January 14, 2019

THE BEGINNING OF 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  MARK

INTRODUCTION

Today as we begin the Gospel of Mark, for a homily I’d like to preach on 3 points:

1) Some quick opening reflections on the Gospel of Mark

2) A brief reference to Jesus’ opening message about the Kingdom—as we heard it in today’s gospel

3) A few comments about Jesus calling ordinary people: Peter, Andrew, James and John.

1) THE GOSPEL OF MARK

Today we begin Ordinary Time with the Gospel of Mark—Monday the first week in OT and we’ll have Mark till Monday, the tenth week in OT.

In year B, on Sundays, we have The Gospel of Mark on Sundays till the 16 Sunday in OT—with time out for Lent and Easter.  However, this year - is the year of Luke for Sundays.

So some quick comments on Mark.

Mark is most probably the first of the 4 Gospels, so it’s a good place to start. It’s only 16 chapters. It can be read in one sitting.

Mark is practical. Mark is visual. Mark is details. No frills. All action. No fluff, stuff. He does not tell too many parables, stories, sayings of Jesus—especially the little images, but rather he’s into action. He tells what Jesus did more than what Jesus said.

“Jesus went about doing good.”

He does not give us the infancy stuff. That’s fluff.

No, he starts off with John the Baptist and then gets right to the point: Jesus.

Jesus then does stuff right around Galilee—in the north—then Jesus goes south.

He get to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He cleans out the temple. He is arrested and killed.

Then he rises from the dead, tells his disciples to “Go into the whole world and preach what I told you—the Kingdom—to all people.”

2) THE KINGDOM

So that’s Jesus in a nutshell according to Mark. It’s about the Kingdom.

It’s about being in the Kingdom—living in the Kingdom—living in the Kingdom of God.

We don’t start there, so we are called there—to change and enter that kingdom.

Picture yourself in a room—better picture yourself as a room. It’s filled. It’s filled with so much stuff that to go to bed you have to take stuff off your bed and you put it on your desk. And to work at your desk, you got to take the stuff off your desk and put it on your bed—and that’s what you do day after day after day and night after night after night all through your life.

Finally someone says, “You don’t have to do it that way, stupid!”

You say, “There is? What is it?”

And the other person says, “Get rid of everything that you don’t need and you’ll have all the space you need.”

Change! Repent! Turn around! See everything different. Start doing things differently.

The Purgative Way is the emptying way.

The next stage is The Illuminative Way.

So my second point simply is Jesus message to change. To see differently, to do different, to be different.

That’s Good News if you are sick and tired of being dragged down by your own nonsense.

I can change. That’s good news. I can become light.

3) THE CALLING

My third point is the calling. The simple call: “Come follow me!”

I read a quote from a man by the name of Lew Wallac. Picture or listen to his account of deciding to follow Christ compared to the calling and letting go and following Christ by Peter, Andrew, James and John, in today’s gospel—how they were called, let go, and followed Jesus immediately.

After six years given to impartial investigation of Christianity, as to its truth of falsity, I have come to the deliberate conclusion that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of the Jews, the Savior of the world, and my personal Saviour.”

That’s some contrast.

We are both.

Some of us made our move fast and took 6 years + to reflect upon it.

Some take six years and then jump at the right moment.

So I advise you to have Jesus Christ come to your boat and see what he sees in you.

Barclay, commenting on this text sees Jesus knowing these guys beforehand  -- at least to have watched them.

Barclay also makes a second point and that is that these are common men, common slobs, that Jesus mixed with, the common folk.

If you ever get to New York City, take the subway. Look around. You'll be with common folk.

What is your attitude towards common folk?

George Bernard Shaw, “I have never had any feeling for the working-classes, except a desire to abolish them, and replace them with sensible people.”

John Galsworthy has one of his characters in his book, The Patrician, say, “The mob! How I loathe it. I hate its mean stupidity. I hate the sound of its voice , and the look of its face—it’s so ugly, so little. “

Carlyle, in a fit of anger, once said that there were twenty seven million people in England, mostly fools.

Jesus did not talk or feel that way about people.

Lincoln, quoted by Barclay, said, “God must love the common folk—he made so many of them.”

So Jesus called common people, ordinary people, in an ordinary time, to be his extraordinaly disciples.

So too us!

We can say that he’s calling us.

Our move.

Our choice.

CONCLUSION

So those are three reflections to keep in mind today as we begin the Gospel of Mark here in Ordinary Time—up till Ash Wednesday (March 6th this year).