Jesus had a calling, a vocation, which preceded his conception in Mary's womb. In many ways his vocation determined who were to be his parents, what ethnicity and gender he would be, when and where he would live in the course of human events. The Magi, following their vocation, being attentive to the Holy Spirit who is at work in foreign lands, could discern something of this infant's vocation before Jesus himself could perceive it. The same Holy Spirit that had brought Jesus into this world leads each of us if we are attentive to fulfill our vocation. Sins against the Holy Spirit, to say the least, present the only real problem for the individual and his community. "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod," he tells his disciples as they sin against the Holy Spirit.
Scripture tells us that Jesus was like us in all things except sin (Heb 4:15). We all, like Jesus, have a vocation given by God before we were conceived in our mother's womb. We all have a role to play in bringing about the Kingdom- a calling which determines when and where and to whom we are born, and whom in the course of our lives we come to interact. This is true whether we are born to Jewish parents, Muslim parents, Catholic parents or to confirmed atheists the purpose of our vocation is the same as Jesus' -- the coming of the Kingdom of God.
The beatitudes which Matthew records in the Sermon on the Mount describes the coming of the Kingdom of God. They describe essential attributes that bring about different facets of the Kingdom, attributes that belong to the Messiah, attributes of Jesus -- as he reflects the attributes of God. "For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth," he told Pilate. " Every one who is of the truth hears my voice (John 18:37)."
On
March 3, 2011 I made an entry to this blog titled, “Be careful
then how you listen..” It was based on a quote in Luke 8 where Jesus presents
the parable of the sower and the lamp stand, which we find in this
weeks reading from Mark 4. The entry I made then is still well worth
reading.
In
both Luke and Mark he says, “Whoever
has ears to hear
ought to hear,”
but he explains that he speaks in parables so that, “The
mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you [his
disciples]. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so
that ‘they
may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not
understand, in order that they may not be converted and be
forgiven.’” [ there are other biblical passages like this Is
6:9; Jn
12:40; Acts
28:26; Rom
11:8
] Dr. Sabin in her Commentary on the Gospel According to Mark (2005,
p.46) states that Mark was quoting Isaiah 6:9 in this passage, and in
Isaiah the passage was “clearly ironic.” But John 12:40 clearly doesn't consider
this passage in Isaiah to be ironic, nor do most commentaries. Even
Wikipedia provides a better explanation of this passage. Dr.
Sabin doesn't appreciate the revelation of God expressed in
Luke 10:21 and Matthew 11:25 which needs to be taken into account by all scholars of the sacred texts. While the gospels of Matthew and Luke
were not written until after Mark the truths of the gospel that they
express were present in the oral tradition of the early Christian community at the time of
Mark because they were primarily based on the real Jesus event which
preceded the written gospels. It is frequently hard for scholars to fully appreciate that they are not privileged interpreters of the revelation of God. They are just as likely as anyone to have hearts impaired by those elements Jesus describes in the parable of the sower.
