Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year B
July 15, 2012

Reading I: Amos 7:12-15
Responsorial Psalm: 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14
Reading II: Ephesians 1:3-14 or Ephesians 1:3-10
Gospel: Mark 6:7-13


Reading 1 Am 7:12-15

Amaziah, priest of Bethel, said to Amos,
"Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah!
There earn your bread by prophesying,
but never again prophesy in Bethel;
for it is the king's sanctuary and a royal temple."
Amos answered Amaziah, "I was no prophet,
nor have I belonged to a company of prophets;
I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores.
The LORD took me from following the flock, and said to me,
Go, prophesy to my people Israel."


Gospel Mk 6:7-13

Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two
and gave them authority over unclean spirits.
He instructed them to take nothing for the journey
but a walking stick--
no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
They were, however, to wear sandals
but not a second tunic.
He said to them,
"Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave.
Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you,
leave there and shake the dust off your feet
in testimony against them."
So they went off and preached repentance.
The Twelve drove out many demons,
and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.




Image is everything. Jesus gave his apostles their initiation in evangelising by sending them out in the footsteps of the great prophets. That must have been both a statement to the people in the towns they visited, and a learning experience for themselves, a novitiate experience.

John the Baptiser is the prophet we know best, dressed in a camel-hair garment and living off insects and wild honey. The image fits the classical prophets as well, with Amos (first reading) saying that he came without credentials from any company of prophets. He was just a shepherd told to go and be a prophet.

Incidentally the image also fits the Greek Philosophers of the same period, the Cynics and the Stoics. Wikipedia even tells us that Gadara in the land of the Gerasenes (just off the south-east corner of the lake), where Jesus encountered the man possessed of a thousand demons, was a Greek town and a centre of Cynic philosophy.

I have taken a few sentences from the Wiki account of the Cynic philosophers. (The modern usage of the term 'cynic' has little in common with its original meaning.)

Cynicism is one of the most striking of all the Hellenistic philosophies. It offered people the possibility of happiness and freedom from suffering in an age of uncertainty...

Thus a Cynic has no property and rejects all conventional values of money, fame, power or reputation. A life lived according to nature requires only the bare necessities required for existence, and one can become free by unshackling oneself from any needs which are the result of convention...

None of this meant that the Cynic would retreat from society. Cynics would in fact live in the full glare of the public's gaze and would be quite indifferent in the face of any insults which might result from their unconventional behaviour...

The ideal Cynic would evangelise; as the watchdog of humanity, it was their job to hound people about the error of their ways. The example of the Cynic's life (and the use of the Cynic's biting satire) would dig-up and expose the pretensions which lay at the root of everyday conventions.

Although Cynicism concentrated solely on ethics, Cynic philosophy had a big impact on the Hellenistic world, ultimately becoming an important influence for Stoicism. The Stoic Apollodorus writing in the 2nd century BCE stated that "Cynicism is the short path to virtue."  Read more: Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynics

While the Greeks reasoned their way to the perfect life and the Hebrew prophets were calling on the people to be faithful to the ancient covenants, the apostles were proclaiming the metanoia required for a new covenant. In spite of thus being introduced in the style of prophets, the apostles later followed the way of Jesus, mixing with the people in an ordinary manner as one belonging among them, avoiding displays of extreme behaviour.

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Beyond the image, what is the point of going out with minimal clothing and no provisions, not even a few coins to buy a meal? For the Greeks it was a way of showing that one could live free of excess baggage. The Hebrew prophets seem to have used it as a way of drawing attention to the radical demands of God's justice. For the apostles of Jesus, I think, it would have been primarily a test of their metanoia: a time for them to discover whether or not they had taken on a new way of seeing, whether or not they believed in the power of the spirit which Jesus endowed them with. Just as they are totally dependent for life on what is given to them, so for the fruit of their mission are they totally dependent on the spirit to give life to others.

In speaking God's word as an apostle, one must put oneself on the line - one's own self, naked, raw, unadorned and unprotected. There is no place here for fancy means and methods. The word of truth can only be spoken from a true mind, a pure heart.

Going out without any human resources the apostles allowed the power of the Spirit to work, and to be seen to be working. If you are sent as an apostle, you are merely the contact point at which God touches the other person to enliven their spirit - and nothing more. While your human input is necessary, especially in a one-to-one meeting, still it is not your human action that effects a transformation in the one who hears you: it is entirely God's doing; the metanoia comes about by the power of the spirit.

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I think this is the greatest challenge. You might be convinced that there must be a better way for humankind in the original plan of the Creator if only people could be induced to change their way of seeing things, if only they could be brought to the point where they would put heart and mind into living out the fullness of their possibilities. It is something else, however, to proclaim this in a totally honest way, leaving oneself out of the equation, allowing for the power of the spirit to be the agent of change. Spiritual insight has to tell us how far to go and when to stop, leaving the outcome to God. One sows; another reaps, and God gives the increase.

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Last Sunday we read that Jesus could do no great deeds in Nazareth because of their lack of faith. How are we to apply the challenge of today's reading to our own lives and to our Catholica exchange? The going out without the baggage of human resources means that we speak and write truthfully to one another. The first baggage I abandon is the conceit of thinking that I can persuade or influence a reader by rhetorical flourishes or cunning logical devices. Which is not to say that I should not present the truth as I see it as clearly and forcefully as I can, with all the skill [power] at my command. It simply says: I recognise that it is the truth that convinces, not my words or arguments.

Another feature arising out of this gospel reflection is in the concept of the naked self. To reveal the truth I must reveal something of my own self, for there is something of an osmosis effect at work here, a transmission of vital fluids across the membrane dividing a cell from its neighbour. To share the truth we need to touch one another, to be in communion, to be open to giving and receiving, to enjoy the receiving as much as we enjoy the giving. 

We often hear it said that God is not thundering from the mountain-top. The spirit is among us: whether I recognise this as "divine" or simply respect it as "the truth" is not important. The Spirit of Truth is one.

Those who write from the perspective of believing in Jesus may see themselves as sent to share his truth. This may give them a courage and a sense of mission they may not otherwise have. In their going out they will meet fellow human beings who are similarly committed to proclaiming the truth but simply out of love for humankind, without any sense of mission beyond the sense of being "all in the same boat".

Where then are those Nazareans with their lack of faith? Perhaps they are the ones who know their Jesus too well, and are blind or deaf to the spirit of truth calling on them to leave their comfort zone and go forth naked into an unfamiliar world. And perhaps there are some who today proclaim a program for re-evangelising the faltering christian world. But if they make their proclamation from high seats of power, dressed in rich garments and great prestige, I'm afraid they will be as tinkling bells and clanging cymbals, empty echoes in empty temples, while the truth grows strong in the people.

Tony Lawless