From the Lectionary for 29 September 2024 (Proper 21B)

Mark 9:38-50 (NRSV)

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to [Gehenna], to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into [Gehenna]. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into [Gehenna], where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

~

"The extended warning against scandals (9:42-48) seems on the surface to be a stunningly sacrificial text. It commands one to cut off and throw away a hand, foot, or eye that causes one scandal, to expel the wrongdoer in sacrificial style. Cutting (apokoptō, 9:43 et passim) is the essential sacrificial act, and the skill of the sacrificial butcher is most evident in dismembering. Sacrifice is prescribed as the cure for scandal.

"A metaphorical rather than a literal sacrifice is being prescribed. The deconstruction of sacrifice has proceeded so far that the Gospel can use it as an image to convey the moral injunction to resist envy decisively. Scandal, as we have seen, is to love the thing one hates and hate the thing one loves. Scandal is envy, a desire to be like the other that is so intense that it would destroy the other if it cannot be like him, and also if it can. The injunctions to sever offending limbs are hyperbole expressing the urgency of the need to avoid the envy that comes from what one does (hand), where one goes (foot), and what one sees (eye), envy exemplified in the behavior of the disciples just narrated, in their wrangle about who is the greatest, and their attempt to keep the privilege of being Jesus’ agents for themselves.

"The sayings that close this section confirm the sacrificial metaphor. “For everything will be salted with fire” (9:49) is an allusion to the customs of salting the cereal sacrifice and offering salt with every sacrifice (Lev 2:13). The injunction, “Have salt in yourselves, and live in peace with one another” (9:50), applies this metaphor in a moral exhortation to behave so as to achieve the peace that the sacrifice achieved."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, The Gospel and the Sacred, pp. 108-109

~

"The call to amputate the offending hand, foot, and eye in verses 43-48 are by any account strange and troubling. Mark seems to be combining the Pauline metaphor of the community as “body” (see “hand, eye, foot” in 1 Corinthians 12:14-26) with the Pauline principle of not causing the “weaker member” to be scandalized (see Romans 14). But think of the modern analogy of the struggle against addiction. The process of recovery often feels like part of oneself (the addicted, codependent part) is being amputated. “Any struggle with addiction [...] involves deprivation,” writes Gerald May in Addiction and Grace. “Every false prop is vulnerable to relinquishment.” Such “amputation” is life-saving surgery on the cancer of our illusions and appetites.

"According to Mark, our greatest individual and social addiction is the will to dominate. Disciples are called to defect from what society may see as natural, such as all the ways “little ones” are routinely victimized by patterns of hierarchy and exclusion. But to do this is to be perceived as “defective” (like the amputee) by the dominant culture. These strange sayings, then, are arguing that it is better to be deformed than to conform to what oppresses more vulnerable members of the body politic.

"In a world of violence and institutionalized inequality, the choices are stark. We either embrace the “fire” of recovery (9:49) or live in the “hell” of addiction (9:48 alludes to the very last line in the book of Isaiah). Salt, used medicinally in antiquity, suggests that the goal is healing (9:49), which must include reconciliation within the community of faith (9:50)."

- Ched Myers, with Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Stuart Taylor, “Say to This Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, pg. 118

~

"[Jesus] uses the word “Gehenna” which strangely is translated as “hell” in all our modern translations, which I think is deeply unhelpful, because Gehenna referred to something really quite physical, which was the trash heap which was constantly burning outside of Jerusalem [...] in the valley. And the contrast was between that, the trash heap with the fire which never went out because it was ever-burning trash, and the Temple up on high with its sacrifices, with salt, where the sacrifices were good things. Except of course [...] what's being brought out is something even bigger than that - the sacrifices on high are to be the lives of the disciples.

"And it's at this point that we get the last two verses... “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” So he's saying everyone will be salted... the whole question is, which way is your salt going to work? Is it going to be the salt of Leviticus 2:13 with which all holy sacrifices were salted?

"In other words, are you going to be becoming the new Temple, the one that is coming down promised in Isaiah, the one for which *all* will be salted? And you will therefore show that by being able to give yourselves into the midst of a sacrificial world without being run by a sacrificial mentality, and therefore actually to be able to take part in the bringing into being of the new Creation.

"Or are you going to be part, if you like, of the non-salted, conspiracy-theory-mongering, victimary-thinking group who are in fact going down into the trash where there's a different salt of burning sacrifice, the wrong salt, the trash-heap salt? It is these two are being paralleled with each other.

"He said... “but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves.” So this is again, for those of us who love the thought of Rene Girard, this is this wonderful suggestion that it's the overcoming of victimary thinking in-between us that turns us into disciples. The work of the Holy Spirit is actually enabling us to become self-givers-away in the midst of victimary circumstances, rather than dwellers in victimhood and conspiracy.

"And therefore, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” He's saying that there are two patterns here: the pattern of the victimary heading to Gehenna, and the pattern the self-giving, avoiding [victimisation], having your desire purified so that you're no longer grabbing, grasping, planning deceit. And you are becoming the new Temple that is promised in Isaiah."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 26 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWOcRpum_CY)

[Source of Robert Hamerton-Kelly and Ched Myers quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper21b/]

From the Lectionary for 22 September 2024 (Proper 20B)

Mark 9:30-37 (NRSV Updated Edition)

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

~

"So he's beginning to teach [his disciples] that the point of his going to his death is not, “I'm going to leave a vacuum and one of you is going to have to fill it, I wonder who is the greatest,” but it's “You're all going to have to undergo the way of death, dying to yourselves, so as to learn to be what I have been for others.”

"And then he takes a little child, remember, a 'non-person' - the ancient peoples did not have our sentimental ideas about childhood at all, children were non-persons. He takes a child and stands him... among them. So first of all he stands the child, which is the position of one who is going to speak, and then he embraces him, cuddles him in his arms, before them. Now, if what you were was the one who wanted to be greatest, what you were particularly keen on is who was the master's favourite, so here Jesus is actually using [imitative] desire to draw attention to his favourite - his favourite is a little child, it's not one of them, it's a little child - a non-person is his favourite. They are supposed to look at that and be very jealous that they are not being cuddled in Jesus's arms.

"Then he says to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” - it is by receiving a non-person that you receive me - “and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” - if you want to receive the Father then receive this non-person. In other words, this whole dynamic of the relationship between Father and Son is now to be between brother receiving non-person - that's how you enter into the life of the Father.

[...]

"[H]ere we have the unimportant one being placed before them in a position of speaking [ie. in the centre of the circle] and said that the [ones who] want to be great [...] have to occupy that position and learn to speak from that position [of the unimportant one, the non-person]. This is how we are going to learn to listen to Jesus and that means how we are going to learn to obey the Father. This is part of Jesus's teaching technique, attempting to produce a real change in the apostolic group's life so that by the time they get to the cross they might have the first idea of what he's been talking about."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 25 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F6ncp8fbIE)

~

"The poetics of place are essential in the communicative strategy of this determinative pericope. They take us to the sacred center and show us there that the Sacred has been dethroned by the Servant. Jesus and the disciples are in Capernaum, in a house, and Jesus takes his place as teacher by sitting down. The disciples have been engaged in the old argument of envy, about who is the greatest in their little universe (9:34). Jesus calls them into a circle around him (we infer the circle from the placing of the child “in the middle”), and teaches by word and deed. By word he says, “If anyone desires to be first he shall be the last of all and the servant of all” (9:35). Then he teaches by deed what it means to be the servant of all, first taking a child and placing it in their midst, and then taking it up in his arms, with the words, “Whoever receives one such little one in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me but the one who sent me” (9:36-37).

"To receive rather than to expel is the mark of the new community of the kingdom. The message in the symbol of the child is that preeminent dignity in the kingdom goes to the one who is “last of all and the servant of all” (9:35). Jesus’ dramatic gesture of taking a child into his arms says that the greatest in the kingdom is the one who can receive those who have no power or prestige as if they were Jesus himself (9:37). This humility is clearly an antidote to the mimetic rivalry present in the disciples’ argument about who among them is the greatest.

"The poetics of place locate this act of inclusion at the center of space - in the town, in the house, in the circle, in the arms of Jesus. At the center, where in Sacred terms the holy absence skulks, sits Jesus with a child in his arms. The place at the center of the circle is the place of the victim during a stoning. Jesus and the child take that place. The gesture of taking the little one into his arms reverses the order of the Sacred. It dramatizes the inclusiveness of the new community by embracing rather than stoning or expelling the powerless one.

"By means of this symbol and these poetics of space, the Gospel tells us that the new community replaces the conspiracy of the Sacred by neutralizing the power of envy. In the conspiracy of the sacred mob, envy binds the members to one another in the scandalous bonds of rivalry and desire. No one can be found caring for the victim or siding with the weak, because that would be surrendering in the battle for prestige. The Gospel declares that such defeat is not loss but real preeminence in the order of the new community. The pericope of the child at the center is the summary symbol of the church as the nonsacrificial community."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, The Gospel and the Sacred, pg. 108

[Source of Robert Hamerton-Kelly quote, and for analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper20b/]

From the Lectionary for 15 September 2024 (Proper 19B)

Mark 8:27-38 (NRSV)

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

~

"What Jesus [says] is totally incomprehensible to them. “Then Jesus began to teach his disciples: ‘The Human One must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and the legal experts, and be killed, and then, after three days, rise form the dead.’” Mark’s gospel then adds “He said this plainly.” He used common, matter-of-fact words to convey this so that they would know he was not speaking in metaphor or symbolic language. He meant exactly what he said. He himself had already accepted this as the only way forward. He would die to reveal the depth of human brokenness shown in the way we destroy each another. He is not placating an angry God, he is revealing the hidden root of violence in all human cultures and it isn’t pretty. His willingness to do this reveals a God of love far beyond their imaginations.

"Suddenly the disciples have been pulled back from visions of a Jewish Caesar, their ancient dream come true: retribution for all the abuse, taxation and humiliation they have suffered at the hands of Rome to the image of a vulnerable Messiah who dies at the hands of their own religious leaders and political enemies and then somehow rises from the dead. This is impossible, incomprehensible, and very alarming.

"Peter grabs hold of Jesus and scolds him in an attempt to set him straight. Jesus is saying things that frighten Peter. Jesus has just placed Peter’s identity, self-understanding and way of life under threat. He must get Jesus to reverse his position. You can’t be a Jewish Caesar this way! Jesus must now publicly offend Peter to snap him out of his fantasy and back into a reality Peter does not want to see. “Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, and sternly corrected Peter. “Get behind me, Satan. You are not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.”

"Peter is thinking the way we humans do. His categories are power, coercion and the peace that comes from the imposition of our will over those we consider wrong, dangerous or inferior. But this is not God’s way. [...] Everything in Peter wants to have power and not be vulnerable. If Peter wishes to follow Jesus he must deny in himself that need for power, dominance and the capacity to visit revenge on those he sees as opposing or oppressing him.

[...]

"Jesus calls us all into question when he asks, “Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives? What will people give in exchange for their lives?” Will they give up violence? Will they give up the things that lead to violence? This is the center of Mark’s gospel, the heart of what Mark wants to tell us. It challenges us to the core and forces us to decide who we think Jesus is. Is he the Son of God who shows us the face of God? If we embrace him, we may struggle with shame for we know many will call us naïve, gullible and even weak. Embrace him anyway."

- Tom Truby, from sermon “A Love You Can’t Escape.” (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Truby-Proper19-2018-A-Love-You-Cant-Escape.pdf)

~

"Violent retributive people (and Christians who believe in a retributive god) cannot handle a message of complete and utter grace, of unconditional forgiveness nor are they truly able see themselves as weak and helpless before God. They believe God has blessed them because they are doing so well and those who aren’t doing as well have obviously (so they say) come under God’s judgment. Jesus speaks a word directly to this. In Matthew 7, Jesus even acknowledges those who will demonstrate great power in the miraculous, yet will fail come judgment precisely because they have not lived a life of forgiveness to others, because instead of being peacemakers they had become war mongers.

"What might a disciple [be ashamed of]? When push comes to shove a disciple might just back off this message of peace in order to save their skin. Jesus says if they do that, if they [are ashamed of] the True Human (“the son of the man”), [he will be ashamed of them] come the end. Why? Because Jesus cannot affirm a person of war; Jesus cannot affirm those who hold grudges, or those who seek legal recompense. This is not who he is, this is not who God is and this is not how God reigns. He must “deny” them.

"In Matthew’s gospel, the hyperbole used has to do with being shunted aside or “cast into fire.” Nobody on the Last Day wants to be the ones who have this happen to them. In order to convey the seriousness of his message Jesus uses standard apocalyptic metaphors of judgment. How serious is this business of peace, of forgiveness, of compassion? Very serious!!! None of this is marginal to the Christian life, indeed all of this is of the essence of the Christian life.

"[... T]his saying is not about one’s relation to God or one’s salvation but about the way one’s life will be judged as faithful to the message and whether or not one capitulates to the world’s message. Will you be a peacemaker or a warmonger? Will you hold grudges, and seek some sort of passive-aggressive retaliation or will you be a peacemaker? Does your social policy sweep aside the immigrant, the poor, the socially marginalized or do you seek active ways to care for those society would rather forget. When you stand before The True Human how will your humanity be judged?"

 - Michael Hardin, from FB post on Sep 12, 2024 on Matthew 10:33 “If you deny me, I will deny you.” I have substituted "ashamed" for "deny" in the original post to match the Markan version. Note that in the post Michael mentions and gives a possible explanation for this word difference between the two gospels. (https://www.facebook.com/michaelhardin1517/posts/pfbid0K7vDZ68YeayG7dg2Pkh38mLzNS2eRYHbadRN1qMEhrbFTHLezsCP6Mv1BK2WYRh1l)

~

"[...] Jesus now feels confident that now is the time to start to prepare people for the following, and it is *following* that is going to be the important thing, what later the author to the Colossians will call “walking in Christ.”

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (v34-35)

"[This is the] central point where the shape of discipleship finally becomes clear. And what we're going to see from now on is Jesus will now turn his face back to Jerusalem and start heading there. The second half of the Gospel is this long way of the cross, which is designed to teach and prepare the group of disciples to bear witness to how Jesus did it, so that they, after the resurrection, would be able to bear witness to us, and enable us to enter into that following."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 24th in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPJb8x4PU8Q)

[Source of link to Tom Truby sermon, and for further analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper19b/]

[Note also that this is the same gospel text as for Lent 2B: https://daveroberts.blogspot.com/2024/02/from-lectionary-for-25-february-2024.html]

From the Lectionary for 8 September 2024 (Proper 18B)

Job 9:27-35 (NKJV)

“If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,
    I will put off my sad face and wear a smile,’
I am afraid of all my sufferings;
    I know that You will not hold me innocent.
If I am condemned,
    Why then do I labor in vain?
If I wash myself with snow water,
    And cleanse my hands with soap,
Yet You will plunge me into the pit,
    And my own clothes will abhor me.
“For He is not a man, as I am,
    That I may answer Him,
    And that we should go to court together.
Nor is there any mediator between us,
    Who may lay his hand on us both.
Let Him take His rod away from me,
    And do not let dread of Him terrify me.
Then I would speak and not fear Him,
    But it is not so with me.”

Mark 7:31-37 (NRSV)

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

~

"So you have here the plea, as it were, of the demonized man put into the mouth of Job [from the passage quoted above]. But here we have present the Redeemer, the Mediator, who is going to touch him, who - in the words of this [passage] - who bends down to his face, [... who] is going to look up to heaven and groan because he's the Mediator, and then touch his face. And [the mute man is] going to be able to speak. So we have Jesus being the Mediator, but not as one of vengeance, as one who is doing in a sense the reverse of what is talked about in Job, but as the Mediator he is enabling the person to speak. It's a beautiful little enactment that we're getting here in Mark's Gospel.

[...]

"So let's remember what is it that has ears but cannot hear and a tongue but cannot speak. Well it's an idol. Jesus is in 'idol' territory. Psalm 135 has the famous quote about “with ears they cannot hear with tongue they cannot speak.” So here is someone who in pagan territory is semi-idolized, semi-turned into an idol, and how he's being brought to life, brought to the possibility of speaking. “And his tongue was loosened,” [literally] “the block was undone.” It's the loosing of the block, it's the same word as binding and loosing. Jesus is enacting [...] the binding and the loosing. Here he is binding the evil one and loosing the tongue. What does this mean? That whereas when he'd been doing the same amongst the people of Israel, he was talking about sins being forgiven and faith. Here it's about driving out demons because they're half demonized, but bringing to life because that's what undoing demons does.

"And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and it says: “and he spoke plainly.” It's the word 'orthōs'. It's a beautiful little hint because in the book of Deuteronomy, this is chapter 18, the Lord speaks to Moses [and] tells him that the people are right, they speak rightly to him, they speak right - 'orthōs'. And then [God] says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from one their own people, I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet who shall speak to them everything that I command.” In other words, this semi-idol [in Mark's Gospel] who has been brought to life bears witness to the fact that this is the prophet whom God had promised to Moses.

[...]

"“They were astounded beyond measure.” [v37]. So this is the fulfilment of the Isaianic prophecies about the wilderness bursting into life, into flower, into song, into dance at the arrival of the Lord. The one who is hidden is coming into their midst: “He has done everything well.” They don't realise it but they're announcing that the one who has done everything well, the one who made all things and saw that they were good, the Creator, is alive. “[H]e even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” In other words idols [which are deaf and mute] are a thing of the past, humans who are bound down to idols are being turned into daughters and sons of God. And so Jesus continues with his 'more than Joshua, greater than Moses', the Lord coming into the midst of his people to reveal who He is."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 23rd in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hJqucPRYi8)

~

"Note that [the man] could not hear and he could not speak. Does this tell us something? Perhaps he is a wise man in this regard, compared to those who jabber on even though they cannot or will not hear, let alone listen. This man at least inhibited his tongue because he could not listen (We are told that he had a speech impediment; I take this as an instance of what used to be called “hysterical” afflictions; he knows he is cut off from one side of the dialogue and so he inhibits the other. He is “tongue-tied,” and the text tells us that his tongue was “set free” when his hearing was restored). In any case Jesus gives him back both powers, and he does it in the most physical way.

[...]

"Let us reflect. We are interested in the world of the spirit, whose essence is hearing and speaking, not in the realm of the body. We wish to escape into a world beyond empirical verification or falsification, from the place of action to the place of ideas, from events to words, and to make the narrative a symbolic presentation of states of mind; but the physicality of the contact with Jesus, the event nature of the restoration of hearing and speaking, means that we cannot. We cannot avoid the “event” nature of this restoration of spirit. We do not work our way out of spiritual deafness and dumbness by strenuous thought and rigorous argument, but rather we come to Jesus and ask for him to heal us. He puts his hand in our ears and his spittle on our tongues, his bodily substance and his bodily fluid on us, and we speak and hear again. That means that we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we take the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and in that event he opens our ears and frees tongue-tied speech.

[...]

"[O]ur faith is not a pattern of ideas, or a chain of proofs, but rather a series of historical events. Events in the flesh entail events in the spirit, and for this reason the Word became flesh (John 1:14) and not simply more words. It was to put an end to speculation and calculation, an end to idle words, that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth; we beheld his glory, glory as of the only son from the father.” Notice how strikingly John says that we beheld the glory in the flesh, not in the mind or in a vision or pattern of words. So our miracle story is part of the great narrative of the incarnation of God, telling us that God is not ashamed of our flesh, and we shall find him there when we allow him to unstop our ears are untie our tongues."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from a sermon delivered on September 10, 2006 (source no longer available online)

[Note that the Job passage quoted is not from the lectionary, but is included for the reference in James Alison's homily. For extensive analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper18b/]

From the Lectionary for 1 September 2024 (Proper 17B)

Mark 7:1-8, 14-23 (NRSV)

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

...

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

~

"Jesus is telling us that just as foods do not make us unclean, other people do not make us unclean either. It is what we do with the desires of other people that make us clean or unclean. We can indeed be corrupted by bad company but if we spew out the envy and slander and pride we ingested from others back at them, or, more likely, at others with fewer defences, then we ourselves are bad company threatening to corrupt others.

"This gives us another angle on Jesus’ famous warning that if we judge, we will be judged, because when we judge, we see the speck in the eye of the other but don’t see the log in our own. (Mt. 7: 1-5) We think that any envy, deceit or licentiousness we experience in ourselves comes from the other, and maybe we do catch these traits from another, like catching a virus. But a virus caught from another only hurts us if our own bodies react in destructive ways to make us sick. Likewise, the envy, deceit and licentiousness of another only make us sick if allow them to flare up inside of us. If we then expel them in the direction of others, they become the victims of what has come out of us. Even when defiling desires really are coming out of other people, our own defiling desires in response only magnify the impurity in the social atmosphere. That is, the uncleanness is neither in ourselves nor in the other. Defilement occurs only in relationships built upon projecting and expelling the perceived defilement of others."

- Andrew Marr, from blog post titled "What Really Makes Us Unclean?" (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2015/08/26/what-really-makes-us-unclean/)

~

"[T]he fall into sin [is] something that happens in the relationships between people. In this respect it is akin to gravity. In the Aristotelian physics, the property of falling to the earth was an inherent quality in each object as part of its Final Cause given to it by God. In the Newtonian physics, gravity becomes a forcefield that isn’t strictly inner or outer but resides in the relationships between objects. It surrounds them.

"I think that [...] the source of sin lies neither strictly in the objects of desire (e.g., alcohol, pornography, guns, etc.) nor in the persons themselves. It lies in the fallen nature of the relationships of desire between people. It lies in the fact that we model one another’s desires rather than God’s loving desire for all of Creation. And so we have [imitatively] fallen into desiring that is rivalrous, covetous, conflictual; and we can’t get out on our own. It takes the incarnation of the One who came to perfectly model the desire of his heavenly Father."

"Most important is that [this understanding] gives us a picture of original sin that requires outside, gracious intervention, yet is not inherent to us. Original sin is not something internal, not something we are born with; rather, as we proclaim in our Lutheran Book of Worship baptismal liturgy (p. 121: “We are born children of a fallen humanity”), it is something we are born into (like we are born into the forcefield of the earth’s gravity). The [imitative] nature of desire accounts for how it can be hopelessly fallen, save for a divine intervention into the fallenness...

"We have no models of a non-rivalrous desire until Christ enters the picture. In the special (Trinitarian!) relationship that Jesus had with his heavenly Father, we finally have a human (peer) model for us of non-rivalrous desire. Jesus perfectly acted according to his Father’s will without becoming his rival. Through the Holy Spirit this same non-rivalrous desire can be mediated to us, redeeming us from the fallen desiring of the “original sin” which has otherwise been [imitatively] passed on through the ages."

- Paul Nuechterlein, from Reflections and Questions section on this passage on the Girardian Lectionary page (link in comment below)

~

"So here we get the understanding that what we have in today's Gospel is the explanation which Jesus gave the disciples over time, including after his resurrection, as to what this might mean, and how it was that Christianity became the form of Judaism that prioritizes the desire of the heart as being what is absolutely central above all things. Any other things that you may hold on to, they might be fine, they might not be fine, but the really important thing is the desire of the heart.

"Jesus then gives a list of twelve of these forms of disordered desire which make us genuinely unclean. He starts with evil intentions, these englobe all the things that he's going to talk about, all the twelve that are to follow, suggesting that he is talking about something with a determinative, a conscious quality about it, that form of wrongdoing. Then he starts with fornication, strangely enough, and probably that means idolatry, idolatry coming before theft and murder. The reason I say it's probably idolatry is that to use fornication to refer to idolatry was standard in the Jewish world at the time. And the sexual elements that we associate with fornication come in adultery and licentiousness later in the list, so it's reasonable to assume that he's not simply repeating himself here, he's talking about different things and starting as a good Jew would with idolatry as being the source of all other evils. So, idolatry, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly - the different ways in which our heart, our pattern of desire can take us away from God.

"And of course it's going to be the working out of that after the resurrection, after the coming of the Holy Spirit, starting with what Jesus taught about that which is inside coming out may defile rather than which is outside coming in, which is to be the whole basis of how we learn to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. Following our origin of Spirit, [we discover] how to become holy bodies by working through the patterns of desire such that the Holy One may live in our hearts."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 22nd in Ordinary Time, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss2VBOjnvN0)

[Source of Paul Nuechterlein quote and link to Andrew Marr blog, and for extensive analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper17b/]

From the Lectionary for 25 August 2024 (Proper 16B)

John 6:56-69 (NRSV)

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

~

"Jesus asks “Does this offend you?” [...] I imagine the disciples thinking, “Yes it does! It offends me! I am very offended. I don’t like the idea of gnawing on anybody’s flesh or drinking anybody’s blood, particularly yours. If that’s what it takes to be connected to you I am not sure I want to. Jesus goes on; if this offends you, “What if you were to see the Human One going up where he had been before.” Jesus seems to be saying if they are offended now they would be even more offended if they knew who Jesus is and where he came from. He doesn’t back down for he knows they must face into the offense. It is the message! Can they believe in someone who says something both offensive but true or will they stumble and turn away in revulsion. This is the alternative they face.  Believe in him or be offended by him. That’s the choice the gospels always present us.

"Jesus then said, “The Spirit is the one who gives life and the flesh doesn’t help at all.” The Spirit is the carrier of forgiveness and mercy. Forgiveness and mercy give life. Forgiveness and mercy is the spirit of Jesus. The flesh doesn’t help because it subsists on consuming human flesh and drinking human blood. This is not an empty metaphor. It’s the way the world works. We talk about our dog-eat-dog world and this is what we mean. We talk about how we divide the world between the haves and have-nots and keep it divided through violence and rules hidden in systems of power that give some the advantage and make it nearly impossible for others. [...] This is what the writer of Ephesians meant when he tells us, “We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.”

"“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” he says. They come from another place; a place John identifies as heaven; that restful place outside the force-field of human striving and ambition that we generate in our rivalry with each other. By contrast, Jesus’ words come from a place of self-sacrifice not human sacrifice. We tend to sacrifice the other and not ourselves. We gnaw on each other’s flesh and drink each other’s blood in our wars and economic systems designed to maintain the current distribution of wealth. Jesus sacrifices himself saying gnaw on my flesh and drink my blood instead of your neighbors. I give you my own flesh for you to gnaw on. Does that offend you?

[...]

"We are on this earth and we have begun to face the truth about ourselves. We are the ones destroying this planet with our strivings and fear but [Jesus has] the words that lead to lasting peace. We will either consume each other or eat the forgiving and merciful flesh of Jesus. When we take him in he gradually changes our desires and gives us life that does not end."

- Thomas L. and Laura C. Truby, from sermon delivered on August 23rd, 2015 (http://girardianlectionary.net/.../Proper16-2015-Four...)

~

"We are back again with that recurring theme of the Gospel of John, life, and not just transient life, but eternal life. John speaks of life and how to experience it, in many ways – by metaphors like water and bread, by mystical or philosophical images like light and Logos – but here he attributes it to the discourse of Jesus. Eternal life comes in and through what Jesus has to say.

"It is significant that Peter the respondent does not say “You speak the words of eternal life,” but rather “You have the words of eternal life.” The difference between speaking and having is important. Jesus asks the shaken disciples, who remained when others were shocked into apostasy by the demand that all eat his flesh, “Are you going too?” and Peter answers “To whom Lord shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” He says not “speak” but “have.” The idea is perhaps best translated by the idiom used above, “... have to say.” Eternal life comes through what Jesus has to say.

"Why is this small difference important? Because if we say the power is in what he speaks, we can hear the message, detach it from the messenger, and take it away with us to use on our own. If however, it is in what he has to say, we cannot leave because he himself is the substance of what he says. His whole being is an expression in time and space of what he has to say."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from sermon delivered on August 27, 2006 (source no longer available)

~

"“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” So here he brings out that it's actually the words that are the important thing. Every sign that he has done, they've been tempted to look just at the physicality of the sign, and it's always been the word that he's speaking, the thing that he has been bringing into being through the word. In Greek the word 'rhema' can mean word or thing, just as the Hebrew 'dabar' can mean word or deed. So it's this thing, this speaking thing that I have spoken to you, are spiritual life. It's that which I'm bringing into being.

"“But are among you there are some who do not believe.” And here I want to alter our word believe because we're inclined to hear it, I'm afraid, far too much as an individual thing that we do ourselves, kind of something that I've got to do starting from me. But the Greek word 'pistis' means persuasion and the word that we translate 'to believe' means 'to be persuaded or to be convinced'. In other words, it's someone doing something to you so that you trust them.

"So he says, “The words that I have spoken to are spirit in life, but among you there are some who have not been persuaded, who are not persuaded. [...] For this reason, I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is given by the Father.” Because he's well aware that it's the being given to be persuaded that is the gift of the Father. Jesus is doing what he's doing, he's perfectly confident in that. He knows that that is what persuades, but it doesn't guarantee persuasion. There are some who only see what he's doing as something useful for themselves, it's not because they're allowing him to persuade them, it's not given to them to be persuaded that this is God himself speaking into their midst.

[...]

"So Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” [...] Simon Peter answers him [...] “Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” In other words, Peter has understood that the words, the thing, the utterance - something close to the oracles which are speaking and living Jesus - they're the ones that bear eternal life. [...] So he says, “We have come to be persuaded and really know.” That's the wonderful thing, that's why I think it's such a good idea that we translate 'believe' by 'be persuaded', because the process of someone persuading you does lead to knowledge. When someone has persuaded you, you actually do know something. Just remember that's a process of coming to be persuaded and then knowing.

"[Peter] said, “We have come to be persuaded and now genuinely know” - the verb is emphatic in Greek - “that you are the Holy One of God” - the one who was coming in, the messianic priestly figure, the one whom John [the Baptist] had recognized in the presence of these disciples as the lamb of God. They're beginning to get the picture. They don't entirely get it yet of what his giving himself to be the bread, the fruit of sacrifice - which will be the same thing - what that's going to mean. They haven't yet seen him going up to where he was before, the very beginning of all feasts, before even the rite of atonement, certainly before the Passover. They haven't yet seen that but they're going to stick around with him.

"So I think that this Gospel encourages us to say: gosh, often we're falling behind on allowing ourselves to be persuaded. Let's pray to the Father to give it to us, to be taken on to the inside of what Jesus is doing, so that we can be persuaded and know that he is the Holy One of God."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 20/21 in Ordinary Time, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ufGsbQEVbE)

[Source of the links to Thomas & Laura Truby and Robert Hamerton-Kelly sermons, and for extensive analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper16b/]

From the Lectionary for 18 August 2024 (Proper 15B)

John 6:51-58 (NRSV)

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

~

"In 6:51-58, two different Greek verbs for “eat” occur a total of 8 times. The more common of the two, phagein, is used 158 times in the NT; it’s used 15 times in John (four times in this passage; vs. 51, 52, 53, 58). The more rare form, trogein, is used only 6 times in the NT, four of the occurrences here in this passage (vs. 54, 56, 57, 58), with the other two having a negative impact: Mt. 24:38, describing the eating of the people before Noah; and John 13:18, a reference to Judas’ eating next to Jesus at the Last Supper. The lexicons make John’s choice of words here even more shocking as they allude to the fact that trogein is generally used of animals gnawing audibly on their food. It would seem to be a choice of words for “eat” to convey a more ‘primitive,’ i.e., less prim and proper, form of eating, the kind that might shock the majority of diners when dining “in good company.” Is it too much to translate it here as “gnaw” of “chew”?

"In N.T. Wright’s Kingdom New Testament, he translates the first instance of trogein (v. 54) as “feasts upon,” and then the subsequent three again as “eat.” Perhaps to capture the flavor of animals eating, an alternate translation could be “feed upon.” Here’s Wright’s translation of v. 54 with the further modification: “Anyone who feeds upon my flesh and drinks my blood has the life of God’s coming age, and I will raise them up on the last day.”"

- Paul Nuechterlein, from Exegetical Notes for this text on the Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 15B (link in comments below)

~

"I see Jesus’s use of a more crude word for “eat” - trogein, which I translate as “feed off” - as a cue that he is challenging his listeners on their sacrificial thinking. He means to stir up in them the offensive thoughts of cannibalism because he has come to challenge them to give up all vestiges of sacrifice - most especially, the wrathful, punishing god who demands it. His listeners think themselves above cannibals, but their sacrificial thinking is as deadly as ever. Jesus will eventually let himself be their sacrificial lamb in order to expose the entire business.

"Christians need to hear this message just as much as Jesus’ fellow Jews. We have betrayed his rejection of sacrifice by becoming entrenched in a sacrificial reading of the cross, [which] is a betrayal of Jesus’ mission. It puts back into place the sacrificial thinking which Jesus came to subvert into self-sacrificial thinking - living lives of loving service."

- Paul Nuechterlein, from Opening Comments: Elements of a New Reformation on the Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 15B (link in comments below)

~

"Jesus’ strange words in his long monolog that follows the feeding in the wilderness connects this feeding with the Eucharist in words that are both comforting in that they promise a deep union with Jesus, but disturbing by thrusting the violence of Jesus’ death in our faces. English translations inevitably lose much of the force of the words as there is no English word that catches the connotations of trogein. “Gnaw” comes closest but even that is not strong enough. The German word fressen, which refers to the eating of non-human animals, comes much closer. When I used the word flippantly in conversation with a German acquaintance, his reaction was very strong, about as strong as our reaction to Jesus’ words ought to be. Which is precisely the way “the Jews” react to Jesus’ words.

"In reply to “the Jews's” anger, Jesus promises that his flesh and blood are “real food” and “real drink” without which we have no life in us. Jesus goes on to make the even more audacious claim that his body and blood do not nourish us as meat and vegetables nourish us. Such nourishment is not lasting and needs to be renewed by further eating and drinking as the manna God fed the Israelites in the desert needed to be re-gathered every day. But Jesus’ own flesh and blood feeds us in such a way that we will live forever.

[...]

"Since Jesus’ promise of everlasting nourishment is tied so closely to his painful death, we might get some understanding by looking at sacrifice. Sacrifice is closely tied to eating. Deities feed on animals or vegetation, or at least the aroma of them, and the sacrificers usually eat the food that was sacrificed. The Passover lamb is sacrificed both to spare the Israelites from the plague that strikes the first-born of Egypt and a sacrifice to physical hunger, and thus a source of nourishment as well. Sacrifices need to be repeated, as the author of Hebrews says. (Heb. 7: 27; 9: 6) In his sacrificial death, Jesus has obtained “eternal redemption.” (Heb. 9: 12) Thus, this author is making the same claim on behalf of Jesus that Jesus is making in John’s Gospel.

[...]

"The death and resurrection of Christ, then, are a pledge of the heavenly banquet where we will be nourished without need of taking any life [...] What we can do is let Christ nourish us deeply in the here and now so that we do not need to sacrifice other people as we are prone to do, but rather will feed others in anticipation of the heavenly banquet."

- Andrew Marr, Abbot of St. Gregory’s Abbey (Three Rivers, MI), from blog post titled "Eating Together" (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2018/08/17/eating-together/)

~

"Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Now we understand the living bread is God’s forgiveness that comes from outside ourselves and draws us toward God. [...] The very thing we most need and cannot provide, God provides in the form of Jesus’ broken body, the body we broke, now given back to us as the food of forgiveness.

[...]

"We are used to seeing flesh hacked and blood spilled. [...] This is what we are doing to each other everywhere and this is what Jesus came to stop. He tries to stop it by offering his own blood and flesh instead of all these whose flesh we otherwise feed on. Eat my flesh; not theirs. Drink my blood, not theirs for mine is the bread of forgiveness, mine will satisfy your cravings and give you peace.

"Since our killing is so vividly real he uses images that do not veil the truth and provide an alternative.  It is common to take life but Jesus gives it. This is his alternative. He gives it freely and defines it as the bread of forgiveness. Could it be that all life comes from forgiveness, even eternal life? Maybe forgiveness is a grittier name for love. Could it be that unless we participate in forgiveness we aren’t really living and in fact, are dead already? [...] We must abide in forgiveness; it is the only bread that can sustain us in any sustainable fashion. It is the only way we can live.

[...]

"Our living derives from Jesus. His bread of forgiveness, which is himself, as broken body and shed blood, keeps us alive because it is rooted in his relationship with his non-violent Abba. Because God loves Jesus, loves him for himself and for what he did for us, God will not let us disappear either. It is not metaphysical, it is relational. It is not built on ideas and pure thought. It is built on the non-rivalrous relationship between Jesus and God, where each honors and respects the other. By God’s grace we are included in this eternal relationship as forgiven friends of Jesus. As Jesus put it, “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of my father.”

"Yes, the bread of life is forgiveness; “The one who eats this bread will live forever.” Amen."

- Thomas L. Truby, from sermon delivered on August 19th, 2012 (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Proper15-2012-Forgiveness-the-Bread-ofLife.doc)

[Source of Paul Nuechterlein quotes and links to Andrew Marr blog post and Thomas L. Truby sermon, and for further discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper15b/]

From the Lectionary for 11 August 2024 (Proper 14B)

Ephesians 4:32-5:2 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

John 6:35, 41-51 (NRSV)

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

[...]

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

~

"[An] important word in this lection is “draw” (vs. 44): “No one can come to me unless *drawn* by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.” [...] The notion of drawing has a similar feel to it as an attraction, as a craving. It is important to note, I think, that Jesus doesn’t take away our need for bread; he offers us a bread of life, rather than a bread of death. And Jesus doesn’t take away the craving to be drawn together in community; he gives us another basis for doing so. All the peoples of the earth will be drawn together in true community when Jesus is lifted up, when Jesus comes into his glory (from the Johannine way of speaking) by suffering the apparent victimization of the cross."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from "Reflections and Questions" on the Giradian Lectionary page for Proper 14B (link in comments below)

~

"“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father.” This is a very gentle verb. Jesus is bringing out that the pattern of love that is behind this, the desire of the 'model', is what points to him. We follow the desire of the Father, and if we find ourselves following the desire of the Father we actually find ourselves being drawn to Jesus. [...] And the one way to be absolutely sure that we cannot be drawn by that love is for us to have been drawn into being able to join a gang of complainers, grumblers, people who are looking for someone whose fault it all is. That's the pattern of desire in which we're going to be heading for a scapegoat, we're going to be heading to do real harm to some 'wicked' other.

"And Jesus is, of course, the one who's come to occupy the place of all our 'wicked' others, so as to set us free forever from having to do that again. He's going to teach us that that's what he's going to do, he's going to give himself to us so that we can begin to step out of that world. But the one who's making all that possible is the Father who draws us. That for me is the gentle central line of this: “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.” In other words, the pattern of desire makes available a model, a sign we find ourselves being drawn in to be able to perceive and therefore follow the sign, the One who is being made alive in our midst.

"Jesus then continues this: “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” So, saying that, that all being taught by God, is true, this is to be found both in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Jesus is talking about the way in which the Holy Spirit comes between us and enables us to be taken into the fullness of God's teaching so that there's nobody above us, we're all alongside each other. And we're all learning how not to be caught up in lynch mobs and ganging up over against but rather how to be drawn to the One who has occupied that space - occupied the space of the victim, occupied the space of the scapegoat - so as to enable us to have life. [...] [O]nce you say yes, yes I can see that the entire shape of the power and dynamic of God the creator who brought everything into being is made available to us in this One going to his death as the scapegoat, as the cast out one so that none of us needs ever be caught up in that again. And so that we can learn how to live forever, we can share the age that is to come, share the life of God.

"[...] [T]he manna in the wilderness wasn't something to open [the Israelites] up to life for good. It didn't even get them into the Promised Land. It was an energy boost in order to get them through the wilderness. But because they grumbled and complained amongst themselves they were not able to get into the Promised Land. It was the grumbling that kept them out. Why? Because grumbling is the way in which you create bonding and belonging together, and that's always over against someone, and that means you're failing to come to life. It's when you see that the one who is being thrown out is the one who is the representative of how God loves you, that then you are to be given a belonging that's of an entirely different sort. And so you're able to be brought to life.

[...]

"Again the difficult thing with this passage is how much more down to earth Jesus is being that it's difficult for us to imagine. The words sound so celestial that it's difficult for us to see him constantly trying to get people to concentrate on what is before them, what is being acted out before them. Someone who is going to undo the way of being together that is, if you like, dominated by grumbling, by complaining. Someone who is going to occupy the space of the grumbled against and is going to open up life forever."

- James Alison, from "Homily for Sunday 19 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XDw9f1WUrI)

[Source of Paul Nuechterlein quote, and for further discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper14b/]

From the Lectionary for 4 August 2024 (Proper 13B)

Ephesians 4:1-7 (NRSV Updated Edition)

I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

John 6:24-35 (NRSV Updated Edition)

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us, then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

~

"There are many ways we speak of needing more than bread, most often by noting our need for a meaningful life. After all, eating and sleeping doesn’t add up to very much no matter how good the food is. Given that, it is instructive that in the desert journey and in the aftermath of Jesus’ feeding the multitude in the wilderness, the people seem to be interested in more food  than in a sense of meaning to life. In John, in spite of the abundance of the feeding in the wilderness, the crowd demands to have this bread always. If we remain stuck at this level, various distortions follow.

[...]

"In John, when Jesus says that he himself is the bread, he is clearly taking them to a meaning that would bring home the truth that humanity does not live by bread alone. If they really come to him, they will have enough: they will never hunger again. Or will they? Jesus says that they have to believe in him. Raymund Brown says that faith means giving their lives over to the way of Jesus. Will we do that? What is the life Jesus gives us like?

"In Ephesians, Paul says that the life Jesus gives us consists of humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with each other in love. We are to be one Body in Christ, the same body that we consume in the Eucharist. [...] That is, in Christ’s Body we all have enough because we are always feeding one another at all levels of our being as we build each other up in love. Sounds like life to me."

- Andrew Marr, Abbot of St. Gregory’s Abbey (Three Rivers, MI), from blog post titled "Bread that is Enough" (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2015/07/29/bread-that-is-enough/)

~

"Jesus is starting to take the people into the realm of understanding the sign, which is what we're really into today. We saw the sign last week - the sign was multiplying all that bread and fish, feeding people in a perfectly straightforward material sense. But Jesus says that's not the real sign, that's only part of it. You're not really getting it if that's what you got from what I was doing. He says, “Don't work for that, work for something else instead.”

"So they then said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” In other words, there's quite a genuine hunger and thirst, if you like, for knowledge here, they ask him decent questions: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” So they want the right answer. Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” And that's like the mega answer in today's Gospel. We'll see how it ties in further on. He's saying that there is a work in this. And the work is not so much to do anything, rather it is to have something done to you, to allow yourself to be stretched by God convincing you through the One he has sent. It's going to be this shape of allowing yourself to be stretched by the One whom God has sent, that's the shape of God's work in you which is what is going to be emphasized now throughout. Because that's going to be the thing that's really difficult to understand.

[...]

"Notice something which I think is very important that Jesus is doing: he's trying to get their head away from celestial thinking. He's trying to bring down the understanding of God to the person in front of them. Do you want to understand the things of God? Do you want to understand how it is that God opens you up to eternal life? It's going to be horizontally. It's because you learn to believe in the One who [God] has sent. And everything that that One does - the whole of his life, culminating in his death and the distributing of himself - is what is going to feed you and nourish you for eternal life.

"But this is not a handout from heaven. This is the gift of life which opens you up to heaven. And it's God opening you up at this horizontal level. And that's quite a tough thing to do because, in one sense, he is bringing out something that is heavenly, but he's bringing it down to earth. He's trying to get them off tripping on celestial handouts, and saying, “No, the work of God is to believe in the One whom [God] has sent.” This is to be able to look at this human being who is in front of you, who is in fact God's Son, who speaks God's truth, who is going to live out what God's love is like. And your work is to believe in him, to allow yourself to be opened up by this Other, this human Other, at the horizontal level, who is the enactment in our midst of what God's love for us looks like.

"If you like, it's the 'de-celetialising' of the gift and the turning it into something that's much more concrete, much more present, and much more symbolically rich. How to get us thinking of Jesus as bread, how to allow us to imagine that all of this is to nourish us, that it's to take us beyond celestial handouts, if you like, and to turn us into bearers, signs, of this eternal life which is being brought about by Jesus."

- James Alison, from "Homily for Sunday 18 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na_cfs3XDZU)

[Source of link to Andrew Marr blog post, and for further discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper13b/]

From the Lectionary for 28 July 2024 (Proper 12B)

John 6:1-15 (NRSV)

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

~

"[I]n John's Gospel Jesus has already [...] performed a number of signs in Jerusalem. The last one, in the chapter immediately before this one, being that of the beggar at the pool, the Sheep Gate, Bethesda. The man who'd been there for 38 years and he enabled this person to walk. [...] So when it says here that people came from other places because of the things he'd done with sick people, this was one of the signs that they were talking about.

"And what was the sign? Well for 38 years this was someone who had been almost the 40 years of the time in the wilderness and was finally being given a chance to walk just before the 40 years were up, so that he could come into the the kingdom, the Promised Land. So people have picked up that what Jesus was doing was not simply 'miracles' but they were miracles pointing towards something that God was doing, something historic, that there was a an active communication going on; not just a wonderful thing but a wonderful thing pointing towards God doing something big. That's what the signs are. So we have that in the background to what is about to happen now in John's telling of the feeding of the 5000.

"He has in common with Mark that Moses and Joshua are very much in the background, and not only but we'll see other prophets as well. But also the sense that people were aware of this. So after Jesus has been in Jerusalem he's preached, if you like to Egypt, to the institutionally tough place, and now he went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias, so now he's back in the north. He's gone across the sea, which is all you need to know - left Egypt, gone across the sea.

[...]

"So Jesus like Moses has gone across the sea. Other people come along as well because of the signs. Jesus goes up a mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Well this was actually what Moses had done: initially his first trip up the mountain was with his elders and they feasted before the Lord. Remember that this was what Jesus had been planning to do with his disciples in Mark: taking them up to a place to give them some rest, but now they found that lots more people are coming.

[...]

"“Now there was a great deal of grass in the place.” So two points here. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down by green pastures.” So here is the lord literally making the people lie down in green pastures. But also there was a great deal of grass “in the place.” 'The Place was also a standard word for the Temple, and remember that Jesus has already foretold the end of the Temple [in John's Gospel]. He's not celebrating the Passover in the temple, he's celebrating the Passover back in the wilderness. He's fulfilling the original purpose of the Passover, and he's going to be sharing what it all means. And he's taken them to a place, and he's having them lie down - they are reclining, this is the position of free people, not slaves.

[...]

"Interesting, in John's Gospel it's not that he blesses [the loaves], breaks them and then hands them over to the disciples to do the distributing. Here he is the distributor: he distributes them himself. And I think that John is making the point here that it's he himself who is distributing himself, and that that's, if you like, what is going to be worked out in the rest of the chapter: What is this real distribution that's going on? Who is distributing? What does it mean?

"When they were satisfied he told his disciples [to] gather up the fragments left over so that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and from the fragments of the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten they filled 12 baskets. So the five barley loaves which have replaced the five pillars of the law, they have been eaten, the fragments have filled people and they've filled 12 baskets. The whole of the people of Israel has been filled, has been satisfied.

[...]

"So Jesus withdraws again to the mountain by himself: Moses's second trip to the mountain by himself. Jesus is re-enacting Moses, the beginning of the Passover as he's about to teach people about the Bread of Life."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 17 in Ordinary Time, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-MmNz9cBv4)

[For further discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper12b/]

From the Lectionary for 21 July 2024 (Proper 11B)

Jeremiah 23:1-6 (NRSV)

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Mark 6:30-34 (NRSV)

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

~

"The apostles (meaning the original twelve who have been sent out) have returned from the surrounding towns where Jesus had sent them two by two. They are excited by what they have been able to do. They have healed people, cast out unclean spirits and taught them things. They tell Jesus all about it. There is a frenzied, harried quality to the scene. The text says ‘Many people were coming and going so there was no time to eat.”

"The disciples appear distracted and over-stimulated. They are not calm and centered. They can cure people and people flock to them. They are like rock stars who find themselves at the center of people’s adulation. Diversions are everywhere and they are speeded-up to the point of not stopping to eat. Out of balance and ignoring their basic human needs, they are playing with emotional fire.

"Jesus, seeing their condition says, “Come by yourselves to a secluded place and rest for a while.’’ He has to get them away from the milling crowds or they will lose connection with their God-given inner reality. Their souls are in danger. They will lose their sense of grounding and get carried away by the crowds of demanding people, coming and going. Large crowds of people, even admirers, powerfully affect us and not necessarily in good ways. It is almost impossible to resist them. We get entranced and find ourselves thinking and behaving in ways we would not think or behave on our own. Jesus knows he must get them away to a secluded spot for their soul’s sake.

[...]

"Jesus pulls his disciples out of the crowd and gathers them into a boat and then gets in himself. He leads them across the lake toward a deserted place. But their attempt at crowd evasion fails. “Many people saw them leaving and recognized them, so they ran ahead from all the cities and arrived before them.” When they arrive at their secluded destination the crowds are there to greet them.

"[...] This didn’t turn out like I expected. Maybe Mark has something else in mind and knows something we don’t. Maybe he knows Jesus has to get the disciples away from the crowd and together around him or they will succumb to the desires of the crowd. Maybe the center of Jesus’ intention was not getting them to a deserted place, like we have thought, but getting them away from the crowd and reassembled with Jesus as their center. I can’t find words strong enough to express the importance of this. Getting the disciples into the boat with Jesus and getting them out to sea away from the crowd mattered way more than their destination. He has to break the gravitational pull of the adoring, demanding and ultimately dangerous crowd or he will lose the disciples.

"This is all extremely important and mirrors the choice we face today and have faced throughout history. Will we follow Jesus or will we go with the culture? It seems clear to me that the culture is the crowd and at the deepest level has no shepherd. We will either follow the “shepherd-less” crowd or we will follow Jesus.

[...]

"Back to the text where the story as taken a shift: “When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus could be open to the crowd because he had already accomplished his purpose in getting the disciples away, centered on him and back in touch with reality. That happened in the boat while they were crossing the lake. Ironically, Jesus had already been a shepherd to his disciples by leading them away from the crowd. [...] As for this leaderless crowd, they are wandering, searching, defenseless, vulnerable, dangerous and lacking in perspective. How does Jesus respond? “Then he began to teach them many things.”"

- Thomas L. Truby, from sermon delivered on July 22, 2018 (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Truby-Proper11-2018-No-Time-to-Eat.pdf)

~

"Last time, if you remember, Jesus sends out the disciples two by two and gives them instructions and that's where the Gospel ended last week. This Sunday they come back and gather around Jesus. In between [in Mark's Gospel], there's been the story of [the death of] John the Baptist. [...] All of this fits into an Old Testament pattern. Let's remember that before we were looking at how Moses had sent out visitors to the promised land the spies. Joshua had done the same. And we're moving through the last chapters of the book of Numbers, which we'll see in just a second when we come to the most important line in today's Gospel which is: “He had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” That's a direct quote from the book of Numbers and we'll see why that's important.

"Because what happened before Joshua, which is to say Jeshua, which is to say Jesus, started taking the people into the promised land, there were various deaths. First of all, there was the death of Aaron, the High Priest. And with the death of Aaron the High Priest, we get a hint of the death of John the Baptist who, remember, was of a priestly family. So it's not for nothing that John the Baptist's death is described here. And then of course Moses dies towards the end. Actually, he dies in Deuteronomy, his death is not described as such in the book of Numbers. But in the book of Numbers, it does very very clearly say that he's going to die and this is what's really important for today's Gospel: “The Lord said to Moses, go up this mountain and see the land that I've given to the Israelites. When you see it when you've seen it you also shall be gathered to your people as your brother Aaron was because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin.” Okay, Moses spoke to the Lord saying, “Let the Lord the God of the spirits, of all flesh appoint someone over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep without a shepherd.” [...] What's really important in today's Gospel is that Jesus is enacting the fulfilment of Moses's prayer. It's the Lord himself who's come as a shepherd.

"[...] Mark's Gospel follows various incidents in Joshua's career, which wasn't entirely successful. Jesus's enactment of Joshua is going to be far greater than that because it's the enactment of the Lord himself. But before it's got to be made clear that the One whom Moses prayed for is here. We get this in the very first verse of today's Gospel when the apostles come back. It says, the apostles gathered round Jesus - [...] it's the same verb from which we get the word synagogue. And you remember last time that Jesus left the synagogue for the last time - his three synagogue visits in Mark's Gospel - and started working outside the synagogue. So here they are gathering around Jesus. One greater than Moses is here.

[...]

"“He saw a great crowd and he had compassion for them.” This is the Yahweh word 'splanchnizomai' - he was gut-wrenched for them, he had his tripes wrenched, gutted before them. This is the word referring to the Lord's feelings, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And that's the direct quote from the book of Numbers. So he'd come visitating hoping to see that the first Joshua's work had been done, but it hadn't: the sheep were like sheep without a shepherd. Joshua turned out not to be, and his successors had turned out not to be, those who are capable of leading people in and out and giving them pasture. [...] This is Mark saying very strongly: we've done the visitation, now the One who is the true Yeshua. The true One whose name means Yahweh Saves, has come amongst his sheep and he's going to teach them, he's going to show them how to go in and out and find rest. And not only his immediately chosen ones but all those who are around him.

[...]

"So let's call to mind the shepherd amongst us, ask him to show how he's shepherding us, ask him to allow us to share in that shepherding of others, so fulfilling the mission which the new Joshua is always bringing into being as he takes us into the promised land."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 16 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5uViLwIiSs)

[Source of link to Tom Truby sermon, and for discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper11b/]

From the Lectionary for 14 July 2024 (Proper 10B)

Mark 6:7-13 (NRSV)

He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Ephesians 1:7-19 (NRSV)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

~

"[T]he point of Christ’s coming, and of our redemption was the bringing into being of a new fulness, a uniting of heaven and earth, a fulness in which we should be sons in the Son (Eph. 1:1-12). The revelation of this mystery includes the guarantee of an inheritance of which we shall take possession (Eph. 1:13-14). The author is particularly keen that his hearers have their understanding of revelation widened: “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:18). That is to say, they are encouraged to center their imaginations on what is coming to them.

"They are also encouraged to know “what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might” (Eph. 1:19). These two are not separable realities (they are the same sentence in Greek): the centering of the imagination on the inheritance is what permits the working of the great power in those who believe. The same idea is worked through again when the author tells his hearers that they were once dead through sins (full participants in the world of death-oriented desire), but have been made alive (participants in the beneficent [imitation] of life), and raised up to the heavenly places, as awaiting the immeasurable riches of God’s grace. It is because they are being given something through the opening up of their mind to the deathless creative generosity of God that they are saved, not because of any moral struggle of their own."

- James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes, pp 229-30

~

"Today's Mark's Gospel continues straight off from where we left it last Sunday. Last Sunday, if you remember, we were in Jesus's hometown and his relatives and homes people did not seem to be aware of [...] the possibility of a prophet being in their midst. [Just as] Miriam, for instance, had not understood Moses's presence as a prophet and so she had been turned into a leper for a week. Immediately after that incident in the Book of Numbers, Moses chooses twelve people, one from each tribe, and sends them out to spy on the land - the land that they're later, under Joshua, going to occupy, the land filled with milk and honey, the Promised Land.

"So when Jesus sends out the Twelve, this is very clearly the next moment in the enactment of Moses and Joshua which we're going to be following through the next chunks of Mark's Gospel. Remember, Moses sent the people out to spy. Jesus sends them out to preach and to heal, to preach and to cast out demons. [...] In other words, this is not spying, this is a visitation. This is to see if everything's okay in what should now be the Promised Land, living the life that the Lord had wanted to give the Lord's people. That's the question, if you like: what's really going on in the land? So not spies but people who are going to have to go very very carefully.

"And we see that he sends them out two by two. Okay, this is very important because for any announcement to be made it needed to be backed up by a witness. So they are going as witnesses. They're going to be angels, that's to say messengers, and they're going to be acting as witnesses, and they're going to be giving a report of what they found. Now, the most famous two angels who were going to be witnesses, who were going to give a report of what they found, were the angels sent to visit Sodom. And in fact, that's in the background to today's story as we'll see. So they're going to be making an angelic visitation, and he's asking them in fact to occupy a very angelic position. They're going to be very very vulnerable.

"He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except the staff, it says here. That's the translation, but in fact the Greek says: except a single staff, except a lone staff. And certainly, this is not a walking stick, this is a staff which is a symbol of authority. [...] And I wonder whether if you send out two people with one staff between them, a single staff, this is not actually key to the learning exercise that they have to undergo as preachers, because they're going to have to work out for themselves and agree peacefully who is going to hold the staff and act with authority. But also if they are set upon by brigands, there's only one staff, so who is going to defend the other? In other words, they're going to have to talk together to work out how not to be in rivalry with each other. I think that's part of the instruction that's going on here. [...] But just remember that staffs bring with them issues of authority, this is the Mosaic preaching, this is coming to us to see whether Moses's law has been, is being lived and how well it's being lived, and to teach the two of them to work out for themselves how to give witness.

"No bread - they are to be fed by others, they have to be dependent. No bag, no money in their belts. [...] To wear sandals, so not boots, which were kind of a macho symbol, sandals - these are the vulnerable people's clothing. And not to put on two tunics. In other words, if anybody stole their tunic, they would be left naked. In Matthew's Gospel, we have Jesus's instruction on what to do if someone steals your tunic - give him your shirt. In other words, allow yourself to be made vulnerable because that's the only way that you'll disarm people. So he's asking them to go out and bear witness preaching repentance and casting out demons. But in order to do that they have to be in an angelic position, they have to be extremely vulnerable as were the angels who went to work out what was going on in Sodom.

[...]

"[T]hey've been sent out to give this message of repentance in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom. In other words, get yourselves ready: the great forgiveness, the great new Kingdom is coming in. “They cast out many demons and anointed many who were sick and cured.” What is it that put them in the position of being able to heal and cure, what is that enabled them, to tell the truth? Well, this extreme vulnerability, and that's something which is absolutely emphasized by Jesus in his instructions to them. [...] [T]he vulnerable messenger only speaks truth in as far as they are vulnerable - this is one of the great secrets of the Gospel. The power of the Gospel is preached in weakness."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 15 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPgkTrcVOrI)

[Note that Mark 6:7-13 is the Roman Catholic lectionary Gospel reading for this Sunday. The Protestant (Revised Common Lectionary) Gospel reading is the following passage, Mark 6:14-29.

Source of quote from James Alison's The Joy of Being Wrong, and for discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper10b/]

From the Lectionary for 7 July 2024 (Proper 9B)

Mark 6:1-6 (NRSV)

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense[1] at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

[1] Gr. skandalizō : to cause to stumble; to offend, shock, excite feeling of repugnance

~

"The hometown crowd recognize his wisdom and miraculous power but are unable to believe it because of their preconceptions. [...] They know his family and therefore it is impossible that he could be what he appears to be. Their ambivalence is well-described as “scandal” (6:3), because the dynamics of scandal are the dynamics of [...] the model that both attracts and repels. [...] Mark tells us it is the state of the hometown crowd in Nazareth with respect to Jesus. The proverb that a prophet is honored everywhere except in his own home sums up the scandal. Envy is the power of the model/obstacle to attract and repel at the same time. The crowd wants to be like the other and to destroy him, because he is so pleasing.

"The scandal of the hometown crowd makes it impossible for Jesus to work a miracle there. A miracle requires faith and he could find no faith in Nazareth. There is a progression in the treatment of faith — from the bleeding woman, who exemplifies it as the act of the single individual called out from the crowd, to the family of Jairus, which emerges from the crowd, to the crowd at Nazareth, which absorbs Jesus into itself and refuses to recognize any power outside itself. “And he marveled at their lack of faith” (6:6). [...] The social role of Jesus makes it impossible that he could be anyone other than the son of their neighbors, despite the fact of his wisdom and power. This is the scandal of violence, which substitutes false distinctions for true."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, The Gospel and the Sacred, pp. 95-97

~

"These are his hometown folks. They'd obviously heard of him, his reputation had gone around. And they're astounded to hear him teach. But is there astounding in the sense of “gosh, this is amazing” or is it astounding in the sense of “what on earth is this?” It's not at all clear, the verb is not clear. They're clearly astounded. Later we're told they were scandalized and that's going to be a key word.

"But then it is said, “Where to this man all these things? Whence” - rather - “from this man all these things?” So the great question: Whence? “What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power from his hands are becoming?” So they want to know more, they're expecting something from him. But interesting each one of these words run them in reverse: whence all these things? This is the way of referring to the Lord. Where is the wisdom that he gives? It's the Lord who gives wisdom. What deeds of power are ... are becoming from his hands? It is the Lord whose deeds of power come from the Lord's hands. And of course, this is the language - of wisdom and the power - are very definitely the words referring to God. It's God's wisdom and God's power. [...]

"So, if you like, here we have the family completely misreading who is in their midst. It's the reverse of a sign, they've reinterpreted everything backwards, so that “whence does he get this?” - they're imagining him as the object rather than as the subject, one who is bringing all things into being. Who gave him this wisdom that he is the source of wisdom making it available to us? What about these works of power from his hands? It is the one whose power brings things into being that is amongst them. Of course, none of them can see that.

[...]

"And it says, “and they took offence to him” - “and they were scandalized by him” - “they were caused to stumble by him.” So this is of course, at the centre of this, this is what is the psychological dynamic that causes the understanding of God to be completely reversed. Well, it's that obsessive relationship of wanting  to be close to and wanting to be far from, imitating and being in rivalry with at the same time, being locked into imitative rivalry with somebody. That's the 'scandalon', that's what it's like when you're too close and therefore you can't see. In Matthew's Gospel Jesus actually gives the phrase: blessed is he who is not scandalized by me, meaning: who is able to take sufficient distance from me that the relationship is not all screwed up by this mixture of imitation and rivalry because then you never get to see who I am. All you get to see is the person you need to bring down in order to think of yourself as okay and you're permanently locked into that. So that's to be avoided here.

[...]

“And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.”

"That's a very strange, very striking phrase, the Lord in his visitation come for the third and final time [in Mark's Gospel] to the synagogue, to the house of Israel, longing to see if the faith was alive - the faith of Abraham, of Moses, of Jeremiah, of Isaiah [...] - if that faith was alive. And seeing, no, they just got bogged down in petty family squabbles and were unable to see the big picture.

"And of course, this is us. How easy it is for us far to prefer the squabble of our jealousies, our obsessions - political, social, religious - and not see the One who is in our midst, who is wanting to work signs. You can do very little signs, especially on those who are vulnerable and not important and not relative like he does with the cured here. But then he has to move on and find others who will hear his word and do it. And so, that is what's going to happen from now on, this is his, if you like, sad farewell.

"Would it be the same if he turned up in one of our churches? What must we do to undergo having our scandal removed, so that we're able to hear the wisdom and see the signs by which the Creator is bringing people, groups, things, to life in our midst, and understand by whom we have been visited?"

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 14 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqblllhpQAs)

[Source of Robert Hamerton-Kelly quote, and for further discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_9b/]