From the Lectionary for 30 June 2024 (Proper 8B)

Mark 5:21-43 (NRSV Updated Edition)

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him, and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue, named Jairus, came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and pleaded with him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Immediately her flow of blood stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my cloak?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the synagogue leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the synagogue leader, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the synagogue leader’s house, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat.

~

"In the art of narrative, every detail is there for a reason, and Mark's “aside” that the girl was twelve years old is a good case in point. She has lived affluently for twelve years, and is just on the edge of puberty. In contrast, the bleeding woman had suffered for twelve years, permanently infertile. This number symbolizes the twelve tribes of Israel (3:13; see Chapter 4), and represents the key to the social meaning of this doublet. Within the “family” of Israel, these “daughters” represent the privileged and the impoverished, respectively. Because of such inequity, the body politic of the synagogue is “on the verge of death.”

"The healing journey must, however, take a necessary detour that stops to listen to the pain of the crowd. Only when the outcast woman is restored to true “daughterhood” can the daughter of the synagogue be restored to true life. That is the faith the privileged must learn from the poor. This story thus shows a characteristic of the sovereignty of God that Jesus will later address: The “last will be first” and the “least will be greatest” (see 10:31, 43)."

- Ched Myers, with Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Stuart Taylor, “Say to This Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, pp. 66-67

~

"Here’s my proposal to you this morning: Jesus came not simply to bring healing to isolated individuals like the two daughters in this wrap-around story. He came to heal the system which makes the families of human communities outsiders to one another, declaring some to be unclean and untouchable. Jesus came daring to touch, and to be touched by, those untouchables. He was willing in the end to even let himself be declared an untouchable, hanged on the cross. He crossed those boundaries to offer healing not just to individuals but to the systems and communities of healing themselves. He came to help us see that there will never be any ultimate healing and peace until we cease to play the games of insiders and outsiders."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from sermon delivered on July 1, 2012 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_8b_2012_ser/)

~

"Here [Jesus] is back on the 'Jewish' side [of the lake of Galilee] and we get this wonderful [story], two women who together represent the Daughter of Zion, the one who is going to be married to The Bridegroom. We have this diptych about the coming into the midst of the people of the great High Priest, who is also the one who is setting up the possibility of the marriage between the Lord and Zion, and how this breaks through all fear of death and impurity - the great things that kept people away from the Holy of Holies such that only the High Priest could go in and only after [he] had been separated from any sort of death and from any sort of impurity.

[...]

"Jesus is going with the [synagogue] leader, remembering, someone who would bring up his daughter in very strict separation from boys and who's now coming terribly close to the moment when she is about to be marriageable. And as [for] many many young women in Middle Eastern society at that time, and maybe still in other societies, that is a real crisis point, the time when you can suddenly become marriageable. And perhaps you don't even have any choice about the matter, especially if you're in a religiously conservative household such as being in an synagogue leader's household -you're not going to choose, you're going to be forcibly married off. You're not sure whether you want to enter into that world, so developing a catatonic stupor and refusing to carry on living is a conversion, it's a recognized conversion symptom. Under those circumstances, others do the reverse, the reverse of this kind of anorexic shutdown is done by eating far too much, bloating - again trying to avoid becoming marriageable.

"[... Then] we have a mature woman, the one who'd been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. Very soon we will see that the little girl was twelve. So that's very deliberate. Mark is showing this woman for twelve years has been unable to be married, unable to enter into any sort of tactile relationship with anybody because she is ritually impure constantly. She can't be made pure, she can't go to the synagogue, she can't marry, she can't have sex, she's untouchable - quite literally can't be touched because of her condition. She's tried the doctors, the doctors can't do anything about it, she's made herself poor in this way. But she'd heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.

[...]

"And Jesus says to her, “Daughter,” - he used not the term little girl, he uses the term daughter - “your faith has made you well, go in peace and you will be healed of your disease.” He is not treating it as though he is a father, he's using the term daughter to indicate she is a daughter of Zion. [...] She is now going to be marriageable, she's now able to enter into the marriage banquet between the Lord and Zion, what we call the marriage supper of the Lamb.

"While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, “Your daughter is dead,” - ok, so it's no longer a case of a spirit possession, she's dead - “why trouble the teacher any further?” [...] But they're also saying: don't bring him into the house, it is now an impure place and of course he will be made impure if he comes into the house. But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue “Do not fear, only believe.” In other words, [...] the synagogue leader is going to have to have believed what happened to the woman, whom he would have barred from his synagogue, and agreed to go into his own home, which is now an impure place, with Jesus in faith. It's faith that's going to make him whole. In other words, the woman cured from her bleeding is the example of faith that he's being asked to accept to go forward. It's the daughter of Zion who's at work here.

[...]

"[Jesus] took the child's father and mother, and those who are with him - that's, the three disciples, Peter, James and John - and went in to “where the child was,” it says in our version. The best Greek text is, “where the child was laid.” And the verb used for “laid” is very interesting because it's a verb with two meanings. It can be “was laid out” as a corpse is laid out, meaning that they'd washed her and laid her corpse out; or laid “was reclining,” and the same verb is used to recline as at a banquet. In other words, it's a very very clever use of a verb there to indicate that both of those might be the case. Because after all, this is the one who had died just short of becoming marriageable in just the same way as the other had been locked into the impossibility of marriage.

"He took her by the hand, which is always the sign of an invitation to marriage, and said to her, “Talitha koom,” which is Aramaic for “little girl, arise!” And it's straight out of the canticle, the Song of Songs, the Canticle of Canticles. The daughter of Zion who is being told to arise because the bridegroom is coming. And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about. [...] Obviously, this whole business of growing up and becoming marriageable had been too much for her - stressful circumstances, a bound-down religious atmosphere, marriage impossibility, inability to flourish - all of that has been solved by the arrival of the  Bridegroom.

[...]

"So in today's Gospel we have the Bridegroom, the Lord, the High Priest, come into the midst of the Daughter of Zion, to call her to life, to break through the fear of death and of blood, of impossibility and impurity, to bring to life impossibility and marriage."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 13 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSJ4UYCATu8)

[Source of quotes from Paul Nuechterlein and “Say to This Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, and for discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_8b/]

From the Lectionary for 23 June 2024 (Proper 7B)

Psalm 107:23-30 (NRSV)

Some went down to the sea in ships,
    doing business on the mighty waters;
they saw the deeds of the Lord,
    his wondrous works in the deep.
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
    which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths;
    their courage melted away in their calamity;
they reeled and staggered like drunkards,
    and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he brought them out from their distress;
he made the storm be still,
    and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad because they had quiet,
    and he brought them to their desired haven.

Mark 4:33-41 (NRSV)

With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

~

"The fact that the disciples need special instruction (4:34) shows that they cannot spontaneously grasp the revelation in the parables. Their inability to understand becomes clearer in the subsequent miracle story which leaves them puzzling “Who then is this, because even the wind and the sea obey him?” (4:41). The miracle of the stilling of the storm introduces a series of portentous actions that disclose the mysterious power of Jesus and the essential incomprehension of even those closest to him. In the previous set of such miracle stories in the Gospel (the “conflict stories” in 2:1-3:6), the opposition is the religio-political vested interests; here, it is incomprehension and misunderstanding on the part of the disciples themselves. We are being shown how it is possible that three quarters of the hearers of the word could prove unfruitful, as well as the crucial fact that the insiders are in no better case than the outsiders... Those who go into the house with Jesus for private instruction are no better off than those who remain outside because they do not yet understand the cross."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, The Gospel and the Sacred, pg. 92

~

"[O]ur translation says: “a great gale arose.” This is in Greek 'lilaps animal' and that's not proper Greek, it's a direct translation from Hebrew: “a storm of wind.” And this is the key point: it's exactly the phrase that is used in a couple of key places in Scripture. First of all in the Psalm which is our Psalm for today, where it says: “Some sail to the sea and ships to trade on the mighty waters.” - this is why it's important that there was more than one boat on the sea at this time [cf. Mark 4:36)] - “These men have seen the Lord's deeds, the wonders he does in the deep” - so we're going to see a wonder of the Lord - “For he spoke, he summoned the gale” - that's what it says in our translation, but in fact the Hebrew behind it is “the storm of wind,” which has been translated by Mark into 'lilaps animal' - so “For he spoke the storm of wind, tossing the waves of the sea up to heaven and back into the deep, their souls melted away in their distress.” So the Psalm is a very good description of what the disciples are then going to live out.

"It's also exactly the same phrase in Psalm 148: “Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, storm of wind fulfilling his command.” It's a stormy wind, a storm of wind - it's exactly the same phrase. But notice that in both cases the stormy wind is fulfilling his command. And I want to suggest to you that the relationship between word and what is going on here is very important. This is all to do with the One who is speaking and whose word can be relied on and trusted. And that this is in a sense what's the difficult learning thing here.

[...]

"A little thought back: had he not just told them a parable about someone who planted a seed - that's to say, put out the Word - and then went to sleep and got up again, imagining that the seed would be growing. He knew it how - 'automate', automatically [(reference to Mark 4:28, "The earth produces of itself" where the Greek word translated 'of itself' is 'automate')]. And has not Jesus just actually done that with his disciples - just going to sleep? And seeing whether the seed has been sprouting?

[...]

"So he's asking them, “Has the seed spread?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” So the Master, even more than Moses, and the Word. And here I'd like to end by stressing something: the power of the Word is what brings things into creation.

"If you thought Jesus was a magician, you think of someone who has power over things - that's the 'magician' picture of Jesus, and that's absolutely not what's at work here. What is at work here is the Lord, who's Word speaks the storm into being. It's not that he just controls it when it's convenient or inconvenient. He's actually the Creator, it's his Word that can take the form of a storm. His Word produces things 'automatically'.

"His Word is behind all these things, so of course Jesus can go to sleep: the Word is at work. The disciples who are frightened and scared have at their disposal, and are part of the spreading of, the Word. Behind them, in their midst, impelling them onwards, compelling us onwards, is a power far greater than we can imagine. Not a magical power, but a power that stunningly is bringing things into being in unexpected places. And he's continually pushing us on, saying, “Has the seed sprouted a little bit? Are you able to see that the Word is at work? My Word? That this is the Word of God and of course it accomplishes whatever it purposes?”"

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 12 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3WA2VZyc3s)

[Source of the Robert Hamerton-Kelly quote, and for further discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_7b/]

From the Lectionary for 16 June 2024 (Proper 6B)

Ezekiel 17:22-24 (NRSV)

Thus says the Lord God:

I myself will take a sprig
    from the lofty top of a cedar;
    I will set it out.
I will break off a tender one
    from the topmost of its young twigs;
I myself will plant it
    on a high and lofty mountain.
On the mountain height of Israel
    I will plant it,
in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit,
    and become a noble cedar.
Under it every kind of bird will live;
    in the shade of its branches will nest
    winged creatures of every kind.
All the trees of the field shall know
    that I am the Lord.
I bring low the high tree,
    I make high the low tree;
I dry up the green tree
    and make the dry tree flourish.
I the Lord have spoken;
    I will accomplish it.

Mark 4:26-34 (NRSV)

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

~

"I believe that in this morning’s gospel lesson... Jesus tells a joke. But two thousand years later, did we laugh? It’s a classic case for those failed-joke-comebacks:

“I guess you just had to be there.” or

“It loses something in translation.” or

“We just don’t get it.”

"A joke, you say? How so? Well, the creators of our lectionary at least gave us half a chance by pairing this Parable of the Mustard Seed with the First Lesson from Ezekiel 17. Did you notice how Ezekiel compares the Kingdom of God to the twig of a cedar tree which God plants and it grows up to be a huge tree that all the birds want to come nest in? Well, keep that majestic cedar tree in mind, as many of Jesus’ audience no doubt had it in their minds, as you listen again to the parable: “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all … shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

"Do you see how Jesus even uses some of the same words as Ezekiel? The birds of the air nesting in its branches? Yet he has changed Ezekiel’s mighty cedar tree to a scruffy little mustard bush. That must be a joke, don’t you think?

"And that’s only part of the joke! To get the other part I think you need to be farmers like many of Jesus’ original audience, not farming-impaired city-dwellers like most of us. Would you get the joke if I told it to you this way(?): the kingdom of God is like dandelion seed, which, when sown into your lawn…” Do you get it? Yes, mustard shrubs are weeds! Farmers generally spend a lot of effort trying to keep it off their soil, not sowing it on! Jesus had to have been smiling when he told this parable, don’t you think?"

- Paul Nuechterlein, from a sermon delivered at Emmaus Lutheran, Racine, WI, June 14-15, 1997 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_6b_1997_ser/)

~

"It is a joke, of course, with a serious message behind it. But the vehicle of a joke is more gracious than that of a diatribe. These series of parables began with the Parable of Satan casting out Satan, last week’s text, which is closer to a diatribe, though in riddle form it tends to be ‘heard but not understood.’ The issue at stake is to either live by the power of Satan, which is the power of accusation followed by casting out, or to live by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the power of forgiveness (or to use St. Paul’s word, reconciliation). The only unforgivable sin, then, is to not believe in the power of forgiveness; the only way to not be reconciled is to reject the offer of reconciliation.

"We are faced, then, with a choice of households, or kingdoms, to live in. This week’s parable of the mustard seed prepares us that this may seem, in the eyes of the world, like a crazy garden to live in if we choose God’s. We will seem like weeds to the world, very out of place as we try to live out of forgiveness in a world based on vengeance."

- Paul Nuechterlein, from 'Reflections and Questions' on this week's lectionary texts (link below)

~

"[In Mark] chapter 4, we have several explained parables, he's explaining parables to the disciples. And today's two parables are both parts of those. These are, at least as it appears, not spoken to the general public but spoken to the disciples. In other words, these are instructions to preachers about what they're preaching. I think that that's a point worth remembering: they're not general, they are for people whose job is the word.

"Having said that, as so often, we're reminded of the Lord's words, which don't appear in today's Gospel but in the passage just before it [vv 11-12], that he told those outside: “everything comes in parables in order that they may indeed look but not perceive, and may indeed listen but not understand, so they may not turn again and be forgiven.” This quote from Isaiah indicating God making something known which is also capable of producing confusion in the hearts of those listening. It's also capable of being understood the wrong way. And that's if you like the first lesson for a preacher like me is to what extent am I simply one of those who thinks I know but don't, thinks I'm passing on something good but I'm not. And there is, if you like, I think a very necessary sense of awe before the word lest we be mishandling it.

[...]

"I wonder whether [the Parable of the Growing Seed] isn't more directed to preachers than an allegory about God. It presupposes the allegory about God, which is that God knows exactly what he's doing, he's the one who produces the seed. We may think we're scattering it and, indeed, a random preacher, like I, is well aware that I'm scattering seed. And we don't know how it grows, I certainly don't. And yet we can sense harvest, consensus, things growing. [...] I've been trying to do something that may not be good but if any of the words that I have been scattering are part of what God accomplishes then there will be growth, and there will be a harvest.

[...]

"What we have [in the Parable of the Mustard Seed] is a small garden where the birds might be very inclined to eat the seed but if you plant it and it grows, it does become a shrub, and the birds, even the birds who would have been its enemy, find an ability to rest in it. And this I think is one of the wonderful things about the Gospel and preaching the Gospel, that the things we plant, that are treated with apparent hostility, we turn out to be making something friendly for even our apparent enemies. We give them a rest and a place to sit. They might not have appreciated in the first place, and that's part of the preaching of the word and that's part of allowing ourselves to grow and to see what is being brought into being without being concerned that it's something glorious or powerful or of good reputation. It may be a mustard bush."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 11 in Ordinary Time, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YLih3aFABU)

[Source of reflections by Paul Nuechterlein and link to his 1997 sermon, and for discussion and reflections on all of the lectionary texts for this week, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_6b/]

From the Lectionary for 9 June 2024 (Proper 5B)

Mark 3:20 -35 (NRSV)

Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” — for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

~

Exegetical Note by Paul Nuechterlein, from the Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 5B (link in comments below):

V. 29, NRSV translation: “but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” There are multiple problems with this translation (and many similar translations). “Never” and “eternal” translate the Greek word aiōnion, which does mean “eternal” in the context of Greek philosophy, but we need to remember that this is a Jew speaking to other Jews. They thought in more temporal terms of an old corrupt age marked by sin and corruption, and a new age brought about by God which would set right what humans have corrupted. The two uses of aiōnion in this sentence reflect that Jewish thinking as well as the immediate context of Jesus’s challenge to the scribes. This present age is characterized by the human sin of sacred violence and keeps the human family a house divided. The new age of God which Jesus is inaugurating will be characterized by forgiveness. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is to resist the coming of the new age of forgiveness and thus remain stuck in the old age. So a better translation of this verse would be something like, “But whoever may blaspheme towards the Holy Spirit holds no place in the new age of forgiveness but is trapped in the old age of sin.”

~

"If we can’t learn as followers of Jesus to raise our level of discourse to the anthropological level, then we remain trapped within the viewpoints of our own cultures and languages and religions. And these things divide us as a human family. Even our theologies, which usually find themselves inside a certain religious context, divide us. None of these things will ever unite us into God’s one new humanity (Eph 2:15) without the Bible’s anthropology that transcends culture and language and religion. As we said on Pentecost, our human way of uniting is based on dividing us into us-and-them. Our way of seeking peace, of trying to stop violence, uses violence. That’s why the chief thing that Jesus came to save and redeem is our anthropology, our way of being human.

"This is also abstract. So let’s get a bit more concrete by looking at our Gospel story more closely. Jesus is getting flack from his own family. He’s doing far-out things that give us glimpses of this new way of being human, and so it looks strange. He goes around forgiving everyone, and there’s lots of healing because of it. He treats perfect strangers — unclean lepers, no less! — as if they are brothers and sisters. It appears crazy! This new way of being human! And so Jesus’ family seems to almost team-up with the authorities from Jerusalem who accuse him of being in league with Beelzebul, the chief of demons.

"Jesus, as usual, has a clever response. He almost never argues head-on with opponents but instead uses questions. Mark signals us that his question is even like a riddle. It is the first use of the word “parable” by Mark to describe Jesus’ teaching, and parable in Mark has the character of a riddle, something that transcends common logic and reasoning.

"“How can Satan cast out Satan?” asks Jesus. It seems like a rhetorical question, doesn’t it? And Jesus follows with, “If a kingdom or house is divided against itself, that kingdom or house cannot stand.” Common logic says that Satan would not try to cast out Satan and divide his kingdom. But remember that Mark has given us the clue that this is a parable, a riddle, a question defying standard logic. And, sure enough, consider the context: the authorities from Jerusalem have just tried to accuse Jesus of being in league with Satan, or with one of Satan’s cohorts, Beelzebul. It is a prelude to casting him out, which they will later succeed in doing by having him sentenced to death on the cross. So the second part of the equation, the casting out Satan part, has just happened. But what about Satan casting out Satan, the first part of the equation? Here’s the thing: the Jerusalem authorities will never see themselves as Satan. No, as well-meaning people always do, they see themselves as doing God’s work! God wants us to cast out the evil doers, right?

"But this riddle from Jesus means for us to look deeper. The oldest tradition of who Satan is, in fact, is that Satan is the Accuser. He is the Prosecuting Attorney, the one who makes the accusation of the majority against a minority that they think guilty of evil doing, guilty of being in league with the demons. We know, in this instance, that the Jerusalem authorities are wrong. Jesus, God’s Son, is not guilty of anything. They are the guilty ones by virtue of making a false accusation. So what this riddle is trying to get us to see is that the Jerusalem authorities have just provided a splendid example of Satan casting out Satan. They think they are doing God’s work of casting out the evil one, while Jesus is inviting us to see that they are actually doing satanic work, the work of accusation.

"But I believe, if we are to rise to the level of anthropological discourse, that this riddle means more than simply the fact that they got it wrong in Jesus’ case. Our entire human way of staying together in community is being judged here. “Satan casting out Satan” names how human beings have cohered in groups since the beginning of our species. It is what, up to now, defines our species. Our group formation into languages, cultures and religions is based on being over against someone else. We are always able to have a group identity for ourselves based on someone else being different or wrong. There is underlying our group’s identity an accusation against the others. [...] What Jesus is trying to get us to see is that our anthropology, our whole way of being human, can be named as “Satan casting out Satan.”

"How do we know that? Again, the context. This riddle about Satan casting out Satan is surrounded by an episode involving Jesus and his family. His flesh and blood family is accusing him of being crazy. He names his real family, then, as those who do the will of God. What is that will? Forgiveness. The only unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit is refusing forgiveness itself. One can’t be forgiven if you refuse it. The Holy Spirit has come into this world in order to do nothing less than offer us a new way of being human based on forgiveness rather than on accusation and casting out. It’s the only way that we can live in peace as God’s one human family. Yet we continue to choose the way based on casting out. The human family remains a house divided, a family divided."

[...]

"What we’re saying, in short, is that our way of being human up until now has been a way of dividing into groups based on languages, cultures, and religions that have a casting out behind them instead of a forgiveness that compels us to see the whole human race as a family. Jesus came to redeem that old way of being human that will always mean a house divided which cannot stand. And he is offering us a new way of being human which sees every single person as a brother or sister in God’s family with whom we live in a relationship of forgiveness, the only power which can keep families together."

- Paul Nuechterlein, from a sermon delivered at Prince of Peace Lutheran, Portage, MI, June 10, 2012 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_5b_2012_ser/)

~

"[I]t's the whole dynamic of forgiveness that is being reacted against, which is why this is a particularly strong parable for the scribes. It's a particularly strong parable for the religious leaders, for Christian religious leaders thereafter, because of course it's religious leaders, we are the ones who are tempted to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit by refusing to see people being forgiven and brought to creation. We throw around words like blasphemy as an accusation when God can forgive all our blasphemies, that's not a problem. But he so so longs for us to be [in] on the dynamic of being forgiven into created life.

[...]

"Looking around at them sitting around he said, “Behold, my mother and my brother. Whoever does the will of my Father” - I have willed to come to me - “that one is my brother and sister and mother.” In other words, this is simultaneously what he's doing with relation to his blood relatives but also an indication to those who are coming from Jerusalem and attempting to, after Pentecost, attempting to hold back Jesus's presence in the new house that he was building as he was spreading the wholeness and holiness of God amongst all nations and all people.

"That is what the work of the Holy Spirit looks like, that is what is being brought into being: his family, his kingdom, the one where he is with his sisters and brothers and mothers. This brand new sibling-icity - sorority, fraternity - which is what he is making possible, and that the dynamic behind this, the creative spirit is bringing into being by forgiving us, opening us up, plundering - taking out all Satan's favourite tricks to produce division, sickness, downcast, saddened lives - all of that is being done by the one who wants to open us up into belonging to his family."

- James Alison, from video, "Homily for Sunday 10 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf_29p6il0E)

[Source of exegetical note by Paul Nuechterlein and link to his 2012 sermon, and for discussion and reflections on all of the lectionary texts for this week, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper_5b/]