Towards communion

Year B – Sunday 30 

Readings: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10: 46-52 

During the time of the Babylonian exile, the people of Israel seem to have rediscovered the value of sharing a life of communion. They were dominated and could have no lords amongst themselves. This seems to have brought them to understand what it meant to be a community of equals, and Jeremiah rejoiced in this newly-discovered understanding. Such an awareness had been unknown to the Israelites during the period when they had a king and his deputies lording it over them. The prophet announces that the Israelite community will be restored as it was before the injurious establishment of the kingdom.

Due to the fact that all within this community are “beset with weakness”, as the Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us, from the office-holders to all of its other members, no-one shall be able to be deemed lord over others. All are equal and at the service of each other.

 Exclusion or impoverishment will have no place in such a community, as Jesus shows with the healing of the blind beggar Bartimaeus at Jericho. No-one will be deemed to be of a lower status or undeserving of full attention and care.