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God Alone is
Good
Elisha
said to the Shunammite,
"What is to be done for you?
2 Kings 4:12.13
Traditionally,
thee are three types of Christian prayer: the prayer of thanksgiving,
the prayer of praise, and the prayer of petition. These three
types of prayer are enumerated in the exhortation with which
the office of Morning Prayer begins. We say that we have come
together
to
render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at
God’s hands,
to set forth God’s most worthy praise,
and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary,
as well for the body as the soul.
Today’s
first reading has to do with the third type of prayer, the prayer
of petition. When Elisha asks the Shunammite what he, or, as
it turns out, what God can do for her, to reward her for the
hospitality which she has shown the prophet, she hesitates to
ask for what she really wants, and it is left to Elisha’s
servant Gehazi to tell the prophet, "She has no son, and
her husband is old" (2 Kings 4:14).
In this
situation the woman’s prospects in ancient society were
pretty bleak, yet even when the prophet promises her a son,
she is skeptical: "No, my lord, O man of God; do not lie
to your maidservant" (verse 16).
Like the
Shunammite, we need to be convinced that God is more eager to
give than we are to ask. We need to have the courage to ask
for what we really need and desire, even if it seems impossible.
For, as scripture tells us, "All things are possible with
God" (Mark 10:27). As if to underline this lesson, the
passage goes on to narrate how, after the boy suddenly dies,
the mother receives him back from the dead (2 Kings 4:32-37).
Today’s
gospel is usually called "The Rich Young Man," but
in Mark’s version of the story, the man is not young. He
says to Jesus, "All these [commandments] I have observed
from my youth (Mark 10:20).
This is
not the only point in which Mark differs from the other two
synoptic accounts of this episode. When Jesus is asked , "Good
Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?", he replies,
"Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone"
(verses 18-19).
For Jesus
to distinguish himself from God so categorically posed a problem
for emerging Christological orthodoxy, and the other two synoptic
evangelists have altered their Marcan source.
Within Judaism,
it would have been blasphemous for an individual to claim to
be God. However, in all three monotheistic faiths there have
been charismatics whose mystical experiences led them to make
heretical statements, such as the one in the Fourth Gospel which
prompted the Jews to take up stones to stone Jesus: "I
and the Father are one" (John 10:30-31).
However,
Jesus’ progression from Galilean rabbi to "God of
God, Light of Light, very God of very God" is not to be
explained purely in terms of Jesus’ personal religious
psychology. Charismatic individuals have the power to become,
in believers’ eyes, transparencies of the divine. The statement
reported in last Wednesday’s Star that the Pope
is "the one closest to God" shows that this process
continues in our own day.
July 28,
2002
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