June 05, 2015
Friday
9th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Tb 11:5-15
Gospel: Mark 12:35-37
As Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he said, “The teachers of the Law say that the Messiah is the son of David. How can that be? For David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit declared: The Lord said to my Lord: sit at my right until I put your enemies under your feet. If David himself calls him Lord, in what way can he be his son?” Many people came to Jesus and listened to him gladly.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
When an animal doesn’t have anything to do it goes to sleep. When humans have nothing to do, they ask questions (Bernard Lonergan). The Jews did, and they had so many to ask. They asked Jesus about the payment of taxes to Caesar (Mark 12: 13-17), the resurrection (Mark 12: 18-27), and the greatest commandment (Mark 12: 28-34). Jesus too had his own questions. “If David himself calls the Messiah his Lord,” Jesus asked, “in what way can the Messiah be his son?”
Both Jesus and the Jews asked questions. The difference was that the Jews asked questions in order to trap Jesus while Jesus asked questions in order to teach the Jews. The question Jesus asked in today’s Gospel, for example, was not meant to confuse the people but to teach them that the Messiah was more than just a descendant of David.
The Messiah’s transcendent power was divine in origin to which David attested when he exclaimed:” The Lord said to my Lord: sit at my right until I put your enemies under your feet” (See Psalm 110). As far as his human origin is concerned, Jesus was son of David; as far as his transcendent origin is concerned, Jesus was Son of God. He was both human and divine.
Did the Jews learn by the questions Jesus asked? “Learning passes through three stages. In the beginning you learn the right answers. In the second stage you learn the right questions. In the third and final stage you learn which questions are worth asking” (Bits and Pieces quoted by Roy B. Zuck). The first stage is usually the choke point of many because they stop there thinking they already know the answers. Most of the Jews did.
Jesus continues to teach us today. But like the Jews many have stagnated by stopping at the first stage. On the question of love, for example, most of us settle with the answer that loving God means loving the neighbor. Some, by the grace of God, move to the second stage by learning the right questions as when they ask “Who is my neighbor?” But learning only happens after we realize that the only question really worth asking is how we have made it easier for others to call God their Lord and master. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM., MAPM. (dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org).
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