Healing the Brokenhearted

Feb. 4: Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s first reading reminds me of the opening of Annie Hall:

Reading 1

Jb 7:1-4, 6-7

Job spoke, saying: Is not man's life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of hirelings? He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages. So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me. If in bed I say, "When shall I arise?" then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.

The word translated here as “drudgery” is tsâbâ, which could also mean “warfare.” None of us volunteered for life; we were drafted. We didn’t apply for the job; it was allotted to us. Time drags on, yet we blink and see that decades have passed.

This is how Job feels after everything that’s happened to him and his family. Even his friends are no comfort! When he asked them for sympathy, they said he was probably at fault somehow.

How can he keep going? Well, we can look to Jesus in today’s Gospel for the answer to that.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6

R. Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
Praise the LORD, for he is good;
sing praise to our God, for he is gracious;
it is fitting to praise him.
The LORD rebuilds Jerusalem;
the dispersed of Israel he gathers.
R. Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He tells the number of the stars;
he calls each by name.
R. Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
to his wisdom there is no limit.
The LORD sustains the lowly;
the wicked he casts to the ground.
R. Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.

This song is specifically about God restoring the exiles from Babylon. It’s a reunion of friends and family after nearly seven decades of separation. During that time, they probably often felt like Job, but God healed those wounds eventually.

Reading 2

1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23

Brothers and sisters: If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it! If I do so willingly, I have a recompense, but if unwillingly, then I have been entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my recompense? That, when I preach, I offer the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.

Paul has a job to do, but unlike Job, he doesn’t complain about it. He doesn’t feel enslaved; he volunteered for servitude. He didn’t write the Gospel; the Good News doesn’t belong to him. The only credit he has earned is in his willingness to do the hard work God has given him.

He could whine about the that “an obligation has been imposed on me,” but Paul doesn’t do that. Instead, he decides to win over as many people as possible to the Gospel.

Alleluia

Mt 8:17

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Christ took away our infirmities
and bore our diseases.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Jesus is fulfilling the prophesy of Isaiah in Is 53:4. He cures not just our physical diseases, but more importantly, the spiritual disease of sin.

Gospel

Mk 1:29-39

On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon's mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them.

When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him.

Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, "Everyone is looking for you."

He told them, "Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come." So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.

The second half of this chapter of Mark is basically A Day in the Life of Jesus. Here, even at the end of the day, Jesus’s work isn’t done. He heals Simon’s mother-in-law, and because of that, more people come seeking miracles.

Some of Jesus’s miracles are told in individual stories, to teach lessons—Jairus’s daughter, the centurion’s servant, and so on. But passages like this remind us that Jesus helped lots of people all the time. They weren’t “important” enough to report individually in the Gospels,¹ but they were important to Jesus. He took the time to heal them, and allow their personal, private miracles to be witnesses to the Good News overall.

Jesus acts in our lives like that all the time, in big and small miracles that we may not even notice. And while they may not be anything to write home about (or write a Gospel about), they’re still important in forming our spiritual lives.

So we shouldn’t focus on the drudgery and warfare of daily living, like Job; instead, we should take to our work joyfully like Paul, and appreciate God’s blessings as they come.

1. They evangelists only had so much scroll paper to work with!