8th Week, Ordinary Time, Saturday, June 3
Ecclesiasticus 51:12-20 / Mark 11:27-33
I sought wisdom in my youth; She came to me in all her beauty.
We sometimes think of wisdom as being reserved for people with grey hair. There is indeed a wisdom that comes from years of living. But there's also a wisdom that comes from the hand of God. It's this kind of wisdom that Chicago poet Carl Sandburg talks about in one of his poems. A little girl is watching a military parade. Everyone is cheerful, but she is sad. Her thoughts are not on the parade but on the horror of war and killing. Finally, she turns to someone and says in effect: "I know something. The time will come when they will hold a war and nobody will come."
***
How open are
we to the wisdom that God wishes to pour into our heart? The very young have a
remarkable wisdom that comes fresh and unsullied from the hand of God himself.
***
In the first
reading, the Old Testament writer thanks God, from whom he has learned wisdom.
God’s wisdom has brought him insight and happiness.
***
Sirach
begins and ends his book with a hymn to Wisdom. Sirach describes his own
experience with Lady Wisdom. He wooed her from his youth. From then he saw in
her a beautiful bride who responds only to love. She demands constant, devoted
attention. He seeks her in school; on travels he finds her. He prays to her.
She gives the direction to his life and guides him. All his life she claims his
whole-hearted attention. In the beginning she just a lovely blossom to him, but
then she as delicious as a ripe grape in her maturity. She fulfilled his
heart's desires. He opened his house to her. Through her, he gained insight
into the mysteries of God. He'll never let her go. She taught him the way to
joy and peace through faithful observance of God's law.
***
The Gospel
shows us the Jewish leaders challenging Jesus’ authority for what he teaches
and does because they feel challenged in their own authority. Jesus does not
give them an answer because they are not willing to accept him anyway because
they only try to justify themselves. They and we cannot understand Jesus unless
we encounter and welcome and love him as a person.
***
It was a high-power
delegation that came to Jesus when he taught in the portico, a passage with
high marble pillars on both sides. Jesus had cleansed the temple by throwing
out all the merchants and overturning the tables of the money changers. This
delegation comprised the high priests as the authority of the temple and the
religion and the elders: the political government. They wanted to know by what
authority Jesus taught and cleansed the temple. The question was legitimate.
They had a right to know, even a duty to ask. If they had been serious; but
they were not serious. Jesus answered by asking them a question was very
cleverly put. It was the dilemma from which there was no escape. This question
was the answer. John, the Baptist, had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah and at
the baptism a voice solemnly acknowledged Jesus as the son of the father in
heaven. The Holy Spirit descended on him. Jesus had the right to teach, as the
temple was truly his father's house.
***
It is not
easy to admit that we are wrong, especially when we are confronted with facts. It
is even more difficult for people of authority to admit that they are wrong. Simply
because there is just too much to lose. When the authorities confronted Jesus,
it was Jesus who presented the facts. But in refusing to acknowledge the facts,
and by saying "We don't know", the authorities have exposed
themselves. Ironically, it was the people of authority that had put their own
authority into question. We are all people of authority in some way or another.
Some of us are parents who have authority over our children. Some of us are
supervisors and managers who have authority over our subordinates. But this
authority is given to us to discern what comes from God and to do the right
thing. In other words, authority is synonymous with service.
***
Prayer
Lord our
God, you are the source of all wisdom. Speak your word to us today and open our
hearts to it, that we may learn to look with your eyes to the world and to
people and that your wisdom may guide us in all we do. We ask you this through
him you sent among us and in whom we believe, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen
