Word to the Wise
Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - Wednesday in the 2nd Week in Ordinary Time
[Heb 7:1-3, 15-17 and Mark 3:1-6]Then he said to the Pharisees, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?" But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death. [Mark]
We are only in the third chapter of the Gospel According to Mark and Jesus is making mortal enemies both political and religious. The political ones are the Herodians, whose position rested on Roman favor. They would not want some Rabbi from a small town to be creating a disturbance that would upset the Romans. The religious ones are the Pharisees (and others - scribes and Sadducees and Elders). The Pharisees arose during the time of the Maccabees when Jewish faith was threatened by Greek culture sponsored by rulers descended from Alexander the Great's generals. Their position was simply that only a meticulous observance of the Mosaic Law made a person a faithful Jew. It is their interpretation of the Mosaic Law that Jesus takes dead aim at. Their resentment and the Herodian fears made for a lethal animosity toward Jesus.
This is not just ancient soap opera. Similar forces are always at work when the gospel is preached in its fullness. Jesus rejects the severe interpretation of the law and its manipulation by the Pharisees. We have our own "canon law toting" vigilantes in the church who pounce on the least liturgical variance with glee. We also have secular society that finds it convenient to destroy human life at almost any stage to satisfy political agendas. The Gospel According to Mark does not offer us an easy Christianity - what the Lutheran martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace." If we follow Jesus, we will share somehow in what happened to him. AMEN