The Fourteenth Sunday Ordinary Time (Cycle B)

The tie in between today’s readings is: Those that Don’t and Those that Won’t Believe

Psalm 123, Ezekiel 2:2-5, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Mark 6:1-6

The first point in Psalm 123 is that the Lord is God and we are not. It is a great privilege to be in God’s family with the promises of heaven and spiritual blessings on earth. We, however, have duties as servants: obeying the Lord, loving our neighbor, and spreading the gospel.  In a broken world, that does not know Jesus, there are insults if not outright hostility toward the Church.  Yet, these are the ones we are sent to reach.  Which brings us to the second point, God’s work can only be done by His grace and power.

In 2 Corinthians, God takes the apostle Paul on a trip to heaven and blows his mind.  In order to keep Paul from being too proud about it, a torment from Satan is sent as a counterweight to keep his feet on the ground.  When the Apostle asks the Lord to take it away, the reply is, “My grace is enough for you,” which circles us back to Psalm 123 and the all sufficient grace of God.  Paul is then content with his inability in the situation and trusts in the Lord as he goes through the insults, persecutions, and distresses that he receives during his mission. Blessed are you WHEN people insult you and persecute you and say all manner of evil falsely against you FOR MY SAKE.  Great is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets (Matt 5:11-12).   We can contend with an unbelieving world because we have the grace of God for today and an unimaginable destination tomorrow. 

Our prophet in today’s reading is Ezekiel, one of the many prophets that was not sent out into the unbelieving world, but instead to a rebellious church: the nation of Israel. Ezekiel is commissioned to warn these stubborn and obstinate people, showing once again that God loves them, but they need to turn back before it’s too late. Judgement is coming. Ezekiel’s problem is, unlike the unbelievers on the outside who don’t know God, inside the Church are the people who just plain refuse to know God. This is picked up in today’s gospel (Mark 6:1-6) when Jesus comes back to his neighborhood. Despite His undeniable wisdom and reports of his great miracles they only see him as the guy that made their dinette set.  Jesus’ reaction is, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”  This theme is played out all through the gospels with the Pharisees, too. He came unto His own and they did not receive Him (John 1:11). Many of us are comfortable with our own version of God. We keep the Almighty locked in a box of our own preconceived notions and fantasies about Him. When confronted with a different truth about our Lord, we’ll double down and fight for our own God made in our image. We need to want to know! We need to want see! We need to be open to the possibilities! We need to pray to our Father for His grace in this! If not, just like the people in Jesus’ hometown, we’ll miss the blessings.

So, in spreading the gospel to the unbelieving world, let’s speak the truth in love and accept the blowback. Let us in the Church foster an ever-expanding understanding of our Father through Bible study and prayer. Let us test the truths of new insights and submissively draw closer to our God through them. May the Lord accomplish His work in our lives that we may become more faithful and better servants. Most importantly, let us never forget it is all done by His grace from start to finish. Amen.