8 February 2025 - Saturday of the 4th ordinary week
Heb 13, 15-17.20-21; Mark 6, 30-34
Homily
In the Gospel reading two days ago, Jesus sent his disciples out two by two. He had given them authority over unclean spirits, in other words, the power to heal. He did not command them to teach. Remember that this was at the very beginning of Jesus' public life and that he had barely begun to train his disciples. But they did much more than Jesus had asked them to do. Not only did they teach, but they also healed by anointing with oil and laying on hands. These symbols of Davidic kingship obviously gave rise to hopes among the people of a national restoration, with the coming of a messiah-king.
So it's not surprising that when the disciples come back and report everything they've done and taught, Jesus doesn't react with joy or congratulations. They had usurped a role that did not belong to them. We must remember that, throughout Mark's Gospel, the activity of teaching is strictly reserved for Jesus, who, moreover, exercises it only with regard to the Jews.
Since they have awakened the people's hope of a nationalist messiah who will free them from the oppressor, it is not surprising that the crowd follows them. The crowd is looking for them, not for Jesus. So Jesus has to extricate them from this false success and ambiguous beginning and lead them back to the desert to resume -- or rather to begin -- their training. ‘Come away to a deserted place and rest for a while’, he tells them. The verb ‘come’ is an allusion to their first vocation (Come, follow me) and the call to rest is an allusion to Isaiah 14:3 (see especially the Septuagint Greek text) where the word ‘rest’ refers to liberation from the bondage of Babylon. The disciples still need to be freed from their outdated vision of the expected Messiah.
When, on the other shore, Jesus finds the same crowd running after the disciples and their teaching, he is seized with pity because he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. And so he sets about teaching them, which only He can do.
Perhaps we should read in the light of this Gospel text the present situation of the Church in those parts of the world where it was once strong and powerful, and where it is once again reduced to a ‘remnant’. Perhaps Christians -- including their pastors -- have been announcing themselves too much? Perhaps it is Jesus who is calling His whole Church into the desert, to form or re-form it Himself.
In the meantime, Jesus remains full of mercy and tenderness for the crowds without shepherds, and He Himself teaches them in a thousand and one ways, speaking to the heart of every person of good will. Let us all listen to His teaching, hearing what He says to the heart, to each of our hearts.
Armand VEILLEUX