Saturday 8th Week of OT A 2026

Gospel 

Mark 11:27-33

Jesus and his disciples returned once more to Jerusalem.
As he was walking in the temple area,
the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders
approached him and said to him,
“By what authority are you doing these things?
Or who gave you this authority to do them?”
Jesus said to them, “I shall ask you one question.
Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 
Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.”
They discussed this among themselves and said,
“If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say,
‘Then why did you not believe him?’
But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?”– 
they feared the crowd,
for they all thought John really was a prophet.
So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.”
Then Jesus said to them,
“Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
 

Sometimes we wonder why God doesn’t answer our prayers or questions. We pray or plead to him and hear nothing.

Sometimes that means we are asking the wrong question. When we ask the right question, he will respond. Not in an indirect way. Not by signs, but clearly does God speak to us.

 

But maybe I approach Jesus and ask my question with wrong assumptions or worse wrong intentions. That was what the Pharisees were doing in our Gospel today.

 

They did not ask with open hearts or minds for they were testing Jesus. And when he asked them a question that made them admit they were not speaking or acting honestly but deceitfully, they refused to see the truth. It didn’t fit in the falsehoods they demanded everyone believe are true.

 

And so, Jesus refused.

 

When we pray, we must set aside our ambitions and priorities that we place ahead of God and ahead of truth.

 

We can pray to God for help getting a job, for example that we want but would not be good for us or those around us. When we press God to help, we hear only the quiet.

 

 And we wonder where he is.

 

The solution is to put God first in our life.

To order things in our world to the truth of Jesus Christ.

To first seek God’s will.  

Then we pray for help on our journey. The path and answers we get may not be what we had planned on at all

or what we expected

or may even seem to be less than what we see other people are blessed with.

 

But if we are doing the will of God, we are on the path we should be on right now…. and are moving in the right direction. Then we ask in his name, and we will hear his answer.