Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Based on Mk. 1:29-39 (Gospel), Jb. 7:1-4, 6-7 (1stRdng.),
and 1 Cor. 9:16-19, 20-23 (2ndRdng.)
From the series “Reflections and Teachings from the Desert”
SERVANTS OF THE GOSPEL
In the last part of today’s gospel
we find this incident presented: “Simon
and his companions set out in search of him, and when they found him they said,
‘Everybody is looking for you!’ He answered, ‘Let us go elsewhere to the
neighboring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why
I came’.” (Mk. 1:36-38)
The statement of Jesus Christ that
“Let us go elsewhere to the neighboring country towns, so that I can preach
there too, because that is why I came”, finds a very beautiful expression in
Apostle Paul’s assertions as stated in today’s Second reading, which read in
toto as:
“Not that I do boast of preaching the
gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I should be punished if I
did not preach it. If I had chosen this work myself, I might have been paid for
it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put into my hands,
do you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer
the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the gospel gives me. So
though I am not a slave of any man I have made myself the slave of everyone so
as to win as many as I could. For the
weak I made myself weak, I made myself all things to all men in order to save
some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a
share in its blessings.” (1 Cor. 9:16-19, 20-23)
The above assertion, that Apostle
Paul had been preaching the gospel for free and that he had not been paid for
it because he regarded it as a duty and a responsibility laid on him, is indeed
the very realization of what Jesus Christ had said in today’s gospel “Let us go elsewhere… so that I can preach
there too because that is why I came.”
To preach the gospel for free and
to preach it as a duty and a responsibility even without an official designation
are the two main characteristics of a good servant of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and that is what I am doing right now.
These exemplary characteristics
stated above had been shown first by Jesus Crist as expressed in today’s gospel,
when he cured Simon Peter’s mother-in-law from a fever, and when he cured many
other sick people when they were brought to him that very same instance when he
was at the house of Simon’s mother-in-law. He did all these for free, that is
without asking for a fee, and he did it as a duty and responsibility after his
disciples had told him about the condition of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and
asked him to do something about it (Mk. 1:30; Lk. 4:38).
Apostle Paul had
also shown these exemplary characteristics during his ministry as a preacher of
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In 2 Cor. 11:7, he clearly taught
about preaching the gospel for free when he said that: “Or was I wrong, lowering myself so as to lift you high, by preaching
the gospel of God to you and taking no fee for it?”
In todays’ second reading this is
what the Apostle Paul exactly said: “Do
you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer
the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the gospel gives me”
(1 Cor. 9:18). Apostle Paul is not seeking for a reward in preaching the gospel
for free because his attitude about it is that it had been laid on him as a
duty and a responsibility which he had freely accepted from God and from Jesus
Christ, the servant of God par excellence.
As regards preaching of the gospel
for free and doing it as a duty and a responsibility, the main motive that
drives Jesus Christ, Apostle Paul and many others like me, to do it is the
attitude that they regard themselves as being a slave or a servant, like the
Servant of Yahweh (Is. 53; as stated in footnote g of Mt. 20:26). Footnote f of
Ac. 26:16-18 stated that, “Paul’s missionary vocation is described here in O.T.
terms used about two great prophetic figures, Jeremiah and the Servant of Yahweh”.
This attitude of being a slave is
expressed by Job in today’s First reading when it is stated that: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than
pressed service, his time no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave,
sighing for the shade, or the workmen with no thought but his wages, months of
delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief”
(Job 7:1-3).
Footnote a of Job 7:1 clarifies
the meaning of service as “referring to military service, cf. 14:14, which
involves both fighting and forced labor. Greek translates ‘trial’; Vulgate
militia, warfare or war service.” Likewise, the word “drudgery” in Jb. 7:1 is
clarified in footnote b by saying that: “The hired laborer, paid by the day,
Dt. 24:15; Mt. 20:8, works for another from morning to night, as the slave
does, Lv. 25:39-40.”
This statement of Job regarding
life as merely a pressed labor like that one lived by a slave, or a house
servant, finds its parallel support in the following places:
In Jb. 14:14: “For once a man is dead can he come back to
life?- day after day of my service I would wait for my relief to come.”
In Si. 40:1: “Much hardship has been made for every man, a heavy yoke lies on the
sons of Adam from the day they come out of their mother’s womb, till the day
they return to the mother of them all.”
In
Qo. 2:23: “What of all his
laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.”
It is very clear from these
statements why Apostle Paul was also able to accept the preaching of the gospel
as one like it is a duty and responsibility that someone had been pressed on
him like a slave’s. In 1 Co. 9:19-23, we find this attitude as a slave in Apostle
Paul’s statements that: “So though I am
not a slave of any man I have made myself the slave of everyone so as to win as
many as I could. For the weak I made
myself weak, I made myself all things to all men in order to save some at any
cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in its
blessings.” This is all because: “We who are strong have a duty to put up with
the qualms of the weak without thinking of ourselves” (Rm. 15:1).
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