Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fifteenth Sunday 2009
Fifteenth Sunday 2009
Scripture Readings
First Amos 7:12-15
Second Ephesians 1:3-14
Gospel Mark 6:7-13
1. Subject Matter
• God made us to be holy
• Everything that we need to respond well to God’s invitation to holiness will be provided for us
in his loving. Moreover, he gives his followers the power to cooperate in his own plan of
salvation, drawing others into the saving relationship with him that we already now enjoy.
2. Exegetical Notes
• First Reading: Amos is treated with contempt and exiled from Bethel for prophesying that the
king would die by the sword (cf. 7:11). He is no professional prophet, but a lowly shepherd
who supplemented his income by manual labor with the sycamores. His vocation to prophesy
comes from the personal intervention of the Lord.
• Second Reading: A hymn of praise to God for the plan of salvation he as devised and
brought to fulfillment for the benefit of man and all creation. St. Paul presents a truth almost
too wonderful to bear: before the foundation of the world, God had already chosen us and set
us apart for a particular purpose, i.e. holiness.
• Gospel: When Christ sends the disciples out two by two, it isn’t just a matter of having some
company or added security. “Two witnesses are required in any life and death situation (cf.
Deut. 19:6). Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preaching about spiritual life and death.”
• The disciples are given the power to do what only Christ can do, i.e. casting out unclean
spirits and curing the sick. Thus their action in his name is an extension of his own work.
• The Lord’s injunction to take nothing with them can be seen from two different perspectives.
First, it points to the need to be free from attachments to worldly things in order to be single-
minded in one’s proclamation of the Gospel. Second, it calls the preacher to rely on the
Providence of God who calls him to preach in the first place.
• “Being with Jesus and being sent by him seem at first sight to be mutually exclusive, but they
clearly belong together. The Apostles have to learn to be with him in a way that enables
them, even when they go to the ends of the earth, to be with him still. Being with him includes
the missionary dynamic by its very nature, since Jesus’ whole being is mission.”
• What are the disciples sent out to do? “The first task is preaching: to give the people the light
of the world, the message of Jesus. . . . But the preaching of God’s kingdom is never just
words, never just instruction. It is an event, just as Jesus himself is an event, God’s word in
person. By announcing him, the Apostles lead their listeners to encounter him.”
• “Although there may be many so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are
many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’ – yet for us there is one God, the Father from whom are all
things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and
through whom we exist. These words imply a great liberating power – the great exorcism
that purifies the world. No matter how many gods may have been at large in the world, God
is only one, and only one is the Lord. If we belong to him, everything else loses its power; it
loses the allure of divinity.”
7. Other Considerations
• Our adoption as sons of God means configuring our lives to that of Christ. He calls those
closest to him to continue the work that he does (most dramatically in the driving demons and
healing the sick). But he also invites them to enter more deeply into his life by suffering. This
invitation to preach and minister to the people of God can never be seen apart from the
Cross.
Recommended Resources
Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth. New York: Doubleday, 2007
Peter John Cameron, To Praise, To Bless, and to Preach. Huntington, Our Sunday Visitor, 2001.