16th Sunday Year B

See Commentary on Mark 6:30-34 Mark 6:17-32 Mark 6:33-44


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!


Homily 2 -  2006

When I see on the TV images of the bombing of Lebanon, the shelling of Haifa, I feel so powerless, so discouraged.  The leaders of the warring factions seem simply not to care about their killing, particularly of innocent civilians, provided that they can make their point. It seems to go unquestioned that violence will achieve their desired objectives.  I presume that the war-makers are themselves a minority – the Hizbollah leadership and their fighters, the Israeli high command and their soldiers.

Most people don’t get involved, don’t want to get involved, do not themselves fire the rockets, the small arms, do not have their fingers on the triggers that launch the bombs.  Indeed, significant minorities, both of Jews and of Arabs, actively campaign for peace. But the fighting goes on.  It was much the same during the open conflict in Northern Ireland. The murderers were a minority; the active peace campaigners were a minority.  The majority in the middle were like barrackers – not involved, but often one-eyed, perhaps even blind, incensed when their side got hurt, and instinctively tending to justify any damage done to the other side.. Remember the fighting in the Balkans. Hatreds went back 600 years!  I remember reading some time back that the ones who kept the memories alive were often the grand-mothers. Was that true?

I don’t know what we can do about the Middle East. To wish that our leaders might do something constructive can sometimes be a cop-out.  At the bottom of it all, we’re not dealing with problems specific to Arabs and Israelis, or to Sunnis and Shiites, or to Afghans, or to East Timorese. We’re dealing with human nature.  Reconciliation, coping with difference, preferring negotiation, open to compromise, ready to forgive, don’t come easily to any of us.  It happens in families; it happens between Christian denominations; it happens between Catholics.

In today’s Second Reading Paul was reflecting on the often bitter struggle going on in his day between Jews and Gentiles.  He rejoiced that Jesus had brought about reconciliation between the two. Perhaps he was too optimistic. Jesus had made reconciliation possible, but people had to make it happen.

The Gospel spoke about Jesus’ response to the needs of the oppressed, the hopeless, the powerless ones of his day. He tried to teach them! Teach them what? That they were loved by God, and had an inviolable dignity, whatever others thought about them or however others treated them. That everyone shared the same dignity.  But to get hold of it they had to convert, and keep on converting. You don’t learn it in one quick step. 

Thank God that we don’t bomb each other into oblivion, that we don’t shoot each other, that we don’t burn down each others’ houses.  But we are still, as a nation, not good at coping with difference. We want things on our terms; we don’t want others on our turf, whatever about their needs or their dignity.  We can be prickly, defensive, protective of our own patch. It is not easy to stand in the shoes of another.

As St Paul said, even of Jesus, that what made reconciliation possible was the Cross.  He restored peace through the cross... In his own person he killed the hostility – he absorbed it, he showed its futility, he modelled another way – but it cost him his life.  That sort of teaching is hard to take seriously in a world distorted by sin. But we do share, all of us, the desire for peace. The price of it is what is hard to take on board. We may not be able to do anything for the Middle East; but the sorts of things that escalate into full-scale war, or terrorism, begin in families and local communities. They begin in our human hearts.

The good news is that God wants to help us. That’s precisely why he sent Jesus. But outcomes will not be magic.

We need to listen to him. We need to change.


Homily 3 - 2009

Ted Kenna's funeral during the week triggered off memories of my own, from the 1940s.  I remember, as a child in Primary School, that, with most other Australians during that time, I feared the Japanese. We were told of the atrocities they had committed, and I despised them - I hated them. I was just an unquestioning, loyal little schoolboy.

Ten years later, I was studying for the priesthood in Rome, and among my fellow students were some from Japan. They were intelligent fellows, serious-minded, and, along with the rest of us, wanting to know and love Jesus.  There were Chinese and Vietnamese students with us, too. Most of them had had harrowing experiences escaping from their oppressive Communist regimes.  In the 50s, the Communists had replaced the Japanese, in the common Catholic psyche, and we feared them; we despised them for their cruelties, we hated them.

In St Paul's day, it was Jews versus Gentiles. Jews despised Gentiles and their ways, and the Gentiles, likewise, didn't have much time for the Jews with their funny ways and their sense of superiority. Paul saw through that mutual opposition.  He rejoiced, as he wrote in today's Second Reading, that in Christ, you that used to be so far from us - you Gentiles who used to be so far from us Jews, have been brought very close, by the blood of Christ. He is the peace between us.  Mind you, though Paul rejoiced in the peace made possible by Christ between the opposing Jews and Gentiles, he struggled to think peacefully of his fellow Jews who didn't see things his way.

Our willingness to handle difference, to handle rivalry, is always a struggle.  It's almost as though we need difference and threat to tell us who we are and to give us a sense of identity, and of belonging. We need our enemies.  A sure-fire way to national unity, to get everyone pulling together, is to get us to feel under threat - whether it be from Muslims, or Al Quaida or the supposed hordes of asylum-seekers poised to invade our shores.

Tribalism, whatever shape it takes, (at least, as long as I see it out there, in others), deeply unsettles me.  When I see images of protesters mindlessly chanting their answers to the endlessly repeated questions: What do we want? When do we want it? it leads me to think of a Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, 2000 year ago, and to hear the Jerusalem crowd chanting: What do we want? Crucify him!  When do we want it? Now!

Well, they got what they wanted - they got blood. And it led Paul, some years later, to reflect: by the blood of Christ, you that used to be so far from us have been brought very close.

How come? Well, for me at least, his blood, his innocent death, his death that he chose, deliberately, not to run from, simply because he loved people, all people, and wouldn't pull back from that determination - his death led some to recognize the murderous hostility lurking in the hearts of us all, and, recognising it, to name it for what it is, and to see that it is not necessary.  We don't need enemies; we don't need scapegoats; we don't need victims for sacrifice, in order to feel comfortable with who we are.

We just have to let ourselves be loved – by anyone, but, best of all, by God, and, ultimately, by ourselves - and we become freed from seeing difference as threat, from seeing different views and disagreements as threat, and as spur and justification to take the offensive and to be offensive.  As Paul wrote: In his own person Christ killed the hostility. He overwhelmed it by the power of his love.  The way to personal inner peace, to peace in our world, starts by really letting God love us, by letting God even like us.  All we have to do is let it be and notice what begins to happen.


Homily 4 - 2015

It can be important to remember that at the time of Jesus and of the early Jewish Christians, Palestine was an occupied country under the control of Rome – either directly in Judea in the South with its Roman governor Pontius Pilate, or indirectly in Galilee in the North with its puppet king Herod. Reactions to the foreign pagan occupation covered quite a spectrum. Some collaborated willingly enough . They were largely the local authorities, the priests and the Jerusalem aristocracy [or elders of the people], and the hangers-on of Herod. Others objected. Essenes, of whom we hear nothing in the Gospels, withdrew to the arid area around the Dead Sea and lived a semi-monastic life there in community. Pharisees continued to circulate in society but tried hard to maintain their religious and ethnic identity. Some, the Zealots, favoured a movement of liberation, and were prepared to use violence. [One of the Twelve, Simon the Zealot, had apparently once been one.] Barabbas was another, as were the two criminals crucified with Jesus. The majority of the people, especially in the rural North in Galilee, had no option but to put up with it. They were the ones referred to in today’s Gospel as those like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus neither collaborated with the Romans nor did he favour any violent liberation movement. Like the Pharisees, he tried hard to maintain the religious orientation and commitment of the people. But unlike the Pharisees, he saw the true spirit of Israel expressed in mercy. They saw it in holiness, which they expressed through clear separation from everything unclean, especially from those people they classified as sinners and from foreigners; and through specifically Jewish practices such as circumcision, strict observance of the Sabbath and meticulously kosher meals.

The Pharisees were religiously motivated. Here in Australia we are familiar with their secular equivalent, who value our Australian spirit as precious. They tend to feel threatened by foreigners, at least non Anglo-Saxon foreigners. They are slow to accept migrants, especially if they arrive untidily in leaky boats – frightened that somehow they may contaminate our uniquely Australian spirit or upset our comfort.

Jesus saw the true spirit of Israel expressed in mercy. What expresses the true spirit of Christianity? Pope Francis clearly believes that it is mercy; and has been doing his utmost to convince us. And a lot, even of Christians, are worried. He has shown himself super-concerned about asylum-seekers, about the poor, even about our poor suffering planet.

In his recent encyclical, “Laudato Si”, when talking about climate change, he wrote: Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades [25]. Consistently, he connected the plight of the poor very closely with the plight of the planet. Elsewhere he wrote: The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation. In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet [48].  

Jesus had trouble convincing his hearers. I find it interesting in today’s Gospel, how Mark, after mentioning Jesus’ reaction of mercy towards the people who were like sheep without a shepherd, then indicated Jesus’ response: He set himself to teach them at some length. That is precisely what Francis is trying to do with his encyclical. And in teaching us, he is calling for a quite radical conversion. At one spot he even quoted affirmatively a statement of the Australian Episcopal Conference where the bishops wrote: We need to experience a conversion, or change of heart [216]. He in fact calls us to what he called a truly contemplative stance towards our world and its urgent problems. He wrote: Christian spirituality … encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption [222].

It is worth getting a copy of the encyclical and studying it closely.


 

Homily 5 - 2018

It was Mark, the author of today’s Gospel, not Jesus, who made the observation that the Jewish crowds “were like sheep without a shepherd”. Until now, I have heard the text as a criticism of the Jewish leaders.

However, as I hear it today, in the light of recent criticisms, particularly coming from the Royal Commission into the Sexual Abuse of Children within the Church, I wonder if the simile could be extended to include the whole Church – Rome, bishops, priests and laity as well. The Commission criticized particularly the culture of clericalism affecting the Church. In doing that, it accused the bishops and priests of over-shepherding most of the adult laity and of under-shepherding the young and the vulnerable. But it also criticized the laity for behaving too much like sheep, for letting themselves, yourselves, be over-shepherded.

We can use the time to blame the obvious ones. But blaming others is too negative, and does not get us far. Rather, the Commission’s Report is a God-given opportunity for everyone in the Church to look more closely at ourselves. We are more than individuals. We are interconnected and interrelate with others within the Church as a living body – the Body of Christ. The whole Body of Christ needs you laity to think more confidently and competently in order to contribute to the Church’s life; and it needs leaders also to rethink and, where helpful, find ways of restructuring so that you can use your heads and contribute to wider consultation and decision-making.

One issue I would like to look at today particularly is that of my own personal conscience and to encourage you to look at yours. Some people speak of “following their conscience” and simply mean doing what they want. At the other end of the scale, some simply mean obeying the rules, or the commandments. That might be obedience – but it is hardly the practice of virtue.

It is interesting to take note of what Mark in today’s passage said Jesus did: “he set himself to teach them at some length”, to teach these people wandering about like “sheep without shepherds”. What did he teach them? and how did he teach them?

Surprisingly, Mark gives very little of Jesus’ teaching in his Gospel. We need to look at the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to find that out. A familiar place to start could be Matthew’s collection of Jesus’ sayings in what we call the Sermon on the Mount. There, Jesus tried to wean people off over-reliance on law and commandment. He wanted them to go deeper, to ponder on their experience and to identify the various values safeguarded by the individual virtues. He wanted them to think for themselves. What was he getting at, for example, when he said “if you are bringing your offering before the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering”, or “if your right hand should cause you to sin, cut it off and throw it away”, or “all you need say is ‘Yes’ if you mean yes, ‘No’ if you mean no; anything more comes from the evil one” – and so on? Elsewhere he told parables, not to answer questions, asked or unasked; not even to illustrate or provide comparisons – as similes and metaphors do. Their purpose was to raise questions, to leave them unanswered, and invite people, against the backdrop of their personal experience, to come to their own insights.

To choose well, it helps to have rules. Rules give us the theory; they enshrine the “end product”. But more important than blindly following the rule [which is simply an exercise of obedience] is to appreciate the value that the rule protects and to cultivate the virtue that puts the value into action. Over time we can gradually improve doing both. In the process we both inform and form our conscience.