Sep-5 Liturgical Study Twenty-third Sunday

 

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary time

In Biblical stories, like in literature, underdog accounts with fortune reversals satisfy our thirst for poetic justice. In today's 4 liturgical passages: Isaiah 35 alongside Psalm 146, James 1 and Mark 7: all depict dramatic reversals that heal and sustain. Psalm 146, like Isaiah 35, imagines God executing justice for the oppressed, feeding the hungry, setting prisoners free, opening blind eyes, and lifting those bowed down. Mark 7 depicts Jesus healing a man who was mute, and allowing his own eyes to be opened by a distressed foreign woman. James 2 counsels favouring the lowly over the influential, and commends deeds over pious sentiments.

Reading 1 Isaiah 35:4-25

Underlying the dramatic imagery of divine action, hope proceeds not simply from God’s expected (Hebrew naqam) 'restorative justice', but from those the prophet seeks to inspire, from a small band of exiled Judeans who return to a war-torn land and recultivate it. Who through their strength and allegiance to Yahweh will see a reversal of fortune to push back the chaos, and thus strengthen their own weak hands, feeble knees, and fearful hearts. The magnitude of the restoration (or the depth of the despair of the ailing — or both!) is suggested by the promise that when the great day comes the lame will not merely walk but dance, the mute not merely speak but sing.

Psalm 146

Verses 6-9 contain a mini-salvation history and catalogue of God’s beneficent activities, all of which are positive until the last. God creates, keeps promises, gives justice, feeds the hungry, sets captives free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up the lowly, loves the righteous, and cares for strangers, orphans, and widows. The only negative action mentioned is the relatively mild, “… but the ways of the wicked he thwarts.”

Reading II James 2:1-5

This passage mirrors two teachings of Christ

A) In Luke 14:7-11: For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. 

B) The description of the rich man’s clothing and finery immediately calls to mind the similar description in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), a story that straightforwardly describes a reversal of fortunes after death, with the poor man being favored and the rich man suffering in agony.

This passage is quite blunt: we, the audience, are to be the reversal we wish to see. We are the ones to lift up the downtrodden, to honor the meek, to love the lowly among us before they have anything to offer us. We are the ones we are waiting for.

Gospel Mark 7:31-37

To avoid the Pharisees, Jesus is traveling through the land of the Gentiles. In Mk 7:24-30 , he had just left the region of Tyre and Sidon where he had healed the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman. He then goes to the Gentile and Hellenistic regions of Decapolis, SE of the Sea of Galilee, 10 cities which include Damascus, Hippos, Gerasa, and Philadelphia [modern Amman]. Here Mark presents the cure of one that was deaf and dumb. Those who brought this poor man to Christ, wanted to observe the case, and see the power of God. Our Lord therefore uses more outward actions in the doing of this cure than usual.