Homily 4^th Sunday Ordinary Times

In the history of the human race, that there were a number of people who spoke with power and attracted a large audience and followers. There were many like Adolf Hitler, Muammar Gaddafi who tried to assume great power or acted as having power and authority but ended with utter failure and shame. Today’s gospel speaks of a great teacher and divine healer who spoke and acted with real authority from the Heavenly Father in its real sense. So people said, “He speaks with authority”. Even after two thousand years, people still accept that authority and power and follow Him who left behind no earthly wealth, no palace or nothing of that category.

        In today’s gospel St. Mark, after a few introductory words, goes right to the beginning of Christ’s public ministry in Galilee. Here, St. Mark is making the point forcefully that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, speaking to us on His own authority, quoting no one else, not even saying “Thus says the Lord,” as all other prophets and teachers said in the past. Jesus spoke directly from His own authority.

     He taught as no one else ever taught or ever will again. Why? Because He is the Son of God, source of true wisdom, knowledge and power. Even the devils themselves acknowledged Jesus as Son of God. Jesus came to heal both body and soul.

          Along with preaching the Kingdom of God with signs and miracles, Jesus rebuked the evil spirits with authority and the unclean spirits left. There is a demon which is present today in so many that heightens our anxiety and that is the demon of restlessness. We are restless people. Restlessness is difficult to define but simple put it is the opposite if restful. In our society with all our technology speeding and spinning our lives in an unprecedented pace, we crave rest. We grow more anxious, tired and we talk about burnout as a normal occurrence that eventually we all come to experience. Today nothing seems enough for us. We have lost the simple enjoyment of just being. The simple joys of living are lost as we grow ever more restless, driven, and hyper. Within our lives there is less ease and more fever, less peacefulness and more activity. Oh, some restlessness is normal. But it’s like body temperature, there comes a point when it turns into an unhealthy fever. St. Augustine calls the healthy form of human restlessness our life-long search for God. “My soul is restless, until it rests in you, my God.”

The demon of restlessness and anxiety are rooted in our greed for experience. Nothing seems to be enough. Nothing seems to be adequate. We constantly want more. We are impatient and lack chastity. We can’t wait in line, our computer’s don’t have enough memory, we rush from appointment to appointment. And when we hear the word Chastity we think of it in terms of sex. But chastity is used in a much wider context. Chastity has to do with knowing the limits. Whatever it may be, chastity means disciplining ourselves so we use things and ourselves properly. It means being reverent towards things, ourselves and others.

  Henry Nouwen, addresses the demon of anxiety in these words, “Beneath our worrying lives, however, something else is going on. While our minds and hearts are filled with many things, and we wonder how we can live up to the expectations imposed on us by ourselves and others, we have a seep sense of unfulfillment. We seldom feel truly satisfied, at peace, at home. The great paradox of our time is that many of us feel busy and bored at the same time.”

     How do we chase the demon of worry and anxiety from us? we need to invite Jesus in us through prayer. We need to keep him in focus throughout our day and to talk to him. We must give up the idea that more is better. We must stop blaming others. We must get comfortable with uncertainty. Indeed there are things that I can’t explain and that I have no control over and that is OK. Jesus exorcises demons even today as he did in the first century. Jesus triumphs over unclean spirits and don’t we long to hear Jesus rebuke the demons of anxiety and excessive worry and restlessness form our lives? These truths found in scripture may help us as we approach the table of the Eucharist and in particular when we pray that God deliver us from all anxiety.