16th Sunday Year B 2018

As you take part in this Sunday's Eucharist, may the reality of the mystery you celebrate move you to compassion like Jesus to reconsider the plights of your brothers and sisters who are bereft of real direction, trapped or disillusioned. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Jeremiah 23,1-6; Ephesians 2,13-18; Mark 6,30-34: 16^th Sunday Year B 2018

        In the first reading, God through the mouth of Jeremiah criticises the leaders of the people of Israel for scattering instead of gathering the people together. The indictment of the leaders of the people is terse and decisive. They have not only neglected the people of God, they have actually misled them, and caused them to be scattered, a reference to the Exile. God had put them in charge of the people, and so it is God who will remedy the situation. This will be done by means of reversals. Because the shepherds had not cared (exercised oversight) for the flock, God would care (exercise oversight) for the punishment of these derelict leaders. They had scattered the sheep; God would gather them up again. They had been false shepherds; God would be the true shepherd. At first God will work directly with the people, gathering them together, bringing them back to their home. God then promises to raise up a new royal shepherd, a righteous leader who, will govern the nation wisely and justly. The promise of a righteous ruler who will spring from the stump of the hewn tree of David calls to mind earlier prophetic promises (cf. Isa 11,1). This king will not be like the shepherds who failed both God and the people. He will be righteous, and he will do what is righteous. In fact, his very name, The Lord our justice, will attest to his righteousness. The coming king will be everything the former king was not. He will reestablish both Israel and Judah, and he will do it in the righteousness that comes from God.

        It is to be noted that this oracle of salvation, promising a righteous king is fulfilled in no other person than in Jesus Christ who is himself a decedent of David. He is the good and true shepherd who took care of his sheep to the point of shedding his blood for them. He cared for his flock. When the disciples of Jesus returned from mission and went for a lonely place to rest, their departure did not deter the crowds, who seemed to know where they were going and who arrived there before Jesus and the apostles did. Seeing them, Jesus was moved with pity (splanchnizomai), a sentiment that means profound inner emotion, which is used only by or about Jesus and which has messianic significance (cf. Mark 1,42; 8,2; 9,22). The reason for Jesus’ intense response is given. He was moved by the plight of the people, not by their enthusiasm, which might well have arisen from their desire for miracles rather than from religious motivation. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd, searching for someone or something they could follow. Jesus realised that these people followed him so eagerly because they were bereft of strong and dependable leadership. To remedy this, he began to teach them. The other aspect of Christ as a shepherd is made clearer in the second reading, from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul in this letter insists that through the blood of the cross, Christ has broken down the wall of division that separated Jews and Gentiles. He has reconciled both groups with God and thereby with each other. By his death he has put their enmity to death. More than this, he has brought them together in himself. He has not merely brought them peace, he has become their peace. Neither one of the groups has been taken up into the other. Rather, reconciled with God and with each other, they have become a new creation, a new body. Where once there were two, now there is one. Christ Jesus is the herald of this peace between the peoples. First he preached peace to the Ephesians who had been far off, just as he had preached peace to those who had come to believe earlier. Through the shedding of his blood he brought the previously separated groups together in their faith in him, thus becoming their peace. He will now serve as the one through whom all have access to God.

        This Christ who is our shepherd and our peace has been presented to us in various capacities in the previous Sundays. He was the one who was able to calm the storm, who had power over the forces of death, and who exercised a prophetic ministry in establishing the reign of God and has commissioned ordinary people to continue his work; he instructed them and empowered them. He sent them out on a mission, and they returned. They obviously had been successful, for the crowds would not let them alone. People followed them everywhere because they wanted to hear what Jesus and his disciples had to say; they wanted to be released from the sickness and the demons that possessed them. These were clearly people on a search; they were looking for direction. And so Jesus took pity on them.

        Jesus is still looking for those who will continue his shepherding, the ministry for which he shed his blood, and the ministry where he is the peace among people. He has invited and commissioned you and me by virtue of our baptism. How do we discharge the task? Do we follow the leadership role and example of the criticised leaders of the Jewish people of old? Or do we follow the example of self-appointed men and women of God who flood every means of mass communication with all types of prosperity gospels? Are we moved in the depth of our being, like Jesus was, for the plight of our brothers and sisters who are bereft of real direction in their life or precisely who are trapped and disillusioned? We have the duty to communicate to others what we learned and received from Christ! We have to be available to share the gifts God has bestowed on us; in short we have to be truly apostles/disciples and missionaries of our time. In order to achieve this well we need to retire in a deserted place, where we will be able to reflect in silence and still, in prayer, meditation and contemplation. Such instances of prayerful reflection will among other things enrich us spiritually, strengthen our convictions and faith and make us more spontaneous in responding to our missionary duties and Christian witnesses in our families, places of work, in the church and in the society at large. Let us therefore, pray in the Eucharistic celebration of this Sunday for the graces to be good and true shepherds and promoters of peace, following the example of Jesus Christ our Lord and leader.  Happy Sunday!+John I. Okoye