People like to complain. They complain that they don't have enough time; that it's too difficult to understand; that it's impossible to do; or that something else gets in the way. Worse, when they see another person do it, they heap praise, saying, “I don't know how you do it.” But that's a lie. You do know how. It's not hard at all and you know it's not hard. You just make different choices. The worst such example is when people avoid what must be done by attempting to justify the importance of something else. For those who make such excuses, the buck stops with the Bible: nothing is more important than God's teaching. Nothing. I don't mean the teaching you imagine, I am referring to the written text that Jesus keeps quoting within a written text. Nothing can replace it and nothing can convey it, except it. If you are not hearing it, doing it and sharing it in lieu of every other priority in your life, you do not belong to God. “Action,” Ghandi once said, “expresses priorities.” In the Gospel of Mark, the actions of the disciples repeatedly express their disinterest in the teaching of Jesus Christ. They are willing to heap praise on Jesus and eager to join the gossip surrounding Jesus, but they just can't get themselves to crack a book and study the content of his words. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Mark 9:9-13.Episode 173 Mark 9:9-13; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Movement Proposition” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★