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Epiphany V-B: Year B February 9, 2003
H O M I
L Y G R I T S
The
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
Year B February 9, 2003
(© 2003 by Grant Gallup -
permission given for free distribution in fair use or quotation )
¶ Book of Common Prayer Lectionary -
2 Kings 4: (8-17) 18-21 (22-31) 32-37 She came to the man of God at Mount
Carmel
Psalm 142 Voce mea ad Dominum - I cry to the Lord with my voice
1 Corinthians 9: 16-23 I have become all things to all people
Mark 1:29-39 Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever
¶ Revised Common Lectionary
Isaiah 40:21-31 They shall mount up with wings like eagles
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c Laudate Dominum - How good it is to sing praises to
our God
Corinthians 9:16-23 as above
Mark 1:29-39 as above
Elisha's adventures with the great lady of Shunem is one of the best of
Bible stories, isn't it? A racy story line for a telenovela, with a
famous itinerant preacher and a wealthy woman of great influence offering
him hospitality whenever he's in town. Andrew Greeley has already done
it all in "Cardinal Sins", hasn't he? Her own aged husband couldn't
provide her with a child, so the Prophet, grateful for all her kindness,
for the penthouse she had built for him and his servant at her estate,
promises her that she shall have a son. A great story that could sizzle
with the right temperature. Jim and Tammy Baker might have done it early
on. Then comes Part II: the Shunamite's son is now a little boy, out in
the fields with the farm hands in the heat of the day, and suffers
sun-stroke and apparently dies in her lap at midday. Lady Shunem rushes
to ask her husband for a servant and a donkey, that she may go to Elisha,
the Man of God. Husband asks, "How come? It's not a holiday or
anything, is it?" But she goes to get Elisha at Mount Carmel, where the
Carmelites got started, for Elijah is credited with being the first to
embrace the contemplative life on this mountain, whose name means
"garden" (1) . He returns with her and adminsters what looks like
artificial respiration to the boy, resurrects him and gives him back to
Lady Shunem, and goes on his way.
Elisha had just before this come from the clergy widow who was destitute,
and with an empty olive oil canister. Like Old Mother Hubbard, her
cupboard.was bare. But Elisha supplied her with all olive oil to fill
every vessel she had, and bid her borrow all the empty bottles of her
neighbors, and he filled them so she had enough oil to sell and pay off
her bills. Thus he might be remembered as the patron saint of cottage
industry. Before that, however, Elisha had ben heavily involved with
international politics, for he was in the Battle of the Kings. Israel,
Judah, and Edom were arrayed against the King of Moab. Great power plays
that affected the destiny of thousands of people in the ancient middle
east. Elisha had commitments that were beyond his local concerns. Yet
the enterprises of great pith and moment did not keep him from the
concerns of simple pity, the needs of those nearby. . Like great
people, Elisha made no little plans.
Paul writes in the year 56 to the church in Corinth, which he had
planted in the year 50. He deals with all their local concerns: a case
of incest in the community, fellow churchfolk suing each other in court,
others who were backsliders into California-type cults, controversies
about what believers could eat, about women's rights, about contempt of
the poor on the part of regular communicants--all sticky parochial
concerns. Today he fusses with them about their attitude to him,
reminding them that he had always refused a stipend from them. These are
particular and parochial concerns, but they all have dimensions of
significance that go beyond Corinth to the gospel itself, to the whole
world and its liberation. As Paul moved from Corinth to Athens, to
Ephesus, Troas, Phillipi, Thessalonica, from Turkey to Greece, to Crete,
Cyprus, Sicily, and to Naples and Rome--the capital of the world--Paul
grew into a big view of Church in the Oikoumene. Paul and Elisha both
sound as if they had been trained at Maryknoll, where I spent five weeks
in the summer of 1987, where the motto of the missionary society is:
Think Globally, Act Locally. A few days ago here in Managua I and a
delegation from San Francisco had tea with Father Miguel D'Escoto, the
Maryknoll priest who opted for Nicaraguan citizenship and served as the
Foreign Minister in the years of the terrorist war the United States
waged on Nicaragua, and it was Father Miguel who got the World Court's
judgment against the U.S. for 17 billion dollars in damages. Never paid.
Miguel remains a prince of peace, like our Lord himself, and wages peace
against the terrorists and warmongers. Think Globally, Act Locally, has
to be the motto for all of us disciples of Jesus. Church life becomes
ingrown and narrow if its concerns are only parochial and private,
scheduling services and rummage sales, bible classes and prayer circles.
The oil can in the kitchen, the gas tank on the car, the sick child in
the bedroom, these are vital concerns. The Prophet leaves the Battle of
the Kings to attend to them. Paul writes from Ephesus across the Sea to
focus concern on the problems of the Church in Corinth. He's facing
opposition in Ephesus, and even a riot of silversmiths whose sales from
their Artemis idol factory had fallen off because he preached a
boycott. He doesn't forget the Church across the sea in Corinth. Maps
of Paul's missionary journeys were one of the things I remember most
about Bible study in my school days, and they are one of the few things
about Bible study that have not changed since those days. Paul travelled
all over the world as it was known to him--whereas Jesus didn't travel
much at all, unless you count the fabulous legends of his tours to India
as a youth, or William Blake's fantasy about his trip to England: "And
did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And
was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?" But
especially in the life of Jesus and in his teaching do we see the
principle expresed of Think Globally, Act Locally.
A few weeks ago we had Jesus understanding at his Baptism that he had a
global mission: "You are my beloved Son. On you my favor rests." So the
voice had whispered to him then, and then he goes from his retreat in the
wilderness to the synagogue at Capernaum, with his first disciples Andrew
& Peter, James & John. He heals a man with a hankering for the
non-kosher. Then he goes to Peter's mother-in-law's house. There he
finds at meal time that Mother isn't well; she has a fever. Jesus takes
her by the hand and helps her up, and soon the fever leaves and she is
able to wait on them like a good Jewish momma. By sunset, as the Sabbath
ends, all the sick folks in town, all the "possessed", which probably
included everybody from epileptics to schizophrenics--they are all there
at the door of the house, seeking attention from the Great Physician.
The Muslim poet Jalal-al-Din Rumi wrote in his Mathnawi:
"The house of Jesus was the banquet of men of heart. O afflicted one,
quit not this door.
From all sides the people ever thronged,
Many blind and lame, halt and afflicted,
At the door of the house of Jesus at dawn,
That with his breath he might heal their ailments
As soon as he had finished his orisons
That holy one would come forth at the third hour
He pondered those impotent folk sitting,
Troop by troop, at his door in hope and expectation.
He spoke to them saying, 'O stricken ones,
The desires of you all have been granted by God,
Arise, walk without pain or affliction,
Acknowledge the mercy and beneficience of God.'
Then all, like camels whose feet are shackled,
When you loose their feet on the road,
Straightway rush in joy and delight to the halting place,
So did they run upon their feet at his command. " (2)
All the local concerns of the people are attended to, or some of them.
Or some of them. The text says Jesus was not able to do great deeds in
places where there was no faith. Early in the morning, Jesus is up and
goes out to the edge of town, and there he is absorbed in prayer. By
this time it's the first day of the week, and a working day in that
world, and his friends track him down and tell him "Everyone is looking
for you. We have appointments scheduled for the rest of the day." But
Jesus now declares, "Let's move on to the neighboring villages for I have
good news for them as well. This is why I came out. This is what is on
my agenda." And he went over all the towns telling good news and
evicting demons, throughout Galilee." So local concerns are not allowed
to domesticate the gospel bird and trap it in a cage. The Evangel
cannot be housebroken like a puppy on the Sunday newspaper. The gospel
acts locally always or it fails. But it must always act with Global
Awareness.
In every community of believers, from cathedral congregations to mission
committees, from seminary trustees to monastic chapters, attention is
called to situations that cry out for global awareness. There are daily
promptings from Jesus: "Let us move on . . . for this why we came out."
If our gospel agenda is so near sighted that we only see our own empty
cup, if our vision of the gospel is no near sighted that we can only see
the needs of our own, our kinfolk who are in sickbed, our own parish
needy, then we have missed the point of the Epiphany cycle, of the
gospel's goodness for all the world. The sharply pointed and tragic
message of 9-11-01 should have been translated at once by the Church into
an appeal to all our consciences to turn with compassion to our sisters
and brothers in Afghanistan, in all the Middle East, instead of
misdirected revenge. That we have failed to do so will live as an infamy
for the name of the Western Church. We especially in the U.S. of A. have
failed to join the human race to give it the example and the leadership
which our immense wealth enables us to do. Instead, we have hastened to
place weapons into the hands of the world's children hungry for bread and
"ardent for some desperate glory." We shall have missed he point of the
Magi stories, if we forget that the alien vistors bring wondrous gifts
to the Messiah King, and adorn the universal Church with their faith,
while they avoid collusion with the imperial hegemon, and go about the
divine agenda by an alternative route..
There are local concerns that are of global significance. Where
minorities in our own communities are enabled to take charge of their own
future, to have a decisive say-so in the use of land, for all land is
the Promised Land--it is promised to God's poor, Gods pilgrims. And a
decisive say-so in the allocation of housing. "In my Father's house are
many dwelling places." And none of them is a gated community that
excludes the dispossessed and the homeless. How can something which is
bad news to the poor be so frequently and eagerly embraced by the rich as
good news to them? Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is
not worth living. We might also consider what Jesus, by his praxis,
preaches:--that the unexamined ministry is not worth doing. It must be
submitted to reflection, contemplation, theological insight, listening
for the Call of God in all its aspects. The three movements of ministry
development, if you will, are right here in the gospel lesson: There is
first of all immediate local action in relief of urgent need, in relief
of those pressed about the door at eventide. Then there is
reflection--to arise a great while before it is yet day and contemplate
(take to the Temple) our activity, our busyness. And then there is the
move to wider concerns, larger issues. For this we are ekklesia--for
this we are called out. Don't get trapped in the church basement, nor
marooned like a new puppy on the comic section. Self-study should look
at where we've been, recalling why we were called
"Church" and how that is a synonym for Mission. Wherein we are to think
globally, and act locally. l
GRANT GALLUP
Apartado RP-10
CASA AVE MARIA
Managua, Nicaragua C.A.
Tel. 011-505-2662165
gallup@tmx.com.ni
GRITS 2nd series now on-line:
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits
(1) Perhaps after the third crusade (1189-191) some pilgrims from Europe
stayed behind to live at Mount Carmel as lay hermits, and built a chapel
to the Mother of God there. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, living near the
mountain (1206-1214) wrote their formula of life and during the years
they grew into an important religious order. The Saracens chased them
out of the Holy Land in 1235. They were refounded in modern times.
(2) Kenneth Cragg, Jesus and the Muslim: an Exploration. Oxford: Oneworld
1999. Translations of Masnavi-i-Ma'navi, Spiritual Couplets by E. H.
Whinfield, London 1887.