He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.

— Mark 3:9-10

“You need to learn to delegate!” is a refrain I hear all the time as the Sister Superior of the Community of St. John Baptist. My Sisters constantly remind me that I need to give parts of my workload to them, our staff members, our Associates or our Oblates. It is not easy for me to delegate because I always think I’m the only one who can do things “correctly.” My Sisters’ persistence reminds me that not only do I need to reduce my workload, but I also need to remember that I am not alone.

In this passage from the Gospel of Mark, we see Jesus doing some delegating. Word of Jesus’ miraculous healing power has spread so quickly that he tells the disciples to arrange a boat “so that they would not crush him.” He then goes up a mountain, calls twelve of his disciples to him and appoints them as apostles to preach the Good News and cast out demons.

You may wonder: why would Jesus, the incarnation of God Almighty, need to delegate? As an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient being, God can do anything. Why would God need help?

Jesus shows us, in choosing his apostles, that God has no intention of operating alone. Jesus does not “need” us but instead wants us to be active participants in building the Kingdom of God. If we want things to change, we have to be agents of that change. God shows us the value and holiness of community and relationship through Jesus’ ministry on earth. Jesus was never a lone ruler dictating from above. He shows us that we must work as a community.

Reflect: Where in your life could you benefit from working within a group instead of going it alone?

Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”

— Mark 3:19b-22

These passages from the Gospel of Mark can be quite confusing. Jesus’ followers are so numerous that he and the disciples can’t even eat. His family members say that he has lost his mind. Then the teachers from Jerusalem accuse him of serving Beelzebub, the prince of demons.

This scenario brings to mind the chaotic lives of modern celebrities, who are hounded by so many people that they often hire bodyguards and live in seclusion.

Jesus’ family and friends claiming, “he has gone out of his mind,” doesn’t seem very supportive, but is there a possibility they were trying to protect him from the authorities? They knew that Jesus’ claim to be the Son of Man might get him arrested and executed. Is it possible they were trying to save him by claiming he knew not what he said?

Jesus doesn’t flee to safety, though. He instead uses the situation to teach the radical, revolutionary idea that all of humankind is one family—God’s family. To Jesus, there is no separation of family, tribe, race or nation.

I often wish that all the faiths could merge into one, and that we would all become one enormous, loving family. We would cease to oppress “them” to protect “us,” and instead all work together in kindness and love. In my spiritual practice of the fearless and searching moral inventory, I am aware that I constantly need to examine any biases I may have toward others. I work hard to educate myself on how to be an effective advocate and ally, rather than assuming I am completely unbiased.

Reflect: Do you ever look at another group of people as “them” and harbor feelings of fear or resentment toward them? How might you pray to respond with love and kindness?

He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”

— Mark 4:2-8

As a child growing up in a Baptist church, I heard this story often. The Parable of the Sower was a favorite of our preacher, and it made such an impression on me that I still think of it quite often. Our preacher used this parable to guide the congregation in their efforts at evangelism. As good Baptists, we were all expected to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to everyone we encountered. Many of us, though, came to realize that not everyone is eager to hear the Good News. Our seatmate on a flight from New York to Atlanta might sigh and roll their eyes at the first utterance of the word “Jesus.” Others might hastily put on their headphones to block out the noise of what they perceived as “Bible thumping.”

Even when I worked at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City, I made errors in our ministry to the unhoused people who slept on our pews every day. When I first started handing out toiletry bags to them, I came up with what I thought was a very holy and edifying booklet containing carefully chosen prayers and readings. Every day, I would find those booklets strewn under the pews or crumpled up in the side aisles. These people, I realized, didn’t need words on paper. They needed me to show them the love of Christ by being compassionate toward them. Over the next few years, they taught me a great deal about evangelism.

The different areas Jesus describes in the parable represent the various kinds of responses to our proclamation of the Good News. Some people are like good soil, eager to learn and grow their faith abundantly, then germinate that faith in the world. Others are not as receptive, and they only receive the Good News temporarily before they are distracted away from it. Still others are closed off and unlikely to receive Christ’s message at all. It takes a unique level of compassion to share the Gospel in a way that draws others in rather than drives them away.

Reflect: How might you share the Gospel in ways that feel welcoming and meaningful?

For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

— Mark 4:25

Jesus presents three more parables to his disciples in this passage, which follows the Parable of the Sower in the Gospel of Mark. This verse from the first parable used to be very confusing to me. It seems to be in direct opposition to the ideals in the Magnificat and other Scriptures, where God promises to cast down the mighty from their thrones and satisfy the poor. I wondered why God would take from those who have little.

By the time I entered the Convent at age 46, I had spent an entire lifetime praying, worshiping and studying Scripture. I knew that I still had a lot to learn from a scholarly and theological perspective, but I thought my prayer life was full to the brim. God would soon show me that I was wrong.

My Novice Director, Sister Barbara Jean, told me that I had much to learn about prayer. “But how could that be?” I asked, “I have prayed in every possible way, and I am as close to God as I’ll ever be.” In spite of my smug pronouncements, she insisted that I take prayer classes with various Sisters. I thought it would be a waste of time.

My devotion was deep and had expanded steadily over nearly five decades, but the more I learned, the more I realized I still had light-years to travel in the realm of prayer. I had thought there was a list of standard ways to pray, but my Sisters taught me that there are infinite ways of praying. Listening to music, making art and even knitting can be prayer if they are approached intentionally. Anything that brings us closer to God is prayer. I never knew that.

I also learned that the closeness I felt with God was fairly superficial. The years I have spent in prayer at the Convent have deepened that closeness and taught me that there is no limit to the depths of a relationship with God. I could pray for a lifetime and still grow closer every day.
Jesus’ words show us that the more we pray, worship and learn, the more we will be given. God’s love is infinite, and we can journey into that love, closer and closer, for eternity.

Reflect: What things bring you closer to God? Do you feel that you can go deeper into your prayer life?

A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

— Mark 4:37-40

As a spiritual director, I find that most of my directees are either ordained clergy or are in the process of ordination. I always use this miracle of Jesus calming the storm to provide context for the work of ministry. The church, I tell them, is not a shiny, seaworthy vessel with perfect crew members guiding it. It is, instead, a leaky ship with a crew of all sorts, and it is truly a miracle that it still remains afloat. Church folks do not sign up for an easy journey. But we try our best to keep the church going through hard times with very human, fallible passengers and crew.

This story is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and it echoes Psalm 107, which recounts God’s deliverance of the Israelites from their many struggles. Verses 28 and 29 of the Psalm say: “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper and quieted the waves of the sea.”

Jesus, as the incarnation of God, calms the waves of the sea.

Our boat, the church, is fragile and tiny against the powerful forces that rage against it. Our ministry is often shaken by forces beyond our control. The stress of trying to remain faithful to our discipleship can sometimes lead to disillusionment and burnout. Jesus, in this story, is sleeping peacefully on a cushion while the storm rages. He is baffled as to why the disciples are afraid.

When Jesus calms the raging waters, he is showing us that even in the midst of the storm, God is still in charge. God has power over every difficulty we face, and all we have to do is ask for God’s help.

Reflect: How has your own spiritual path been tossed about by the waves of the world?

The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid.

— Mark 5:14-15

In today’s passage from Mark, Jesus casts out demons from a man in the region of the Gerasenes. To our modern minds, this man would seem to be suffering from mental illness or some physical illness that caused him to live out a tortured existence. After Jesus orders, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”, the demons call out to Jesus, begging him to send them into a herd of swine.

Why does Jesus pause after commanding the demons to leave the man? Why does he ask the demon its name, which it says is Legion because “we are many?” Why does he listen to their request and grant it?

There are many theories as to why Jesus seems to grant mercy on the legion of demons. The one I identify with the most is that Jesus is showing his power over everything, including evil. We humans have no idea what “demons” really are, and we have no clear indication of God’s relationship to these “demons” in the wider context of creation. Jesus shows us here that there are still many things we do not know. In that time and place, people who suffered from mental illness were said to be possessed by evil spirits. We now know that these things can be a manifestation of genetics or environment and often relate to brain chemistry and structure, but we still have no idea why these circumstances occur or why they are part of God’s creation.

I have seen many friends and family members beset by their own demons of addiction and alcoholism. It is heartbreaking to watch good people in the throes of something that overtakes their true selves and seeks to destroy them. When I ask God to help these people, I don’t ask God to treat their symptoms. Instead, I ask God to transform their souls so that they can return to themselves.

Reflect: Can you take these questions into your prayer life? Can you ask God to help you understand why these “demons” are among us?