Take it Easy

Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time (2025) - Take it Easy (Lectionary: 309)

Reading: Hebrews 4:1-5, 11; Psalm 78:3 & 4bc, 6c-7, 8; Alleluia;  Luke 7:16; Gospel: Mark 2:1-12

There are a number of stories in the Gospels, what the scholars call pericopes, that almost virtually invite the reader or hearer into the story. The race of Peter and the Beloved Disciple to see the empty tomb after hearing Mary Magdalene's report (John), the two disciples encountering the Jesus on the road to Emmaus (John), or the miraculous catch of fish (John or Luke). Today's Gospel provides another example from early in Jesus's public ministry. 

The Evangelist tells that after preaching the Gospel ("Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand") to villages in Galilee, Jesus returns "home" in Capernaum. We don't know whose home this would be. Peter's? Jesus's own house, perhaps shared with his mother? Or a First Century equivalent of an Airbnb. We're told that people have come into the house, filling it to almost overflowing. They are hearing him proclaim the Good News and, presumably, see him healing the sick. 

Four man, carrying another on a litter, want to enter the house, presumably having brought their friend to encounter the "healer." Since they cannot enter the house through the doorway, one of them suggests carrying their friend up on to the roof and lowering him into the house. We can imagine them scrounging up some rope, carrying the man up the outside stairs, and then removing the palms or straw and/or wood that serves as the roofing an ceiling of the one-story house. What do the people inside the room experience? Perhaps they hear noise on the roof, as the men remove the roofing. Dust probably begins settling into the air and suddenly, the room is filled with light. The people shield their eyes and are stunned to see the sick man being lowered foot by foot into the room, right in front of Jesus. 

Up to this point the people have seen or heard of the healings of the sick, they have heard teaching "with authority" and the casting out of evil spirits via the authoritative voice of Jesus. They would probably anticipate Jesus rebuking the paralysis of the man or touching him as a prelude to his healing. Instead they see Jesus looking at all five of the men and seeing their faith, the roomful hears the authoritative voice tell the man his sins are forgiven. What a shock! This is not what the people, especially the scribes present, would expect. Jesus know the thoughts of the scribes: only God can forgive sins; for someone to make the proclamation would be blasphemous (unless, of course, he is God). Jesus speaks to the scribes, indeed all who are present, asking them which is easier, to forgive sins or tell the man to rise, pick up his mat, and walk? Then, to demonstrate that he, the Son of Man, has authority to forgive sins, he tells the man exactly what to do: stand up, pick up the litter, and go home. 

We're given something to ponder: we rarely, if ever, see a miracle of healing directly attributable to God. However, we hear the words, your sins are forgiven, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Which is the more significant action? A miracle healing or the forgiveness of sin? The answer, of course, is the latter, for this is about restoring one's relationship with God. The placement of this pericope towards the beginning of Mark's Gospel, is part of the progressive revelation of the identity of Jesus, like light streaming into the room, from teacher to prophet to Messiah to the suffering servant and divine Son of God the Father. 

To Be Made Clean

Friday after Epiphany: To Be Made Clean (Lectionary 216)

Reading: 1 John 5:5-13; Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20; 

Alleluia: John 1:14a, 12a; Gospel: Luke 5:12-16

The choice of Gospel reading for this day, Friday after Epiphany, is a curious one. (For one thing, we will hear it again in Mark's version, in a couple of weeks, as we begin Ordinary Time.) The Alleluia verse gives us a clue as to what we should look for in this account of the healing of a leper. Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom and cured every disease among the people. Remember the Magi were seeking, the King of the Jews. Early in his public ministry, Jesus proclaimed the kingdom. Almost as a side note, he brought healing to the sick and freedom for those possessed by unclean spirits. 

A number of the sick approached Jesus for healing. The leper in today's account asks "to be made clean." According to the Law of Moses, those afflicted with skin diseases were unwelcome by the larger community; the were to separate themselves and while moving about the countryside were to warn others of their approach by saying "unclean, unclean." 

It is interesting that the man doesn't ask to be healed from the disease, but made clean. It is almost as if he were asking to be restored to the larger community, as if that were his primary concern. Or, perhaps, to be restored to attendance at the local synagogue, indeed, the Temple itself in Jerusalem. Or, maybe one should go further, to relationship with God, the LORD, himself in the synagogue and Temple. Without consciously realizing what he was asking for from Jesus was to be restored to relationship with God himself, Jesus's divine Father. Go to the priests, Jesus tells him, to prove his worthiness to associate with the larger community of Jews, but it is as if Jesus is telling the man that his relationship with God has been restored by virtue of the man's faith.

The importance of this reading for these few remaining days of Christmas time, is to remind ourselves that what we celebrate is the visible incarnation of the Son of God, who restores humanity to relationship with the Father. We are made clean by the sacrifice that Jesus offered through himself, realized in our individual Baptisms and reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He is the King who brings healing and restoration by the New Covenant in his Body and Blood. May his name be praised, for ever and ever. Amen.

New Temple

A prominent young (from my perspective) Jewish physicist is producing a series of articles in The Tablet on the Hebrew Bible in relation to contemporary science, especially focusing on the attitudes of secular Jewish scientists. His target audience appears to be secular Jews. 

Jeremy England knows his scripture and his science; his efforts appear to be largely effective. He does seem to produce some questionable interpretations on the margins, however. In his second article he writes, 

As Bishop Robert Barron once explained to Ben Shapiro in an unintentionally ironic Daily Wire segment, when they discussed what the (anti-assimilationist, Temple-rebuilding) festival of Hanukkah means to Christians: “Jesus is the new Temple.”

I wonder if England knows where the bishop derives that meaning.  

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. (John 2:13-21)

I haven't viewed the Daily Wire video England refers to, but I wonder about the larger context; there is far more than irony present in the bishop's assertion. Catholic belief does not disparage the importance of the temple to Jewish worship and identity. [Some Orthodox Jews hope for its reconstruction. Some Messianic Jews and Christians anticipate the restoration of the temple as part of the Parousia, the Second Coming of the Christ -- which is not, incidentally, Catholic teaching.]   

The "temple" as a metaphor for the body of Christ transitioned to "body" as metaphor, even virtual sacrament, for the church itself. In Catholic liturgy, bread and wine are mystically transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, which, when consumed feed the Body, the Church; these are not metaphors, are completely empty of irony, for they comprise the Blessed Sacrament.  

Earlier in his second article, England writes,

The universalism of the New Testament and its open rejection of Judaic particularism had been a wellspring of the Western psyche for more than a thousand years by the time Jefferson put quill to parchment, and this aspect of Christian thought still remains the background against which his enlightened declarations retain moral force and meaning. “All men are created equal” conceives of each individual as a separate and independent recipient of rights from God in a way that leaves little room for the special national covenant of the Hebrews as an indivisible group. 

The New Testament does not reject Judaic particularism.  St. Paul writes:

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise [in] your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The deliverer will come out of Zion,

he will turn away godlessness from Jacob;

and this is my covenant with them 

when I take away their sins.” 

In respect to the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but in respect to election, they are beloved because of the patriarchs. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:25-26)

John Paul II described Jews as "our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham." 

Insofar as the Declaration of Independence of 1776 is concerned, "created equal" is a political assertion manifest in the hope that the colonial rebels had for their contingent new nation, The so-called Bill of Rights, amendments to the Constitution of 1789, are expressive of the Declaration. Of course, it took a Civil War to overcome the most obvious contradiction to the Declaration and Bill, and a century more to eliminate practices which denied equality before the law (in the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965). "Created equal" is still aspirational. The resurgence of explicit antisemitism in just the last year presents the country with a new challenge to the Declaration's realization for all of its citizens. One might be reminded that George Washington, an Anglican, was especially welcoming to the Jewish communities of Philadelphia and Rhode Island. 

From the perspective of non-Jews, it is not at all clear that the Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights contradict the practice of the Jewish faith. There are some religious sects which claim they possess an exclusive guarantee of salvation, that their members are part of an elect. The idea of election is part of traditional Calvinist teaching. Assertion of such uniqueness on the part of such groups of citizens is exclusive of their role in the larger polity. As long as the exercise of the religious belief does not encroach upon that of the fellow citizens, their practice is not legally objectionable. Should such groups seek to achieve an established position in the polity, they would be contradicting constitutional rights.

I look forward to reading more of Jeremy England's insights, and hope he shows more discretion when pushing the margins.