The Ministry of Light
by Fr. David M. Knight
June 30, 2024
Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Lectionary 98
Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24/2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15/Mk 5:21-43 or 5:21-24, 35b-43
Inventory
How do you feel about death? We know that death — both our own and the tragic death of those we love — is a fact of life. Do you also see life as a fact of death?
Input
The Responsorial Psalm gives a reason that applies to the afflicted: “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me” (Psalm 30). The Psalmist is not naïve; he does not deny the reality of suffering. But he sees that what we see when we suffer is not all there is to be seen: “O Lord, you have raised my soul from the dead… restored me to life…. changed my mourning into dancing.” It is true that “at night there are tears, but joy comes with the dawn.” For this reason, we say in any grief, “My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning,” because we know that “by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us.” Our joy is in proportion to our hope. Our hope is in proportion to what we see. See Luke: 1:78.
As Christians we are charged with the ministry of light. It is our privilege and our responsibility to communicate to others — in words, but even more so in deeds and demeanor — the unseen truth that changes everyone’s perception of this world into an experience of mystery, a recognition of the divine, that gives everyone reason to exclaim, “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.”
The divine in death
Wisdom 1:13 to 2:24 tells us eight things touching death that might not be apparent to all of us all the time:
Death was not in God’s original plan.
God does not like it when living things (or persons) die.
God created all things that they might be (St. Augustine defined love as desiring that people “be and become all they can be” — esse et bene esse).
Everything God made has something good and “healthy” in it. Nothing is purely bad or hopeless.
Nothing God created is defective or flawed by nature [although we know that accidents do happen, sometimes even at birth].
Death holds no power on earth, because “virtue is undying.”
Human beings are imperishable, because we are in the image of God.
The devil’s envy brought death into the world.
These statements appear in today’s first reading in the same order as above. They invite reflection.
Life is a fact of death
Mark 5:21-43 shows us seven of these statements verified and embodied in the ministry of Jesus:
1 & 2: The synagogue official believed that death is not something God (or Jesus as a man of God) finds normal or desires. He trusted that God did not want his little daughter to die any more than he did: “Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may… live.”
3: He trusted that Jesus wanted his daughter to be and be well: “Come… so that she may be made well …”
4 & 5: The woman in the crowd with a chronic ailment knew there was health in her body that could prevail with God’s help, although doctors had failed. She did not accept sickness fatalistically as just a part of life. “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” And Jesus said, when told the little girl had died, “The child is not dead but sleeping.”
6 & 7: When news came that the girl had died, Jesus said to her father, “Do not fear, only believe.” Then he “took her by the hand and said to her… ‘Little girl, get up!’”
The response of both father and daughter to their encounter with Jesus was certainly, “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.” But it is equally the response of all those whose loved ones have not been restored to life by a miracle. What we know by faith and see when we look at death in the light of faith is that no single one of us really dies. When we appear to die, we are simply falling asleep to wait for Jesus to take us by the hand and raise us up. The miracle in the Gospel is just one story that affirms our faith in this. But all of us — by the way we live, by the way we respond to threats and sorrows, and by the way we die — affirm it constantly to one another. This is the ministry of light.
Living is dying to self
2Corinthians 8:7-15 reminds us that loving is sharing. One of the first visible characteristics of the Christian life was that “All who believed were together and had all things in common.” Some would literally “sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” But whether their sharing took this particular form or not, is was radically true that “the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.”
Even when Christians keep their property, they know their ownership is not “private.” Everything belongs to God, and God entrusts what we have to us to use for the common good of all—for the whole human race. We are not so much “owners” of anything as “stewards” of what belongs to God. Everything is his, and what he has given to us we have explicitly and personally given back to God by accepting to “die” in Baptism. Then God placed it again in our hands to manage for him as his stewards, until Christ comes again.
To accept Baptism is to accept death: we die in advance. By Baptism we “present our bodies as a living sacrifice” to be incorporated into the body of Jesus hanging on the cross. When he died, we died in him. When he rose, we rose in him — and let him rise again in us — to continue his physical presence and ministry on earth as his risen body until he comes again. Henceforth, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.” We and all we have are his.
If we look at life and death in the clarifying light of faith, we see that it is ultimately irrelevant whether we give up or retain legal ownership of our property. Ownership of anything on earth is just a “holding operation” until Christ comes again. In the meantime, we manage for him everything he has entrusted to us.
In practice this means sharing everything with everyone, insofar as this is possible and practical. Christians see the whole human race as called to be and share with each other as one family:
for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
What is true of our possessions is true of our time: it all belongs to Jesus. We just manage it for him. And we strive to do this with the “mind of Christ,” who shares with us everything he has and is:
You know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Ministry does not always take time; it is often just matter of expressing love through a smile or a word. But sometimes it does, and then Paul reminds us that sharing both money and time with others does “not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance.” As prudent managers of what is God’s we are responsible for taking care of ourselves as well as of others. To be totally given does not have to mean that we are totally “given out” at the end of every day! Sometimes the gift of restraining prudence will make us say, “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me” — from my workaholic self!
Insight: How does the light of faith clarify life and death for me now?
Initiative: Try to see how every word and action of your day can be a gift to others.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
