Homily for Friday, 9 June 2017– Memorial of St. Ephrem

Readings of the day: Tobit 11:5-17; Psalm 146:1b-2, 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10; Mark 12: 35-37

Friday of the 9th week in Ordinary Time

Has anybody here ever heard something or somebody and been delighted? Perhaps we have been to a great concert, or heard a rousing speech. For me, whenever I am in our St. Kateri Parish rectory at Christ the King, or when I visit St. Kateri School and greet the students in the morning, I hear the squeals of children in the school playground, I exchange high-fives with them at the doors and try to remember as many of their and their parents’ names after two years away now, and I hear and try to answer their often brilliant questions, and maybe try to teach them some French… All this (and children in general; I am also an uncle to a delightful niece, Molly, and nephew, Liam) fills me with special delight! I have enjoyed my two years in Paris, although among a few things I miss about St. Kateri, being with our children and young people are among the most significant.

“The great crowd” who heard Jesus teach “in the temple area,” as we hear in Mark’s Gospel today, had the experience of being delighted: “The great crowd heard this with delight.” What did Jesus say that day “in the temple area” that so delighted the crowd? Let me suggest that what so delighted the crowd who heard Jesus had less to do with what he said than what he, the “Son of David”; the Son of God, did.

The crowd saw and heard something royal from Jesus; something that reminded them of Israel’s great King David, and yet something more. Jesus, drawing upon a title “the scribes” had given him, “Son of David,” recalls David when speaking of himself. The crowd sees and hears that, like David, Jesus has been “inspired by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus’ words and his works have God’s own authority behind them. The God who inspired and gave authority to David’s rule and words gives the same authority to Jesus when he speaks the same words: “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet.’”

What does Jesus mean when he speaks these words of King David? As in Jesus’ time, perhaps too many people today imagine Jesus, and want him to be, a great military ruler. For too many people, then as now, including too many people in positions of power, to “place [our] enemies under [our] feet” means to crush them by military force or by economic oppression as immediately as possible.

But this is not the way of Jesus or of his kingship. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the “prosperity gospel,” the might-makes-right gospel, or the gospel of terror and oppression. At best, responding to the violence of an enemy with violence will give us temporary delight, while the enemy actually persists and often more enemies are created through violence.

Jesus’ words and works, even more than those of King David, are experienced with more permanent delight by “the great crowd.” We are still delighted in Jesus today, so much so that we gather here in this space, more than two thousand years after Jesus spoke near the temple, to worship and celebrate him. And yet our mission as Christians is to move from this worship celebration to remind the world authentically of Jesus by our words and works, so that, because of Jesus, our world may delight in us.