Sixteenth Sunday in Ord Time B (2021-4) Boarbank Hall
Like sheep without a shepherd (Mk 6:30-34)
The disciples returned to Jesus after their missionary outing. He decided it was time for a rest together where they could be alone. This was not to be. The crowd saw where he was going and anticipated the arrival. Moved with compassion (and only God and Jesus are said to be so ‘moved’ in the whole Bible), Jesus described them as like sheep without a shepherd…and began to teach them. We must wonder how teaching as we understand the reality could be of any help to an illiterate crowd who seemed to have infinite time on their hands. His healing presence would have given him enormous prestige. That had symbolic force; what he promised for the age to come he delivered in the present. The blind see, the lame walk .. and the poor have the gospel preached to them. This was his reply to the question from John the Baptist- recorded in Mt 11;3 ff. and in Luke (but seemingly not in Mark). It meant he was the Messiah already with them.
The Future
What could the ordinary folk of Jesus’ day have understood as their future? It Is with the metaphor of a shepherd caring for his sheep that he encourages them to believe in him. Yet the ordinary life of every day carried on unchanged. What those who listened to him heard from him was that Loving God and Loving One’s Neighbour was life’s purpose. What else could one do during the short time any ordinary person lives on earth? The test of whether one loved God was in the evidence of how one related with the neighbour. Many people will say: But I do not believe in God. The attitude of Jesus towards such people was determined on how they treated their neighbour. He did not ask them to make correct doctrinal statements on the nature of the God they did not believe in. The parable of The Good Samaritan is indicative of what he thought. Having mercy and compassion for a suffering fellow human being is to think of and treat such a person as God does. Probably that is the way that normal human beings live anyway. It is interesting to notice that Capt. Sir Tom Moore in his recently published autobiography cited The Good Samaritan as an inspiration for the life he led, culminating with a vast monetary contribution to the NHS as he entered his hundredth year. (Doubtlessly he was influenced by the Sunday School of his childhood and being a young chorister but he laid emphasis on the teaching of Jesus through the parable of the Good Samaritan. Unfortunately his family did not emulate him).
Post Covid Reflections
What will most people do with what is our freedom? We have a greater opportunity to interrelate with others. We see the travel people and the hospitality people seeing in this a way to recuperate some of their losses of the past. Many have been in grave personal and financial and social difficulties. The suffering has been real. It has been terrible for the poor, the sick and the aged. Human contact makes the world go round. We need other people and all the time. The Common Good is the name given to honouring the needs of all without exception. The exceptions make their voices heard every day. People of colour feel constantly despised just because of the colour of their skin. Immigrants without legal status are treated as felons. Such experiences are recorded daily. Most of us can do nothing about it- except to examine our own attitude. Love God, love one’s neighbour must be constantly ringing in our ears. There is no easy solution as to what to do, nor even what to think in the face of the issues that cause mass migration and often the heartless profiteers that makes it possible. The world is full of warring factions, the reasons for which we cannot possibly fathom. So where does that leave us?
The Local Community
We must participate more fully in local Church liturgy and ecclesial activities. We receive our ideals in and from the local community in communion with the universal Church. We are not sheep without shepherds. The universal Church is always massively engaged in trying to do good. The local Church is the universal Church made present in its faith and commitment. The old catechism answer to the question why God made me remains permanently valid: to know love and serve him…in loving the neighbours. To do so we need freedom, and with freedom we make choices, about how we should pray, and relate, and use our talents for and with others. Freedom is not just a release from all and every restraint, it is a necessary human attribute conditioned by our own and the needs of others.
Conclusion
I suppose the greatest compliment one human being can give to another is to say “You have taken away my loneliness”. Their absence is our loneliness. We recall how Jesus foresaw and preempted the sorrow his absence would cause: “Behold I am with you always even to the close of the age”….such was the way he understood the unsurpassable importance of constant presence. Surely this is the greatest promise ever recorded in human history. ‘I will not leave you desolate’ (Jn 14;18-RSV). This assurance of His presence has been a constant source of consolation to believers ever since. The Real Presence is the continuous realisation of this promise every day. It continues the promise of presence: Emmanuel…God with us. It is the continuous actualisation of the incarnation. God became man and dwelt among us. His presence in the sacrament, in the congregation celebrating it, in the kindness and goodness of his faithful fulfil his promises. Humanly we are made for each other. As believers we rely on each other. We need freedom to express such interrelationships, in public and in private, above all personally. At one level this freedom in the post pandemic experience is now being restored to us and it gives us the chance to consider in depth what it means to be a person, and what we owe to a community. Such freedom brings responsibility- if it remains conditioned by ourselves it will also be in the interest of others. Looking round the world there is no room for complacency. There is much to pray for. Amen.
Rev. Richard J.Taylor
MCI Spiritual Advisor
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