From the Lectionary for 13 September 2026 (Proper 19A)

Matthew 18:21-35 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven[1] times.

“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

[1] The NRSV has "seventy-seven" in the text, and "seventy times seven" in a footnote. I prefer the latter, agreeing with those who see this as a reference back to, and subverting of, Lamech's declaration, “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:24).

~

The following is a discussion/presentation by Paul Nuechterlein of themes relating to the Gospel text in Raymund Schwager's book "Jesus in the Drama of Salvation":

"[...T]he section entitled “Doubling of Sin and Hell” [...] is a prime example of one of Schwager's main theses: despite the significant gains of the various biblical criticisms, the loss of meaning that occurs by analyzing passages out of their context has been significant. The most troubling aspect of Matthew is his many conclusions that seem so harsh, the “great weeping and gnashing of teeth,” for example. This passage presents us with another: “And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” But the problematic nature of such passages to biblical criticism is due in part to their being taken out of context.

"Schwager interprets the gospel texts in the context of a five act drama about salvation in Jesus. His interpretation of such harsh texts comes within the “Second Act: The Rejection of the Kingdom of God and Judgment.” In a very real way, this parable of the unforgiving servant mirrors the drama that Schwager outlines for the reader. Act One involves Jesus' mission of announcing the coming of God's Kingdom, a kingdom that reverses the usual order of human kingdoms when it comes to things like debts. God begins by forgiving our debts unconditionally so that we might live in a new world of freedom: “In his basileia message, salvation and penance seem to have exchanged places” (p. 38; see also p. 55). The master in the parable of the unforgiving servant parallels the first act in the Jesus Drama, i.e., announcement of unconditional forgiveness.

"But now what happens when people reject the offer of such a new world? In the Second Act of the Jesus Drama, many people, primarily the Jewish leaders who benefitted the most from the existing order, did in fact reject Jesus' offer. Many of Jesus' sayings, then, begin to reflect the consequences of such decisions. Schwager writes:

“Whereas the preaching of the prophets contains an alternative (‘if you repent, you will find grace; if not, the judgment will be upon you’), the message of Jesus initially disregards the readiness to repent or the hard heartedness of the sinner and consequently at this level excludes the alternative ‘of rejection for not repenting.’ Preceding, and at first independent of, the actual human decision, it offers to oppressed humankind the pure mercy of God.

“If, nevertheless, it is a call to decision [...], then the pure offer of grace must be clearly distinguished from an arbitrary offer. It does not presuppose conversion, but wants to awaken it, and where the offer of pure grace is rejected a person falls prey to all the consequences of his or her own decision. With Jesus, grace and judgment are not two alternative possibilities within one single appeal; the predominance of grace is shown by the fact that the offer of grace takes place in advance of human choice. The problematic of judgment, on the contrary, emerges from the other side, from the human decision actually made.

“In the framework of the message of Jesus, the judgment sayings can therefore be taken seriously — without any weakening of the salvation sayings — only if they are related to a second situation of proclamation, which is distinguished from the first by the human rejection of the offer of salvation that is given without prerequisites. The two situations are [...] opposed to each other not as offer and refusal of the offer. The transition to the second situation is not made by Jesus, but it results from the reaction of his hearers. Jesus only makes clear the theological consequences of their decision.” (pp. 55-56)

"What are the consequences? Essentially it can mean the doubling of the hell one already lives in, though the one who rejects this message fails to see him or herself as living in a such a hellish world, or the offer to live in a new one wouldn't be rejected. We don't fully realize the hell of living in a world that operates by judgment and by strict repayment of debts. Jesus tries to make this clear to his hearers even at the start in the Sermon on the Mount: “Judge not that you be not judged! For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matt. 7:1-2). Isn't this also the point of the Parable of the Talents? The servants who judge their master to be generous invest his money and are judged by a generous measure. The servant who judges his master to be harsh and buries the money is judged harshly according to his own measure.

"Thus, Schwager's summary of the parables of Jesus moves into his interpretation of the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matt. 18. The Parable of the Talents in Matthew ends: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29). Schwager makes it clear that the story is not about the rich and poor in a monetary sense and continues:

“The understanding we have achieved concerning the haves and the have-nots leads us back to Jesus' speech about the parables which is introduced and justified by the saying in question (Matthew 13:12 [For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away] and parallels; see also Mark 4:25). The parables therefore set in motion a double process. Whoever sees becomes through them even more seeing; and whoever is blind becomes obdurate through them. The parables attempt to open up a new vision of those everyday things which are in themselves recognizable to everyone, but which not all see.

“Jesus made his teaching clear from everyday experience also in other connections. He justified the love of one's enemy from an experience which is accessible to everyone, but from which normally no lessons are drawn, or quite different ones: "so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous" (Matt. 5:45). Looking at the sun and the rain could teach people something crucial, as also looking at the birds of the sky, which do not sow, and at the lilies of the field, which do not work (Matt. 6:26, 28). From the experience of how God cares for them, people ought to learn to let go of their own cares and trust the heavenly Father. Similarly with the experience of the sower, the weeds among the wheat, the mustard seed, the leaven, the buried treasure, the pearl of great value, and the fish net thrown out into the sea (Matt. 13:1-53).

 “All these experiences of everyday life can, when they are read correctly, give witness to the kindly Father, his proximate coming and dealings with people. Even if the new community in the kingdom of God contrasts completely with the old laws of the human world, it is however not something unrealistic. It only needs a new look to see signs of it everywhere in our everyday world. If people defend themselves against this new vision of reality, if they remain in their old positions of fear and self-defense, then they necessarily defend themselves also against what Jesus brings. Thus they lock themselves even more into their old world and give themselves up to a process of judgment, which runs according to self-chosen and stubbornly defended norms. Hence the parables lead those who hear them, and yet do not hear, into a process of self-induced hardening of heart (Mark 4:10-12 and parallels).

“The connection sketched out between the goodness of God in his dawning kingdom and the harsh words of judgment is confirmed in an impressive manner by the parable of the unforgiving servant. The master in this parable sets at the outset no condition for his servant, to whom he remits a gigantic debt without any return deed, and links with his action only the expectation that the fortunate man in turn treat his fellow servants in accordance with the experience that was granted to him. But this expectation is not fulfilled, and the servant, who had to pay nothing back, clings slavishly in his dealings with his fellow servant to the old norm of payment and repayment, so he is called back and made to explain himself: "Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?" (Matthew 18:33). The debt already remitted to him is now counted against him again. The master, who at the beginning of the story was pure goodness, behaves after the servant's refusal precisely according to the norm which the servant — despite his experience of generosity — applied in his treatment of his fellow servant. As the servant had his fellow servant thrown into prison, "till he should pay his debt," so the master gives him over to the torturers "till he should pay all his debt" (Matt. 18:30,34). Jesus concludes the parable with the clear application: "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart" (Matthew 18:35).” [pp. 65-66]

"The brilliance of Schwager's wholistic, dramatic interpretation of the gospels comes through at this point, because the ending of this parable is not the ending of the Jesus Drama. Yes, there are real consequences to our human decisions to reject God's unconditional offer of salvation. But even the hellish consequences of that rejection do not have the ultimate word, which comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus, Acts Three and Four in the Jesus Drama. Jesus' proclamation of an unconditional divine mercy is lived out on the cross and shown to be a love that even offers itself to enemies, to those who reject him. And so the Heavenly Father's ultimate judgment is manifested in the resurrection. One last quote from Schwager:

“Further, we must consider that Jesus, faced with a violent death, gave himself completely for the opponents of God's kingdom, who had closed themselves off. In the resurrection brought about by the Father it is consequently not enough to see merely a verdict for his Son and against those who opposed him. Certainly, this view is correct, as Jesus' opponents are convicted as sinners. But the verdict of the Heavenly Father is above all a decision for the Son who gave himself up to death for his opponents. It is therefore, when considered more deeply, also a verdict in favor of sinners. The opponents of the kingdom of God, closing themselves off, had the way to salvation once more opened for them by the Son, who allowed himself to be drawn into their darkness and distance from God. Although they already had turned their backs, as far as they were concerned, the self-giving of the Son got around this hardening of hearts once more, insofar as he allowed himself to be made the victim of their self-condemnation.” (p. 135)"

- From the Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 19A (link below)

~

"Now please notice that the key figure in this is the second servant - the second servant is the equivalent of the servant boy [from Matthew 18: 1-5]. It's the equivalent of Jesus, who will be in the midst of you [Matt. 18:20]. It's the one who has been scandalized. It's in not forgiving [the second servant] that the person was bringing the whole thing down. You've got to forgive. As you forgive, so forgiveness spreads. It's forgiveness that keeps the whole system going. This is what Jesus is teaching, [it's] very very remarkable.

"Whereas [in] the pagan kingdom it's debts and loans that keep the whole system going, and if you interfere with it you crash the whole system, Jesus is saying, “Actually no. I'm introducing into the midst the real working of creation, the real opening-up of creation, which is going to be from forgiveness. In as far as you keep the system of forgiveness going, carrying on forgiving each other - endlessly, 70 times 7, leaving the 99 sheep [and] going after the one, all of that - in as far as you do that, then with me, you are opening up creation and allowing creation to be brought into being. That is what my Father wants to do and that is why I have come into your midst: to open up the new creation through forgiveness."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 24 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_IjeL8taW4)

[Source of Paul Nuechterlein notes on passages from Raymond Schwager's Jesus in the Drama of Salvation, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper19a/]

From the Lectionary for 23 August 2026 (Proper 16A)

Matthew 16:18-19 (NRSV Updated Edition)

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Romans 12:1-8 (NRSV Updated Edition)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God's mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

~

"When Jesus called Simon “Peter,” meaning rock, to honor his correct answer, perhaps Jesus was reminding Simon of the words of Isaiah: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you.” (Is. 51: 1–2) Simon Peter, like all Jews, was hewn from the rock of Abraham, the one called to leave his own idolatrous country for a land God would show him where he would make out of Abraham a great people. If Peter is a rock like Abraham, then Peter, too, will leave the idolatrous imperial culture surrounding him and will allow God to make yet another great, new people out of him and the other disciples. What kind of people? What kind of culture?

"In writing to the Romans, Paul admonishes them to follow Abraham out of the idolatrous empire in which they live: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12: 2) And what does this transformed people with renewed minds look like? Paul has just told the Romans that such people present their bodies “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [their] spiritual worship.” (Rom. 12: 1)

"The imperial culture is all about using power to make sacrifices of others for the sake of the Empire. The culture of Christ is all about making a sacrifice of self as did Jesus, so as to make all of our lives an act of self-sacrificial worship. Although emperors always think more highly of themselves than they should, Paul warns us not to think more highly of ourselves than we should, “but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” (Rom. 12: 3) Paul then goes on the enumerate the measures of faith as a distribution of gifts of the Holy Spirit so that each of us makes our bodies living sacrifices of worship in various ways, making up the Body of Christ.

"Being transformed by the renewal of our minds entails a radical makeover. It's not just a matter of changing one's mind about what book to read next. Paul is writing about a radical turnaround in one's attitude to power. The first step is to be very vigilant about the power we happen to have in relation to other people and how we use it. Even if some of us have rather little power we need to be acutely aware of how we use what little we have. Do we try to get an upper hand against other people one way or another rather than looking for ways we can lay down our selves in service to them?

"[... T]he rock we stand on in the culture of Jesus is the rock of being vulnerable to the forces of Empire. Whether we are going to take the way of vulnerability, the way of giving ourselves for the sake of others, even when such gifts of self are not appreciated or are even actively scorned is a question that presents itself to us day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. We can easily get tired of asking this basic question so constantly, but if we persevere even when we are weary, we will eventually find that God makes a living but vulnerable rock not only out of Peter but out of each one of us."

- Andrew Marr, from blog post titled "The Rock From Which We Are Hewn" (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2020/08/20/the-rock-from-which-we-are-hewn/)

~

"Aren't we told that those we loose on earth are loosed in Heaven and those who are bound on earth are bound in Heaven? (Mt. 16:19; Jn. 20:23) Sounds like we have the power to bind other people for all eternity, and God's hands are tied for as long as we want them to be. How much power is that? Not so fast. Why is it that we so easily assume we are being allowed, even encouraged to bind on earth? Why are we slower to see that maybe we are being encouraged to loose on earth?

"Let's return to Peter's question about how many times he must forgive and Jesus' Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor. If we have to forgive others as God forgives us, and that without limit which is what seventy-seven times means, then we are indeed being encouraged to loose on earth. We are being warned that if we do not loose on earth, we are bound to our resentment for what others have done to us (or we think they have done to us.) If we remain bound to our resentments, we will be so bound even in Heaven since God's hands are indeed tied for as long as we refuse to let God untie us. Truly accepting this free gift of forgiveness entails passing this free gift on to others. We are all thrown into the same world together. The question is whether we will be tied up in vengeance or bound with others by forgiveness."

- Andrew Marr, Moving and Resting in God's Desire, pg. 121

~

"As death loses its power, so commitment to the flourishing of what is fragile and precarious becomes possible, and our relationship with time changes. [...] If time is not your enemy, then what you achieve or don't achieve [...] is secondary, and whatever you have will be for the flourishing of the weak one for as long as it takes, since you know that you will be *found there*. Being on the inside of the life of God looks like being decanted, by a generosity you didn't know you had in you, into making a rash commitment which makes a nonsense of death, of worry, and of the panic of time, because you know that you want to be found in loving proximity to what is weak and being brought into being. Wanting to be found there is a huge statement of joy at the power and gentleness of One for whom it is the apparently weak and futile things that are going to be enabled to be brought into being. Being given the daring to be able to lose yourself in being found there is recognized as a privilege to be greeted with praise.

"This, I think, is [...] what St Paul would describe as “rightly reasoning worship” (Rom 12:1-2). That God is the One who brings into being what is not. And dwelling on the inside of the life of God means being prepared to lose sight of all the apparently important things that are and to give yourself away in extreme gentleness and tenderness towards that which is apparently not, and yet which is being brought into being out of the brink of nothingness by one not ashamed of mingling with the least important of all, one who has nowhere more important to be (1 Cor. 1.22-29)."

- James Alison, Jesus the Forgiving Victim, pg. 550

[Source of link to Andrew Marr's blog and quotes from Andrew Marr' Moving and Resting in God's Desire and James Alison's Jesus the Forgiving Victim, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper16a/]

[James Alison's homily on the full Gospel passage (Matthew 16:13-20): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDR10_Q7P04]

From the Lectionary for 16 August 2026 (Proper 15A)

Matthew 15:21-28 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.

~

"Matthew's calling the woman a Canaanite was an anachronism that recalled Israel's historical relationship with this people, in much the same way that calling a contemporary Danish woman a Viking would invoke ten centuries of history for us. Jesus would have grown up absorbing his people's tradition that the Canaanites were the worst of enemies, enemies to be exterminated by the likes of Joshua, enemies who were periodic oppressors of Israel in the period of the Judges. Worst of all, Canaanites were dangerous because they tempted the Israelites to forsake their God in favor of their idols and sacrificial practices. Mark gave the woman the more up-to-date designation of a Syrophoenician. This meant she was a member of the oppressing class of the Roman Empire, which made victims of the Jews. [...]

"The Canaanite woman's retort is justly famous for its cleverness and humility, qualities that make her words subversive. Jesus seems as amazed by her faith as he is by the faith of the centurion who asked him to heal his servant (Mt. 8:10). That the woman asked for the deliverance of a daughter possessed by a demon may have aroused Jesus' sympathy. The Gerasene Demoniac had shown Jesus how a dysfunctional culture can possess a person and need to be exorcized. That this woman wanted her daughter delivered of the demon possessing her own culture would alert Jesus of the need to eject the demon of hatred of the Canaanites that had possessed his own culture. This understanding of the story has Jesus modeling the ability and willingness to overcome an ancestral enmity by listening deeply to the reality of a person in need so that she ceases to be an enemy. We desperately need to learn to follow this kind of example offered by Jesus today."

- Andrew Marr, Moving and Resting in God's Desire, pp. 105-6

~

"There are several clues to this reading. The first is seeing that Matthew might be doing something intentional here by changing Mark's “Syro-Phoenician” woman to a “Canaanite” woman [...] But “Canaanite” fits well to the time of Joshua and his conquest of the Promised Land. Is Matthew's Jesus reconstituting that conquest?

"[... A] second important clue appears through what comes next in chapter 15 of Matthew's story of Jesus: healing of Gentile crowds (Matthew tells us they are Gentiles by remarking that “they praised the God of Israel”; Matt. 15:31) and then a repeat of the miraculous feeding, this time with Gentiles. In the first feeding with Jews (14:13-21), there is a hint of reconstitution by the gathering of twelve baskets leftover, for the twelve tribes of Israel. In the second feeding with Gentiles (15:32-38), there are seven baskets leftover. If we look for a similar symbolism of reconstitution, we might look to the time of the “Canaanites.” As the people of Israel stand poised for conquest of that land, Moses says to them:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you — and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.” (Deut 7:1-2)

"In the first encounter with the seven nations of “Canaanites,” they are to show no mercy. But Matthew's Jesus has come to teach them something different, to learn what this means, “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (with Matthew's Jesus twice quoting Hosea 6:6 in Matt. 9:13 and 12:7). [...]

"[T]he “Canaanite” woman [...] seems to remind Jesus of what the promise to Abraham and Sarah is really all about. She doesn't begrudge Jesus the fact of his mission with his own people who have lost their way (Jesus himself calling them “lost sheep”). But she knows that if he is successful with his own people in helping them to find their way again, that she will at least receive scraps from their table. For the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and Sarah is not for Jews to be blessed for their own sake but that they might become a blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3)."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from discussion on this passage on the Girardian Lectionary page (link below).

~

"And now I wonder whether Jesus isn't actually going to do something much smarter than seems to be the case. He listens to the woman shouting, he hasn't intervened, he hasn't made any determination on whether she's of the demonized or of the prophetic sort. He sees the disciples are fed up he sees they want to get rid of her, so he answers them something which is strange enough - he is playing to their feelings: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” That, of course, is what he's been doing, he's been re-enacting Joshua in you know, [crossing] the sea, putting right the things that Joshua hadn't quite completed.

"So [...] she's come up and knelt before him. Now please notice, she wasn't there when he told them, “I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” that was for the benefit of the disciples, and I suspect that it's at least as much how they are going to react to all this and what they are going to learn from this that this story is about. But she comes and she kneels before him - so what we're talking about is something very peaceful very respectful - saying, “Lord, help me.” And it's a much simpler word: it's not to have mercy on me, which might be drama-queen, it's Lord help me - it's a very simple, very humble word.

"[Jesus] answers, and it's not clear that he's half saying this for the disciples and half saying this for her: “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the house puppies.” The translations will always say “dog.” It's a very special word for little domestic dogs - house puppies. In other words, [...] he's making a reference that she might get to the relationship between Israel and the nations. It's recognizing that they're not dogs, they're “house puppies.” They're insiders, there's a certain sense of being an insider, in being one of the nations whom Joshua allowed to stay. So he's saying something, yes to her, but very much in the hearing of his disciples.

"And this is where she gets it right with an extraordinary turnaround of what he's saying, and maybe, as I say, again this is as much for the benefit of the disciples as for anyone else. She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” Actually, the word is not crumbs, it's swabs. We have napkins or serviettes with which we clean our mouths after being at a table. Not so in the ancient world, they would use swabs of bread to clean their mouth after eating, then throw the swabs on the floor. And of course the house puppies, the domestic dogs, would love that and would be very grateful. So she's referring not to accidental dropping but to deliberate discarding of something that's a sign of being satisfied and having come to the end of your meal, and therefore there is leftover for the dogs.

"And so she's [...] taking the image of the house puppies and running with it, and she's running with it in a very elegant way - even the dogs eat the swabs, even the little house puppies eat the swabs that fall from their master's table. In other words, she reveals that she herself is very much on the prophetic side rather than the demonized side. She knows what she's asking, she's asking respectfully, and she's actually playing David back to David's son because she's almost quoting, certainly paraphrasing Psalm 17 [v 14], in the Septuagint version [...] “Oh Lord, from few things from earth separate them in their lives and with your hidden things their belly was filled. They were fed with sons and they left the remains to their infants.” She's playing back: You are the Son of David, this is what David said, rather than treating us as enemies, as those who should be thrown out, you actually fill them. So fill me, let me be one of those who's being fulfilled, and my daughter as well.

"So Jesus is very struck about this, he makes no secret at all that one of the 'house puppies' has spoken up and is beginning to break through, hopefully in the presence of the disciples so they'll get this and they'll remember that he came to the house of Israel, [but] the house of Israel has house puppies also. Israel's 'house puppies' are beginning to come in. It's for the disciples not to have a 'get rid of these people, yeah sort them out and get rid of them' attitude. They're going to have to learn to discover that there are many people like the Syro-Phoenician woman who are going to become insiders in the house of God, because they know who it is who is amongst us and who it is who is setting us free from our co-dependencies, our demonized relationships, our inability to be good and holy by purity and by ritual. In the midst of all of this our Lord is allowing us to be filled and to go away free and whole."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 20 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBGFTXHTr3c)

[Source of quotes from Paul J. Nuechterlein and Andrew Marr's Moving and Resting in God's Desire, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper15a/]

From the Lectionary for 12 July 2026 (Proper 10A)

Isaiah 55:10-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Matthew 13:1-17 (NRSV Updated Edition)

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. If you have ears, hear!”

Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

‘You will indeed listen but never understand,
    and you will indeed look but never perceive.
For this people's heart has grown dull,
    and their ears are hard of hearing,
        and they have shut their eyes,
        so that they might not look with their eyes,
    and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart and turn—
    and I would heal them.’

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

~

"Jesus was indeed teaching about the arrival of something which is, for his listeners, very weird. That's why he has to teach in parables. And please note the justification which he gives for teaching in parables. He quotes Isaiah, when he says:

“Listen as you will and you will not understand; look as you will and you will not see, because this people's heart has waxed gross. They are dull of hearing and have closed their eyes against seeing and their ears against hearing lest they be turned to me that I may heal them.” (Mt 13:14-15 quoting Is 6:9-10; cf. Mk 4:12 and Lk 8:9-10)

"That is, there is no direct understanding of the kingdom: it is a strange thing, and people's minds are dulled, which is exactly what we would expect as a result of what we've seen about the human condition, our own included, shot-through with death.

"It's worth our while to stop a little to see what this teaching in parables consists in. The parables are highly creative little stories sprung from Jesus' imagination and have as their aim helping people to overcome their being blocked-up with respect to God and his project. However, behold, they are two edged weapons, capable of different interpretations. It is perfectly possible to interpret the greater part in terms of a violent God. In that case the parables only serve to reinforce what people already think anyway, and they move on no further. What I'm suggesting is that this would be the ‘dull-hearted’ reading of the parables.

"At the same time it is perfectly possible to read the same parables as obliging us to overcome this vision. This means that there is an interpretation for those who understand, and that what they understand will increase exponentially, and there is another interpretation for those who do not understand, so that what little they do understand is in the process of being lost, for they will get into an ever more tied-up and painful understanding of the things of God."

- James Alison, Raising Abel, pp. 83-84

~

"Please notice that one of the key things that has been assumed here, silently, is the work of the ploughing [which in 1st century Palestine was done not before but after the seeds were scattered on the soil]. The ploughing is going to go on. So what's Jesus talking about here? He's asking people to listen to an image with which they'd be very familiar, but it's also an image which, if they have ears to hear, they'll understand perfectly well is an image that comes from [Isaiah 55].

"So supposing you start to listen to this parable, a simple description of agricultural reality, but actually here there is a promise - this is the promise that God's Word will produce fruit, and it will produce fruit absolutely abundantly. [...] So behind this there is the image of someone who is speaking, and whose word will produce fruit, and the question is: how involved in it are we going to be? How are we going to be involved in it?

"Now, when Jesus was finished [speaking to the people], the disciples come up and said, why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered, “To you it's been given to know the mystery.” I think that the mystery is this transfiguration from within of all the signs that are natural to us into signs of the incoming King, the new Temple, the crucified Lamb, the Lamb standing as one slain on the throne, who is coming in and who is in fact going to be the new sower [who] makes everything come alive. It's a transfiguration of all that. So something of that, he's saying, “you're on the inside of that process, that's what I've been preparing you for.”

[...]

"And so Jesus then says, incidentally what I'm telling you is what's been known ever since the great Isaian vision, because [...] he's quoting from what happened immediately after Isaiah had his wonderful Temple vision in Isaiah 6, where he sees the Lord high and lifted up on the throne, and he hears the voice of the Lord, who tells him to go and preach [...] but warns him that he's sending him out to preach to a people who “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” That's us.

"So strangely enough what Jesus is doing is saying, “I am the fulfillment of that promise, and I am speaking precisely into the midst of these people who are bound [to not know], and the whole question is to what extent are [the disciples], you, me, [...] going to allow ourselves to be sucked into the ploughing over of the earth until we find ourselves able to take part in the rediscovery of the signs that are pointing in a completely different direction, things we take for granted as part of our systems of security undone, and thus finding ourselves born into belonging to a completely new way of being together, sharing together, loving together. [...]

"So for me this is the greater challenge: at what depth are we prepared to allow ourselves to be ploughed into the earth, so as to become part of the bearers of the sign of the Kingdom?"

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 15 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeVj6YKeWEU)

~

"At the death of Jesus, when the disciples had scattered, for all the world it looked like the sower and the seed had come to an end. That birds and thorns and rocks had thwarted the Word that God had sent into the world. But from the Kindom of God, our eyes begin to perceive another reality, one in which the Spirit of God is at work. With Kindom eyes we see the slow, long work of the Spirit, through time and seasons and conditions that the eyes of empire are unable to see. It is the Spirit who is producing fruit in the world and in us. The production of fruit is not a result of our work or of our well-meaning efforts [...] it is the Spirit of Life causing the Word of God to grow and thrive and accomplish Its intended purpose. And we find ourselves growing and being formed, more and more, into the image of our Creator, living and thriving into our intended purpose.

"God is not measuring our yield, determining whether or not to bless or curse us depending on what we've done or not done. Rather, God keeps wasting the Word on us until we receive It and live into the fullness of love and grace and beauty; until we are healed and reconciled, all bodies, every body together. It is God's delight that all bodies, everywhere, anywhere, thrive in love and grace, in life and aliveness, unbound, in joy and well-being."

- Suella Gerber, from a sermon in 2017 titled “The Sower of Love.” (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Gerber-071617-sermon.pdf)

[Source of quote from James Alison's book Raising Abel and link to Suella Gerber sermon, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper10a/]

From the Lectionary for 5 July 2026 (Proper 9A)

Zechariah 9:9 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Matthew 11:25-30 (NRSV Updated Edition)

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

~

"Back in 2005 we moved to Lancaster, PA. As I sit here writing this from my home office, I can look out my window and watch the Amish farmer across the way plowing his field with mules. The mules are yoked together with the farmer riding the plow behind them. The yoke functions to keep the mules from going in directions different than the farmer would have them go. I am told that when a young mule is first learning to plow a field, they team him up with a veteran mule that has plowed the field for many years. This way the younger mule learns how to respond to the farmer's guidance because when the older mule turns, the younger mule has to go the same way, the yoke making it impossible for him to go another.

"In the same way, we are yoked with Jesus who knows the Abba's will. When the Father moves the reins in a certain direction Jesus responds and we respond not by choosing, nor out of our own initiative but simply by submitting to the yoke. The only choice we make is to be yoked with Jesus. After that it is no longer about choice but about something entirely different. It is about “trust.”

[Discussion of yoke in 1st Century Jewish context, including  citation of several Mishnah sayings, where rabbis use the image of yoke, sometimes for Torah and sometimes for imperial oppression.]

"It's not an either/or when it comes to Jesus' offer. The Mishnah saying above combines the two possibilities of Torah and Empire as backgrounds for the word “yoke.” Whether religion or Empire (culture) we are under “the rule of law.” Western jurisprudence grew out of religious taboo. Jesus' yoke takes us out from under the rule of law, religiously conceived, and places us in the rule of love. Our ethics, our social behavior is normed by Jesus, not by an abstract set of morals, values or mores.

"This means that our choices are developed from a living intimate relationship with Jesus, not from a codebook. Ethics is no longer a question of trying to figure out right and wrong, it is about living in relationship with others in the same manner that Jesus lived in relation to others."

- Michael Hardin, The Jesus Driven Life (2nd Ed), pp. 86-88

~

In his homily for "Sunday 14 in Ordinary Time Year A" (as this week is called in the Roman Catholic lectionary), James Alison points out the apparent contradiction in the Zechariah verse above: at least the way we normally see things, one who is "triumphant and victorious" is not one who is "humble and riding on a donkey," the two images don't fit together in our concepts.  He also highlights that the Matthew passage above comes right after the story of John the Baptist sending messengers to Jesus to ask him if he is indeed the Messiah, because Jesus is not acting in the "triumphant and victorious" way that John expects the Messiah should act.

This story in Matthew 11 is followed by Jesus comparing certain contemporary towns with ancient cities which had 'mythical' destruction stories, saying that if "the deeds of power" done by Jesus had been done in those ancient cities the people would have repented. Jesus is trying to convey to them that the way of the Father is not violence and destruction of the wicked, but a meek and humble man displaying true divine "power" which is entirely non-violent, gentle and life-giving.

I also think that the link between the two paragraphs of the Matthew text is significant: it is in Jesus knowing the Father that he is the one who can give rest to the weary and heavy laden. The way of Jesus, the 'yoke' of Jesus, is the way of coming to discover the utter gentleness and unconditional love of the Father, in whom there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), from whom we need fear no condemnation or punishment, in whom we can find true and complete rest for our souls, free of any threat, or any need to perform or hide who we really are.

~

"“At that time Jesus declared, 'I thank thee Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.” He's saying, “Do you know, actually I realize that no one is gonna get who I am. People seriously are expecting something to come with violence. It would make sense to them if I were to go all 'Sodom and Gomorrah' on them. They seem to be unable to understand that it's tiny, little, gentle, peaceful bringing things in being. That completely breaks their oppositional bindings because it shows them to be completely moot. Those are the things that show that I am the Creator. [...] Not even John the Baptist [gets it], not the people among whom I was doing all these works. Tiny little babies get it, they haven't yet reached adult complication, but everyone else is stuck in notions of good and bad and violence. It's difficult for them to see that I am bringing things into being for them on their behalf and that this is what the Father looks like. He is showing people, through me, what He's like. It's only if I share with those people what I am doing that they will get a glimpse of who the Father really is.”

"It's this astounding gentleness that we find so hard to get. So then he says, “Come to me all who labour and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” He's saying  all of us tied up in our complexities are fighting about things, including our desperate keenness to be good. He says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” [...] 'Lowly' is the same word which is used both of the humble one coming on the donkey and of meek Moses - Moses was the meekest. Jesus is saying, “You want to know what the real meekness behind Moses' meekness looks like? This is it. I'm not here to put demands on you. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. You're not going to be ridden by a foreign invader, you're not going to find yourselves forced into becoming someone you are not by having to obey things that are extrinsic to you. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. You will be [...] indwelt by my Spirit, which will enable you to become even more who you are than you were able to think of. And this will be done so gently that even you will find it difficult to imagine the sign of work in you, bringing you to life - such is the gentleness of my Father."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 14 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEbhfOP8Efw)

[Source of Michael Hardin quote, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper_9a/]

From the Lectionary for 14 June 2026 (Proper 6A)

Matthew 9:35-10:8 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.”

~

"[I]n the measure that we learn unconcern about our reputation, in that measure the Father can produce in us the same love which he has for his Son, and the same love which he and his Son have for the human race. Here is where we have to make an imaginative effort, or at least I do. That love is in no way marked by any desire for vindication, for restoring besmirched reputations, for turning the tables of this world, and all that might seem to us to be just and proper, given the horror of the violence of our world. That love loves all that! It loves the persecutors, the scandalized, it loves the depressives and the traitors and the finger pointers.

"That love doesn't seek a fulminating revelation of what has really been going on as a final vengeance for all the violence, even though we may fear that it will be so. That love is utterly removed from being party to any final settling of accounts. That love, the love which was the inner dynamic of the coming of the Son to the world, of Jesus' historical living out, seeks desperately and insatiably that good and evil may participate in a wedding banquet.

"This means that it is the mind fixed on the things that are above which allows the heart to be re-formed in the image of the Father's love, forgiving the traitors, the executioners, the persecutors, the weak, those gone astray, not on account of some ethical demand, or so as to obey some commandment, but quite simply because they are loved, they are delighted in.

"When Luke has Jesus on the Cross say: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34), he was not only depicting a Jesus who was effectively revealing the mechanism of death, which includes the blindness of its participants as to what they are doing, nor was it an ethical imperative that Jesus should forgive them so that he might go to his Father ‘clean’; rather it was just that, in truth, and without any remorse or sadomasochism, Jesus loved his slayers.

"This means that when we are able to stand loose from our reputation, and because of that, from our need to insist on a day of reckoning, the eschatological imagination, the mind fixed on the things that are above, begins to give us the capacity to love human beings without any sort of discrimination, in imitation of that love, quite without rivalry, which the Father has for us. Another way of saying this is to say that there begins to be formed within us something of a shepherd's heart which is deeply moved by humans and human waywardness.

"Please notice that “heart of a shepherd” means being able to look at wolves in their sheepliness. It is not a question of us fearing that there are many people dressed as sheep who are, in fact, wolves, but, on the contrary, of being able creatively to imagine wolves as, in some, more or less well-hidden part of their lives, in fact, sheep, and to love them as such.

"Various times in the Gospel the word 'splangchnidzomai' crops up, which we usually translate as “moved with compassion.” Jesus was moved with compassion by this or that person or situation, or that the multitudes should be like sheep having no shepherd (Matt. 9:36). However the word is rather strong, and means a deep commotion of the entrails, a visceral commotion.

"This is what is so hard to imagine: as we become unhooked from our partisan loves, our searches, our clinging to reputation, with these formed in reaction to this situation or that, there begins to be formed in us that absolutely gratuitous visceral commotion, born outside all reaction, which the ancients called agape and which is nothing other than the inexplicable love which God has for us in our violence and our scandals. We begin to be able not only to know ourselves loved as human beings, but to be able to love other humans, to love the human race and condition."

- James Alison, Raising Abel, pp. 187-188

~

"The first thing we see about [Jesus] is that he's looking at them and he's gut-wrenched. He has an extraordinary sense of love for these people, he doesn't regard them as rioters or protestors or difficult people, people he needs to pacify in some way. No, he sees people who are harassed like sheep with a shepherd, and he longs for their building up and for their good.

"So his first reaction is not to send in some sort of force of order - judges, people who will sort them out, deal with their problems [...] and tell them to get on with it. No, it's very much more holistic than that. He seems to want to choose rather ordinary people to work in their midst alongside them, and his response, once he's been moved is to say, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” In other words, he's asking them to ask God for something. He wants the request to come from us. He can see what can be done, but it's not to be done from above, it's to be done by people from inside [...]

"Sending is when they become apostles, from the word 'apostela' meaning to send. He summons the twelve disciples and gives them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to cure every disease and every sickness. It's interesting his first reaction is not 'go out amongst them and sort them out, make them right, make them behave. No, it's an act of mercy, to see all the collapsed forms of in-between, what I call the in-between: the sick relationships - social, personal, inter-familiar, economic - all of the ways in which our in-betweens build us up and can imprison us. This is the world of evil spirits, of mental health problems, of profound psychic and psychosomatic sicknesses. This is people bent double, in ways that many many of us still are, and many many countries still are, by various forms of imprisonment tied into repetitive mechanisms of self-destructive behaviour. All of this is part of us not flourishing.

"Again he sends people alongside them, people with ordinary names - we think of them as very important names because they are the Apostles, but these are ordinary people, this is Pete and Jim and Andy, Tom, and eventually of course the guy who will betray him: Judas. And so we're talking about a very low-key, very gentle sending into the midst of a group of people but who didn't know where they're going... All of these kinds of things he was seeing and then pointing people to go and move into that world [...]

"[H]e is wanting to build the humanity of the people, not give them a specific religious instruction. So, “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.” In other words, they are to be very very vulnerable but never transactional - there is to be no quid pro quo, no payment, because that would be just to take part in the sickness of the society.

"There's this completely gratuitous element of the sending which involves vulnerability. And if you are sent and gratuitous and vulnerable, then you run the risk of being assailed by the various demons and bad things in the society, because all that comes to someone who's weak. But if you're able to stand and speak, that's when the demons start to go away, that's when people start to be set free. If you don't play tit for tat with that then people begin to sense what humanity looks like.

"So I think that this is a wonderful wonderful gospel for us at this time, and I would ask you to pray that we be given that heart, that gut-wrenched heart which Jesus had, and that we learn how to ask the Lord to send more laborers into the harvest and that we may become those laborers ourselves."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 11 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVjyx4_oyTM)

[Source of quote from James Alison's book Raising Abel, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper_6a/]

From the Lectionary for 7 June 2026 (Proper 5A)

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 (NRSV Updated Edition)

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

-----

While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. When Jesus came to the leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread through all of that district.

~

"Why do churches, ostensibly following a Messiah who broke bread with 'tax collectors and sinners', so often retreat into practices of exclusion and the quarantine of gated communities? Why is it so difficult to create missional churches? In seeking answers to those questions I had been thinking a great deal about Jesus's response to the Pharisees in Matthew 9. In defending his ministry of table fellowship - eating with 'tax collectors and sinners' - Jesus tells the Pharisees to go and learn what it means that God desires 'mercy, not sacrifice'.

[...]

"[The] antagonism between mercy and sacrifice is *psychological* in nature. Our primitive understandings of both love and purity are regulated by psychological dynamics that are often incompatible. Take, for example, a popular recommendation from my childhood years. I was often told that I should 'hate the sin, but love the sinner'.  Theologically, to my young mind (and, apparently, to the adults who shared it with me), this formulation seemed clear and straightforward. However, psychologically speaking, this recommendation was extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to put into practice.

"As any self-reflective person knows, empathy and moral outrage tend to function at cross-purposes. In fact, some religious communities resist empathy, as any softness toward or solidarity with 'sinners' attenuates the moral fury the group can muster. Conversely, it is extraordinarily difficult to 'love the sinner' - to respond to people tenderly, empathically, and mercifully - when you are full of moral anger over their behaviour."

-----

"These psychological dynamics help illuminate the events in Matthew 9, the tension between mercy and sacrifice. And it also explains why this tension will be a constant and consistent temptation in the life of the church.  In the actions of the Pharisees we see how the experience of purity (the sacrificial impulse) had come to replace morality (the mercy impulse) [...]

"[Although] the experience of purity helps us understand morality, the metaphorical connection between the two is so deep that the experience of physical purity can come to replace moral action.  And, given that the church is awash in purity metaphors, particularly those churches who privilege penal substitutionary thinking, there exists a constant danger that the church exchange the private *experience* of salvation, being washed in the blood of the Lamb, for passionate missional *engagement* with the world."

- Richard Beck, "Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality", pp 1-3; pp 46-47

~

"We now come to a sign of what Jesus actually is going to show us to be the life in the Spirit. So, “As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew” - yes, the very Matthew after whom this gospel is named - “sitting at the tax booth” - and he's seated and he's at this tax table - “and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’”

"Now, there's an awful lot going on in just this very simple phrase. So, he saw a man called Matthew. So here is the person to whom the gospel is attributed. The name given to the person whom Mark calls Levi son of Alfos. Matthew means 'giving from God'. It's difficult to have a less tax collector-like name than giving from God, the normal role of a tax collector is to take from the people. So literally what we have here is the account of someone whose experience of following the Lord has taken him from a grasper from the people into a giver from God. And that is the whole purpose, if you like, of Matthew's gospel. The signature is being brought in. You want to know what this looks like? Here is a gospel that you should read from the perspective of a sinner, someone who was not technically impure - which is probably why Matthew doesn't have the scribes criticizing this, as we'll see in a second, but only the Pharisees - but was somebody who was very certainly somebody of moral dubiousness. [...] We are going to hear the gospel from the perspective of a sinner, someone who was brought in.

"So Jesus walking along. Remember that we're going to be walking with Jesus. And here is the great sign of how are we to read this, how are we to understand. Well, we only really understand it if we're alongside and with a sinner, if we are able to be forgiven. Someone who's in the process of being forgiven will understand the gospel. Someone who is righteous and just will not understand the gospel.

[...]

"But when Jesus heard [the Pharisees' question about eating with the tax collectors, he] said, “Well, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” In other words, what's the point of hanging out with a bunch of people who get everything right. If they're getting everything right, we'll let them get on with it. I'm hanging out with people who don't get anything right, and let's see what comes of it.

"And then he says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous, but the sinners.” And this is a beautiful quote from the prophet Hosea, and it's a signature piece in Matthew's gospel - Jesus actually quotes it twice in Matthew's gospel. And it's more important than it seems because it's not just a quote. As with all Matthew's references, you're always required to stand back and actually have a look at the text that's really being talked about to see what it really means. And one of the beautiful things about this text is if you start in Hosea 5:15, which is just before these lines, the Lord says, “I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress, they will beg my favor.” In other words, he's making quite clear that what Hosea was promising was that the arrival of the Lord before anybody starts to repent and that it's in his presence, because he's present, that they will be able to repent.

"“Come, let us return to the Lord, for it is he who has torn and he will heal us. He has struck down and he will bind us up. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will raise us up.” So these are passages which are used in Holy Week to refer to the Passion. “Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord, his appearing is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.”

"And then a little critical line: “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.” So nothing like the dawn which is actually going to be firm and actually present. Nothing like the showers that once they rain actually wet things and make the harvest better. No, like the morning mist at noon which just goes away. It doesn't seem to do anything. “Therefore I've hewn them by the prophets. I have killed them by the words of my mouth” - spoken the words - “and my judgment goes forth as the light.” And here is his judgment, the one who has come into the midst: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

"So Jesus is actually enacting that in their midst. And you can see that that's actually rather more shocking a thing to say than just seems from the little quote. Anyhow, [clears throat] this is the sign of what it's going to be like to walking with Jesus. It's going to be walking with Jesus accompanying Matthew, a forgiven sinner.

"The church then asks us to jump a few verses about fasting and the bridegroom, which is a pity [...] because in fact our next passage, the passage which is actually in today's gospel, is all about the bridegroom and the bride.

[...]

"So, what's going on here in terms of walking with Matthew? Well, the daughter is the daughter of Zion. Let's have a look at this wonderful passage from Isaiah 62. “For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest.” So, the daughter of Zion is the woman with the flow of blood. And Jerusalem is the daughter [of] the ruler who'd come. “Until her vindication shines out like the dawn and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication and all the kings your glory [...] You shall no more be termed Forsaken and your land shall no more be called desolate. You shall be called My Delight is in Her and in your land Married, for the Lord delights in you and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”

"So please notice what has happened here. We've accompanied Jesus and we've seen him fulfilling the arrival of the bridegroom and we've seen him actually fulfilling that in terms were completely comprehensible to anyone with a notion of what Isaiah had said, these would be very well known verses. A woman who would be unable to be married and was kept out because of the blood, and a young woman who was not yet able to marry - she was too young but had died on the point being - who is dead. And neither the impurity of the one nor the impurity [as dead] of the other is any obstacle to the one who is come into the midst of his people in order to marry them.

"So this is how Matthew is going to show us what the arrival of the bridegroom is like in our midst. Entirely unconcerned about sinners like himself. Entirely unconcerned about sinners like us. This is the goodness of the Lord which he wants to bring out for us."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (Proper 5 RCL)" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARUslMnk4z8)

~

"[W]hat the Christian faith offers us in the moral sphere is not law, nor a way of shoring up the order or structure of the supposed goodness of this world, much less the demand that we sally forth on a crusade in favor of these things. It offers us something much more subtle. It offers us a mechanism for the subversion from within of all human goodness, including our own. This is the same thing as saying that the beginning of a Christian moral life is a stumbling into an awareness of our own complicity in hypocrisy, and a becoming aware of quite how violent that hypocrisy is.

"Starting from there we can begin to stretch out our hands to our brothers and sisters, neither more nor less hypocritical than ourselves, who are on the way to being expelled from the “synagogue” by an apparently united order, which has an excessive and militant certainty as to the evil of the other. Let us then go and learn what this means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’"

- James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment, pp. 20, 26

[Source of quote from James Alison's Faith Beyond Resentment, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper_5a/]