[00:00:05] Hello. My name is Sally Moriarty Flask. Welcome to episode 1 of my Bible study podcast: From His Word to Our Hearts. Together we will explore the readings that will be proclaimed at the Catholic Mass this Sunday, July 14, 2024, which is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. This week's episode is entitled: Called to Mission, and in these readings we will explore how each and every person is called to carry the gospel message into the world.
[00:00:40] So let's begin in prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:00:45] Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you for the gift of this day. We thank you for the gift of your word, your sacred scripture. We ask that you allow it to dwell deeply within our hearts, and we ask you that you allow us to understand what you're calling us to, what mission you want to send us on. Help us to recognize that mission and understand that you always give us the strength that we need to accomplish that mission and the tools we need to be effective in it. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
[00:01:22] Now that we've opened our hearts in prayer, let's listen to what God is telling us in the scriptures. As we journey through the readings this week, consider the following: how prepared are we to be unpopular?
[00:01:38] The Gospel this week is from Mark, chapter 6, verses 7 - 13.
[00:01:43] "And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, 'Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them.' So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them."
[00:02:28] Now, what that word "twelve" means is it's Jesus inner circle, the disciples, the people that have chosen to follow him, that are his closest companions, and the ones that travel with him, that are with him morning, noon, and night, that sleep in the same grouping, that experience the difficulties of being on the road, of finding food, finding water. So he called to him, the twelve - inner circle - and "began to send them out." So began means that each group of people are being prepared separately for mission... began to send them out "two by two."
[00:03:16] He sends them out "two by two" because we're never sent out alone. The disciples weren't sent out alone. We aren't set out alone.
[00:03:28] The "two by two" is a miniature unit of the Christian community.
[00:03:36] We are there to support each other. We are there to encourage each other, to pray together, to have someone else to rely on, someone that can help you solve problems, that can correct each other's mistakes. And in biblical times, in the time of Christ and the disciples, two people were required to give testimony. In other words, to stand up in a court of law and say, this is what I saw; you should believe this, because here's the other witness. So two witnesses were required. So that's what that allows them to do. He sent them out two by two "and gave them authority over the unclean spirits." By giving them authority, Jesus is giving them a sharing of his own divine authority, to go out to teach, to cure people, and to dispel unclean spirits, to send them away so that they would no longer bother people, no longer be a drain upon their energies and upon their time.
[00:04:48] Then the scripture says, Jesus goes on to say: "he charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff." Now, that staff is a symbol of authority. Think there of the staff that Moses carried when he led the people out of captivity in Egypt. Think of the shepherd's crook that a bishop carries. That staff represents authority. So take nothing except a staff.
[00:05:19] "No bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics." All right, so what's Jesus saying here? What's he saying to the apostles? What's he saying to us? First of all, we have to be prepared for our mission, yes, but we have to be prepared simply. We take the necessities we need, but we avoid indulging in luxury. We need to focus entirely on our mission. And most importantly, we need to learn to rely on God's generosity rather than on ourselves.
[00:06:02] Then Mark says: "And he said to them: 'Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.'" So what does he mean by that? Whenever we're welcomed into, whether we're the disciples or us in modern times, whenever we're welcomed into someone's home, into a relationship, into a new place, whether that place is great or small, rich or poor, we are being welcomed. So we thank the person for their hospitality and we stay there until we leave. We accept the hospitality that's offered AS it's offered. We don't look around for something better, because each place that we stop, God has a reason for us being there, and we need to use that to fill the space with his love.
[00:07:02] That's what the disciples were told to do. That's what we're being called to do.
[00:07:08] And then Mark goes on to say, Jesus in Mark's Gospel goes on to say: "And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them." All right, that's kind of complex, so let's unpack that a little bit.
[00:07:29] "Shake off the dust that's on your feet."
[00:07:32] That was a common practice of Jews at that time. When they left Gentile territory, or when they left a place that was filled with unbelievers, it was common for them to, just as they left the territory, or when they returned to their own territory, to shake the dust out of their sandals. Because soil was seen as holy; soil was seen as the dwelling place of their God, of the... of the God of the Jews. Now we'll see as we go throughout this Bible study that God is no longer a God of place. But there were still plenty of people, especially Gentiles, that believed that God was territorial. So the Jews would shake that dust off as they left. Then the gospel goes on to tell us: "So they went out and preached that men should repent."
[00:08:33] Preach the gospel out of conviction, not for personal gain. That's what the disciples were told to do. That's what we are called to do.
[00:08:46] And the preaching is that we "should repent."
[00:08:51] The Greek word for repent is metanoia. Metanoia, which means turning away from sin, turning away from our old way of living, our old way of being, and turning toward God. We are repenting. We are changing how we do things to adopt a better way.
[00:09:12] Gospel goes on: "and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil, many that were sick and healed them." Again, this is a complex sentence, so let's break it down a little bit. They "anointed with oil."
[00:09:29] This anointing with oil is only mentioned twice in the gospels. It's mentioned here and in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke. Oil, olive oil in particular in biblical times, was seen to have medicinal properties. It was seen as a common ointment. So using oil (which olive trees grow so profusely in the holy land) that was seen as something that was common, readily available, could be sterile. So it was used to treat hurts and wounds. And it was also seen as something that was very personal. Remember, when you sat down to share a meal in biblical times, that was a very intimate kind of thing. So this anointing with oil was also very, very intimate. It required touch... it required a personal encounter... it required closeness and intimacy. So that's really, really important.
[00:10:38] And the idea of anointing the sick and healing them. Catholics see this, and the good Samaritan parable in chapter 10 of Luke, as the basis for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
[00:10:55] This is further emphasized if you like, or pointed out, fleshed out, in chapter five of James. So if you want to go and look at that, it's James, chapter 5, verses 14 - 16. But that further fleshes out what happened when the apostles went out on mission. And remember, they were sent out two by two.
[00:11:24] And the whole idea was, we are never intended to take on our mission alone. We have to do this with the help of others. We have to do it with the support and encouragement of others. And that is so important. And what the scriptures are telling us here, too, what Mark is telling us in his gospel, is that the message is when the apostles are welcomed, because Jesus has shared his authority with them, when the apostles are welcomed, Jesus himself is welcomed. And Jesus subtly reminds them, throughout his ministry, that there are times that they will be rejected. So what do they do? They shake the dust off their feet! But there are times they will be rejected, that Jesus himself was rejected.
[00:12:20] So don't be discouraged.
[00:12:26] That is the basis of the message. Don't give up.
[00:12:32] And remember, we often proclaim the Gospel most effectively by how we live our lives, not by what we own or what we accumulate, not by blowing people away by the wonderful clothes that we wear or the car that we drive. That's not what's important. What's important is how we live our lives. And when you get down to brass tacks, truthfully, we are just the messengers. The success of our mission is in God's hands, not ours.
[00:13:11] We plant the seeds, he nurtures them, and he conducts the harvest.
[00:13:21] So that was our Gospel. Now we're going to go to the first reading, which this week is from the book of the prophet Amos.
[00:13:31] Amos is often called the prophet of social justice.
[00:13:37] He lived and preached at a time when Israel was experiencing a long time of peace and prosperity. And that unfortunately occurred, encouraged, the rich and powerful to become corrupt and then to exploit those who were poor and outcast and on the edges of society in the first place. So Amos steps in and acts as a conscience to the people that he preaches to. Now, it's important to understand that Amos preached during the time of the Divided Kingdom. So Israel was one united kingdom under King David and then under his son, Solomon. But because of Solomon's many times that he broke the covenant, because Solomon spent so much time, David himself and Solomon both spent so much time turning their back on God's covenant - God's special relationship with his people - that God told Solomon Israel would be divided during the rule of his son, and his son was King Rehoboam. So it was split into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. So Amos, himself, was from the kingdom of Judah - so he was from the southern kingdom - but he traveled north to Israel, and that is where he preached. The other thing it's important to realize here... when we talk about prophets in our modern parlance, to prophesy is to try to predict the future. That is not the purpose of an Old Testament prophet, an Old Testament prophet, which were also sometimes called seers or visionaries...
[00:15:42] They speak God's word to others.
[00:15:47] Jewish Rabbi Heschel, who was a 20th century Jewish theologian and philosopher, wrote that prophets felt the feelings of God and then spoke to others about their experience. So that's a very beautiful description of what prophets were called to do. Now, the other thing that it's important to understand, just like the disciples, because in the first reading, when they went out on mission, they went out knowing that they would sometimes be turned away, that they would be rejected, that their message would not be listened to, not be heard, and not be acted upon. The prophets in the Old Testament times, especially, experienced exactly the same thing.
[00:16:37] These are not people that went out with the idea that, oh, I've got this great message from God, and everybody's going to like it, and everybody's going to listen to me. No, no, no, no! The pastor of my church often used to say that prophets comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. So they go out knowing that people are going to reject them, people are not going to listen to them, and sometimes they may be actively hurt, truth be told. So this is Amos, chapter 7, verses 12 - 15.
"And Amazi'ah said to Amos, 'O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.' Then Amos answered Amazi'ah, 'I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. And the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'"
Amazi'ah is a priest of Bethel, which is king Rehoboam's sanctuary. This is where Amos has traveled. Amazi'ah said to Amos: "O seer," O visionary, "go, flee away to the land of Judah." In other words, go back home - we don't want you here. You don't belong here. Eat bread there. Live by yourself. Go be by yourself and prophesy there. Talk to yourself. Don't talk to anybody else. We don't want to hear what you're saying!
[00:18:21] "But never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom. Again, remember, this is the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, which is now separated from the southern kingdom. And remember, the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah...
[00:18:43] That's where the city of Jerusalem is... that's where the temple was... that's where people felt the center of the Jewish faith was... in Jerusalem. So for, for King Jeroboam to even be up in the north, in the northern kingdom - so many people saw that as him turning away, another example of him turning away, from the covenant that God established with his people.
[00:19:14] "Then Amos answered Amazi'ah, 'I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son.'" In other words, I'm not a professional. I'm not part of this whole thing. I was plucked for my life, my nice, comfortable life, and sent up here. I'm not trained, I'm not paid. This is what - this mission - has been put on my heart. Like it or not, this is the mission on which I have been sent. Then he goes on to say, "but I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees." Oh, my gosh, I wish we could understand that as people hearing the scriptures at the time would have understood it. So a herdsman, that word is probably a little more common to us, and we can probably guess what that meant. Basically, what he's saying is, I'm a shepherd... But a dresser of sycamore trees? All right, let me give you a little background there. So a sycamore tree would have grown a type of fig that was used to feed both people and animals. Now, to make these figs grow their best, the dresser of sycamores, like Amos, had to go through every year and prune the trees. They had to pinch the fruit and prune the trees so that they would continue to grow and produce good fruit. So here he is saying, I am a shepherd... I am a farmer... This was not my idea! I am doing it because this is what I was told I needed to do. This is the mission upon which I was sent. Then he goes on to say, "and the LORD took me from following the flock." In other words, there's that mission again. I was taken from my flocks where I was perfectly happy and sent on mission to walk hundreds of miles north and go into what I consider to be hostile territory.
[00:21:14] "And the LORD said to me, 'Go...
[00:21:17] prophesy to my people Israel.'"
[00:21:21] Prophesy. Speak the truth that I am entrusting to you.
[00:21:27] And who are you speaking that truth to? To my people, Israel. The people are still the chosen people.
[00:21:35] They still have that intimate, loving, covenant relationship with God, but they have strayed from the right path.
[00:21:45] Now, again, the job of a prophet is to speak out against injustice.
[00:21:55] But a prophet can't be afraid of offending others. That comes with the territory. He knows he's going to offend people. So the question to us is, at the same time, if we are willing to take on the message that God has given us? If we are willing to become the disciples that he intends for us to be, and go out and carry his message to the world, maybe not even to the world, maybe just to our friends, maybe to our community, maybe to a group that we don't even know yet.
[00:22:42] But if we're given that, then what we need to do is we have to be prepared to be unpopular. That goes back to my question I asked at the beginning, how ready are we, each of us, to be unpopular? Now, there is a quote from St. John Henry Newman, who was a 19th century, actually initially Anglican, but converted to Catholicism, he was a theologian, a prophet, or poet rather, an historian.
[00:23:25] Such a learned man, such a great person. But he wrote the following:
[00:23:34] "God has created me to do him some definite service." This applies to each and every one of us. God has created us, every one of us, to do him some definite service.
[00:23:51] "He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another.
[00:23:55] I have my mission.
[00:23:58] I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
[00:24:06] I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. I shall do good. I shall do his work, therefore, I will trust in him."
[00:24:19] That's what we are called to do.
[00:24:22] In spite of the rejection, in spite of people disliking our message, in spite of anything - any difficulties we encounter - we are called on mission.
[00:24:41] And the important thing is we know we can't do it alone.
[00:24:48] So after the book of Amos, we will hear from the book of Psalms. This week is Psalm 85, which is a lament psalm. It's a communal lament rather than an individual lament. In other words, it is intended for a community to address God. It is a prayer for the restoration of God's favor. So you can see why this works with the first reading from Amos and the Gospel. The response is: "Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation."
[00:25:26] "Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people. Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land."
[00:25:38] "Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss."
[00:25:44] "Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky."
[00:25:50] "Yea, the LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps away." Basically, this is a poetic way of saying that when we do God's will, the peace of the kingdom is within reach, and justice is the path that we should follow. So that is the purpose of the Psalm for this week.
[00:26:16] And then the second reading this week is from the book of Ephesians, the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians.
[00:26:24] Now, this is the first of five passages that we will hear from Ephesians. And remember, the New Testament letter, or Epistle, is often - we may not read the entire thing from start to finish, but we will kind of skip and jump our way through the book. And this is the first of five passages that we will hear from Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
[00:26:50] "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
[00:27:09] He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will,
[00:28:02] we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."
[00:28:31] So this is, the letter to the Ephesians, is part of what is called Paul's captivity letters, because they were most likely written while he was imprisoned in Rome, and that was about 61 to 63 AD. And they were, they all have a very common theme, because Paul has things that he wants to make sure that he gets out. And so he has... he's very strident in some of these letters. He's very definite in some of these letters because he's afraid he's approaching the end of his life (as it turns out, he was). So he's getting these messages out and making them as clear as he possibly can. So that opening is saying... it's reminding us our focus should be on God.
[00:29:32] So what has our attention when we go out to encounter people, when we go out to... go to the store, to drive on the road, to go pick up our kids, to drop them off to whatever, go to a party, go to work, what is our focus on? And remember, I said, as disciples, what's important is how we live our lives.
[00:30:03] What's our focus when we leave the house every day? Is our focus to get to places the fastest way that we can get there and cut off as many people as we can and be on our cell phones when we drive? And is that our focus, or is our focus on God?
[00:30:19] Which will tell us, oh, I need to be careful when I drive. I need to be aware of other people. I need to put my cell phone down and not drive distractedly. I need to be cognizant of where other people are on the road, and I need to be cautious. And what is our focus on? What has our attention, Paul goes on to say, "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world," the important part in that phrase is that he chose us. God chose us.
[00:31:01] Not that WE choose something, not WHAT we choose, but that we are CHOSEN.
[00:31:11] Think about that quote from St. John Henry Newman.
[00:31:18] Each one of us is called to something... each one of us has chosen to do something.
[00:31:25] And we are chosen "before the foundation of the world" throughout all eternity, throughout all space and time, before space and time ever even were created, God had a plan for each and every one of us.
[00:31:42] Daunting thought!
[00:31:44] But look at that trust that God has in us.
[00:31:50] And look at the love that he has, that he gives us the strength to carry out the mission that he gives - that he sets before us - so before the foundation of the world, that we should be "holy and blameless before him."
[00:32:06] "He destined us in love to be his sons." And yes, yes, I know Paul was male himself... he was speaking to a male dominated society... so, yes, he says sons, but he equally means sons and daughters. Women, we are not left out of this equation. So to be his sons and daughters "through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." And the beloved, here, is his beloved son, Jesus Christ. Now, that was all one sentence.
[00:32:52] Remember St. Paul...
[00:32:55] When I worked at my parish, part of what I did was train new lectors, people that would go up and proclaim the word at Mass. And my favorite moniker for Paul was the patron saint of the run on sentence. So when we read St. Paul, we have to be willing to parse his words out in ways that make sense to us, because he just was not very good with punctuation. So we have to parse this out ourselves and figure it out. Read it, listen to it.
[00:33:29] The amazing thing to me is that Paul's letters were all written with the intent to be read in public.
[00:33:36] And if you sit down and read some of his letters and you think, oh, my gosh, this would have taken four or 5 hours to read. Well, be glad you're only hearing a small portion of that! Okay, so Paul's letter goes on: "In him," In Jesus, "we have redemption through his blood."
[00:33:58] That redemption means we are freed from slavery to sin. And that freedom was purchased on the cross when Christ shed his own blood.
[00:34:13] "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses." That's what that redemption really is, the forgiveness of our sins.
[00:34:29] And that has been given to us. That redemption, that forgiveness, is given "according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us."
[00:34:42] Remember, God gives us these gifts out of love.
[00:34:49] Whether or not we love him in return, he still loves us.
[00:34:54] And Paul goes on to say, "For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will." And what is a mystery? Okay, a mystery doesn't mean like a magic trick. It doesn't mean something that isn't real. Mystery is something we can only know partially now in this life, in this human plane, because our understanding is not that of God's. In the prophet Isaiah, God says, "for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways." So God is bigger than we are, his existence is bigger than we are, his love is bigger than we are, his forgiveness is bigger than we are. So THAT is the mystery we are invited into here, the mystery of his will "according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time." In other words, someday...
[00:36:05] Someday we are going to all stand before the judgment seat of God (and that is the fullness of time) "to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." So things in the heavenly plane where God is, where he has existed before time existed and will exist after every single universe burns itself out, and things on earth - so this limited earthly plane - this limited existence "In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will." Remember, this is a focus on God's initiative. Everything that he is doing... he is offering us love. He has created us, he has redeemed us, he has forgiven us, and he is asking us to live and share his light and love with others.
[00:37:10] Okay, so who exactly is it that he's asking this of? It's asking it of us. "We who first hoped in Christ" and "have been destined," chosen, destined and "appointed to live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth," you have heard the gospel message... you are hearing it now... you have heard it... and you need to internalize that as the truth that he's willing to share with you. The gospel of your salvation, the good news (that's what gospel means - good news), the good news of your salvation... "and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
[00:38:04] So that is an allusion there to baptism, to that unity that we all strive to attain in our hearts, in our minds, in our families, in our communities, "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance." Remember, we are adopted sons of daughters, so where is our destined inheritance? It's in heaven.
[00:38:32] This earthly life, this plane is not the end. We are all called to unity with God... we are called to be holy... we are called to be saints...and our eventual destiny is to be with God in heaven, so the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. So while we're on this earthly plane - while we're in this existence - this is temporary... this is transient. The time will come when we are forever with God. And how is that? How do we express that? "To the praise of his glory."
[00:39:12] Everything that happens in this, if you look at the second half of this reading, it talks about God's initiative. We have been destined... God destined us... he appointed us. We heard the word that he spoke. We believed because he gave us the gift of life. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. That is all God's initiative and he is giving that to us.
[00:39:40] Everything we are, everything in all of creation can be summed up in Christ.
[00:39:46] This passage is a blessing prayer.
[00:39:51] It tells us THAT we are blessed. It tells us HOW we are blessed and explains WHY we are blessed. And why are we blessed? Because we are chosen!
[00:40:04] So thank you for joining me today for this premiere episode of From His Word to Our Hearts. I hope you have gotten something out of it that is worthwhile and I hope you come back and join me again.
[00:40:18] If you would like to reach out with questions or comments, send me an email at
[email protected].
Thank you for listening and until next we meet... may God shower his blessings upon you like a soft and gentle rain, and may he hold you safe and secure in the palm of his hand.
[00:40:40] From His Word to Our Hearts is a production of SFS Audio Solutions Jimmy Flask, audio engineer and sole proprietor. The content of the show was assembled by me, Sally Moriarty-Flask. Music composed by Jimmy Flask and used with permission of the composer. A complete list of references used to prepare the exegesis of this Bible study is available upon request.
Thank you and God Bless!
