Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024
Ordinary Time • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 2 viewsWisdom says that God did not create death but life and that the devil brought death. We can see God in the ecological balance in the world. Humans are, however, rational, not irrational animals, able to love the one who is love. Therefore the devil is hates humans and induced them to go in the way of death. Christians are reborn and a sign of that is the theological virtues, particularly charity, which can be seen in the ecology of charity in the Church that Paul describes. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and we see him in Mark healing physically, socially, and spiritually in an interconnected manner.. This calls us to be agents of healing, sacramentally and otherwise, to realize that experiencing God in nature is the first stage of contemplation and it is rooted in divine love, to see that Jesus as love comes down to us and restores the proper ordering of goods through his charity so that they bring life, and finally asking us to see how Jesus defeats the devil weaving stories together. Remember that we are witnesses of these things.
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Transcript
Title
Title
God Did Not Make Death
Outline
Outline
I was listening to two Catholic theologians just before reading out texts for today.
I was listening to two Catholic theologians just before reading out texts for today.
One, who studied the theology of science, was being interviewed by the other on the podcast. They discussed (with the help of Thomas Aquinas) how ecological balance reveals God and yet how there is an unconscious self-giving in nature, the bee and the flower, the gazelle and the cheetah. It is unconscious because only humans are rational and therefore have immortal souls. It is a self-giving because it is for the good of the whole: gazelles would eventually starve if there were no cheetahs to cull the weakest. Cheetahs would starve if there were no gazelles. Each gives being to the other. There is a rightness to nature, even though we see it in a disturbed state. And there is no Hades on earth for the souls of plants and animals.
Humans are different. We were ordered to loving God and enjoying him forever, which means the imperishable realm. And he made us in his image, which among many other things mean able to love the one who is love as well as love one another and love that which God has made. The devil envied this special place of us humans and brought death into the world, which for humans means separation from God. And those allied with the devil - often unknowingly, for they focus on self - both experience and spread death, disturbing and destroying the balance of nature because we do not love what God loved into being.
But Christians are to love or act in charity
But Christians are to love or act in charity
Paul goes through the theological virtues stemming from the gifts of the Spirit of faith, hope rooted in knowledge, and charity they have received but are now called to pass on in the collection for Jerusalem. That charity is seen par excellance in “our Lord Jesus Christ,” the one we are to image, for he gave all to enrich us. This is to create an ecology or economy of charity or love, each group giving to the other in turns so that all needs be met, that there may be an equality. G. K. Chesterton expressed this economically as distributism.
Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil
Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil
One way was by giving new life to people in making them Christians. We saw that in the gifts of the Spirit and theological virtues. Another is in direct confrontation with the power of death. The 12 year old upper class girl was born the year the woman started to hemorrhage. The woman had become poor and was taboo. Jairus, the father, comes openly to Jesus, but his importance does not speed Jesus up. The woman sneaks up in the crowd trying to touch a tassel on Jesus’ outer robe, not wanting to be seen, but her social state does not hinder Jesus from making all know she was whole, that he had willed her wholeness, and that she was a person of faith. She was restored to social life as well as physical life. In the case of the 12 year old girl, Jesus calls the father to faith and Jesus acts in secret with only the parents and his 3 witnesses there. Life returns. The devil is defeated. Jesus says, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, Give her something to eat. He gives us something to eat after raising us to life.
[Brothers and] Sisters, there is much here for us
[Brothers and] Sisters, there is much here for us
I can only make a few points, but there is much more. First, notice that God gives life and the devil, out of envy, gives death. The devil does not usually act directly, but through disturbed creation. So we have a sacrament of anointing for healing, but there is social healing, spiritual healing, and ultimately resurrection so we can be in a love union with God.
Second, realize that the first stage of contemplation is to experience God in nature, and much of that is in the balance of nature. But you will also see the brokenness. The second stage is to experience directly in a love relationship the One God who loves. Nature is a type of sacrament of a life beyond nature, of supernature, and all is rooted in divine love.
Third, see that love comes down to our level when we restore the proper ordering of goods through charity. This is what Jesus did for us in spades, not just ordering goods properly, but all of life, ordering it towards union with God and with others in love.
Finally, meditate on the gospel. See the devil defeated as death is defeated. Realize that Jesus does it, weaving together two stories of two people so that all rejoice in the healing of Christ. And we, with Peter, James, and John are witnesses of these things.