16th Sunday Year B - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2003

The Gospel shows us a Jesus who was deeply moved, the word used referring to a strong, deep feeling, implying anything from anger to compassion. (In today’s reading it is translated pity.)  Mark says that what upset Jesus was that the people were like sheep without a shepherd.

(It is interesting to notice that in this episode Jesus will illustrate/exemplify his message by sharing the loaves of bread and pieces of fish among a crowd of 5000+ people.  Later in the Gospel, Jesus will do something similar in pagan territory for 4000 people.  His motivation there will be his recognition of their physical need.  They were tired and hungry, and had come from a long way [and indeed they were spiritually very distant from the Jewish people].  But with his own people, on his home turf, what moved him was that the people were like sheep without a shepherd.)

This is Mark’s comment. He does not elaborate on what he is driving at in this figure of speech, probably that they were aimless, powerless and vulnerable.  But he says that Jesus’ response to their need was to teach them.  Teach them what? the catechism? Again Mark does not elaborate. But then, he does not leave us in the dark either.  In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus teaches through his actions. The medium is the message!

Mark shows Jesus consistently confronting the social/cultural/religious labelling and marginalizing of people. His healings were almost exclusively reserved for people on the margins. In his time non-Jews particularly were regarded as unclean. Jesus worked healings for them also. In the second reading today, Paul spoke of the “wall” that was seen to separate Jews from non-Jews, and went on to say that Jesus broke that down at the price of his own crucifixion. 

As we today listen again to the Gospel, we see that we are living in a world that is indiscriminately labelling Muslims and tending to make them the new universal enemy, now that Communism is no longer a threat. We followers of Jesus know that they are human beings like us, a normal mixture of good and bad, violent and non-violent, wise and ignorant.

Jesus’ reaction of angry compassion to the disempowered state of his contemporaries sprang from his intense experience of human dignity – his own and theirs – and that in turn sprang from his experience of God’s love– for him and for them. As well, Jesus knew his Hebrew Scriptures, and was quite clear on God’s preferential option for the poor.

The fact was that in Jesus’ day the poor were dispossessed and pushed to the edge by the powerful. In addition, religious and cultural attitudes, customs, rituals and rules were twisted and co-opted to justify the status quo. The ones who should have been shepherds, instead of shepherding and feeding the flock, were, from their own positions of power, furthering their own interests by exploiting the flock.

Jesus’ response was to teach the people, to conscientise them, to tell them of their own dignity and of the source of their dignity: God’s deep love for them; and to empower them to act consistently with that dignity.

But, more than that, he let them know that they could take hold of that dignity and live from it, only by being open to love others, and in the process of loving, learn to accept too the fact that they were loved themselves. Once in touch with their own dignity, they would feel themselves empowered. They could learn to evaluate their situation and take the responsible, life-respecting steps needed to improve it. He wanted them to stand on their own two feet, neither dependent nor independent but rather mutually interdependent – not in defiant isolation but in community. Reflective and empowered, their vulnerability in the face of inadequate shepherds would radically change. It would be enough that God would be their shepherd. For the rest, they could take care of themselves.

Jesus respected people, their own responsibility and their own freedom. He could only try to open their eyes; they had to respond. He was obviously not interested in recruiting an army of mindless followers; he was interested in educating – teaching – adults who would accept responsibility for their own actions and reactions. He wanted them to realise that, as adult sons and daughters of a God who trusted them, they were not powerless, whatever their political or religious leaders did or did not do.

Jesus knew, of course, that people recognise and take hold of their radical human dignity in a sharing community, where the sharing goes both ways – given and received, whether the community in question be the small group of disciples, the family, the workplace or the broader world at large.

And, though this week’s Gospel passage stops where it does, next week it will be followed up by that wonderful story of how the 5000+ were fed (and their needs met) as the bread and fish were shared out together – that story being precisely the illustration of his teaching: When we relate to others in the light of our common dignity, when we share who we are and what we have, we learn surprisingly that there is more than enough for all, and we all finish up better off: we begin to experience the kingdom. This is true not only in our families, but in our nation, our commonwealth, and among the family of nations, our global village.

But more of that next week!