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Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time B
February 5, 2012
Reading I: Job 7:1-4, 6-7
Responsorial Psalm: 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Reading II: 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23
Gospel: Gospel: Mark 1:29-39
These three short scenes hardly need any introduction or commentary. They show Jesus in a homely light (Sc 1), as one who made a tremendous impact on the whole population (Sc 2), and as both a man of prayer and one committed to proclaiming his message widely (Sc 3).
Yet I wonder whether this is all that Mark intended his readers to glean from reading this account of a day in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Did he simply want to tell of a kindly healer, who went in to Peter's mother-in-law and and took her by the hand so that the fever left her and she was saved the embarrassment of not being able to serve lunch to her son-in-law's new friend and his mates. There may be much more to it.
When we are told that the gospel is the written version of the oral tradition in which the story of Jesus was passed down through those first three or four decades we may well imagine it as a fairly haphazard collection of anecdotes arranged in some rough order. The fact that Matthew and Luke build on Mark, re-arranging the order in various places, adding some items and omitting others, may reinforce this impression of an amateurish assembling of the story in a written form.
However there are some who see Mark's gospel as a carefully constructed narrative, a work of considerable genius, which tells the 'story' of Jesus in a most sophisticated way. In spite of it being written in the everyday language of the people it has been compared to the writings of classical Greece for the strength of its composition, for the way it holds up under close analysis, and for the impact it makes on the reader.
From this perspective these three short cameo scenes may be setting out certain key elements of the story to come. Scene One has Jesus go from the public meeting in the synagogue to Simon's home, where he had a meal and stayed the night. This is the first 'lesson' his disciples are exposed to, and we have no reason to say it is irrelevant, much and all as it might seem insignificant when viewed from the great height of a cathedral pulpit. Keeping in touch with family is important in the Way of Jesus.
Scene Two has the whole town crowding around the door 'after sunset'. Again, a simple note that makes us realise that of course they had to wait until the Sabbath was over before they could go out on the streets. But why does such a little thing as 'after sunset' find a place in this very sparse and trim narrative? Is it possible that this report of the first enthusiastic response of the people also contains a symbol? 'When it was evening, after sunset': Could this be a way of saying that the sun had set on the old order. The Sabbath has ended forever.
'The whole town was gathered at the door', such was the world's desperate hunger to be freed from oppression.
In Scene Three Jesus slips out very early for some quiet time of prayer, before the household is up. This vivid image has been recognised and imitated down through the ages. Then there is another formal statement of purpose:
He told them, "Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come." So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.
'For this purpose have I come.' In this short sentence we might hear the Word Incarnate saying that he has 'come down from heaven' for this purpose. Or it might be read as a quite ordinary statement: 'This is why I've come over from Nazareth, left my simple tradesman's life to take on this role of preaching.'
However we would not be wrong if we saw in Mark's text a deliberate pointer to the mystery: 'I have come for this purpose.' What is this 'purpose' we are not told exactly, but we are left to think that it must include preaching and driving out demons. I wonder why 'healing the sick' did not get a place in this list? Is it just an oversight? Can anything be 'just an oversight' when we are reading Mark in this way? Or are we meant to ponder on this until it becomes obvious that healing the sick of their physical ailments is a metaphor that stands for the healing of the mind and heart, the healing of the spirit.
All this may be pretty convoluted, and it should hardly be necessary to go into such unravelling of the text. But then again, why not? How else can we straighten out our warped minds, conditioned as they are to a lifetime of traditional and superficial interpretations of Jesus? I think we have to be ready to cut deep into words and phrases that have lost their impact through familiarity in the hope of laying open the mystery they contain?
If you don't feel any of this is helpful, then ignore it. But if you're not content with the way you've always read it, just stay with the text, and with the question: 'What is it really saying to me?'
Tony Lawless