Ordinary 4

The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

_{Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 95; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28}

Some thoughts and questions on Paul’s teaching for you to consider.

Unmarried Paul seems to think that a spouse divides a person’s loyalties while a single person is solely concerned about pleasing the Lord Jesus. Is that true?

I would beg to differ with the esteemed apostle. Is not a wife rather a source of grace in the Lord Jesus for her husband and the husband a source of grace for his wife? Is not the role of a spouse, going back to Eve and Adam, to walk with each other and draw forth the best from the spouse?

Are not children a source of grace for parents with their gifts of laughter, inquisitiveness, innocence, wonder, and playfulness? Are these not the qualities of the Kingdom of God?

Are not friends, I refer here to those few deep friends as opposed to the mass of acquaintances we each have, [are not friends] a source of grace in the Lord Jesus for people who are single, celibate, widowed and vowed? Friends who challenge us, gently mock our pretensions, call truth from us and pose the difficult questions that we might not want to acknowledge about ourselves.

Spouses, friends, and children teach us and allow us to trust, to laugh and to be playful.

Thus, are not the partnerships, family or a person’s circle of friends a school of holiness? Holiness in the sense that family and friends teach us to first be concerned about the needs of other people. In this, we learn to give of our lives for others as Jesus died for us. How can such an understanding divide a person between a spouse and the Lord Jesus? The Lord Jesus is present in the spouse, the son and daughter and deep friend.

Paul writes that he wants us to be free of anxieties. Life is filled with anxiety, concerns and worry. However, there is a kind of worry that is debilitating, disabling a person from taking action. And a worry that enlivens us as we see a person mature and grow into the individual God has called each of us to be. Second century theologian-bishop and martyr, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, taught, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive!” That is the role of each of us in our various states of life. We are to engage each other to be fully alive.

Paul desires that we encounter the Lord Jesus without distraction. People are not distractions.

I was taught in seminary that the unexpected phone call, the person at the door, the inquiring person was our ministry not an interruption in our work. This is revealed in people’s refrains, “Father, I know how busy you are but… or “That’s why I didn’t call about so-and-so who was sick or dying…” or “I didn’t want to disturb you”.People are to be the ‘business’ of every Christian. As the ghost of Jacob Marley wringing his hands cried out to Scrooge, “Business!Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” _{[A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens]}

How we treat each other. What we can learn from each other. Whom we trust. Whom we walk with and whom we allow to walk with us. The lessons of the school of holiness of friends and family spill over into how we treat the stranger, the immigrant, the homeless and the lonely.

Distractions? In our culture, our phone–computers are the greatest of distractions to the spiritual life and being fully alive than anything else. They are constant distractions with their binging notifications and obnoxious ringtones. Technology is a blessing in so many ways but how many of us are addicted to it? If you want to know of you are addicted to technology or not, turn your phone off and leave it home for a day, even out of reach for a few hours. Observe how your mind and body react. How does a person enter the spiritual life of prayer if we are not comfortable with solitude and silence? Even Jesus goes off by himself to deserted places at times to pray and be refreshed by God.

The pathways to holiness and the Lord Jesus are people; our spouses, very dear friends, children. Our concerns and anxieties over them are the anxieties and concerns of God for us. They are not distractions but our teachers in holiness and maturity in Jesus Christ.

If I may beg your pardon, Paul, our esteemed colleague in the faith.