Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
14th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Cycle B)
Readings:
Ezekiel 2:2-5
Psalm 123:1-4
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Mark 6:1-6
Abbreviations: NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition), NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), RSVCE (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name, YHWH (Yahweh).
God reveals His divine plan for humanity in the two Testaments; therefore, we read and relive the events of salvation history in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that our Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Theme of the Readings: The Difficult Ministry of
God's Representatives
In the Old Testament, God's holy prophets spoke His words to
the people, but the people didn't always appreciate the message. For example, in
the First Reading, God sent the priest-prophet Ezekiel as His "voice" to the
covenant people suffering in the Babylonian exile who were "hard of face and
obstinate of heart." God told Ezekiel to preach His message to them "whether
they heed or resist." God places the same obligation on the ministerial
priesthood today when they preach on difficult topics like adultery, divorce,
abortion, and misplaced sexual identity.
In today's Responsorial Psalm, the psalmist completed his journey to the holy city of Jerusalem. As he entered the Temple, he lifted his eyes to the Lord in Heaven, appealing for God's help. When addressed to our Lord Christ Jesus, enthroned in the heavenly Temple, this prayer has a deeper meaning for Christians. In His ascension to the Father, Jesus transcended all created things and received dominion over Heaven and Earth. "Our eyes are on the LORD our God" as we continue to look for Him while we struggle in our earthly existence. We await the fullness of our salvation when Jesus returns in glory to gather His elect and to judge the proud and arrogant.
In the Second Reading, St. Paul writes about his struggles and hardships in his mission to carry the Gospel of salvation to the Gentiles. In addition to the opposition to his message, he endured a physical affliction and petitioned the Lord three times to heal him. The Lord did not heal Paul, but He gave Paul the grace to accept his suffering. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that God sometimes permits certain hardships and sufferings to create a greater good in us. Paul accepted his affliction, which God used to make him a more compassionate apostle to the Gentiles.
As God's supreme prophet, Jesus experienced rejection like God's Old Testament prophets. Even the people of Nazareth, His hometown, exhibited closed minds and obstinacy of hearts when they rejected His teaching, as recounted in today's Gospel Reading. Our readings remind us of the warning Jesus gave His disciples at the end of His Beatitudes teaching. He told them and us: "Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven" (Mt 5:11).
Today, our priests face many of these same struggles in the resistance and even animosity of their congregations when they preach on evils that have become acceptable in secular society. These evils include the various forms of sexual immorality, divorce, contraception, and abortion. Unfortunately, too many of our priests shy away from these complex topics in their desire to be "popular" with their communities. Pray for our priests in their mission to fearlessly be the "voice of God" in preaching the teachings of Mother Church despite the "hard faces and obstinate hearts" of the people to whom they minister. Pray that our priestly ministers will have the courage to preach the truth of the Word whether their congregations "heed or resist." Pray that their parishioners "living in exile" in this secular world remain obedient to the Word and not become a "rebellious house" like the Israelites in the Babylonian exile. And pray that all Christians will submit themselves to the "voice" of the Lord through His priestly ministers and that their cry will be the same as in today's Psalm response: "Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy."
The First Reading Ezekiel 2:2-5 ~ God's Prophet to Israel
in Exile
2 As the LORD spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and
set me on my feet, and I heard the one who was speaking 3 say to me: Son of
man, I am sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against me;
they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day. 4 Hard of
face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. But you shall
say to them: Thus says the LORD God! 5 And whether they heed or resist, for
they are a rebellious house, they shall know that a prophet has been among
them.
Daniel and Ezekiel were prophets of Yahweh who received their call to a prophetic ministry outside the Holy Land. The Babylonians took Daniel with other young people of the royal family and leading families of Judah as hostages in 605 BC to ensure the loyalty of the Kingdom of Judah as a vassal people of Babylon. Later, the Babylonians deposed King Jehoiachin of Judah and initiated the major deportation of the king and his family, together with ten thousand citizens of the nation of Judah, into Babylonian lands in 597 BC. Ezekiel joined the citizens of Jerusalem who had been taken into exile and settled in Tel-Abib on the Chebar River in Babylonia. There he received his prophetic call in the 5th year following his removal (as the ancients counted with no zero-place value) in 593 BC (2 Kng 24:6-16; Ez 1:1, 4; 3:15). Ezekiel prophesied for 22 years in exile, receiving his last prophetic message in March-April 571 (Ezek 29:17). A tomb believed to be his is at al-Kifl, near modern Hilla, Iraq.
Today's passage recounts Ezekiel's commissioning as Yahweh's holy prophet after he experienced his inaugural vision (Ezek 1:4-2:8a). Lying prostrate after his vision, with his face on the ground, three events occurred in quick succession: God spoke to him, God's Spirit entered him, and he was set upon his feet (Ezek 2:2). The call for service that followed demanded an erect servant, anointed by the Spirit of God, ready to listen and obey.
2b and I heard the one who was speaking 3 say to me: Son
of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against
me; they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day. 4 Hard
of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.
God addressed Ezekiel by identifying his humanity, using the
title "son of man." Jesus will use the same title for Himself in His humanity and
to connect Himself with the prophet Daniel's vision of the divine Messiah who
looks like a man in Daniel 7:13. What followed was the announcement of God's intention
to send Ezekiel to be His "voice" to the children of Israel in exile. God
identified the exiled Jews as rebels who were the descendants of rebels
(referring to the rebellious members of the Exodus generation and their
descendants). Interestingly, God refers to His people in exile as Israelites
instead of Judahites. It was probably because the people of the Southern
Kingdom of Judah (the tribes of Judah and Benjamin) were the only descendants
of Israel who still existed as a unified people. The Assyrians conquered the other
ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and sent them into exile over a
century earlier, in 722 BC. Those "lost tribes" lost their identity and were assimilated
into the Gentile world.
Notice the three ways Yahweh described the Israelites/Judahites in verses 3-4:
That they are "rebels" describes them as disloyal people who refuse their allegiance to their sovereign Lord, Yahweh, a commitment they swore by an oath at Mt. Sinai when the Israelites ratified the Sinai Covenant (Ex 24:3, 7). The people being "hard of face" described the exterior manifestation of their stubbornness, while "obstinate of heart" described the interior condition of their disobedience.
But you shall say to them: Thus says the LORD God! 5 And
whether they heed or resist, for they are a rebellious house, they shall know
that a prophet has been among them.
If what God told Ezekiel about his target audience wasn't
bad enough, God then informed His newly commissioned prophet that he could not
expect a positive response from the people. However, whether they "heed or
resist," he must continue to preach God's message so the people would know that
God had not abandoned them and cared enough about them to send a prophet. That God
said they were a "rebellious house" indicated that they would likely not listen
to Ezekiel, exposing the continuing condition of the people's defiance. The
term also emphasizes their opposition to serving as God's obedient people and
members of the "household of God." Despite their experience of suffering in
exile, the Israelites continued to be an insubordinate covenant people refusing
to listen to or be corrected by their God and divine King when He spoke to them
through His priest-prophet Ezekiel (see Ps 78:5-8; Is 30:9-14)
Responsorial Psalm 123:1-4 ~ Relying on the Lord
The response is: "Our eyes are fixed on the Lord,
pleading for his mercy."
1 To you, I raise my eyes, to you enthroned in Heaven. 2a
Yes, like the eyes of servants on the hand of their master.
Response:
2b Like the eyes of a maid on the hand of her mistress,
so are our eyes on the LORD our God, till we are shown favor.
Response:
3 Show us favor, LORD, show us favor, for we have our
fill of contempt. 4 Our souls are more than sated with mockery from the
insolent, with contempt from the arrogant.
Response:
This psalm is entitled "a song of ascents." It is the prayer of a pilgrim who has made the journey to the holy city of Jerusalem in the Judean mountains, 2,400 feet above sea level, and is entering the gates of Yahweh's holy Temple. He raises his eyes to the Lord in Heaven to make a personal appeal for God's help (verse 1). The faithful covenant people's expression of trust ("our" in verse 2) follows the psalmist's appeal along with a petition for God to show mercy because they have suffered the contempt and scorn of non-believers (verses 3-4).
For Christians, this prayer has a deeper meaning when addressed to Christ Jesus, who, forty days after His Resurrection, ascended into Heaven to take His place at the right side of God the Father (Acts 2:33; Heb 1:3). Applied to Jesus, "enthroned in Heaven" (verse 1) means that in His Ascension to the Father, He transcends all created things and has sovereignty and dominion over all creation, as Daniel saw in his vision (Dan 7:13-14). For the faithful today, "Our eyes are on the LORD our God" as we continue to look for Him as we struggle in our earthly existence. We await the fullness of our salvation when He comes again in His Parousia or Second Coming to gather His elect and to judge the proud and arrogant the psalmist mentions in verses 3-4, as we will be "pleading for His mercy."
The Second Reading 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ~ Suffering for
Christ
7 That I, Paul, might not become too elated, because of
the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an
angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I
begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, 9 but he said to me, "My
grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." I will
rather boast most gladly of my weakness in order that the power of Christ may
dwell with me. 10 Therefore, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and constraints for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then
I am strong.
St. Paul humbly refers to the insults and other hardships he has endured in his mission as Christ's apostle to the Gentiles. He also refers to his suffering in some physical affliction that God has allowed him to experience to ensure that his supernatural gifts did not make him proud and boastful. Paul does not reveal the exact nature of his "thorn in the flesh" (verse 7), but some Church Fathers and modern commentators suggest that it was some painful and humiliating physical condition. It was probably the same condition he referred to in Galatians 4:13-15. It may have been an affliction brought on by his initial loss of sight after his blinding vision of the resurrected glorified Christ in his conversion experience since he says if the Galatians could, they would have given him their eyes.
St. Paul attributes his affliction to "an angel from Satan," which suggests the disability could have been an obstacle to his mission to evangelize. Paul wrote that he asked the Lord to heal him three times, and the Lord told him to endure three times because God's grace was enough to enable him to live with his suffering. Paul testified the weakness of his physical condition, and his submission to God's will for his life strengthened his faith in the Lord Jesus and his commitment to his mission. He thanked the Lord that his weakness made the grace of God greater in his life since he knew that his missionary work was not his success but could boast that it was Christ working through him.
Using this passage as an example, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that God sometimes permits certain hardships and sufferings to draw out a greater good (Commentary on 2 Chr, ad loc.). For example, in Paul's case, to protect His apostle from the sin of pride (the root of all vices), God allowed His chosen apostle (and others who serve Him) to be humiliated by weakness in an affliction. In this way, the humbling experience allowed God's servants to recognize that they cannot succeed by their efforts alone. Therefore, when encountering the same conditions, we must trust in God's providence and take assurance from St. Paul, who wrote; We know that all things work for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28).
The Catechism tells us: "God is infinitely good, and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature, which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? 'I sought whence evil comes, and there was no solution,' said St. Augustine, and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For 'the mystery of lawlessness' is clarified only in the light of the 'mystery of our religion.' The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace. We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror" (CCC 385, quoting St. Augustine, Confessions, 7.7, 11 and 2 Thess 2:7 and 1 Tim 3:16).
The Gospel of Mark 6:1-6 ~ Jesus's Rejection by
His Neighbors at Nazareth
1 He (Jesus) departed from there and came to his native
place, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach
in the Synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, "Where did
this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty
deeds are wrought by his hands! 3 Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and
the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters
here with us?" And they took offense at him. 4 Jesus said to them, "A prophet
is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in
his own house." 5 So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart
from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. 6 He was amazed at
their lack of faith.
Jesus came to His hometown of Nazareth and attended the Sabbath day (Saturday) service in the local Synagogue. Nazareth is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Nasret, derived from the Hebrew word "consecrate" (nazir) or "branch" (netzer/nezer). Located on the southwestern side of the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth is about 15 miles from the tip of the southern shore. The Old Testament Scriptures do not mention Nazareth, but an inscription naming Nazareth found at Caesarea dates to the 1st century AD. The town of Nazareth was considered insignificant in Jesus's day (see Jn 1:45-46).
As a Jew who was obedient to the commands of the Sinai Covenant, it was Jesus's custom to keep the Sabbath obligation by attending the Synagogue (Ex 20:8-11; 31:12-17; 34:21; 35:1-3; Dt 6:12-15; Lk 4:16) when He wasn't in Jerusalem to attend the Temple worship services. Worship expressed in sacrifice took place in the Jerusalem Temple. For communities too far away from the Temple, however, prayer and praise took place in the local synagogues, where the congregation read and reflected on the Sacred Scriptures. The synagogue president had the authority to ask any male of the covenant to read and expound on the day's selected Scripture to the congregation. He invited Jesus to stand and read the Scripture for that Saturday Sabbath service and expound on the passage (verse 2a). St. Mark does not record the reading or the exchange between Jesus and the congregation found in the Gospel of Luke (Lk 4:16-30). In the Luke passage, Jesus declares the fulfillment of the prophetic text He read from Isaiah 61:1-2 in Him (Lk 4:16-21)!
3 Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the
brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here
with us?"
Instead of being favorably impressed by the wisdom of Jesus's
teaching, the people were angry that one they considered an ordinary man and
their equal dared to put Himself above them. Interestingly, they call Jesus the
"son of Mary" instead of the "son of Joseph." It was customary to name a man or
woman through their father and not their mother. That they only mentioned Mary could
be because Joseph had been dead for a long time.
Jesus's "brothers" (adelphoi in the Greek text), also named in Matthew 13:55, are James, Joses (the shortened form of Joseph), Simon, and Judas (Jude in the abbreviated form). These "brothers" and "sisters" are relatives who could be Joseph's children by a previous marriage, cousins, or even uncles/aunts. Hebrew and Aramaic did not have terms for extended relationships like half-brother, stepbrother, cousin, etc. That is why in the New Testament, the word "brothers/adelphoi" refers to brothers like James and John Zebedee, Jesus's disciples, and countrymen in general (i.e., see Acts 15:7). The Church has always taught that Mary did not have other children. See the documents "Did Jesus have Brothers and Sisters?" and the Four Marian Dogmas concerning Mary's perpetual virginity.
And they took offense at him.
The Greek word translated as "offense" is skandalizomai, meaning
"to stumble over an obstacle"; it is the word from which we get our English
word "scandal." Knowing Jesus in His ordinary life became a "stumbling stone"
to them in accepting Him as an agent of God (see Is 8:14; 1 Cor 1:23; 1 Pt 2:7-8). Jesus had lived such an ordinary life among the people of His community
that they found it incredible that He should be anything special. The prophet
Isaiah foretold that God's "Suffering Servant" would grow up unrecognized by
his neighbors before His great work of atonement (Is 53:2). The point is that
our Redeemer is one of us (Heb 2:16-18).
4 Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor
except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house."
Jesus used what must have been a common proverb in verse 4
to explain His rejection (see Lk 4:24; Jn 4:44). Like God's prophets before
Him, the people ridiculed and rejected Jesus for preaching the word of God
among His fellow citizens (see Is 6:9-10 repeated in Mt 13:14-15). Receiving a negative
response to preaching the coming of the Kingdom of the Messiah was the warning
that Jesus gave His disciples (see Mt 5:11-12).
5 So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. 6 He was
amazed at their lack of faith.
Their lack of faith amazed [thaumazo = "to marvel,
wonder"] Jesus and hindered Him in working miracles on their behalf. "Laying
hands" on someone is a sign of transmitting power. It was not that Jesus did
not have the ability to heal because of their unbelief. There is no limit to
God the Son's power, but He respects our free will choices, and healing is a
cooperative effort involving the person's faith coupled with divine
intervention. Verses 5-6 highlight the necessity of faith for God's work in our
lives and is the reason Jesus warned people to "have faith" before He healed
them (i.e., Mk 5:36). In this passage, His neighbors' lack of faith amazed
Jesus, and later, the "little faith" of His disciples made Him sad (Mt 8:26).
However, He would also compliment and feel admiration for the faith of two
Gentiles: a Roman centurion and a Canaanite woman (Mt 8:10; 15:28). What about
you? When you appear before the judgment throne of Christ, will He be amazed at
your lack of faith, or will He reward you with the words, "Well done, my good
and faithful servant!"
Catechism References (* indicates Scripture quoted or
paraphrased in the citation):
2 Corinthians 12:9 (CCC 268, 273*, 1508)
Mark 6:3 (CCC 500*); 6:5 (CCC 699*); 6:6 (CCC 2610)
God's prophets and conversion of the heart (CCC 2581, 2582*, 2583*, 2584*)
Christ as God's prophet (CCC 436*)
Perseverance in faith (CCC 162*)
Power is made perfect in weakness (CCC 268*, 273*, 1508*)
Michal E Hunt, Copyright © 2015; revised 2024 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.