4th Sunday Year B - Homily 6

Homily 6 - 2024

In case you did not read last Sunday’s Gospel, I shall repeat briefly what St Mark wrote: “After John [the Baptist] had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the Good News from God. “The time has come” he said, “and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.”

Something new was about to happen
The kingdom of God was close at hand
It would be Good News
They would have to trust [i.e. believe] Jesus’ word for it
It would call for real change on their part [i.e. repent].

Jesus then promptly called four fishermen to follow him. They did — though they hardly knew him. Today’s Gospel passage takes up the story.

With some unnamed followers, probably the four fishermen and others, they went together as far as Capernaum, a township on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. On the Sabbath day, they went into the Capernaum synagogue. Apparently he was asked to speak. Mark recounted that his teaching made a deep impression on his hearers — presumably the same message he had been proclaiming already around Galilee. Most of those present, apparently, were impressed, and what impressed them was the sense of authority that he seemed to have —so refreshingly different from the usual traditional platitudes taught week-in-week-out by their official teachers, the scribes.

However, not everyone was pleased with Jesus. One of them shouted out: “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God”. Had he ever acted like that before with a guest speaker?

Jesus’ new message had no doubt upset him deeply. “Have you come to destroy us?” He was really afraid. Did Jesus’ message sound to him like the beginning of the end of everything familiar, destructive of their centuries-old traditions? Were there others who silently agreed with him?

What seemed to have confused him even more was his sense of the uniqueness of Jesus — what the others referred to as the “authority” exercised by Jesus. Might he, more acutely than the others, have wondered whether Jesus’ impact might have been due to the fact that Jesus was indeed “the Holy One of God”? No wonder he was confused and fearful.

In Mark’s Gospel, the synagogue would become the typical location where Jesus would encounter opposition. The official leaders of the synagogue service, the scribes and the Pharisees, became Jesus’ main opponents. No doubt, there would be many reasons for their almost constant hostility towards Jesus. At the bottom of it all, though perhaps not well recognised by them, may well have been fear — fear for their own reputations but fear also for the traditions that they unquestioningly defended.

The new situation, the nearness of God’s Kingdom, Jesus himself, and his teaching, meant unfamiliarity, uncertainty. The thought of the adjustment required of them was frightening. Would they have to accept the leadership of Jesus? take on board his teaching?

How could they trust Him? This “authority” that the people generally seemed to intuit in him — was that powerful enough to touch them, to reassure them, as it had obviously touched Andrew and Peter, James and John?

These are questions, too, for me, for us. Do I trust him? Do I trust everything he taught? Do I trust him enough genuinely to follow him, to get to know him intimately enough to see why he says what he says, why he behaved the way he did? Can I let his “authority” take hold of me? And how will I do it?