First Reading
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Moses spoke to all the people, saying: “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen. This is exactly what you requested of the Lord, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let us not again hear the voice of the Lord, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘This was well said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him.’” Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.”
Second Reading
1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.
Gospel Cycle Cycle B
Mark 1:21-28
Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
The connection between the first reading today and the Gospel is so very strong. Moses, in the first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, tells the people that God Himself will raise up a prophet for them, one who is their own relative and one to whom they should listen. We who follow Jesus come to recognize that He, Jesus, is the fulfillment of this prophecy—and even more than we could have imagined. He is our relative, a human like us in all things except sin. He shares our humanity with us and speaks to us about God. The challenge—and this also comes from Deuteronomy, is to listen to Him and to follow His words.
The Gospel of Mark today tells us about Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum. Jesus teaches as one having authority and the people recognize that immediately. Even more, Jesus commands unclean spirits and they obey Him. This scares the people and they are no longer certain that Jesus comes from God. They have become accustomed to a safe practice of their faith and the actions of Jesus begin to challenge their sense of security.
Jesus challenges us! Faith in God is not about being secure. Faith in God is about having a living relationship with God, a personal relationship—and because of that relationship, doing the will of God in every aspect of our life. Far too often we hope that if we just do the right things, we can somehow achieve salvation. We need to become acutely aware of the difference between performing actions to appease God and acting out of a deep, personal relationship with the living God.
The second reading, from the First Letter to the Corinthians, shows us the advice of Saint Paul. This is advice to people about how to live. Saint Paul wants the followers of Jesus to be free of anxiety and so counsels chaste celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. We know that Saint Paul never imposed chaste celibacy as a requirement. Rather, Saint Paul counsels women and men that chaste celibacy might be a better way to live in order to give one’s energies to the living God. Counsel to others is to help them seek God with all their being. Counsel is to help others live fully because of their personal relationship with God.
The Christian traditional recognizes both chaste celibates and married women and men as saints: those who have followed God as completely as possible in this life. When we read an honest life of a saint, we begin to understand a bit what it means to live out of a deep, personal relationship with God.
God has raised up a prophet for us, Jesus the Christ. God has given us His own Son to be our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is this Jesus who challenges us today to see His presence in our world and to respond with our whole being to that presence. You and I can convert the whole world, if we live from that relationship.