Prophets are chosen by God from among people to
convey His message. We are in the Fourth Sunday of the Ordinary time. The prophet
and his role are the centre of today’s readings. In the old testament we have
many prophets. But among them Moses is the first and greatest of all the
prophets because of the power and authority that he exercised. Unlike, other prophets
Moses had command over natural things, performed extraordinary miracles, meet
God several times, transmitted the laws of God to the people, systematized the Jewish
religion, disciplined human lives and passed away silently. In the first reading,
Dt 18:15-20 Moses gives a messianic promise that God will raise up a prophet
like him in future from among the people (Dt 18:15). The responsibility of the
people is to heed to the prophet.
In the Gospel, Mk 1:21-28 people were amazed at the
teaching of Jesus at Capernaum. This is the first preaching minister of Jesus
in the synagogue. The authority that He exhibited in His preaching was the
distinguishing mark of Him from other scribes. The evangelist, Mark responding
to the query of people about Jesus’ authority, reveals the identity of Jesus
from the mouth of unclean spirit. The unclean spirit hails Jesus as Nazarenes- the strong/powerful one and Holy One – God’s anointed one. Jesus was
not only a prophet but also a God, because He is not simply another man chosen
from among people to convey God’s message rather He is God who is made to be
born like human.
St. Paul, the great moral teacher in the
beginnings of the church have given many moral advises to the believers in his epistles.
In today’s second reading, 1 Cor 7:32-35 St. Paul speaks about different
preoccupations of married and unmarried people. The former are busy with their worldly
life and responsibilities that their commitment has called for. The latter are
free of worldly affairs and committed responsibilities, and so they have more
time to be preoccupied with the divine things. By making this distinction St.
Paul is not demeaning the married life. He acknowledges that married life commitments
have to be carried out, because they have made their promise before God. At the
same time, he exhorts that the unmarried, who are free from commitments are
accountable for using that freedom and time to concentrate on divine things.
The readings of today reveal that the authority of the
preacher comes from God. In the bible, the prophets are mostly unmarried or separated
from their partner for the sake of building up the kingdom of God and
performing God’s work. The prophets or preachers of today also have authority over
our moral and personal life. The preachers have responsibility to convey, transmit
and interpret the word of God faithfully. The married who are busy with their
commitments may not have sufficient time to heed to the voice of the Lord and
make decisions in line with Christian values. Therefore, they have
dependability on their preachers for guidance and orderly life. Let us pray
that our pastors may preach the word of God with authority and may we heed to
their teachings with open heart to lead our lives in accordance with the word
of God.
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