Son of Man

2nd Week in Ordinary Time - Tuesday (22 January 2019)

Hebrews 6:10-20. Psalm 111:1-2, 4-5, 9-10. Mark 2:23-28.

The Son of Man is master even of the Sabbath.

The gospel story of today demonstrates that the law was established for the sake of people. Rather than a system of oppressive regulations established arbitrarily by an autocrat, the law is like the expression of a loving and wise mother who sets down rules for her children to assure their safety, health, and well-being. So we need to understand that the law was meant to serve the people, not the other way around. “The Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath.”

Jesus calls himself “Son of Man” eighty-one times in the gospels. No one else addresses him in that way. They give him other names and titles. The South African Dominican Fr Albert Nolan wrote in his book Jesus Before Christianity that “there is no evidence that Jesus ever laid claim to any of the exalted titles which the church later attributed to him.” According to Nolan this even includes the title Christ, meaning the “Anointed One.” Nolan asserts that the one title Jesus did use, “the Son of Man,” was an Aramaic figure of speech meaning much the same as “human being.”

Dorothy Day, whose canonization process has started in the Vatican City, is considered a contemporary American saint by many who knew her. She started the Catholic Worker movement, and opened homes for the homeless, and community farms for the downtrodden and the least privileged. She definitely was a special person. She did extraordinary things. Yet, every time she overheard anyone saying something like that of her, she was indignant. “You say that I am special because you do not want to do what you see me do. You can easily do what I do, but by convincing yourself that I am someone special, you allow yourself to escape from your own responsibility. You can do what I do.”

When Jesus uses the title “Son of Man” he changes our relation to him. He changes our expectations. He doesn’t change what we can expect from him, but what we should expect from ourselves. Jesus says it in as many words: “In all truth I tell you whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself and will perform even greater works” (John 14:12).

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“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us. When we begin to take the lowest places, to wash the feet of others, to love our sisters and brothers with that burning love, that passion which led to the cross, then we can truly say, ‘Now I have begun.’” - Dorothy Day.