Fifth Sunday of the Year - February 5, 2012

Job 7: 1-4,6-7 1 Corinthians 9: 16-19, 22-23 Mark 1: 29-39

As some of you might be aware, in addition to its own website, St. Mel Church is also on Facebook. Originally this was suggested as a means of publicizing our annual Lenten Fish Fry which is coming up again in a few weeks. It was thought that it might be a good means of contact with a wide audience including many who had been associated with St. Mel school and parish over the years. I have slowly become aware that in addition to this contact, it has been a way of learning what many of those individuals have done over the years: the careers, families and interests which have developed. It also has become a vehicle of putting forth a thought or reflection or idea to many persons who may not, otherwise, have the opportunity to hear some of the reflections, the good news, that is considered when we gather for worship.

I was reminded of all of this when I read the passage from the Book of Job which we just heard. Often, as it has been my experience, individuals will express on Facebook the difficulties they are facing, the frustrations they have, the problems with which they are contending. Many, in fact, sound about like Job complaining about what had happened to him in life. In this day and age, Job could have written these thoughts on Facebook inviting others to “Like” what he said or post their own comments about it.

This made me realize all the more what an amazing era in which we live. We have tremendous capabilities to communicate personal feelings about successes and failures, dreams and disappointments, hopes and fears. These are things that, in the past, would have remained in the quiet of our own thoughts and minds and hearts. Now they can be shared with all the world. We have various means of social communication: Facebook, Twitter, Skype, YouTube, Blogs, Cellphones, Texting, and so on. These are ways in which we can be in immediate and direct contact with persons anywhere in the world. What, in centuries and millenia of the past, was confined to those who were able to write and publish and distribute - persons like St. Paul and St. Mark whom we heard today - is now available to all of us, or to anyone who has the interest and makes the effort.

This awareness and this ability suggests a serious consideration to me. What is it that we possess, what is it that we can she with “Friends” living in world around us? If what we heard from Job today is an example of what might typically be found on Facebook, so, too, is what we heard from the writings of St. Paul. In a way, Paul has had the corner on the market for centuries in getting his ideas read and heard. His inspired letters were included in the Bible. In his life, he realized the opportunity that was his to proclaim the Gospel, to tell the good news. He could speak of this to all of the world that he could reach both personally and through his letters. He would, as he describes, do all and be all that he could to let anyone and everyone know of the love of God for them. He would tell them what a difference, what an influence, this could have in their lives because it had made such a profound difference in his own life.

The simple fact is this. In many respects, however any one of us might communicate, with social media or in the ordinary activities of daily life, with families or communities, at work or at school, what is ours, what we believe, what we possess in faith, may often be the only gospel, the only good news about the goodness and love of God that others might hear about or experience.

We need to appreciate that communicating and living this, sharing our perspective and values and outlook, is not something that is out of the ordinary, or distant or strange. That is the importance of hearing St. Mark describe Jesus living in everyday life. He is at a home with friends. He is caring for family and neighbors. He shared a meal, rested and started off his day with prayer. In a very ordinary way he stopped, was refreshed and then went on to announce, with his life and with the example he gave, the good news of God’s presence in the world.

There are, in the times that we live, so many ways available to us, if we realize the possibilities as well as the capabilities we have. More importantly, there is a message, an understanding that we have, that is our faith, about the importance and dignity of each of us in the world; about the value and worth of the gift of life that we have received; and about the power and the presence of love of God that we experience. This is gospel and good news we need to appreciate and to understand. And this is the gospel and good news that many might not, otherwise, hear or experience.

In our world and in our lives, we are to be “Pauls” - a person who was little in size but powerful in his message. We are to be all that can to everyone we encounter in announcing and living today, and everyday, the good news of our loving and gracious God.