Kent Beausoleil, S.J.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 1, 2009

Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:22-28

Today's first reading and Gospel do much to place Jesus in his own religious context. First, he fulfills Deuteronomy's promise of a prophet "from among their kin"; Jesus is indeed one who speaks among his people "as one having authority". Second, Jesus' words are confirmed by his power to cast out evil spirits, and those who hear him respond with amazement. Jesus' place among his own people, in his own Jewish tradition, is no fine point. Not even Jesus is a loner; he has a place in a community who hears and judges his words and actions. Indeed, it is to this community that he directs his mission. We, too, stand in that tradition as the "people formed in the image of" the son. In other words, no one of us can follow Jesus alone, just as Jesus could be neither prophet nor Messiah without a community to receive him. We need one another, depend on one another. We act with prophetic witness when we truly love and truly heal the wounds that divide us.

Called as a community, then, we must learn to live as such. Just as Paul gave counsel to the ancient Christians at Corinth in the second reading, so we grow as God's assembly in the counsel we find in Church teaching and preaching, in our personal and family life, and in the world by working for justice and peace. Though our goal is "to love all" as God loves, that love must take shape in word and action. The questions that we are left with then this morning challenges us: do we speak and witness in deed to the truth of God’s love and healing in our lives? Further, if we, in this community were to examine our lives as Christian prophets, what would we find? Would we find hearts that love and actions that heal? Our challenge from Deuteronomy is clear, we are to answer truly for our lives – and so do we, from the core of our very being, and without any doubt, truly live as Christ’s prophets?  (Scriptural information taken from the following theologian’s: Bryan M. Cones and Don L. Fischer).