Gospel for Sunday, July 4 : Mark 6: 1-6
XIV Sunday B
1He left there and came to his homeland and his disciples followed him. 2When the Sabbath arrived, he began teaching in the synagogue. And many, listening, were amazed and said: “Where do these things come from? And what wisdom was that given to him? And wonders like those performed by his hands? 3Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, of Joses, of Judas and of Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?”. And it was a source of scandal for them. 4But Jesus said to them: “A prophet is not despised except in his own country, among his relatives and in his own house.” 5And there he could not perform any miracles, but only laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6And he marveled at their unbelief. Jesus went through the surrounding villages, teaching.
Mark 6: 1-6
Dear Sisters and Brothers of the Misericordie, I am Carlo Miglietta, doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it).
Also today I share with you a short meditation thought on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
The text of today’s Gospel (Mk 6.1-6) is the only one, with Lk 13.33, in which Jesus defines himself as a prophet, the definitive Word of God who announces God’s faithfulness to his people: but like all the prophets (Mt 23.37), Jesus is rejected by his followers. He is identified as an ordinary modest worker: “Isn’t this the carpenter («tékton»)?”: “Without too much convenient syncretism as certain American theologians of “merciful” conservatism do…, if we look at the most careful and well-founded documentation…, we can obtain that… the category of «tékton»…, was placed… with a downward trend… The family of Jesus was not… to be traced back to our small or medium commercial bourgeoisie. It was a decent but modest standard of living” (G. F. Ravasi). It is precisely the scandal of a carpenter God that his fellow villagers do not accept (Mk 6.1-6), but which perhaps also causes a problem for the evangelists themselves. It is curious that Matthew, taking up the passage from Mark, instead enrolls Joseph in the profession of a hired worker: “Is he (Jesus) not the son of the carpenter?” (Mt 13.55); and that Luca takes refuge in an aseptic: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” (Lk 4,22)…
But work, even the most humble, is an eminently Christological event: it cannot fail to amaze us too that the Son of God was for almost all of his life, thirty years, a modest worker of his time.
“The eloquence of Christ’s life is unequivocal: he belongs to the “world of work”, he has recognition and respect for human work; more can be said: he looks with love at this work, at its different manifestations, seeing in each one a particular line of man’s resemblance to God, Creator and Father… Jesus Christ in his parables on the kingdom of God constantly refers to work human: to the work of the shepherd (e.g. Jn 10.1-16), of the farmer (Mk 12.1-12), of the doctor (Lk 4.23), of the sower (Mk 4.1-9), of the master of the house (Mt 13.52), of the servant (Mt 24.45; Lk 12.42-48), of the administrator (Lk 16.1-8), of the fisherman (Mt 13.47-50), of the merchant (Mt 13.45f), of the worker (Mt 20.1-16). He also speaks of the different jobs of women (Mt 13.33; Luke 15.8ff). He presents the apostolate in the likeness of the manual work of reapers (Mt 9.37; Jn 4.35-38) or fishermen (Mt 4.19). Furthermore, he also refers to the work of scholars (Mt 13.52)” (Laborem exercens, n. 26).
Jesus fully assumed “the condition of a servant, becoming like men” (Phil 2:7): he therefore could not help but take upon himself the dimension of work, even with its measure of toil and death . And he refused the satanic temptation to become powerful, to escape the logic of finitude (Mt 4.1-11). Even his public mission was under the sign of “kenosis”, of “undressing and emptying oneself” (Phil 2.7): and the works of justice carried out by him clashed against the worldly logic of power, and for this reason Jesus will be put to death.
But the works of Jesus also reveal the positive aspect of work: they are a sign of liberation and healing, they build the Kingdom of God (Mt 11.4-6). Indeed, Jesus “completes the work of the Father” (Jn 4.34; 9.4).
In the early Church, work is an integral part of daily life: we know the profession of many apostles: Matthew is a tax collector (Mt 9.9); Peter, Andrew, James, John, Thomas known as Didymus are fishermen (Mt 4.18-22; John 21.2), and it cannot fail to be surprising that even after the Resurrection they continue to fish, and that Jesus appears to them in their work context (Jn 21,1-14).
Paul also works with his hands, making tents (Acts 18.3), and boasts of it (Acts 20.34). And for Paul, work also becomes a means to live the new command of charity, to help “the weak” (Acts 20.35), “those in need” (Eph 4.28).
By obedience to his own creaturely condition, the believer will have to embrace the work, like Christ, with the negative and positive aspects of him. Following the Crucifix, the believer must know how, like Jesus, to accept the negative dimension of work, its fatigue and its frustrations: “In human work the Christian finds a small part of the cross of Christ and accepts it in the same spirit of redemption, in which Christ accepted his cross for us” (Laborem exercens, n. 27). The great criterion of work is therefore the cross: work will never be important for its objective results, for the honor it will have on earth: what matters is the spirit of service, of love, with which it is carried out; therefore even the most humble jobs in the eyes of men can be the most precious in the eyes of the Lord. Work for the believer will therefore not be, as per the logic of this world, a search for self-realization, career, social promotion, success: it will be “abodah”, service of God (Ex 3.12) and of the brothers, on the example of the one who became “ebed IHWH”, the “Suffering Servant” (Is 42.1; 49.3; 52.13; 53.11). The work will be to take upon ourselves our brothers, following the example of the one to whom “they brought many demoniacs and he drove out the spirits with his word and healed all the sick, so that what had been said through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled : «He took our infirmities and bore our diseases»” (Mt 8,16-17; cf. Is 53,4).
But for the believer, work is also a following of the Risen One: this means that our work, also redeemed by Christ, has also regained its original, paradisiacal meaning, desired by God for it. With our work we must “cultivate and look after” the world (Gen 2.15), sharing in the creational work of God himself, of whom we are the “image” (Gen 1.27).
The believer is called to prolong the work of Jesus on earth, performing gestures of liberation, maturation and construction of the Kingdom. “The wait for a new earth must not weaken, but rather stimulate the concern to cultivate this earth, where that body of new humanity grows which already manages to offer a certain prefiguration that overshadows the new world” (Gaudium et spes, n . 39).
Work is therefore a constitutive mission of man which will not become alienation or slavery only if lived, following Christ Crucified and Risen, as a gift that makes us cooperators with God, for the realization of his Kingdom.
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.