Fr Eugene Lobo SJ –
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 14, 2024
Amos 6:7-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13
Every human person in today’s world seeks to find meaning to his or her life. People particularly young ones are often discouraged when they are unable to perceive the why of life and aim to search for it in wrong and absurd ways.
According to the theologian Paul Tillich the word God translates as the depth of our life, the source of our being, and our ultimate concern, what we take seriously without any reservations. So our search for meaning connects with our search for God. Every human person has a purpose to fulfil in life. All have a specific task and are individually called by God for a task or a mission.
The call that God gives is personal. We will not comprehend the mission easily unless we are totally attentive to his calling just as young Samuel was and respond as Isaiah or Jeremiah prophet did. Our entire person must be totally attentive to his invitation. All the three readings of today tell us of the mission that is specifically given to every individual by Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark we see Jesus sending out his disciples on a mission. They are sent to the Israelite community to proclaim the message of the kingdom of God. They are to proclaim the need for repentance and offer them the gift of healing. Jesus relies on human support in preaching the gospel to people.
In the First Reading we heard the Lord instructing Prophet Amos to go and to prophesy to the people Israel. Amos was a native of Judah. He was a shepherd by profession and dresser of sycamore trees. Such person was called by God to be the shepherd of his people. He was given the task of communicating the word of God with a call to repentance in order to be saved. He protested strongly against the religious abuses and the lack of religion then rampant in Israel. Amos as well as the people were aware of the role of a prophet namely to speak for God and uphold his values. Amos would have spoken things that displeased the king and the priest of the place. Amaziah who held the rank of the priest told him that the king was angry with him and he was seeking to kill him. It was better that Amos looked for his own safety. Amos tells him that in the eyes of God the Temple that Amaziah served was not legitimate as it was established by the royal household. For this reason God’s prophets challenged this Temple.
In the Second Reading Paul tells the Ephesians that we were chosen by God before creation and wanted to be saved by the blood of his son Jesus. The motive of God’s choice is love. His plan for humanity existed from the beginning as he cared for each and every one. God did not choose them when they committed themselves at Baptism or because of any good deeds. He chose because they are his own and have existed in the eternal plan of salvation. The choice of the Father is such that he never abandons anyone. Having destined the chosen ones for adoption as His children through Jesus Christ, the Father chose all to be holy and blameless before Him in love. And all of this is freely given to manifest the praise of his glorious grace. He has made them his chosen ones his real children, purchased by his blood and makes them precious before him.
The Gospel of today tells us of the mission and ministry of Jesus where the master accepts human helps to continue his work. For Jesus from the beginning it has been a shared ministry. He invites his own chosen men to work with him. Jesus had been quietly training his chosen Apostles for some time. They had heard his preaching they had seen the miracles worked by him. Their future work will be to bring his teaching and the story of his life and miracles to all people. They were not fully aware of the real Jesus whom they accepted as their master but they knew that he was planning something great. They were being prepared for the challenge he was placing before them. As the Gospel unfolds, that shared ministry grows until we see Jesus calling the twelve and giving them authority over unclean spirits as well as to preach repentance. People had been watching and admiring his work and they wanted his presence in other towns and villages to come to preach and also work miracles there. But as a human person Jesus was unable to reach out everywhere and he called the twelve apostles together and gave them a task to do his work and fulfil the special mission given to him by the Father. He instructed them to go out, two by two, and, heal people as they drive out “unclean” spirits. They were to do the task he himself was doing and continue doing his mission of healing. It was not just to conquer the evil spirits but more importantly to bring reconciliation and healing. They were to trust absolutely in God’s providence. He would see to it that those to whom they preached would provide them with the necessities of life.
Jesus sends his disciples two by two on a temporary mission. Going two by two carries with it the authority of official witnesses. Only Mark mentions this detail in his Gospel while Matthew and Luke do not speak of it on this occasion. But in another passage Luke says: “After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two.” This has a profound meaning that needs to be explained. Indeed, it amounts to saying that the disciple of the Lord is never alone: he is always accompanied by another disciple of the Lord, that is, a man or a woman not chosen by the disciple himself, but rather a person whom the Lord himself chose to be his companion and helper in the apostolate.
If Jesus takes care in choosing his disciples in order to ensure a good beginning to the mission he entrusts to them, he also watches over the mission itself to ensure that it proceeds well. Here we notice that the discipleship demands a lifestyle of radical simplicity while the other demands he makes of them are heavy. The instructions we find in the Gospel probably reflect the directives that were given to the Christian missionaries of Mark’s time. The main point of the instructions was that the disciple must trust that God through the community will provide the essentials of food and housing. Clothing and accessories must be kept to an absolute minimum. Jesus tells them that if they are to help people recover their freedom, they too must be a free people. So he instructs them saying that as they go out to evangelize, they should not bring many things with them. No food, no backpack, no money, no extra clothes, no sandals or staff. This teaching does not seem to be very practical to our ears. He also tells them that when his disciples were on the mission of the kingdom.
Jesus strictly instructs his disciples to stay at the house they originally enter. They must not be preoccupied with finding better and more comfortable accommodations. This would violate the customs of hospitality as well give impression that the disciples were concerned primarily with themselves and their own comfort. Besides to leave the house that has welcomed them would be to insult their kind host. If they were rejected or if no one received them in that place, they were to depart immediately. He tells them to shake the dust off their feet at the door of the inhospitable householder or at the end of the village if the villagers refused to hear them and go to a more hospitable environment. Of course the gesture of shaking the dust from one’s feet was, in effect, equal to cursing that place.
Thus the Gospel today is telling us that each Christian is called not only to be a disciple but also to be an apostle. A disciple is one who hears, who accepts and who carries out the teaching of Jesus in his/her life. A disciple follows Jesus, imitates Jesus, and becomes a second Christ. An apostle is not only a follower but also an evangelizer. He is to be sent on a mission with a message from a superior – an ambassador, an envoy. Every person who has been baptized has this mission and this calling, actively to share their faith with others. We work with the lord to help people find or recover their freedom. We help people to cure their sicknesses, physical, psychological and emotional. Secondly, Jesus is telling us to go through our lives with the maximum of freedom and the minimum of burdens. The apostles were told to go out bringing with them only the message they had received from Jesus and nothing else. They were not to carry with them any earthly material goods which would be an obstacle in their mission work.
We are aware that Christ the Son of God could have spread his Gospel of peace and love and the message of eternal salvation to the whole world without any human help. Yet he chose the weaker and more human way of evangelizing people by sending their own fellowmen who brought the Good News to them. This choice showed his divine love and understanding of weak human nature much better and more effectively than the use of any supernatural means which he could have employed. Today we realize that we all have been sent by God and the church to spread and defend the faith before our family, our friends and our co-workers, we can expect that our Christian obligation will not be easy. We have to be prepared to be rejected by many or even our own communities because we represent Jesus on earth.
One day, as usually, an orphan, a little girl, stood at the street corner begging for food, money or whatever she could get. Now, this girl was wearing very tattered clothes, was dirty and quite dishevelled. A well-to-do you man passed that corner without giving the girl a second look. But, when he returned to his expensive home, his happy and comfortable family, and his well-laden dinner table, his thoughts returned to the young orphan. He became very angry with God for allowing such conditions to exist. He reproached God, saying, How can you let this happen Why don t you do something to help this girl. Then he heard God in the depths of his being responding by saying “Yes friend I did something. I created you.”