Word to the Wise
Monday, January 27, 2025 - Monday in the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time
[Heb 9:15, 24-28 and Mark 3:22-30]Christ is the mediator of a new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. [Hebrews] The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said of Jesus, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "By the prince of demons he drives out demons." Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables, "How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him." [Mark]
The audience for Jesus' remarks in the gospel scripture for today from the Gospel According to Mark are scribes from Jerusalem. That would be the equivalent, in today's Roman Catholic terms, of a Vatican delegation coming to check out who this new preacher is! And they decided that his power to exorcise had to be demonic - a kind of "takes one to know one." Jesus tells them in rabbinic style that their argument makes no sense. But what he is really telling them is that he is someone very NEW and his power is not from a demonic source. The scribes would not have a category for him because he was completely outside their Jewish categories. For them, the covenant was the one God made with Moses on Mt. Sinai and that covenant was written in the Torah (first 5 books of the Old Testament.) All of Jewish life was governed by that covenant.
The Letter to the Hebrews, written for Jewish Christian converts, proclaims Jesus as "the mediator of a new covenant." The temple sacrifice and other observances of the Mosaic Law have been replaced by a different "high priest" and way of life. This would be blasphemy in the eyes of the scribes. They could only see a carpenter from Nazareth. Their blindness would lead eventually to Jesus' death and resurrection - the very initiation of a new covenant established through one sacrifice that replaced all others. We commemorate that sacrifice and new covenant every time we celebrate the Eucharist.
For the time being, in the daily gospel scripture, we will stumble along with the disciples (and with the scribes?) to understand this new teacher who challenges our demons and other "covenants" we make with culture and politics and consumerism! AMEN