Monday of
the 4th Week of Ordinary Time
Memorial of
Saint Blase
February 3, 2014 8:30am
In the gospel story, Jesus drives
out the demon or demons that have afflicted a man.
The man is now at peace.
But the demons go into a herd of
swine and they run off and go over a cliff into the water and drown.
So the people ask Jesus to leave
their region.
Why?
The passage doesn’t say why but
we can make some guesses.
Maybe because this hurt them
financially.
They lost their swine, probably
part of their livelihood.
Maybe they ask Jesus to leave
because of his power.
They feel threatened because he
can do things they can’t do and this threatens their position or status.
Or maybe because they see Jesus
as having spiritual authority.
They feel threatened because they
might have to change how they think about God or what they do as persons or
leaders of religion.
Whatever the reason, Jesus is
disturbing to them.
Regardless of the good that he does,
he disturbs their status quo in some way and they aren’t ready for that.
Sometimes Jesus rocks the boats and
leads us to think and act differently.
Sometimes his teachings seem too
idealistic and unrealistic.
Sometimes he goes against those
who are at the top of the heap in life.
When we hear the Word of God
disturbing us, either in the reading of the Scripture or in the explanation and
application of it, it might be good to pause and slow down a bit.
It might be good to think,
reflect, be open to looking at ourselves a bit and see if it is right and good and
appropriate to be disturbed and unsettled.
It might be good to see if in
fact we need to change our status quo in some way.
It might be good to do this
before we ask Jesus to leave town and just discount what is being said to us.
