Words of Joy & Hope
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A good Sunday to all.
Last week we saw the failure that Jesus had in Nazareth; not only his fellow villagers but also his relatives did not believe in him; they stood firm in their positions, in what they had always considered being right. And here we have a first important message for us: you can love Jesus as his fellow villagers because the relatives loved Jesus; they esteemed him. One can love Jesus without believing in him. Why does this happen? We say if we had been in Nazareth, we would have said Yes to Jesus. And it's true; if we reasoned as we do today, we would have said yes.
The inhabitants of Nazareth said NO because they understood what it meant to say Yes; to adhere to the Gospel means to say Yes to change the image of God means to change the image of a successful man; it means to change the image of society. These were too radical changes that Jesus required, and they said NO. How is it that we say Yes so quickly? Because we love Jesus, we love him, but we have not understood what it means to say Yes, to believe in the Gospel. When we listen to the beatitudes, we say 'how beautiful,' and we feel like disciples of Jesus because we admire what he said, and also we are convinced to practice a little bit what he says. Still, when we think about the ideal person that he proposes to us: the one who makes himself poor, the one who puts all that he possesses, all his abilities not at the service of his enjoyment, of his pleasure, but at the service of the life and joy of his brother and sister, even of his enemy, even of the one who has harmed him, we feel an inner repulsion when we understand this.
Until we experience this repulsion means that we have not understood because of the law of the flesh (says Paul); what comes to us instinctively with the immediate impulse is contrary to what the Spirit proposes to us. When we consider what Jesus said about those two sons: the first one to whom the father addresses and tells him 'go work in the vineyard,' and he says Yes, then he doesn't go. When he understands what it entails, he doesn't go, but the second one who immediately says NO and then goes, he says NO because he has understood what it entails to adhere to what the father says; only afterward, he gives it the adherence.
Here is the importance for us: the necessity of making the experience that the inhabitants of Nazareth have made. The first answer that comes to us instinctively, and we must make this experience, is to say NO. Let us remember the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son when he says to his father: You are not righteous because you treat a runaway just as I who work, who give myself to work, always obey, it is not fair. Here is the repulsion that is felt before the proposal of a new face of God that Jesus of Nazareth makes. Or what happens to Jonah, who says to God: You are not just because you do not punish the Ninevites. This is the first message that we can already take from what happened in Nazareth.
What happens now? This is today's gospel passage. In the face of the rejection of his Gospel that happened in Nazareth, and reiterated later in today's Gospel, 'this rejection will happen to you also because it means that they understood what you propose, what my proposal is.' How did Jesus behave? Maybe we would have been discouraged; we would have dropped our arms, Jesus did not; Jesus went out from Nazareth and began to go through all the surrounding villages, preaching the Gospel. And not only did he resume his mission, but let us now hear what he did:
"At that time Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits."
Jesus wanted to put an end to the old world and start the new world; he would have to count on success because it is not easy to adhere to his proposal, but he also knows that he cannot carry out this plan of salvation on his own, he knows that his life is limited; at a certain point, it will end. He must involve the disciples in his project; they are those who have believed in him, have given him their adherence. So, what does Jesus do? He calls them to himself. It's not about approaching him in a material sense; they're already there around him; what does it mean to call them to himself?
Jesus is speaking to us because we are these disciples that he now wants to send out to carry forward his salvation project by announcing the Gospel. To draw near to Jesus means that before we go to announce the Gospel to others, it is necessary to have announced it to oneself; it is necessary to have assimilated it, it is necessary to establish a deep attunement with it, with the person of Jesus, with his choices, with his lifestyle. Only the one who has been with Jesus can go to announce to others and be credible because he will present himself with the joy of the one who has discovered a great treasure and also wants to involve those he loves because he wants them to be happy in this experience of the encounter with Christ.
There is a big difference between giving a math or physics lesson and proclaiming the Gospel. The catechist is not someone who teaches a doctrine but someone who embodies a proposal of life and is happy of having done it and communicates their experience of joy to others. And after having made this experience of being with Christ, one is sent. Jesus sends these disciples. Let us notice that he does not send just anybody, some person who has this task like the priests, the deacons, consecrated persons in the religious life, NO.
Every disciple must feel sent; otherwise, they are not a disciple; they are not involved in this plan of salvation. The disciple who does not feel the need to share with others the gift received is probably not yet convinced that they have discovered the meaning of their own life by finding Christ.
And he sends them out two by two. This is a Jewish usage, for when they wanted to maintain contact between the synagogues, they didn't send one individual only, always a couple, because this is the meaning of being credible people, reliable witnesses. In the New Testament, we see that we often find these couples: Peter and John going to the temple together after the Passover; then, especially when the community of Antioch decides to send heralds that the Messiah has come, they send them to the different synagogues spread throughout the Roman empire; the community of Antioch sends two: Barnabas and Saul; then there will be two more: Barnabas and Mark, Paul and Silas, Paul and Timothy, always in pairs.
This also has an important theological meaning: couple means community, which means that the one who will announce the Gospel is an expression of a community is part of a church. There is a substantial difference between Hinduism, Buddhism, and all the ascetic practices that aim to reach one's liberation, spiritual perfection, or the search for one's inner balance. There is a significant difference with Christianity; these can be lived in solitude, in complete isolation, but not Christianity. It can only be lived in a community, and there must be at least two of us to form a community.
Let's note the joy of being announcers and part of a community, sent by a community, in tune with the thought, with the feelings of a community. The Church is not an association of friends united by mutual sympathy, but by brothers and sisters; friends are chosen, we are responsible for our friendships, not for our brothers and sisters; these are not chosen, and therefore we are united in this community not by sympathy but by the love of Christ which is unconditional and knows no barriers. It may be difficult to be in a community, but we will be credible when we proclaim the Gospel if we are united if we feel part of a community. When we hear about the Church, we don't say 'the Church' but 'my Church,' where I am happy to belong, although she has so many limits, so many defects, I am part of this Church.
Then, Jesus gives power to these envoys, 'exusia' in Greek. This is the only power that Jesus gives to his disciples, no other power. For us, 'power' means the authority to command, give orders, and obey. No, the only authority he gives to his disciples is to cast out unclean spirits and impure spirits. This is what Jesus will say at the end of his life, after the Passover, to the disciples on the mount, as Matthew says: "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me."
What is the power that Jesus received? The power to cast out unclean spirits from the world. What are unclean spirits? He did not give us the power to use holy water for exorcisms. No, unclean spirits are everything that fights against life, everything that dehumanizes. Unclean spirits are the uncontrollable eagerness, the greed, to accumulate goods, to have more and more even at the cost of committing injustice, making wars, and destroying creation. This is a spirit that is against life; if we let it act, it dehumanizes us. We know very well that this unclean spirit moves our world.
Jesus gives us the power to overcome these unclean spirits that we think are invincible. How many times we say it: 'the power of the economy, of finance, who controls them?' This is where Jesus gave us exactly this 'exusia,' this power that is his Word, his Spirit that overcomes all dehumanizing spirits. The unclean spirit pushes people to seek what they like, only what they want. It seems invincible because the instinct leads precisely to this; the inner drive leads to withdrawing into oneself. Jesus has given the power to conquer these dehumanizing spirits. This spirit pushes you to attack, to commit violence, to make wars, the spirit that makes you see those who are different from you as an enemy.
All these spirits create a cruel world, and they seem invincible, and we say it many times: 'this degradation of society'... 'today there is a whole conception of life which is invincible, and it will become even worse.' From the human perspective, evil forces are powerful because it is precisely this instinctive drive that leads in an inhuman direction.
This is what Jesus promises: 'My Word, my Spirit, expels these unclean demons,' but it is necessary to announce this Gospel because where the Gospel reaches, these unclean spirits can no longer stay; it is one or the other. Hence the necessity of announcing this Word. Then, faith is necessary. Whoever does not believe in this authority, in this power that Jesus has given us, will not be able to move and is resigned to let the ancient world continue to dehumanize. Now Jesus explains how the disciples sent to proclaim his Gospel should present themselves.
Let us listen:
"He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic."
Before sending out the disciples, Jesus gives instructions which are introduced by a Greek verb: 'paranghélei,' which means to give orders, and it is the only time in the Gospel according to Mark that Jesus gives orders and that's why they are significant. First of all, he says what they can take for the road, and it's a beautiful image of the disciple who is on a journey; he has no stable abode here but a destiny beyond this world.
What should they carry with them? A walking stick. An interesting detail; Mark says that Jesus permitted to take a walking stick, while Matthew and Luke say not to carry it. Why? These walking sticks have different meanings. According to Matthew and Luke, it is the symbol of the weapon of the poor; this is what in Matthew is forbidden. Matthew is the evangelist who, more than the others, insists on the nonviolence of the disciple; and only Matthew refers to the phrase of Jesus to Peter "Put the sword back in the sheath." The new world is not built by violence. This is why everything that recalls instruments of violence is excluded in the Gospel, according to Matthew.
Instead, the walking stick has a different meaning in today's passage as found in the bible. To fulfill his mission to perform wonders, God gives Moses the staff with which he divides the Red Sea and makes the water flow from the rock. It symbolizes the power that God gives to the disciple who must carry out an extraordinary mission. Well then, also the disciple of Christ, who must change the world announcing the Gospel, carries with him a staff, symbol of the power that God gives. And this is the only power on which the disciple must learn, the power of the Word and the Spirit of Christ; not in alliances with the powers of this world, not in money, no, that spoils everything.
And then we hear about what they should not take with them, and Jesus resorts to paradoxes. But we must be careful not to give reductive interpretations to his words because this would disfigure his message and deprive it of its provocative content. A very delicate subject is one of the Church's assets. We know all the criticisms that the secular world makes of the Church, precisely because of the riches it possesses, because of the grandeur of certain structures.
Well, what does Jesus tell the disciple? They should present themselves as people who use the goods of this world but detach themselves from them, not to absolutize them. Christians thanks the Creator; they do not despise the goods of this world because they know that they are gifts given by God for the life of his sons and daughters, but the center of the message that the disciple is called to proclaim is the ultimate destiny of man's life; it is a life that goes beyond this life, and if the disciple begins to accumulate goods, implies that they are also engaged in this world as if it were their ultimate destiny. They cannot go around preaching the values of the Gospel.
When you have the necessities of life, when you have your daily bread, the rest belongs to the brother and the sister, also because the disciple always keeps in mind that in the customs house, at the end of life, all goods of this world which have not been given to the brothers and sisters and, therefore, have not been transformed into love, will be requisitioned.
Let us remember how the first disciples had put into practice this disposition of Jesus. When Peter and John go to the temple, they find that paralytic at the Beautiful Gate, and Peter says to him, "Look at us," and the paralytic expects alms, but Peter says to him, "I have neither silver nor gold; I give you only what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ walk." And Paul, in a beautiful passage, that speech in the 20th chapter of the book of Acts, when he greets the elders of Ephesus, and he says to them, "You know that for my needs and the needs of those who were with me, these hands of mine have labored, and yet I have shown you that you must help the weak by laboring as I have done, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, who said 'it is more blessed to give than to receive,'" a phrase of Jesus that is not preserved in the gospels but was preserved by Paul.
Therefore, only what is necessary, but do not accumulate, otherwise the disciple could not proclaim the Gospel; if he proclaims it, it will not be credible. "Take no food, no sack"... Why? Simply because it is spoiled. The disciple is not allowed to keep provisions for the next day. The bread which the disciple asks the Father for is his daily bread, and if he has any left-over, they will give it to the hungry and the needy.
Then, "no money in their belts." This is a finesse that is worth remembering. Money is called here 'jalkós,' in Greek is copper. Copper and bronze were used to make a change, not gold or silver. Here Jesus says, the disciple must not keep with him even small change. We are in the paradox but let us try not to lose the provocative sense of these dispositions of Jesus. Let us remember what the wise man asks in the book of Proverbs, in chapter 30; he asks two things to the Lord, and he says: 'Do not withhold from me, O God, before I die, two things; I ask you not to give me poverty and not to give me riches; let me have my piece of bread. Why do I ask these two things? Because if you give me riches, I could say to the Lord I am no longer interested in you because I have all that I like; do not give me poverty because, in poverty, I might steal or even curse.' These are the two things that the wise man asks for: neither riches nor poverty.
Throughout the centuries, we know that the Church has paid dearly for her attachment to the goods of this world and alliances with the political powers and, thus, has lost credibility. Let us recall some words of Bishop Hilary of Poitiers in the fourth century when Constans, the son of Constantine, had begun not to persecute the Church but to favor her, says Hilary of Poitiers: 'We no longer have an anti-Christian emperor who persecutes us, but we must fight against a much more insidious persecutor, an enemy who does not persecute us but flatters us, does not scourge our skin but caresses our bellies, he does not confiscate our goods because he would give us back our life, but enriches us to give us death. He does not push us toward freedom by putting us in prison, but towards slavery by inviting us to palace parties; he does not strike our bodies, but takes hold of our hearts, does not cut off our heads with the sword, but kills our souls with money.' This is why he warned his disciples (which is us) about the inappropriate relationship with this world's goods.
Then, "they were, however, to wear sandals." Here he speaks of clothing. Interestingly, Luke forbids sandals because Luke insists on the poverty with which the disciples present themselves, the total detachment from this world's goods. In Israel, they went barefoot, but Mark writes in a different context; he writes for the Romans, and in Rome, the beggars and slaves went barefoot, but the disciples must not present themselves for what they are not; they are not beggars, they are not slaves, they are people detached people of this world's goods, but free. This is the reason why they must go in sandals.
"That they should not have a second tunic." The tunic means that even the dress is reduced to the essential, the indispensable. And this one tunic also has another meaning. The New Testament continuously insists that the disciple is clothed with Christ; this is the only robe that they must wear, not two robes: one robe of Christ when they are in the Church then later, when it comes to money or other things, they wear the pagan robe. This meaning of the one tunic we have it in the letter to the Romans; Paul says: "Clothe yourselves with the Lord;" that whosoever meets you must see Christ in your words, in your way of reasoning, in your way of acting, see the person of Christ. The tunic indicates how we appear on the outside. And the letter to the Ephesians says, "put on the new man." In the letter to the Colossians: "Put on tenderness, kindness, humility, meekness, Magnanimity." Therefore, not two lifestyles, that is, living in duplicity, in ambiguity.
Preaching: they are sent; he foresees that they may be well received and that they may be rejected. How should the disciple behave when they are not well received and when they are well received?
Let us listen:
He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them." So, they went off and preached repentance. They drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them."
What will happen to the disciples who are sent to announce the Gospel? First, Jesus says that the disciples sent out to proclaim the Gospel to wait for someone to come looking for them; they must be the ones to take the message to the people in their homes, that is, in all the environments in which they live, at work, in politics, in sports, even in entertainment, Christians present themselves embodying a proposal of life that is not pagan. They behave, reason, speak and live in a different way than the pagans. And they will also announce with the word the reason why they make these choices.
What will happen? They can be accepted or rejected, and here Jesus gives some indications that concern the missionaries who are going to announce the Gospel, but the message is also addressed to the whole Church. "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there." What does it mean? That you visit only one family and then that's it, you're done, and you neglect everyone else? This is not the meaning. Jesus says that whoever goes to announce the Gospel will find good, pious, and generous people who will be close to them, who will help them and also offer them hospitality.
The first lodging is never the best; it is always a surprise accommodation; the missionaries who have gone to distant lands know it well; it is a very precarious condition in which one tries to adapt oneself to live as one can. Then it happens that the missionaries certainly meet people who are well disposed of, good towards them. They receive the offer of a more comfortable residence, then an even better one, and so on until they end up settling in palaces. Here is the danger; Jesus recommends staying in the first house; the disciples are asked to give testimony of an austere and sober life, alien to any expectation of the use of wealth. Credibility is at the stake of the mission itself.
This is true for missionaries, but it is also true for the whole Church. When there is even the shadow of wealth, of pomp, the Gospel loses credibility. It is also an invitation to trust in hospitality. In the Gospel of Luke, in chapter 22, Jesus asks the disciples: "When I sent you out without purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything? They answered: Nothing." The one who announces the Gospel must trust in the presence of the Lord their life who accompanies them, who assists them.
They can be accepted, but they can also be rejected; how to behave? Jesus says: "leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them." This gesture of shaking the dust was made by every Israelite when he went out of the pagan land and entered the holy land; he did not have to bring with him even the dust of the pagan land. In Jesus' mouth, this gesture has a different meaning. It is not a rejection of the pagans or those who do not accept the gospel message; the original text says: "as a testimony for them," in their favor. Here, the fact of leaving the pagan in his condition means respect to his options.
A Christian cannot be a scold, cannot bother people by shouting his faith, his reasons. No, he's making a life proposal, and it is a proposal to which he adheres out of love, therefore, in total freedom. The disciples are sent to propose life, not to enter ideological battles; there is no sense in a televised debate in which each one tries to shout more than the others. This is not the way to proclaim the Gospel.
The goal, even for Christians, is not to get conversions and increase numbers. He must only faithfully announce the word of Christ incarnating it in their life. Adherence or rejection, the more or less abundant fruits do not depend on them but on the kind of soil in which this seed of the Gospel falls. But this shaking the dust from his sandals also has another meaning.
I would say that when one enters pagan land, it is inevitable that a bit of dust of paganism sticks to your clothes, and when you return to your own home, this dust must be removed. Let's take a simple example: if I enter a dialogue with someone who is very far from the evangelical proposal, he will reason in a way completely different; for this person, everything is allowed, everything is lawful... there is no need to be a medievalist, retrograde... Let's be careful because these pagan speeches end up leaving some pagan dust in us. When we come back home, the contact with the Gospel must purify us also from this dust.
The conclusion is that the disciples go out and preach, announcing the 'metánoia,' conversion, leaving behind the pagan way of living and reasoning and welcoming the new life, the new world proposed by Christ. In fact, with the power that Jesus gave them, they cast out many demons where the Gospel reaches; they are the demons that we were talking about; they can no longer remain, and here is the healing of a whole society that is converted into a truly human society, that is, composed of sons and daughters of God and living as brothers and sisters.
I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.