Breaking down the dividing walls ~ Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Jer 23:1-6

Ps 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6

Eph 2:13-18

Mk 6:30-34

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus' heart was moved with pity for the people who had gathered in the hope of seeing and hearing him.  Even though Jesus and his apostles had tried to find a quiet and remote place to rest, the people had anticipated their destination and had reached the spot before they did.  How desperately the people must have desired those words of hope and peace that only Jesus could give.  They were like lost sheep in need of a shepherd.

These people could have been anyone.  Jews, Gentiles, Greek, outcasts, the poor, the rich.  No matter who they were, they had one thing in common:  they were looking for someone who could give them hope.  To reconcile them, to teach them, to heal them, to let them know that God loved them.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul explains what Jesus did for the people of his time and is doing for us also.  Jesus realized that the divisions among peoples kept them at enmity with each other.  There could be no peace among peoples as long as they looked at each other as "other" with no connection with themselves.

It was through the cross that Jesus freed us all and brought us once more into a right relationship with God and our neighbor.  We live in this knowledge; and recognize that we are to continue spreading the Good News of our salvation.  We are brothers and sisters to each other and children of our Heavenly Father.  That means we are responsible for each other! Not that others become our burdens, but that we freely follow in Jesus' footsteps as shepherds to the lost and forsaken so that they too can live in hope as we do.


 ~ Image:  Shepherd with lamb