Fear not! Here is your God!
by Fr. David M. Knight
Sunday, September 8, 2024
Twenty-Third Sunday of the Year
Lectionary 128
Is 35:4-7a/Jas 2:1-5/Mk 7:31-37
How do you feel about the world situation? About the condition of the Church? Are those feelings mainly determined by what you believe about God?
See and Do Not Fear
Isaiah 35:4-7 addresses “those whose hearts are frightened.” Wouldn’t this include everyone who watches the news or is keeping up with the problems in the Church? We feel like saying, “If you’re not worried, you don’t understand the situation!”
But God says, “Be strong, fear not!” Why? Because of what we can count on God to do: “He comes to save you.” If we factor in God, then Churchill’s words to the British in World War II are true: “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”
God’s salvation is connected with knowing truth, facing it and acknowledging it: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared.” Jesus made the same connection:
If you make my word your home, you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:31-32, New Jerusalem Bible)
As long as we are not afraid to face truth—the truth of actual events and the truth of God’s guiding word, we have nothing to fear from anything. Whenever we see people acting out of fear, then, as “stewards of the mysteries of God,” we need to summon them to “read and heed” God’s word.
A Contradiction
The leaders in the early Church were not afraid to face reality. James 2:1-5 is saying the community he addressed was a living contradiction to the Gospel, even at Mass!
Do not let class distinction enter into your faith in Jesus Christ.... Suppose a man comes into your assembly well dressed and with a gold ring on, and at the same time a poor man comes in, in shabby clothes, and you take notice of the well-dressed man and say, ‘Come this way to the best seats’; then you tell the poor man, ‘Stand over there’ or ‘You can sit on the floor....’ In making this distinction among yourselves, have you not used a corrupt standard? (New Jerusalem Bible translation.)
Let’s face our own reality. In how many of our parishes would the ushers escort a street person up to the front pews? And how many pastors or bishops pay as much attention to a call or letter from a “nobody” as to one from a rich benefactor? This is just natural.
And that is the point. We keep using the natural, “corrupt standard” of human society instead of letting the truth of the Gospel “set us free.” But—and this is the point we have to stay with—we don’t have to keep doing that. There is nothing in the Church, no abuse, that we cannot remedy by taking God’s word seriously and giving it voice in our words. We just have to stop being the “silent majority” in the pews and speak up to reveal the “consensus of the faithful.” This is the age of stewardship, when the Church is urging the laity to live their baptismal consecration as kings by taking responsibility for guiding the government of the Church through leadership. But it has to be everyone. The rich and powerful have always exerted influence over the bishops and in Rome. They find it natural. But now everyone has to speak up. James said, “Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom...?” If we are the heirs of the kingdom, we had better fight for it. The Church we accept today is the Church we will leave to our children.
A Solution
Do you feel daunted? Discouraged? Do you think it “just isn’t going to happen”? That people will not speak out, and authorities will not listen if they do? In Mark 7:31-37 Jesus shows us in preview what he can do and how.
“Some people brought him a deaf man who had a speech impediment.” The key to speaking out is listening. First we have to listen to the word of God. We have to take responsibility as “stewards of the mysteries of God,” for becoming familiar with what has been entrusted to us. We need to read the Bible and also the documents of Vatican II, the voice of the Spirit, who spoke to the whole church through the united episcopacy in our time. If we don’t study these two books, we are not adequately educated to exercise leadership in the Church today. But if we will do our part—open them!—Jesus will do his part and “open our ears.”
“Jesus took him off by himself away from the crowd.” To listen to Jesus, we have to take a distance from the voices of “the crowd.” The “crowd” is not a community. The “crowd” is the unorganized, unreflective, unemancipated mass of those who swing with the phases of the moon and set up the tides of cultural motivations and movements. The crowd is deaf to the voice of God and creates too much noise for others to hear it. So Jesus leads us out into the wilderness, or tells us to “put out into deep water,” where we can listen to him and hear our own hearts in quiet reflection and prayer.
It helps us do this if we gather with others to discuss what we have read and heard. A “community” are those with a “common unity” that distinguishes and emancipates them from the “crowd.”
“Then he looked up to heaven and emitted a groan. He said to him ‘Ephphatha!’ (that is, ‘be opened!’).”
Opening ears to truth is not always easy. Jesus “groaned” like this over the Pharisees’ refusal to listen when he “sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign?’”
The Greek root for “groan” is the same Paul uses to say the “whole creation has been groaning in labor pains,” and “ we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we await... the redemption of our bodies.”
In this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling... For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish... that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
But we have confidence:
He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident.(See Mark 8:11-12; Romans 8:19-23; 2Corinthians 5:1-6)
We may think there are eyes in the Church that will never be opened, including our own. But Jesus is the one who “groans” in prayer for us, and his prayers are always answered.
The bottom line is that we are never discouraged by the condition of the Church or the world. We simply persevere, as stewards of the kingship of Christ, to keep preparing the human race for the “wedding banquet of the Lamb.” There, all will be filled with Jesus himself, the Bread of heaven and Bread of Life. This is the Bread we long for when we pray, “Give us this day our [future] bread.” And since this Bread is only served at a communal banquet, we ask for the prerequisite of the wedding feast: total, universal forgiveness uniting all in the “peace and unity of the kingdom”: “And forgive us... as we forgive.”
Isaiah was describing the Church:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God... he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; the lame will leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing....
A highway will be there, called the holy way.... It is for those with a journey to make, and on it the redeemed will walk. Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy.
Insight: Do I see clearly now that our hope is in God and it is not misplaced?
Initiative: Express praise or make a proposal to your pastor or bishop. Write, phone or text.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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