Today’s readings: Wisdom 2, 12.17-20; James 3, 16 - 4,3; Mark 9, 30-37.

One of the most intriguing debates in the second century of Christianity was between Celsus, a Greek philosopher and opponent of Christianity, and Origen, a scholar and early Christian theologian. They argued which life really leads to wisdom and human fulfilment, whether that pursued by the pagan philosophers or the way of life pursued by the Christians. Celsus, in his attack against Christianity, claimed that Jesus was an ignorant charlatan who led those more ignorant than himself into an immoral way of living.

Today’s first reading from the book of Wisdom enters into a similar debate and seeks to prove wrong the godless, those who ridicule the virtuous man and who want to test empirically the truth of faith. On a more narrative and practical vein, Mark’s gospel depicts how distant in perspective were Jesus and his disciples on what Jesus himself was trying to propose as a way of life.

In this gospel text, following on last Sunday’s first prediction of Jesus’ death at the hands of the political and religious authorities, we have the second prediction. Making his way through Galilee, Jesus was instructing his disciples on the real purpose of his becoming man and on the end of his mission. Strangely enough, what we read from the book of Wisdom in the first reading about the ‘godless’ seeking verification from the virtuous, seems to be applicable to the disciples of Jesus.

First Peter, now the entire group of the disciples, they were still very hard to break on how Jesus was envisaging his mission. In Wisdom, the godless say to themselves: “Let us see if what he says is true”. Here in the gospel, the disciples of Jesus, in spite of their being instructed by him patiently, insist on remaining on a different plane. The disciples were still finding it hard to accept as true and making sense his teachings. “They did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him”.

They remained on parallel paths with Jesus to the extent that while he was instructing them on something so basic, they were arguing on the usual petty issues between them in the community.

This can easily happen to us and it actually happens that as communities of faith we lose focus on priorities and end up being taken by futile arguments. This is serious because in this day and age, what mostly damages the faith are not those who militantly are anti-church or anti-religion.

A more serious challenge to the truth of our faith today is the way we live up to what we believe in or the way we fail to do it.

It is no longer through speculative argumentation and apologetics that we can witness to God’s truth in our culture. The truth of our faith stands or falls depending on how, as believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we render strong and credible our belief.

Pope Benedict, in an interview when still Cardinal, once affirmed: “The prophet is someone who tells the truth on the strength of his contact with God”.

It is a question of rendering the truth of God present at this moment in time. It stands to every generation to propose the authentic structure of promise and fulfilment inherent in the Christian faith in a comprehensible and liveable way.

As believers we owe it to the world we live in, to our societies and to culture at large, to speak our faith comprehensibly, in a way that makes sense and sheds light on life and reality as it is. Just as we need also to propose it in a manner that is liveable.

Otherwise we remain aloof, going parallel ways, preaching what we hold to be the good news of salvation but in a manner that doesn’t even touch people wherever they are situated and in what concerns them in their intimacy.

The disciples were with Jesus yet very distant in mind and heart. This can happen to us and in our communities, being so near the people yet remaining so distant. It happens when we end up never crossing with the real needs especially of those desirable to know God and be touched and saved by his truth.