In thinking about our readings for today, it’s tempting to conclude that people, like those who dismissed and denigrated Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth, are thorns in our respective sides. I don’t think we should dismiss this too quickly while keeping in mind that the unnamed and unknown thorn to which Saint Paul refers is not just for his benefit but for his salvation.
It is in the ebb of flow of living, that is, in the ebb and flow of various relationships (i.e., marriage, parenting, siblings, friends, co-workers, parishioners) that we “practice” being Christians. Being a Christian is nothing other than living the Good News of Jesus Christ crucified and risen.
It’s safe to say that in the course of a normal year, week, month, or even day we have multiple opportunities to put into practice what Christ teaches in terms of loving others as we love ourselves. This is particularly true when it comes to how I respond to those who seem to have no love for me. It is almost as safe to say that when it comes to loving our enemies, praying for them, and doing good to them, each of us probably fails as much or more as we succeed. The Good News is that because of Christ our failures don’t define us as long as we rely on God’s mercy and grace.
It is through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can make recourse to God’s mercy and grace. In this regard, it bears reminding ourselves that good works do not result in faith. Rather, faith results in good works. It is very important, even vital, to understand this!
Christians call faith, hope, and love the “theological virtues.” But the word “virtue” in this phrase is perhaps misplaced. In normal usage, virtue is acquired through habit. Faith, hope, and love, by contrast, are graces- unmerited gifts from God. Hope is the flower of faith and love, caritas/charity, is their fruit.
To be a person of faith is to be someone who, despite her failures, continues to place her trust in God through Jesus Christ. Christianity is not, as many suppose, a self-help program. While it is important to realize the role of the spiritual disciplines in acquiring virtue through habit, it is of fundamental importance to grasp that you can’t perfect yourself, try as you might. As anyone who has ever tried can tell you, there is nothing more self-defeating and ultimately discouraging than trying to perfect oneself.
A Christian is someone who knows s/he needs Jesus Christ. It is certainly easier to confess Jesus as Savior than it is to profess him as Lord. But “If you want to be transformed by the Messiah, the first step is recognizing the Messiah in your midst.”1
Our Gospel today brings into relief an aspect of miracles sometimes overlooked: faith precedes the miracle. If you pay close attention, Jesus’s attitude toward his own miracles can best be described as ambivalence.
Just like you can’t argue someone into faith using apologetical means and methods, miracles don’t usually result in faith. And true faith does not demand miracles. Giving birth as it does to hope, even in the most distressing circumstances, like the one we heard about in last week’s Gospel: the death of the young daughter of Jairus the synagogue official.2 Hope, the flower of faith, lies beyond optimism.
During Jesus's delay, while he healed the woman with the hemorrhage, Jairus’s daughter died. Some people who had been at his house came and said: “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?”3 In his moment of despair, Jairus heard Jesus say: “Do not be afraid; just have faith.”4 As anyone who has lost a loved one knows, in the wake of death faith is hard, sometimes even impossible. It’s not so much that faith makes miracles as it is that faith is the miracle- hope is the result.
Isn’t it a miracle whenever I respond gracefully to an attack? Bearing a wrong patiently, too, is miraculous. Persisting in faith in the face of disappointments and setbacks is also miracle.
Jesus is God incarnate. But the inspired author of Mark highlights a fact that is present throughout his Gospel: it is not intuitively obvious to everyone who encounters him that this Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, is the Lord. While conjuring a miracle may invoke wonder and curiosity, it does not often produce faith.
As the Lord said to Paul: “power is made perfect in weakness.”5 Hence, Jesus’s most powerful moment did not occur as he "owned" the scribes, and Pharisees in a dispute, or healed a sick person, or while casting out a demon, or even when he raised someone from the dead. His most powerful moment is hanging on the cross. Not only is there no resurrection without death, but there is no resurrection without crucifixion.
Those who live by faith know through experience the reality that power is perfected in weakness. In light of this, Christians need to understand the difference between genuine persecution and thwarted self-assertion, especially when that assertion is aimed at dominance. If you listen to Jesus, he sometimes tells things you don’t want to hear and asks you to do things you don’t particularly want to do.6
As the divine maxim “power is made perfect in weakness” shows, Christianity is a religion of paradox. The central paradox of Christianity, according to Jesus, is that you save your life by losing it for the sake of the gospel.7
1 John Martens, The Word on the Street, Year B: Sunday Lectionary Reflections, 95.↩
2 See Mark 5:21-43.↩
3 Mark 5:35.↩
4 Mark 5:36.↩
5 2 Corinthians 12:9.↩
6 The Word on the Street, 95.↩
7 Mark 8:35.↩
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