A commentary on a Mc 1, 21-28 (Sunday, February First 2015)
The Fourth Sunday’s reading from the Gospel of Mark is the first part of the so called “Capernaum day”, after the imprisonment of the Baptist and the calling of the first disciples. In my reflexion I will follow three points: the place where Jesus was, the special value of his word, his fight against the “unclean spirit”.
The geography of todays’ gospel
We are at Capernaum, a town in northern Galilee, by the Galilean lake, a crossroads between the Palestine, Lebanon and Assyria. Capernaum as other towns of the time and of today, it was a place full of life, with positive and negative elements. Surely there was commerce and richness; political, religious and military leaders; “imperial roads” that connected it to a “globalized world”, etc. But there was also poverty, confusion, corruption, injustices, poor faith, exploitation of the poor and other evils in private lives and public structures. There was also a synagogue, where some faithful people used to go, even if sometimes with fatigue and boredom.
Capernaum, in fact, may be the image of our own towns and our own culture, where we can find so much life, in its good and bad side alike: richness end poverty, generosity and egoism, confusion and search of truth, corruption and responsibility… And it is in this town and Culture that we, as disciple missionary, are called to be witnesses to the Kingdom announced by Jesus.
Jesus’ relevant word
Jesus used to teach everywhere, including the Synagogue, where many used to go out of faithfulness to tradition, but also with a kind of resignation, to listen to a word that usually would not mean any change in their lives. But that day there was a surprise. That preacher was different, out of his mouth came a word that touched life, that produced admiration, praise and the desire to change.
We may ask ourselves: Why was it like that? Why the word of Jesus was relevant, full of authority?
On my opinion, any word has authority and relevance whenever it is sincere, authentic and related to any concrete dimension of real life. When that happens, the word meets in the hearer an echo that sounds like a personalized truth.
One day, I had the opportunity to listen to Mother Teresa of Calcuta. A multitude of us were listening to her with admiration and a special emotion. What was special in that little, old and, I may say, “ugly” woman? We can say that nothing was special. She just said, without any oratory tricks, what all of us knew. And yet, we all were touched and moved by the sincerity and authenticity of those simple words, that were just communication of a true experience of life.
That is what, in my opinion, happened with Jesus –and much more. And that is what may happen with our own words, when they transmit our sincere experience of enlightenment, forgiveness, consolation, and courage, discipleship, in a life lived on the steps of Jesus.
With Jesus, also we are called to be in our “Capernaums” of today “tellers” of authentic words of truth, justice, consolation, forgiveness… words of life. In the family, in the working place, in church, on the road, everywhere we are called to disciple-missionaries with words that come out of the authenticity of our lives.
The battle between the “unclean spirits” and the “Holy one of God”
In the Bible, including the gospels, there is much talk about “unclean” and “impure” spirits. It is a language that we do not use any more. But the reality to which those words relate is still very much with us.
With those words we speak of that part of the world, that is enemy to God and to human happiness. That side of the world made of lies, confusion, injustice, chaos, slavery… that prevents us and the humanity as such from growing up as children of the Father, free and freedom makers.
Let us remember, for example, the absurd violence that we have lately in several parts of the world; let us remember the general corruption in politics and religion, the enormous imbalance between poor and rich people, the stupid pride many use to humiliate the simple ones. Let us remember the many addictions that are becoming a problem for many of us: drugs, alcohol, disorderly sex, exaggerated good consuming…
This world of corruption, injustice, impurity, that is in us and around us, becomes violent and aggressive when it meets with “the Holy one”, when it is confronted by the limpid word of Jesus.
But Jesus is able to win this battle. Not with the arms of the world (richness, pride, lie) but with the only arm of his word an action, “rooted” in the Fathers ’love, in which he becomes a Son, Free and freedom maker.
And we, in as much as we are disciples, united to this Son of God, we become also free and freedom makers, able to fight against the unclean spirits, not with the arms of the world but with the power of God, the power of our humble witness of the marvellous things Jesus Christ is doing in us. There is our strength, the strenght of a missionary church to overcome the evil present in the word.
Fr. Antonio Villarino MCCJ. Rome
