Perhaps you have heard this: “Lord, I thank you that you have protected me from all sin today. I have not gossiped or lied or avoided a responsibility. I have not complained or criticized. I have not broken any of your commands. But, Lord, in a minute, I’m going to get out of bed, and then the story is likely to be different….”
So it is in ordinary life. We mean virtue every morning when we say the prayers that begin the day. But then the little temptations come—and we are living ordinary life. Today we return to “Ordinary Time” in the liturgical calendar. We pick up where we left off in February before Ash Wednesday.
Ordinary time in liturgy is time that is counted and in an order—usually the order of a Gospel. It certainly does not mean mundane or unimportant time. Practically, it’s a little more than half a year, and the readings of ordinary Sundays give us guidance for measuring out our days and lives, to help us live each and all of them as Christians.
As I read today’s readings I felt like I was turning on the TV in the middle of a program—because, well, that’s what we are doing. The last Ordinary Time Sunday was February 11th, and we read the readings of the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time. While we’ve had special Sundays since Pentecost, the daily mass readings and Liturgy of the Hours went back to Ordinary Time readings the day after Pentecost. So there is a skip in the Gospel narrative. We’ve skipped Chapter Two and the first part of Chapter Three in Mark.
Mark 3:20-35
The story today happens early in Jesus’ public ministry. He has called various disciples and chosen “The Twelve” who will remain central to the story through the resurrection. He is traveling around Galilee teaching “The Kingdom of God is at hand” and doing miracles of healing. He has a home in Capernaum. He is back there today. While he was away, word spread about the wonders he has done in other places. His neighbors and his family come visit. Capernaum is about 43 miles from Nazareth—not an afternoon walk, but close enough that Mary and some cousins have come to see him.
Jesus is swamped with people. He can’t even eat! And he is NOT behaving like he did for the first 30 years of his life. From the reading today, some family interpret the change in Jesus as “he is out of his mind.” This fine, upstanding, normal person they know and love has changed….and, when people don’t understand something, they often make up a rationale.
What does Jesus do? He doesn’t bow to family pressure—AND he is not unkind. He logically explains that since he is casting out demons, he can’t be working for Satan. He simply names the obvious; he is in new place. He names the difference: “Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.”
This passage contains a verse whose interpretation has been the source of much discussion through the ages. Jesus says, “I give you my word, every sin will be forgiven mankind and all the blasphemies men utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.”
When I read that, I REALLY want to know what “blasphemes against the Holy Spirit” means. I want to make sure I don’t do it. The catechism explains it this way:
1864 “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.
Genesis 3:9-15
Commentaries say that this points to the role of our free will. Blasphemy means to be deliberately disrespectful or demean God. It is to trash or deny God’s nature and power. To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to deny that a person can know what is right or wrong and can CHOOSE what is right or wrong. If he or she has already chosen wrong, free will MUST AGAIN choose–this time to face God, repent, and accept forgiveness.
That is why this reading from Genesis is paired with today’s Gospel.
We enter into the middle of the story of “The Fall.” Adam and Eve have eaten of the forbidden fruit. God knows. God, who is merciful, goes searching for them. He finds them and confronts them. They both try to “pass the buck.” Adam tries to blame both Eve and God, “It was the woman You put here with me” Adam says. Eve blames the snake. “The serpent tricked me” she says.
Satan wasn’t the snake, but he was in the snake. Satan didn’t make anybody do anything. God points that out. Satan may have been the source of the lies—but people chose.
Adam and Eve are characters that embody all of us. “I didn’t mean to say such and such, but so-and-so made me so mad that….” “My father abandoned me, so I don’t trust men….” “Politics is so polarized, I have to pick one side or the other…” “I’m just too busy to come visit you, Grandma….”
Back to the Gospel
Jesus patiently corrects his family. He says, in effect, “It may look like I’m out of my mind and under some Satanic force’s control, but the opposite is true. Preaching by preaching, healing by healing, disciple by disciple, I am ‘binding the strong man.’ I FREELY CHOOSE, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, to leave my ordinary life to live a life of God’s love and mercy. God’s mercy is great, AND a person has to freely choose to receive it. Folks, it’s easier to receive when I show God’s goodness. That goodness attracts. Yes, I can’t get peace enough to eat. But, no, I am not crazy.”
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
So what does all this mean for us, today? How do we apply it? 2 Corinthians helps us understand. Some famous verses precede today’s verses and give us the context: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts, that we in turn might make known the glory of God shing on the face of Christ. This treasure we possess in earthen vessels, to make clear that its surpassing power comes from God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way possible, BUT WE ARE NOT CRUSHED, full of doubts, WE NEVER DESPAIR.” (2 Corinthians 4:6-8)
Today’s verses drive the point home: God’s grace, i.e. the power of the Holy Spirit, is enough to guide our free wills to live God’s way AND let the light of our living our ordinary lives light up the world around us…to change the world one ordinary day filled with ordinary concerns, struggles, and chores at a time, to move the world a bit closer to being filled with the glory of the Kingdom of God. Without God, we couldn’t do it, but, by virtue of our baptism and faith, we have the God in the Holy Spirit, so WE CAN DO IT.
Prayer
Lord, it is so easy for me to think as I get up in the morning, “I can’t fully live my day by Your commands and virtues. And, even if I did, I am too ordinary to make a difference.” But that’s one of Satan’s lies. As you said in today’s Gospel: we are all your family, even if we don’t understand you and think you’re a bit crazy to expect us to brighten up the world by shining our little light. We are family, you love us…and you want us to be your disciples in our ordinary lives. You give us the Holy Spirit to be with us in our virtues and failures. You make it possible to be like Jesus, not like Adam and Eve.
Lord, help me to say and mean in my heart, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, in my little corner of the earth today, as it is in heaven.”
