Gospel & Reflection for the 26th Sunday.
From the Gospel according to Mark
Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
At that time, John said to Jesus,
“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”
Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.
Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink
because you belong to Christ,
amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,
it would be better for him if a great millstone
were put around his neck
and he were thrown into the sea.
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.
It is better for you to enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'”
Reflection
Friends, Joseph Campbell was an American writer who died in 1987. Campbell’s best-known work is his book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’. The title refers to Campbell’s realisation that the heroic figure in many of the great stories of humanity embark upon what is essentially the same journey of discovery.
Whether the story be Homers’ ‘Iliad’ or ‘Odessey’ or Jason and the Argonauts; King Arthur in Camelot or Robin Hood in Sherwood Forrest; Tarzan in the jungles of Africa or Shane in the American West; Luke Skywalker in that galaxy far, far away or Bilbo Baggins deep in the Lonely Mountains of the Hobbit, we are essentially hearing the same story. The only difference is that the face of the hero and the setting of the tale change. But yet, we are always interested in these stories, regardless of their similarities. Campbell suggests that we are interested because the hero’s story is our story writ large.
Every hero’s story always begins with a call to adventure. This call usually involves crossing a threshold, taking a leap from safety into the unknown. Sometimes, the hero refuses this call, but eventually they move forward, they leap into the danger, always winning the day. No wonder we love such stories because we all hope for such courage in our own lives with their own adventures.
Well, as in life, so also with faith. Faith is a call to adventure. It is the challenge of leaping into the unknown; crossing the threshold of our comfort, security, and thinking; trusting that on the other side, there is God and with His help, all is possible for us to achieve. But people can be hesitant in answering this call. The ‘leap of faith’ is not as easy as it sounds. There is always obstacles, doubts, and circumstances that make us question our readiness for the adventurous road ahead; plenty to make us feel it might be safer to stay where we are, rather than going to where God calls us to be.
But Christ understood this reluctance and hesitancy more than anyone. In very harsh terms, He speaks of the different hurdles that people face in living out the call to faith and tells us how to overcome them. He speaks of “cutting off” and “tearing out.”
These drastic measures are clearly not meant to be conducted in a literal sense. Jesus is simply talking about the supreme value of a life with God and it is of such importance that we must be prepared to act vigorously against anything that would jeopardise our life with Him. So, Jesus is speaking about detachment; about letting go of that which prevents us from committing to Christ and speaking and acting in His name. The Apostles had to learn this lesson, but they were not the first.
In our reading from the Book of Numbers, seventy people chosen to receive the Holy Spirit, to assist Moses in caring for the people as they wandered in the desert. Two of those selected were missing when God’s Spirit descended, and the rest felt that those two people no longer were entitled to act in God’s name. When Eldad and Medad did just that, the other sixty-eight asked for them to be stopped. But Moses knew God’s generosity and power, and told those complaining to leave go of their sense of entitlement and advantage and do as Eldad and Medad were already doing.
In the Gospel, the disciples are told to do the same. They still had to let go of many things including their sense of superiority and authority. They believed that they had an exclusive monopoly working for Christ. They could not see the good been done by others in God’s name and stopped this good from being done. Jesus encouraged them to rejoice in goodness wherever and with whomever it is found – “Anyone who is not against us is for us.”
Friends, the call to faith is a difficult but beautiful adventure. It is about a life lived with God as our centre and where we learn to leave go of anything that threatens to replaces Him.
All that is good belongs to God. May we be instruments of God’s goodness, power, and love always, and recognise and rejoice in them when found in others. May we be the hero in our story of faith, along with everyone else.
Fr. Richard