AN EXASPERATED JESUS

GIVEN AT THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR HOME FOR THE ELDERLY

1-12-2024

 

The Pharisees began to argue with Jesus, seeking from him a sign from heaven. Jesus sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Then he got into a boat and went off to the other shore.

Mark 8:11-13

Like today, during the time in which Jesus lived there was a tendency to look for God in the abnormal. It was believed that when the Messiah came, the most startling things would happen. In fact, in the temptation story we read at the beginning of Lent, this was the first temptation Jesus resisted – the temptation to play into this need for stunts and dramatic shows of magic-like events. The first temptation was to turn rocks into bread so he would have “proof” that he was the Messiah. It was a sign like that that the Pharisees wanted to see.

To Jesus, such a demand was not their desire to see the hand of God; it was due to the fact that they were blind to God’s hand already working in the world. There were signs everywhere of God’s goodness and generosity. All they needed were the eyes to see it! Jesus knew that there was no need for magic bread. There was already enough bread to feed the people of the earth, if each human had the heart and the faith to share it instead of hording it for themselves. A truly religious person does not have to go to a church to find God. A truly religious person can find God active everywhere!

The great poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning out it this way:

“Earth’s crammed with heaven.

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.”

You don’t have to walk far to see the dramatic signs that the Pharisees craved to see. Over in Audubon Hospital, there are heart surgeries, organ transplants, hip, knee and shoulder replacements and corrective surgeries going on right now! Some of you are walking miracles of their medical procedures and successes.

Instead of people kneeling in wonder, praising God for his mercy and goodness, we have people running around talking about the absence of God or dismissing his existence altogether. We even have some Catholics running from shrine to shrine looking for the latest “miracle.”

Exasperated by the blindness of the Pharisees’ inability to see the evidences of God right under their noses, and sighing loud enough for all to hear, Jesus gets in a boat and leaves them standing there scratching their heads!