say. I would want them to be, by turns, more cool, more understanding, more intelligent-sounding than they were. To this teenager, words mattered, and the slightest misspoken word could set me off.
Are we a bit like teenagers, ourselves, when it comes to living the life Jesus calls us to? I think sometimes it is difficult to own up to being a Christian – we are sometimes embarrassed by Jesus’ words. For example, in last Sunday’s gospel we heard Jesus say not even to be angry in our hearts, not even to think lustful thoughts about others. Jesus also says things like, “Give away all you have,” and “Turn the other cheek.” As Father Chris mentioned in last week’s pulpit exchange, sometimes we want to explain away those difficult passages.And then there are the portions of the Bible that, for today’s secular culture, seem to be focused on fantasies: angels and demons seem not to make sense for our scientific and rational culture. Are we just a little bit embarrassed by our faith sometimes?
In today’s gospel (Mark 8:34-9:1), Jesus admonishes people not to take too much pride in their own words and to focus instead on his. “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words…the Son of Man will be ashamed of….”
Today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 11:1-9) points out that God does not necessarily think our human words are good words. God is ashamed of our speech too, sometimes. This passage discusses the familiar Tower of Babel story. At that time, everyone had the same language, and because they could speak with the same words, they were better able to plan cunning, if disastrous moves. So, God finds the people building a tower to heaven, and God concludes that perhaps the people are focusing a bit too much on themselves, and on how great they are. They can build stairways to heaven!
God’s response is an attempt to make the people more humble – through words. Just as the peoples’ power was shown in their ability to speak the same language, God’s power is shown in the ability to disperse the languages, and make people unintelligible to each other. Humility, for the people of Babel, is seen as a healing thing for humanity, even if they do not see it that way.
Today, let us reflect on the ways God might be ashamed of our words, and pray for God to let us be unafraid of HIS good words.
- Jana M. Bennett