Homily for Fourth Sunday of Ordinary time
Our society today is living through a crisis of authority. This crisis manifests itself at all levels of society: within the family, within schools, within all our institutions, Church, law, Gardai, courts, health services. There has been a major withdrawal of loyalty and trust from these institutions. On the surface, this could be seen as a negative development. After all, society cannot hope to function properly without institutions. It our police force is stood down in the morning, what happens? Or if our hospitals closed down entirely? It is bad enough that they are experienced as inefficient. Their absence would be an enormous shock to the social (and indeed medical) system. Yet we have grown cynical and suspicious about our vital institution today. But we live in a society that is far more open and democratic in the broadest sense than the one in which our grandparents lived. We are far more educated than any previous generation. Whether we are wiser or not is another days work entirely! So our institutions are scrutinizes and called to account now to an extent that was never possible before. And we have all been shocked at the feel of clay revealed. Obviously, there has been an enormous loss of credibility. There has necessarily been an erosion of trust. But truth has triumphed. If trust is based on deception and concealment of reality, then it is a spurious trust and it is not worthy of the name. So this present mistrust of institutions is a necessary movement in what is we hope a process of purification. This situation arose because authority was taken on trust, and the people taken for granted.
In today's gospel, Mark's account, Jesus is at the very beginning of his public ministry. He has been baptized by John, John has been arrested, he has called his disciples, he enters the synagogue at Capernaum where, Mark tells us, 'he made a very deep impression on them because he taught them with authority and not like their scribes'. But from then on really, it was all down hill, or uphill to Calvary is you like. Judging by our standards today, Jesus was an abysmal failure. This is not mere hindsight. Even in his own day he was judged by his contemporaries to be a failure. This was particularly so in that corner of Palestine where he was known best: his own town of Nazareth. Time after time all four gospels hammer home the same message: 'he walked no longer among his own because of their lack of faith'; or, as Luke put it, `he found no favour in his home town of Galilee'. But, even by the admission of his sworn enemies, he had that vital entity for a leader, 'authority'. And he had it in abundance. His words, his actions and his convictions were all in harmony, they were all of a piece. His clarity of vision and conviction enabled him to live with the worldly failure. He was not in the habit of looking over his shoulder in search of approval. On the contrary: he saw in his failure a particular wisdom. Through him the Father was revealing the truth to the little ones while hiding it from the legion of the self important.
Jesus lived in a society that was obsessed with law and its observance. The orthodox Jew was expected to observe 613 commandments The scribes and the Pharisees were the professionals, the experts. We often find them criticising Jesus and his disciples for openly flouting the law. But Jesus never allowed a law to come between himself and people. Jesus heals on the Sabbath and he refuses to check his disciples when the do what is considered work on the Sabbath. Many ordinary people were not in a position to observe the law because they had to earn a living. Among these groups are shepherds, drovers, traders and tax-collectors. All these people were deprived of what we would today regard as civil rights. They were forbidden to act as witnesses in court; they were refused entry to the synagogue. In short, they are at the bottom of the social heap. But Jesus has a word for them and for all who are burdened and broken by the very law that purports to protect them.
It was in this context he urged them: "Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest."
But he refuses to support the lawyers who spend their time manufacturing new burdens for a broken people. Jesus offers all these people an invitation: "Come to me...learn from me...you will find rest for your souls.' Personal fidelity to him and not to a discredited law, will be the mark of a true disciple. In him, and not in the law, we find the security of divine favour. He spoke with authority and not like their scribes.