An Exegetical Reflection on the Gospel of the 15th Sunday of Year B, Mark 6:7-13, July 15, 2012
LIKE
PERFUME AND love, any good news is diffusive.
When Marcos was whisked off to Hawaii during the Edsa Revolution, the
news caught fire. It swiftly spread, and
there was much rejoicing of the people in Esda and in other streets. A victory in battle, a winner by a landslide
in an election, a topnotcher in bar examinations—good news like these is too
good and significant to be ignored. The
same may be said of the Gospel. The word
“gospel” literally means good news—the good news of what God has done to his
people in Jesus. And like anything that
brings glad tidings, it is meant to be announced by those who receive it. That is why, in today’s Gospel, the disciples
of Jesus were told to go on mission—to preach the good news of the kingdom
(Mark 6:7)
The readings today give us a glimpse of
what this mission to preach is all about, and how are we, who received that
mission by virtue of baptism, to understand it.
First, although many people stand in awe
and admire tele-evangelists who could draw thousands of listeners, and
eventually make them followers, and even build a business empire, yet, when it
comes to preaching the Gospel, what matters is not the apparent success or
failure of the evangelizer. Rather, what
is of the essence is his fidelity to the Gospel message. Amos denounced Jeroboam’s government of
injustice and inhuman policies, and delivered God’s word against him that
Amaziah, the priest, thus summarized: “Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and
Israel shall surely be exiled from its land” (Amos 7:11). It did not matter that his message was not
accepted by Jeroboam and Amaziah; after all, he was not a political opportunist
who would adulterate the message to make it palatable to his hearers. What was
important was that Amos was faithful to God’s word to him: “Go, prophesy to my
people Israel” (Amos 7:13). In the
gospel, the disciples were told that the people could refuse them (Mark 6:11),
obviously because the gospel message could be disturbing to their complacent
lives. What the Lord sent him for, the
preacher must talk.
Second, the proclamation of the Word
must be free. It is not meant to protect
or to be subservient to particular interests, social classes or ideologies, or
to the State. A preacher must not defang
the gospel out of consideration for money or bribery. Though he was aware of the power of the King
to retaliate, Amos did not emasculate the word by, for example, making it sweet
to the ears of Amaziah. On the contrary,
he denounced the injustice in selling the poor for sandals (Amos 2:6) while the
rich drank from the basin (Amos 6:4), and the corruption that resulted from
prosperity. He called spade a spade,
even if this was not pleasing to the ears of the King, and would lead to his
persecution. He made no compromises with
the King.
Third, the proclaimer cannot lose sight
of the purpose of preaching: it is intended not simply that the hearers will
know the word of the Lord, for its purpose is not primarily information about
God and man. Far more than mere
intellectual knowledge, the word of God being preached has for its main purpose
the freedom of man from all evil that oppresses him (Amos 2:6-7) on the one
hand, and the restoration of the whole man (Mark 6:13) on the other. This includes forgiveness of sins through
Christ who redeemed mankind (cf Eph 1:7-8), making all believers into one
community under the headship of Christ, and under the Fatherhood of God in the
Spirit (vv 8-13). In other words,
preaching has for its purpose the total salvation of man in all the aspects of
his life. It is not meant to entertain
the listeners so they could forget their sufferings, nor to praise and adore
God oblivious of the conditions under which people suffer. After, the good news in the Gospel is that
God came here to free us from all evil and give us new life.
The last element that we ought to know
about proclamation on the basis of the readings today has something to do with
the messenger, unlike those already mentioned which have reference to the
message. The gospel demands that the
preacher should be poor. As the Markan
Jesus instructed, the preacher is not to take anything on his journey—no food,
no traveling bag, not a coin in the purse of his belt, no second tunic (Mark
6:8-9). Of course, the point is not that
the missionary in our time has to get rid of his car, empty his freezer, throw
away his credit cards. Rather, it is
that his lifestyle must be such that other people will see in him the living
word of God. If he is to be credible to
his hearers, he cannot but remove everything that gets in the way of his
proclamation of the word. In the 13th
century, Francis of Assisi made it clear to all that Jesus’ instruction can be
followed, and poverty made his message highly believable. In many cases, the medium is also the
message. A consumerist preacher is a
contradiction in terms.
This is what it means to proclaim the
Good News of the Kingdom of God. Today,
God has not ceased to commission people to preach it. And as baptized Christians, we already
received that mission when we were anointed to share the prophetic aspect of
Christ’s life. That is why, every
Sunday, nay, every day, the instruction is given to us in the liturgy, when the
celebrant dismisses us, the congregation: “Go, the mass is ended.” What we
heard in the liturgy of the word, what we shared in the liturgy of the
eucharist, we proclaim and share them with the rest of humanity—in our homes,
in the market, at the office, in streets.
The message of salvation has to spread.
No comments:
Post a Comment