Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
This entire section of Mark's gospel from which the gospel reading these Sundays are being read deals with faith. Mark gives us stories of faith and faithlessness to make his point. In last week’s reading from Mark 5, we heard two stories of healing that were instigated by the faith of the people who were healed. The synagogue official’s faith saw Jesus raise his daughter to life and the woman with the hemorrhage was healed by merely touching Jesus’ clothes. At the end of the miracle Jesus commended her faith and said, "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction." (Mk 5:34) The story before these two stories in the same chapter is the story of a demoniac who was possessed by Legion (a multitude of evil spirits). Even these demons acknowledged Jesus’ power and identity.
And then, Mark gives us two examples of towns that express faithlessness. In Mark 5, after the healing of the demoniac, an entire people begged him to leave their district (Mk 5:17). Again, in today’s gospel reading, Jesus is unable to work any mighty deeds in his own home town (Mk 6:5). Through these contrasting stories, Mark seems to echo today’s first reading where the Israelites are described as “hard of face and obstinate of heart” (Ex 2:4). At the end of today’s gospel, Mark makes this very brief but significant statement. He says, “He [Jesus] was amazed at their lack of faith” (Mk 6:6). I think Mark is contrasting the faith of the people who were healed with the faithlessness of those who rejected faith in Jesus
Unfortunately, Mark gives no explanation of what he means by “faith” or the lack of faith. It is left to the readers to develop their own definition of faith from the stories he provides. I want to contrast the stories of faithlessness and faith and provide some understanding for ourselves so that can express our own faith in God.
Let me offer three insights that might help us.
a) The first noticeable thing in the faith stories is that the woman with hemorrhage, the man possessed with Legion, and the synagogue official all approached Jesus. The synagogue official earnestly pleaded Jesus to lay his hand on his daughter (Mk 5:23). The woman said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured" (Mk 5:28). Even the Legion in inside the demoniac acknowledged him. Here then is the first sign of faith - all these people had immense confidence in God. Their faith in Jesus was not as well defined as ours is today. But it was not about definitions. It was about the confidence they had in Jesus. They knew and believed personally in Jesus as having something to do with God. This personal intimacy with God is the first sign of faith. Faithlessness, then, would be a rejection of intimacy with God, as the two town that rejected Jesus showcase.
b) The second noticeable thing is the ability of the synagogue official, the demoniac and the woman with hemorrhage to abandon their life completely into the hands of this God. The synagogue official forgot his status, position, and power and “earnestly begged” Jesus to come and lay his hands on his daughter. In the case of the woman with hemorrhage, when Jesus became aware of that power had gone out from him (Mk 5:29) and inquired who had touched him, the woman’s instinctive reaction is very revealing. She allowed herself to be totally disarmed. There were no pretentions, no pride, no self defence, no excuses and no justifications. She merely told Jesus the “whole truth” (Mk 5:33). These people were not “hard of face and obstinate of heart,” as today’s first reading suggests (Ex 2:4). That is why, in the account of the healing of the dead girl, Jesus put out of the room anyone who could not abandon themselves into Jesus’ hands. For me too, it is not uncommon for me to come before God with conditions. I want God but God should make no demands on me. I want God to forgive me but there are people I cannot forgive. I say I trust God but I still trust wealth, power, and my abilities more than God. I say I love God but I still have prejudices, anger and jealously. I am sometimes like the faithless people. I am hard of face and obstinate of heart. The people who were healed, on the other hand, teach me I must allow God to totally disarm me. Faith means that I allow God to disarm me and work on me as God wants – not as I want.
c) The woman, the synagogue official and the demoniac teach us something else about faith. On the one hand they approached Jesus with confidence. On the other hand, they had this sense of awe before God. Let me use the story of the woman with hemorrhage. When she realized what had happened, she approached Jesus with fear and trembling. This power to approach with total confidence and abandonment, and yet with fear and trembling is what I call “a sense of awe before God.” She knew the power of God and she knew that she must respect it, reverence it, worship it and acknowledge it. No wonder that she is touched with the same power that she acknowledged. I am afraid that today people confuse closeness with God with casualness. God has become like the high school buddies we went to school with. God, like them, does not challenge us, is not different from us, or we God is someone we easily fool around with. Faith involves that we acknowledge of our intimacy with God, and yet, we do so with a sense of the awesome power of God.
As I said earlier, Mark presents two groups of people in today gospel in the two chapter we have read in the last two weeks. One group approached Jesus, allowed him to disarm them, abandoned their life into his hands and acknowledged his awesome power. This is faith. The second group, hard of face and obstinate of heart expressed faithlessness and rejection. Even God’s hands are tied in the face of faithlessness and rejection. As we approach this Eucharist, let us come to God with faith. Amen.
Fr. Satish Joseph