Father Thomas Welbers' Homily	Jump back to Homily Index
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 9, 2003 Job 7:1-4, 6-7 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23 Mark 1:29-39	Listen to Audio

I have a confession to make.  Ever since I was a student in the seminary, preparing for ordination, and throughout my nearly thirty-five years as a Catholic priest, I have deeply loved God’s word in the Bible, both Christian scriptures, or New Testament, and Jewish Scriptures, familiarly known as the Old Testament.  I have spent a great deal of time studying and reading from the Bible, as well as teaching and writing about it.  No, that’s not my confession.  My confession is that I have never, ever, managed to read the entire Book of Job from start to finish.  I find it the most turgid, repetitive, confusing piece of inflated verbiage masquerading as epic poetry that I have ever encountered.  Some people don’t agree with me, and think it’s a great piece of writing.  Well, God bless them.  Perhaps some day they’ll win me over.  Perhaps someday before I die I will be able to start at the beginning of Job and actually plow through its 42 chapters to the end.  Of course, that itself could be the death of me!

But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate or am not familiar with the Book of Job.  I’ve certainly read many pieces of it, such as we heard in the first reading, and I’m familiar with various commentaries and interpretations of its meaning.  Actually its message is not all that self-evident, and many scholars have puzzled many centuries over it – and they still do.

In the tiny excerpt that makes up our first reading today, Job, having been deprived of wealth, family, and health – deprived of all earthly comfort – speaks a lengthy lamentation in which he justifiably feels sorry for himself.  As I was reading it, I could recall the times when I was hurting in some way, and feeling sorry for myself – and my temptation was to wish that everybody else hurt just as bad as I did.  Misery loves company.  And yet, when we are miserable, isn’t it our temptation to lash out at others, blaming them, and isolating ourselves from them?  Isn’t it understandable, then, when others shun us – precisely at the time when we most need them?  Or perhaps they mask their discomfort with us by empty chatter, trying to give us advice that really does no good?  That’s pretty much what happens throughout most of the Book of Job.  Job complaining, and at the same time protesting his innocence and wondering who to blame, and his friends telling him it’s all his fault.  The book ends with God intervening and saying, basically, “Stop asking questions like that.  I’m God and I can do whatever I want.”  Not exactly a satisfactory answer.  Nor does it really address illness and misfortune, nor their root causes and effects.

As we saw in the Gospel, Jesus began his ministry by doing works of healing.  In this he confronted all the forces that bring about disorder and alienation: demons, natural forces, mental and physical illness, and showed that they are all subject to his power. 

In healing Peter’s mother in law, it is significant to note that an essential part of her healing was that she was restored to her place in the family.  The Gospel says, “she began to wait on them.”  That’s not a sexist line, as some feminists would have it.  She did what a good Jewish mother in law would always do and did best, “Sit down, I fix you something to eat!”  And I’m sure nobody enjoyed that meal more than she did! 

In the emphasis on driving out demons, that we find in the rest of the Gospel reading, Jesus showed his power to overcome the diabolical sources of division among people.  Those possessed by demons were outcasts.  The very word “devil” comes from the Greek expression meaning “to divide” or “separate” – actually, its root is even stronger than that: “to break in two” or to “cast apart.”

My own experience as a priest has convinced me that the devil works much more between people than he does inside people.  No matter what people do, even if what they do is terribly evil, once we cross the line from evaluating actions to judging people, we are allowing Satan to work.  When we demonize one another, all Satan has to do is sit back and let us inflict harm and destruction upon each other.

In our world situation today, the popular question, “What would Jesus do?” is very relevant.  How can we know “What would Jesus do?”  The only way we can know what Jesus would do today is by looking at what he actually did.  Jesus did not tell his disciples, “Go forth and straighten everybody out.”  Jesus did not command his followers, “Destroy your enemy before your enemy destroys you.”  In fact, when his disciples wanted him to rain fire down on those who rejected him, he rebuked them sharply.  Anything that smacks of domination, control, or revenge is alien to the Kingdom of God.

Jesus assures us that there is only one thing that has the power to truly bring about the kingdom of God, and that is forgiveness and love of enemies.  A lot of people in Jesus’ day, who would have gladly followed him if his message were different, couldn’t buy that message, and walked out on him.  A lot of people today pretend to be his followers but ignore, water down, or explain away his message.

There is an old saying, “Love your enemies, it’ll drive them crazy.”  There’s a bit of truth in that, because nobody quite knows how to handle it when the other person responds to evil with good.  Of course, forgiveness is easy to say, but it’s difficult and scary to practice.  Perhaps we are so poor at it on a national and global scale because we really don’t practice it very well on our own personal and individual scale.

We put a lot of energy, as individuals and as communities, into defending ourselves.  Could we ask, as I believe Jesus is asking us now, what would it be like if we put that much energy into learning and discovering how to love one another as he loves us, how to forgive without limit as he has commanded.

The work of peace and reconciliation – the healing and restoring of relationships among individuals and among nations – is not easy; it is risky and perhaps uncertain.  It trusts in God’s outcome rather than our own.  It can be done only if we are careful to cultivate our own intimate relationship with God through prayer, fasting, and consistent attention to the Lord’s voice in Scripture and in the Church.  And yet, if we take Jesus seriously, this work of reconciliation and healing is the only answer to the question, “What would Jesus do?”

Today is World Marriage Day.  Scripture repeatedly depicts the committed, life-giving relationship of husband and wife as one of the most accurate and vivid images of God’s relationship with us.  Perhaps married life is the laboratory, in which the patterns of how we can accept others in loving commitment, reconciliation, and mutual trust and support, can be developed and nurtured.  In other words, marriage and family life is truly the school, in which all other ways of relating to others are learned.  And so it is important that we as a Christian community bless one another in this school of loving commitment.

© 2003 Thomas Welbers

Ideas for this homily were gathered from: http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/020903.html