Word to the Wise
Sunday, January 28, 2024 - 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B
[Deut 18:15-20; 1 Cor 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28]"A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kind; to him you shall listen....Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it." [Deuteronomy] ...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. [Mark]
One of the difficulties that Jesus encountered was precisely the fact that he was someone like those who were listening to him. How could a carpenter from Nazareth teach on his own authority or, as in today's gospel scripture, cast out demons? Where did he get this authority? The scribes always claimed someone else's authority for what they taught. Jesus spoke on his own.
After Jesus' death and resurrection, the disciples sought to understand his life, death, and resurrection in terms of the only scripture they had, which was the collection of writings and traditions which later on became "the Old Testament" - especially the Torah, the first five books - the Law of Moses. The passage, for example, from Deuteronomy which is the first scripture for this Sunday, was interpreted to mean a foreshadowing of Jesus as Messiah. Jesus spoke with the authority of God.
History teaches us that true prophets live a risky life. They confront us with our failures to live in accord with God's commands. The latter commands are removed from public life in our own country by a "separation of church and state." Faith in God becomes a "private matter." When prophets speak out against the onslaught of secular political theory which supports an "anything goes" life in the name of "freedom," there will be efforts to silence, neutralize or relativize that troublesome voice. The apostles and other early preachers experienced precisely that effort to silence them. The same thing can happen in our own time. Who are the prophetic voices in our own time, even in our own Catholic church? How do we react to them? AMEN