From the Lectionary for 24 November 2024 (Christ the King, Year B)

John 18:33-37 (NRSV)

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

~

"Please note, [John] doesn’t say, as some translations have put it, ‘my kingdom is not of this world’; that would imply that his ‘kingdom’ was altogether other-worldly, a spiritual or heavenly reality that had nothing to do with the present world at all. That is not the point. Jesus, after all, taught his disciples to pray that God’s kingdom would come ‘on earth as in heaven.’

"No: the point is that Jesus’ kingdom does not come from ‘this world.’ Of course it doesn’t. ‘The world,’ as we’ve seen again and again, is in John the source of evil and rebellion against God. Jesus is denying that his kingdom has a this-worldly origin or quality. He is not denying that it has a this-worldly destination. That’s why he has come into the world himself (verse 37), and why he has sent, and will send, his followers into the world (17.18; 20.21). His kingdom doesn’t come from this world, but it is for this world. That is the crucial distinction."

- N. T. Wright, John for Everyone (pp. 114-15)

~

"The scene in John 18-19 has the hallmarks of the kind of hearing we might expect in a Roman provincial court, and it is this confrontation that lies at the heart of both the political and the theological meaning of the kingdom of God. Jesus has announced God’s kingdom and has also embodied it in what he has been doing. But it is a different sort of kingdom from anything that Pilate has heard of or imagined: a kingdom without violence (18:36), a kingdom not from this world, but emphatically, through the work of Jesus, for this world."

- N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why It Matters, pg. 183

~

"The title [“King of the Jews” that Pilate places above Jesus' head on the cross] is, of course, heavily ironic. Pilate knows that Jesus doesn’t conform to any meaning of the word “king” with which he is familiar. Jesus himself, as we saw, had redefined “kingship” in his conversation with the governor, insisting that his kind of kingship meant bearing witness to the truth (18:37). But now readers are invited to join together the two points, which Pilate was never going to do - the two points that, ironically, much Christian interpretation has also found very hard to combine.

"Readers are invited to join together not simply a Johannine “incarnational” theology with a Johannine “redemption” theology. Both of those are there, but the middle term between them is once again the evangelist’s kingdom theology. As Paul saw, the rulers of this age didn’t understand what they were doing when they crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8). As the Irish-American New Testament scholar Dominic Crossan commented on Matthew’s story of Pilate’s wife having bad dreams about Jesus (Matt. 27:19), it was time for the Roman Empire to start having nightmares. Sending Jesus to his death was assisting in the enthronement of the one whose bringing of justice to the nations flowed out of his sovereign, healing love (John 13:1).

"The point for our present purpose is that, in all four gospels, readers are strongly urged to see Jesus’s death as explicitly “royal,” explicitly “messianic” - in other words, explicitly to do with the coming of the “kingdom.” Jesus has, all along, been announcing that God’s kingdom was coming. His followers might well have expected that this announcement would lead to a march on Jerusalem, where Jesus would do whatever it took to complete what he had begun. And they were right - but not at all in the sense they expected or wanted. That is what the evangelists are saying through this particular moment in the story. This is how the kingdom is to come, the kingdom of God, which Jesus has been announcing and, as Messiah, inaugurating.

"This point needs little elaboration in relation to the synoptic gospels, but we may continue to stress it in relation to John, who is not so often seen as a theologian of the “kingdom.” In fact, however, as we have already seen, John 18-19 offers an explosion of dense and detailed kingdom theology, so that when we meet the titulus in John 19:19, we read it with a special and heightened irony, coming as it does at the conclusion of Pilate’s debate with Jesus, on the one hand, and with the Jewish leaders, on the other, about kingdom, truth, power, and Caesar. Jesus, John is saying, is the true king whose kingdom comes in a totally unexpected fashion, folly to the Roman governor and a scandal to the Jewish leaders.

"In all four gospels, then, there is no drawing back. This is the coming of the kingdom, the sovereign rule of Israel’s God arriving on earth as in heaven, exercised through David’s true son and heir. It comes through his death. The fact that the kingdom is redefined by the cross doesn’t mean that it isn’t still the kingdom. The fact that the cross is the kingdom-bringing event doesn’t mean that it isn’t still an act of horrible and brutal injustice, on the one hand, and powerful, rescuing divine love, on the other. The two meanings are brought into dramatic and shocking but permanent relation."

-  N. T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, pp. 219-20

~

"So, we are brought to the end of the Church's year with this extraordinary, dynamic picture of how Jesus occupied the space of shepherd and of king, of scapegoat and of voice that speaks the truth, revealing not merely a different system of power but that underneath all our apparently solid but in fact incredibly fake systems of power there is an entirely different understanding of power, one that is immensely friendly to us, likes us, wants to hold us in being, wants to invite us in, wants to speak us out of our worlds of idolatry and confusion. And that that is how the kingship of Christ is exercised in our midst, and that we are invited each year to find our way into occupying that same space and spreading that voice, listening to it, occupying its space and making it more alive for all of those around us."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5-fWn6baKo)

[Source of N.T. Wright quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/xrstkingb/]

From the Lectionary for 17 November 2024 (Proper 28B)

Mark 13:24-32 (NRSV)

But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
    and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

~

"[Jesus is] in a sense trying to get [the disciples] out of thinking in terms of the times and signals that they thinking about. He's above all trying to get them to get out of conspiracy thinking, not to be moved by the great shocks and tribulations that are to come, but to be able to keep their eye on what is in fact coming in. So that's what the next verses are about.

"Now, at the same time that [...] Mark makes references to Ezekiel, which Jesus was enacting, there are the references to Daniel, another we would call apocalyptic book. But in Daniel the references are to the Son of Man coming - with Ezekiel he's leaving, with Daniel coming - and the whole point is that the two are happening simultaneously in the person of Jesus: the going and the coming are simultaneous in the person of Jesus. Many of the other quotes which Jesus hints at are from the book of Lamentations, again referring to the Lord going and the destruction that is about to come, but at the same time there are also references, not so hidden, to the Song of Songs, which is to do with the Lord being discovered, the Lord coming back and coming to meet his beloved.

"So these are the two that are going on: Ezekiel and Daniel, Lamentations and Song of Songs, both showing simultaneously departure and the arrival. I think that if we read today's Gospel with that dynamic in mind we'll get more out of it.

[...]

"[It's] actually quite a common theme, this notion of the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give it's light and the stars will be falling from heaven. This is the standard way of referring to un-creation, because if you remember, at the beginning of creation first of all there is the light, and that brings everything to being and thereafter order is established and so on. So this is a way that the disciples refer to something so terrible that it's as if the uncreation has happened.

[...]

"So here we have something that will be enacted at the crucifixion - remember that [at] the crucifixion the sun went out - there was no light of sun - and the moon did not give off any light. In other words, this passage was being fulfilled, uncreation actually happened [at the crucifixion]. The breathing out of Jesus' spirit going up to death was the going back outside to before the time of creation, because this was the work of the Creator bringing in the new Creation.

"Then they will see, at exactly that moment, they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Okay, so what did they see? They saw the Son of Man on a cross, and that was reigning from the Cross, as we sing at Easter, and the notion that it was the definitive sacrifice of the great high priest and therefore the clouds of incense were surrounding it. So what they were seeing was the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

"Now of course, at the moment that this happened, the crucifixion, they didn't see that - what they saw was someone being put to death, with the darkness. But of course it was the resurrection that brought out that in fact this was the real thing that had happened, that had been the Son of Man, and that those who'd actually seen the crucifixion had in fact seen the coming [of the Son of Man] without being aware of it.

"In other words, that from something that looked very small, frightening, insignificant and negative, that was in fact the moment of the coming: the going and the coming were the same thing.

[...]

"[...T]alking about the fig tree [...] “its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves.” So once again he's referring to the crucifixion and it's tenderness and it's vulnerability, but the huge effect that is coming behind it, because just as you see [...] the fig leaves becoming tender it's becoming the sign of the very very much bigger, more powerful thing that is in fact behind it, which is 'summer is a-coming in'. So Jesus is saying that what in fact [the disciples are] going to see, the tiny sign that is [him] dead on the cross, behind that there is all the power of the opening up of creation."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 33 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFmAX8nNz_Y)

~

"I hope that you see some of the threads of subtlety which are to be found beneath Mark’s text. The so-called apocalyptic discourse of Jesus is nothing other than a brilliant exercise in the subverting from within of the apocalyptic imagination. It has as its end to teach the disciples how to live in the times that are to come, the time which I called ‘of Abel.’

"Above all it seeks to train the disciples with respect to what must be their deepest eschatological attitude: the absolutely flexible state of alert so as to perceive the coming of the Son of Man, the one who is seated at the right hand of God, in the most hidden and subtle forms in which, in fact, he comes. That is, we are dealing with instructions as to how to live with the mind fixed on the things that are above, where Christ is seated with God: not glued to some fantasy, but learning to perceive the comings of the Son of Man in the acts of betrayal, of rejection, of handing-over and of lynching.

"We can compare this with the experience of Elijah on Mount Horeb, who had to learn that God was not in the tempest, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still, small voice which passes by unperceived (1 Kings 19:11-13). Well, we’re dealing with a similar experience: Jesus was explaining to the disciples that the state of alert in the face of his coming is a training in the perception, not of that which is bruited abroad, nor of what glistens appealingly, but of the way that all the majesty and splendour of God is to be found in the almost imperceptible victim, on the way out of being."

- James Alison, Raising Abel, pg. 149

[Note that I have chosen to present the Roman Catholic lectionary Gospel reading above. The RCL (Revised Common Lectionary) Gospel text for Proper 28B is Mark 13:1-8. For extensive analysis and discussion of this and the other lectionary texts, and the source of the quote from James Alison's Raising Abel, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper28b/]

From the Lectionary for 10 November 2024 (Proper 27B)

Mark 12:38-44 (NRSV)

As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

~

"More sermons than not this Sunday, I suspect, will... use a rather uncritical equation of Temple=church to say that Jesus wants us to give more money to the church, trusting that God will take care of us if only we have the courage to pledge more.

"There's one problem with this reading. Actually, I have to amend that. There are MYRIAD problems with this reading, but let's start with the biggest one: Where do you see any suggestion at all in the text that Jesus thinks it's a wonderful thing that this poor widow put her last two coppers - all she had to live on - in the Temple treasury, going away destitute?

"It just isn't there. If anything, the text suggests the opposite. The passage starts with Jesus warning his followers to beware of those who like to walk around in long robes, receive the seats of honor, put on a good show of prayers, and DEVOUR WIDOWS' HOUSES. That last bit is particularly important because of what follows: Jesus watches a bunch of guys in long robes take a widow's last two coins - all she has to live on.

"Then Jesus says something. What he says boils down to “and just in case you thought I was making stuff up on that point, check out this woman - she just put literally her last cent, all she had to live on, in the treasury to maintain this lovely building.”"

- Sarah Dylan Breuer, Proper 27B, of “Dylan’s Lectionary Blog.” (https://www.sarahlaughed.net/.../11/proper_27_year_.html)

~

"This pericope [of "The Widow's Offering"] is an example of the rapacity [of the scribes] described in 12:40. The docile contributions of the crowd show that it and the temple are in league. Then Jesus singles out one person from the crowd, a poor widow who gave her whole life (holon ton bion autes, 12:44). She is swallowed up by the temple and its supporting crowd. She is a scapegoat figure.

"This text is usually read as a moral comment on the relatively greater importance of intention compared to action. Because of the total commitment of the gift, it is worth more than all the other gifts that cost their givers less. But we are left wondering about the fate of the widow, now that she has given her all to the system. How will she live? Is this sort of prodigality really being commended, or are we being shown an example of why [in verse 37] the crowd heard with gladness the announcement of the end of the system? We think that the latter message is the more likely, even though the crowd does not understand how the system depends on its complicity. Despite its complicity, the crowd understands the scapegoating method of the temple system.

"This story picks up the theme with which the section on the temple began, the theme of the faith of the individual over and against the barren system (11:22-25), and shows how the demands of the system make the life of the individual difficult if not impossible. It tells us that the intention of the individual, misguided and betrayed as it is, is nevertheless worth more than all the crowd’s participation in this oppression, and it presents the culminating indictment of the system as it prepares for the climactic announcement of its destruction."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, The Gospel and the Sacred, pp.33-34

~

"Now, [Jesus] doesn't say that [the widow is] being meritorious, it doesn't say that she's getting something [of] value for this. In fact, and this is a reading which I strongly urge you to suggest, [Jesus] says this with a certain sadness. It takes nothing away from her goodness, but what on earth is this poor woman doing contributing to this thing which is about to be swept away, which is about to go out of existence? She's wasting her money. It doesn't at all stop her from having a beautiful heart. The future disciple of Jesus will be like her in giving away, but not to the Temple built with hands [cf. Hebrews 9:24] [but] giving away to others.

"And that will be the form of blessedness that's going on, which is why the Church gives us the reading from Elijah today [(1 Kings 17:10-16)], with Elijah receiving the very little that the widow of Zarephath had to give him, not keeping the temple going but recognizing a prophet and receiving a prophet's reward. That's going to be the shape going forward of how we contribute to the [true] Temple, out of our nothing, we contribute and we will be given what enables us to survive.

"But once again, what's going on here is the Temple - how it's going to be destroyed, how all this contribution to it is worthless. There's an amazing indifference by Jesus to this at this stage. He's already said it's over, he's not angry with it. He's just looking in amazement as sees both pointless goodness given out of abundance from those who are keeping the thing going, and maybe getting 'brownie points' as you hear the big clunking of their coins as they go in, but also of the genuine devotion and generosity of someone who is giving all that she has, which is the sign of what it's going to be like when there is no temple."

- James Alison, from "Homily for Sunday 32 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3MNoa3yAmM)

[Source of Robert Hamerton-Kelly quote and link to Sarah Dylan Breuer blog, and for analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper27b/]

From the Lectionary for 3 November 2024 (Proper 26B)

Mark 12:28-34 (NRSV)

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbour as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

~

"The religious and the secular powers have been shown to be transcended by the new community of the victim called “resurrection.” What then shall be the power of the new community? How shall society be preserved from chaos if not by [burnt offerings] and sacrifices? And what shall be the basis of law (prohibition) in the new community?

"A lawyer who has been impressed by the astuteness of Jesus’ answers asks him for the fundamental principle of the law. Jesus answers with the Shema, which is essentially a prohibition on idolatry. The love of God with all one’s powers leaves no love for other gods. If there is to be a new, community, it must be founded on the renunciation of idolatry, which is the worship of sacrificial violence in the guise of the deified victim. The renunciation of idolatry entails the renunciation of vengeance.

"The demand for the renunciation of vengeance takes the positive form of the command to love the neighbor as the self. The full quotation from Lev 19:18 is, “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” It is clearly a proscription of the fundamental principle of law, vengeance. The web of reciprocity must be broken and replaced by a network of love if there is to be a new community, and for that to happen the idol of the primitive Sacred must be forsworn.

"Jesus rejects the whole panoply of sacred violence in its first principle as idolatry and its social manifestation as vengeance. The lawyer is the one who expresses this fact when he says, “You spoke elegantly and truly, teacher, when you said that Cod is one and there is no other besides him, and that to love him with a whole heart and a whole mind and a whole strength and to love the neighbor as oneself is more than [burnt offerings] and sacrifices” (12:32-33). Jesus did not speak the words about [burnt offerings] and sacrifices; the lawyer added them, and we can only understand them as a summary of all that has gone before in the section beginning with the incident in the temple and the ensuing questioning of Jesus. The lawyer had been listening to the exchanges and was impressed by Jesus’ answers. He is not far from the kingdom because he understands the import of Jesus’ teaching on the non-sacrificial nature of the new community.

"The antagonists are silenced. “No one dared to question him any more” (12:34). It is now clear that a new society called “resurrection” is at hand, based on true transcendence and mutual love, and not on the law of vengeance and the order of the scapegoat. Jesus represents something more than the order of [burnt offerings] and sacrifices; he represents a new and different possibility of love."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, The Gospel and the Sacred, pp.30-34

~

"First let's concentrate on the Shema. The first commandment, curiously, is not 'love'. The first commandment is 'listen'. “Listen O Israel.” It's the collective listening. That is something which Jesus is indicating is the first and major commandment.

"We usually immediately go to the 'you must love God and your neighbour as yourself' bit, but as a good son of Israel, Jesus knows that the first commandment is 'listen'. It's being audibly under the voice of God, stretching your hearing, together with others, constantly trying to listen to the voice of God. That's at the beginning of the first commandment, there's no loving God with out that. The whole point of loving is not... 'okay, you've told me what to do now I must get on and do it, that's our problem'. No, in order to be able to love you have to undergo listening, that's the first commandment.

[...]

"So Jesus is interpreting [the commandments] in that sense: there's no love of God that is not also a love of neighbour. I'd just like to ask us to stop and think about that, because, at least psychologically for me, that's always been a tough one - knowing how. You say you should love God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and the strength - what on earth does that mean? I understand, you know, pushing a trunk uphill with all my heart with all my soul with all my mind and my strength - it's something that I can feel myself doing. I have no idea what it means to love God with all my heart, my soul, my strength, my will, because God is not a trunk or an equivalent thing - God is not a stock exchange or a house or a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

"It doesn't seem obvious how you fulfil the command, and yet the criterion is now given: the criterion is your neighbour as yourself. In other words, it's exercising all the qualities which are referred to God with your neighbour, without rivalry. There is no rivalry between the loving of God and the loving of your neighbour. On the contrary, the loving of your neighbour is the criterion for loving God. That's the absolutely central linking of these two, which is again one of the pillar teachings of Christianity.

[...]

"[T]he scribe was so pleased, because he understood perfectly well that Jesus had answered the question with relation to the one God, and with relation to the cleaving to [God] and how one worships [God] with relation to the neighbour, in such a way as to say, “Yes, I may have threatened, indeed prophesied the collapse of the temple, but I'm not here to set up another temple. What I'm going to be doing is going to be done as a witness to you for how you create [...] neighbourliness, fraternity. [...] That's what I'm going to be doing. In other words, you don't need to be frightened that what I am coming to introduce is another temple, a different sort of burnt offering. It's not a burnt offering at all. I'm going to be giving myself and creating the temple without hands that will in fact enable us all to become neighbours, and all to worship the God who is One.” So this is why the scribe goes away happy.

"“When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' After that no one dared to ask him any question.” Very interesting. Why didn't they dare? Well, he'd given the three pillar teachings, and in each one he'd shown himself to be absolutely loyal and central to the faith of Israel, absolutely understanding of the central texts of Israel, and absolutely determined to create neighbourliness without rivalry in what he was planning to do. In other words, those who wanted to get rid of him would have to do so by false accusation, they couldn't take anything that he had said.

"And that is the end of their formal attempts to trap him in the first place, but later, as in the case of the scribe, to begin to see that here was something really interesting, and something not to be frightened of. So the scribe was able to go away having been blessed. [...] Non-rivalry between God and neighbour is going to be introduced fully in line with the faith of Israel."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 31 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLT43GG2ZpA)

[Source of Robert Hamerton-Kelly quote, and for analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper26b/]