Sayings of Jesus

Homily for Thursday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Chapter nine of St. Mark’s Gospel is comprised of several incidents along with a collection of Jesus’ sayings. Today’s passage includes three of those sayings. It is really not all that helpful to try and group them together to create a single message as they were originally meant to address individual situations and practices.

The first teaching is simple, unmistakable and salutary. It declares that any kindness shown, any help given to the people of Christ, to whom Jesus refers as little ones, will not lose its reward. We would be making a mistake if we were to imagine that he is talking about children in this particular saying. All of Jesus’ followers are little ones in his eyes. Every person who belongs to Christ is dear to him and when in need has a claim on others who belong to Christ. The gift is a cup of cold water. We are not asked to do great things for others, things beyond our power. We are asked to give the simple things that any person can give.

The second saying is a bit harder to understand. However, if we put it in the light of the whole human body, we recognize that it is necessary from time to time to amputate a gangrenous limb to save the person’s life. Jesus carries this metaphor into the real of the spirit and the fact that sometimes our very lives and the life of the community are dependent upon removing an element that is desecrating the Body of Christ.

The final saying about salt is perhaps the most difficult. It becomes less difficult if we can set aside our notion of the uses of salt and remember that for these people salt was a necessary catalyst for fire. Israel or Palestine is not a land of lush forests which produce wood for household fires or communal ovens. The common fires for cooking or for heating a home involved salt and animal dung. Once the salt is burned away, the fire goes out. At another place in the Gospel, we are called the salt of the earth. In other words, we are the catalyst that keeps the fire burning.

Each of these sayings reminds us of the urgent and necessary character of our place in the Church. We were not meant to sit and watch the Reign of God unfold but to participate in its development by simple gestures, gestures as simple as offering a cup of cold water. Just as the simple elements of the Eucharist, bread and wine, bring us great grace, a simple glass of water is a worthy gift to offer a weary fellow sojourner.