Adoration & Bible Study Tonight

The Lord Be With You!

This Sunday will be the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time and here are the readings:

READING 1: Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Moses spoke to all the people, saying: "A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you
from among your own kin; to him you shall listen. This is exactly what you requested of the LORD, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.' And the LORD said to me, 'This was well said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him. Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.'"

READING 2: 1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.

GOSPEL: Mark 1:21-28
Then they came to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are? the Holy One of God!"
Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet! Come out of him!" The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him." His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

Fighting evil Christ's way
"Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties." 1 Corinthians 7:32

When asked, "What was Jesus' first miracle?" most of us respond, "Changing water into wine at Cana in Galilee." That's correct if we're dealing with John's Gospel; but wrong if we're talking about the other three.

Since those who originally read the Gospels already believed in Jesus' divinity, evangelists employ miracles not to prove Jesus is God, but to show what kind of God he is. The first miracle sets the theme for the rest of the Gospel.

Just as it's significant for John's Jesus to replace the water of Judaism with the wine of Christianity, so it's significant for Mark's Jesus to begin his ministry by curing a demoniac (Mark 1:21-28).

During Jesus' earthly ministry, demons were thought of as agents of evil. But unlike our day and age, demons reached far beyond just perpetrating moral evil. When something bad or painful happened, demons were behind it. Two thousand years ago, evil and demons were synonymous.

Confronting Evil
That's why it's essential to Mark's theology that Jesus' first miracle is an exorcism. If we're to be like Jesus, then we are to eradicate evil wherever we find it. When today's Capernaum demon asks, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?" the Christian response is an emphatic, "Yes!"

If we accept the call to imitate Jesus, then there should be less evil in the world when we go to bed at night than there was when woke up that morning.

No doubt this passion to eradicate evil is also behind Paul's suggestion to the unmarried in Corinth to remain unmarried (the only passage in the Christian Scriptures which addresses celibacy).

The Apostle begins this section of his letter (I Corinthians 7:32-35) by stating, "I have no commandment from the Lord," on this issue. Everything he writes on the topic is "my opinion."

His instruction is based on two premises. First, as we heard last week, "time is running out." Jesus' Parousia is just around the corner and may disrupt marriage plans. Second, unmarried people are better able to carry out Jesus' plan to destroy evil than those who are committed to a spouse.

Marriage Okay
Since we're hearing Paul's words 2,000 years after they were first written, it's clear he was wrong about his first premise. He probably never would have encouraged anyone to live an entire natural life unmarried.

Regarding Paul's second premise, if you've seen the movie Amazing Grace you remember how William Wilberforce's wife Barbara was the major force and support behind his struggle against slavery in the British Empire during the early l9th century. He would never have succeeded in eradicating that horrific evil had he remained single.

But no matter what we think about marriage or celibacy, we must never forget Paul's disclaimer: "I tell you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you . . ."

Our Deuteronomy author hits the evil-eradicating nail on the head (Deut. 18:15-20) when he reminds his people that Yahweh will always supply us with prophets: people who cut through culture, security and even organized religion, to point out what evils should be on our eradication list.

Those who refuse to recognize or try to silence the prophets among us usually believe our culture and religion have disposed of all the evil God wants eradicated. Without prophets we have no list.

Join us Thursday @ 7:00PM in Adoration of our risen Lord, then Bible Study following!

THE DUDE ABIDES Jn 15:4
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not want to understand, no explanation is possible.

Jim Krieger
Lay Mystic