Pentecost 16B

Prayer for the Anniversary of 9/11

O God, our hope and refuge,
in our distress we come quickly to you…

We come remembering those who lost their lives
in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania…

We come remembering
and we come in hope,
not in ourselves, but in you…

In commemorating this tragedy,
we give you thanks for your presence
in our time of need
and we seek to worship you in Spirit and in truth,
our guide and our guardian. Amen.

Excerpt of prayer by the Rev. Jeremy Pridgeon, First United Methodist Church, Panama City, Florida, via Discipleship Ministries, The United Methodist Church.

Mark 8:27-38

²⁷Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" ²⁸And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." ²⁹He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." ³⁰And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

³¹Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

³⁴Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

Where We Are

The church is more than three quarters of the way through this year of grace that mostly features gospel readings from St. Mark, the earliest, shortest, most concise narrative of Jesus' earthly ministry. In the gospels of Mark and Luke, Jesus' journey to Jerusalem and the cross is particularly incessant and intentional.

Most of the first half of Mark happens around Jesus' hometown area of Galilee; most of the second occurs on the way to, near, and in Jerusalem. After today's conversation in this place of many many deities, Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem. Surprisingly(!), this is the first place in Mark where Jesus uses the word "cross."

Each of the four canonical gospels brings us the good news of Jesus Christ with its own emphasis. Jesus' first act of public ministry in Mark is an exorcism; Mark's particular concern is freedom from demons and the demonic as well as destabilizing and overthrowing the power and accretions of empire so creation can live in freedom. You may recall Mark's response to "where do we find God?" On the margins, in the stranger and the "other than us." We find God supremely in the vulnerability of a convicted human dying on a cross. Mark's God is far outside conventional political, religious, social, and economic establishments.


Caesarea Philippi

Jesus' entire story in Mark turns around in this passage with:
(1) Peter's recognition and public confession of Jesus as Messiah/Christ in verse 29;
(2) Jesus' own passion prediction in verse 31 (the first of three in Mark);
(3) Jesus' call that this time includes the gathered crowd along with his current disciples in verse 34.

Jesus and his disciples are in a Caesarville—Caesarea Philippi at the far north border. Caesarea Philippi was a center of worship of the nature god Pan, the Ba'al place gods, and the Roman Emperor.

Besides dividing the different geographical locations of the two halves of Mark and demanding an answer to the question of Jesus' identity and call, by extension they also ask about our identity and calling as people baptized into Jesus Christ.

Like many during the last three or four millennia, we live in a Caesarville—a place defined by one empire or several. Many many still perceive the USA in this late 2021 as Trumpville. Does Consumerland, Big Pharma Nation, or Mass Violence Villa hold sway and try to have the final say?


Baptism. Cross.

Hebrew bible scholar Walter Brueggemann reminds us baptism into Jesus' death and resurrection is a subversive act of renunciation and embrace. (My apologies for not having the book title. The phrase was so arresting I immediately memorized it.) In baptism we renounce Martin Luther's "unholy trinity" of sin, death, and the devil. In his baptismal liturgy, Luther addressed the devil: "So hearken now, thou miserable devil, adjured by the name of the eternal God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and depart trembling and groaning, conquered together with thy hatred, so that thou shalt have nothing to do with the servant of God who now seeks that which is heavenly and renounces thee and thy world."

The cross Jesus calls us to carry in Mark 8:34 is not the sorrows, losses, struggles, trials, disappointments, and difficulties everyone experiences. Jesus calls us to carry his cross that's a loud "no" to death, "no" to violence, "no" to exploitation, "no" to inequality, "no" to imperial excesses of every kind, "no" to hatred. When we carry the cross of Jesus Christ, we speak a resounding "yes" to life, "yes" to peace, to equality, community, to neighborology, to love, to inclusion, to boundless life for all creation.

Our baptism into Jesus death is at the same time baptism or immersion into his resurrection. It's about the death of the old, but it's even more about the new being, the new creation. We remember and act on Wendell Berry's (and scripture's command) to Practice Resurrection!

Pastor James Howell observes even though he gets the correct answer about Jesus' identity, Peter doesn't get (has zero clue) what that identity implies. Howell adds, "Peter is entirely foolhardy, as are all of us who dare to wield the keys and be the church. We simply stick behind Jesus, a little bit embarrassed over how dumb we can be, and count on his mercy, his mercies plural, and journey with him to the holy city not to assume power but to lose everything."


911 2001 • 20 years • 911 2021

That's all for this week as we remember and grieve 911. On my other main blog I illustrated (and also tweeted) a photograph of the 911 memorial and quoted Psalm 62:5: "Yet my soul, keep thou silence unto God: for mine hope is in him."

Pentecost 15B

Isaiah 35:4-7a

⁴Say to those who have fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. God will come with vindication, with restoration. God will come and save you."

⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; ⁶then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; ⁷the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

Isaiah

Today we'll consider a reading from the 66 chapter long book of Isaiah. You may remember we divide Isaiah into three main sections:

• chapters 1-39, 1st Isaiah, before the Babylonian exile;
• chapters 40-55, 2nd Isaiah, during the exile;
• chapters 56-66, 3rd Isaiah, after the exile—

though it's not quite that neat. Each major section also includes prose or poetry that's probably from a different individual. After a series of judgments in previous chapters (that lead up to the bad news of exile to Babylon in Isaiah 36 through 39), today's chapter 35 brings the spirit of hope, renewal, and resurrection we find in Second Isaiah (chapters 40 through 55) that likely was written during the exile, and then got edited or redacted after homecoming to Jerusalem.


Practicing Resurrection

First Isaiah, or Isaiah of Jerusalem celebrates the effects of God's presence. The presence of God's people? Throughout scripture, death isn't only when you stop breathing and your body shuts down. Death is everything that limits a full life. Death is whatever interferes with our common life. Death is there when creation doesn't flourish. Resurrection sometimes restores spiritual life, sometimes physical or emotional or communal health. In baptism we receive God's Spirit of Resurrection from the dead. The poet Isaiah celebrates the outcome of God's presence, of the presence of God's people.

When John the Baptist was in prison, John told his followers to go ask his cousin Jesus if he [Jesus] was the promised one "who is to come," or if they needed to keep looking and searching for someone else. Jesus told John's followers, "Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, dead are raised, good news proclaimed to the poor…" [and blessed are those who take no offense, do not consider me a stumbling block/scandal."] Matthew 11:4,5,6 Luke 7:22,23

This Isaiah vision is even more dramatic than Jesus' message to John. Springs and streams, maybe actual rivers, glorify the desert wilderness. Water is life! Once-lame people not only walk, but leap like gazelles. Formerly speechless people not only talk, but sing!

Like God's promise in today's scripture, like Jesus' reply to his cousin John the Baptist, God often calls us to be the reversal, the newness, the resurrection God promises and the world needs. God calls us to help the blind see, deaf hear, lame walk (or leap), speechless talk (or sing). Jesus assured John he was the promised one who'd change the course of history. Baptized into Jesus' death and resurrection, we become Jesus' presence as we practice resurrection and help create the future!

Do you know Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by farmer-poet-theologian Wendell Berry? Among other things he advises us:

Every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord.
Love the world.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
…
Practice resurrection.

Pentecost 14B

Psalm 15

Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

KJV/King James Version

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9

⁴So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

²You must neither add anything to the word that I am instructing you nor take away anything from it, but observe the instructions of the LORD your God with which I am instructing you.

⁶You must observe this diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the other nations, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!"

⁷For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call to him? ⁸And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as righteous as this entire law that I set before your face today?

⁹But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children—

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is one of the five books of the Pentateuch, Ha Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures. They've been called the Books of Moses, not because Moses could have written them, but because Moses is the central human character. Deutero means "second" and nomen means "law," so in a limited sense Deuteronomy refers to a second giving of the law.

We need to stay aware of how our English word "law" can lead to a caricature of Torah. God's covenantal way of Torah is fluid, dynamic, stretchy, and flexible, always on the side of grace, mercy, love, justice, and life. Especially during Luke's lectionary year when we also heard a lot from the prophet Jeremiah, we discussed neighborology—the word about our neighbor. "Give heed to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live…" Choose life by considering the needs of the other at least as important as our own. That's neighborology!

The compilation of Deuteronomy was a long time coming over about five centuries, from the United Monarchy of Saul, David, and Solomon, to events and written sources prior to the Babylonian exile, to events and sources afterwards during the rebuilding of Jerusalem, of community, of restoration of worship, of "rediscovery" and canonization of Torah into the post-exilic period of Persian hegemony. Wide, expansive, and inclusive, Deuteronomy demonstrates Torah neighborology lived out on turf and in time.


The Land

After they left Egypt, the history of God's people Israel became the story of their journey toward a place where they could settle, obey, live, farm, and thrive—a quest and a hope for free-flowing rivers and boundless goodness from the ground that would help recreate them as free people and provide the landed safety and sense of home Israel wanted and all humans yearn for. The refrain "into the land" rings throughout Deuteronomy; stewardship of the gift of the land is central to our keeping covenant with all creation. After they crossed the Jordan River into Canaan, the people received land that would offer life and sustenance if they cared for it well.


Today's First Reading

After liberating the people from Egyptian slavery, amidst the exodus desert at Mount Sinai God graced the people with the Ten Words or Commandments so they'd live in ways that would lead to life, and allow them to remain free. The already occupied Promised Land of Canaan would be filled with fake deities, yet humans need such guidelines all the time, because if we look closely, we'll notice false gods and death-dealing religions almost everywhere.

Scribes who assembled Deuteronomy placed today's passage that asks, "For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?" [verses 7-8] immediately before the actual Ten Words or Commandments.

We find similar versions of the Ten Commandments or Ten Words/Decalogue [deca means "ten," logo/logos is "word, words"] twice in the Pentateuch: Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Exodus and Deuteronomy refer to the ten commandments of the Sinai Covenant as "words." At least twice in Exodus, the premiere account of the formation of Israel as God's people / Moses' people (who are one and the same), the people promise, "we will do all the words the Lord has spoken." Exodus 19:8; 24:3, 7


God in Our Midst

Our introductory devotional Psalm 15 describes the commandments in action. With "tabernacle," the poet who composed this psalm may have had in mind the commandments the people carried with them in the portable tent or tabernacle; "holy hill" well may have referenced the temple on Mount Zion, where God's essence dwelt. In this passage and later on in Jesus of Nazareth and in the Church, we find God, God's Word, and God's People form an unbreakable triad.

"…a god so near to it as the LORD our God"–the commandments have the same attributes or characteristics as God; this God whose people, "do all the words" have the same qualities as the God who gifted them. When they practice Torah/observe the Ten Words, the people assume God's justice, love, righteousness, and mercy. When God's obedient, observant people are nearby, in a very real sense God is there.

In our recent five weeks of John 6, we heard about manna and quail from heaven, water from the rock, feeding a whole lot of people with very few fish and five loaves of bread. Like people in the Old and New Covenant scriptures, we constantly receive signs or evidence of God's presence. These signs or symbols include waters of baptism, bread and wine of holy communion. Signs or symbols of God's nearness include the commandments that share God's characteristics. Signs of God's presence include us, the contemporary people of God, wherever we go…

Pentecost 13B

John 6:56-69

⁵⁶"Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever." ⁵⁹Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

⁶⁰When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" ⁶¹But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you? ⁶²Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father." ⁶⁶Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.

⁶⁷So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?' ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

Interpreting Scripture

Locating the original setting in time and place (and purpose, to the extent we can figure it out) of a passage always is our first concern when we read scripture.

Accounts of Jesus' words and actions first made rounds in the oral tradition. After a while they got written down here and there. The community gathered around beloved disciple John assembled their gospel account from those manuscripts; they carefully edited and arranged them to reflect their theology of Jesus. As we observed about the Sermon on the Mount, like any teacher, preacher, or parent, Jesus repeated himself a lot and probably had stock sermons. In conversation with his disciples and with towns people he would have said identical or very similar words enough times people would remember and eventually write them down.

Especially over the past year, we've become aware we need to read the present through the past (presentism) and not interpret the past through events we now know about and attitudes that have changed (historicism). When Jesus announced he was the Bread of Life, his hearers would not have heard those words in terms of the Last Supper/Lord's Supper or related to a post-resurrection Eucharist/Holy Communion with the risen Christ. However, the contemporary church usually does.

This points to the fact we often do theology backwards, but theology is a different endeavor from history. Though we can't erase the Sacrament of Bread and Cup from our awareness, it's still important to remember feeding 5,000+ people and Jesus' Bread of Life declarations happened before the week we call Holy that includes Maundy Thursday, before Resurrection Sunday.


Bread of Life, Week 5

It's been called a marathon—five weeks of a single chapter of John's gospel.

Today marks the fifth Sunday in a row of chapter 6 of John's gospel! John is the gospel of abiding presence, the gospel that (maybe particularly) emphasizes the incarnation, enfleshment, embodiment of the pre-existent, eternal logos. Today we move from Jesus' "I am" declarations (that equate him with Yahweh's "I am" revelation to Moses) to the disciples "You are / Thou art" the Holy One of God.


Words in the Greek

Every translation of any text in any language always is also an interpretation.

In 6:60 "When many of his disciples heard it, they said, 'This teaching [logos] is difficult; who can accept it?'" The word translated "teaching" is logos in Greek. You probably remember John's gospel brings us a new creation and opens with, "In the beginning was the Word [logos], and the Word [logos] was with God, and the Word [logos} was God." John 1:1 "And the Word [logos] became flesh and tabernacled among us." John 1:14a

Most contemporary scholars believe teaching/logos in this context refers to the entirety of Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

"Difficult" is the root of our word sclerosis for physical hardening of body parts and organs, so it would be a hard to wrap heads around concept, and not necessarily something intellectually or academically tough.

John 6:68 "Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words [declaration, statement] of eternal life.'" I find it surprising this "word of eternal life" isn't logos again—but it's rhema, the other Greek term that translates into English as "word." You may have sung this as the gospel acclamation in some settings of the liturgy.


Question for post-COVID

In John's gospel, Jesus feeds 5,000+ with five loaves of bread made from barley—the poor person's grain. Barley was one of the seven agricultural gifts of the promised land, and a crop ready to harvest before the affluent people's wheat! This question is post-COVID because when we've celebrated Holy Communion in person or at home during COVID, everyone has been incredibly careful to use bread and cup elements that won't easily be contaminated and spread the virus.

For us as for Jesus, it's ideally a meal of common, ordinary, everyday already-on-hand grain and drink essentials. We sometimes use pre-baked thin wafers because they keep well and can be easily stored and transported, but they never feel filling or nourishing. What's my preference? Freshly baked sourdough always looks, feels, and tastes most real and most sustaining. One of the pastors in my Previous City LOVED Kings' Hawaiian Bread and often served it for Holy Communion. I enjoyed it with our Thursday evening community dinners, but for me it was too sweet and too soft, not tough enough for a Eucharistic Feast, though many besides Pastor Jon thought it was just right.

During more normal times we hope will soon return, what's your favorite Communion bread?

Pentecost 12B

John 6:51-58

⁵¹"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

⁵²The religious leaders then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

⁵³So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.

⁵⁸"This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."

John's Gospel

We've talked about John's gospel as the outlier rogue that almost didn't make the canonical cut. A beloved community gathered around Jesus' youngest disciple John – often referred to as the "beloved disciple" – assembled the theologically intense account that's the latest of the four. Although synoptic gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke that view Jesus' ministry in a similar way are all about the reign of God in Jesus Christ, John's Good News is even more purposeful about the right here and right now of Heaven on Earth. You may remember Jesus' first act of public ministry in John is changing ordinary water into wine at a days-long wedding celebration; that near-endless party establishes the style of Jesus' entire ministry.

Closely related, although the synoptics – and the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians – bring us Jesus' Founding Meal of the Lord's Supper where he connects the bread and cup with his death (and Pauline theology reminds us Jesus is at the same time both crucified and risen), John instead narrates feedings of immense groups of hungry people with abundant leftovers and John's Jesus brings us his very alive self as the substantial bread of our spiritual lives and of our physical ones. Just as Jesus in John often talks about our abiding or remaining in him, in John's gospel Jesus gives us bread that is his body, bread that becomes part of our bodies, so Jesus abides in us and we abide in Jesus.


Bread of Life, So Far

During Mark's lectionary year we have more readings from John than in the other years. Mark being the shortest gospel leaves spaces to be filled, and John is the perfect solution, because although every year during the great fifty days of Easter we hear a lot of John, John's gospel doesn't get its own separate year. "For some reason" the people who assembled the lectionary scheduled five Sundays in a row from John 6. This Sunday is week 4.

On July 24th, Jesus himself fed a huge crowd with what began as five barley loaves and two fish. On July 31st and August 8th, Jesus talked about God providing manna via Moses in the exodus wilderness; on both those days, Jesus announced, "I Am the Bread of Life," in the first of the seven "I Am" declarations in John's gospel that link Jesus to Yahweh-God's self-revelation to Moses as "I Am" in Exodus 3.


Bread of Life, Take 4

Unlike the bread-like manna of the exodus trek that had to be gathered again each day (except on the day before Shabbat when they gathered enough for two days in order not to work on the Sabbath), the bread Jesus offers is for right here and right now, and it's also the staff and stuff of eternal, never ending life.

To prepare this blog I read several commentaries, and at least three of them mentioned different words for "eat." The word for eat in verse 52 is a polite… "eat," that has a similar feeling to our English eat. Then in verses 54, 56, 57, and 58 the Greek word can be translated as chew, chomp, munch, crunch, nosh, and other more obvious, less polite ways of taking in nourishment. Most weeks I check the Greek for the scripture I blog about, but I'm not sure I'd have noticed those words. If you have a commentary or a study bible, why don't you see if it mentions that distinction?


Bread of Life, More

Every scriptural reference to water, bread, or fruit of the vine doesn't necessarily refer to sacraments, but every reference does remind us we need a healthy creation's bounty to survive and thrive. (And creation needs us to become healthy and bountiful!) Previous weeks on John 6 I've cautioned don't immediately assume this Bread of Life refers to Holy Communion—but sometimes it does.

Jesus provides the spiritual essence we need to be fully alive. However, in all the gospels but probably most in John, probably even most in this chapter 6, what people assume is spiritual also is physical, embodied, and incarnate. The Christ of God always is enfleshed. As a Sunday or weekday assembly gathers around word and sacrament, receives the bread of life and cup of salvation that become part of their physical bodies, as those people of God then take the crucified and risen Jesus Christ out into the world, they live as his presence everywhere they go.


Sr. Suzanne Toolan's "I am the Bread of Life" musical setting of John 6 is a prayer for us in Jesus' words.

I Am the Bread of Life

I am the bread of life
You who come to me shall not hunger
And who believe in me shall not thirst
No one can come to me
Unless the Father beckons

Refrain:

And I will raise you up
And I will raise you up
And I will raise you up on the last day

The bread that I will give
Is my flesh for the life of the world
And if you eat of this bread
You shall live forever
You shall live forever

Refrain:

Scripture: John 6
Songwriter: Suzanne Toolan, RSM

Pentecost 11B

Psalm 34:1-8

¹I will always give thanks unto the Lord:
      his praise shall be in my mouth continually.
²My soul shall glory in the Lord:
      the humble shall hear it and be glad.
³Praise ye the Lord with me,
      and let us magnify his Name together.
⁴I sought the Lord, and he heard me:
      yea, he delivered me out of all my fear.
⁵They shall look unto him, and run to him:
      and their faces shall not be ashamed, saying,
⁶This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,
      and saved him out of all his troubles.
⁷The Angel of the Lord pitched round about them,
      that fear him, and delivereth them.
⁸Taste ye and see, how gracious the Lord is:
      blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

1599 Geneva Bible. This is the translation colonial New Englanders – both Puritans and Pilgrims – would have read.

John 6:35, 41-51

³⁵Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

⁴¹Then the religious authorities began to complain about Jesus because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."

⁴²They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" ⁴³Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. ⁴⁶Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

⁴⁸"I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

John 6, week 3 of 5

In this lectionary year B that mostly features Mark's short gospel, we get five weeks of readings from John's gospel. Every so often I participate in Five Minute Friday, a weekly free write to a one-word prompt someone once called a writing flash mob! For this week's reflection I'm linking to my FMF post on my other main blog because with this week's from prompt, I couldn't resist writing about Jesus' origins:

• Five Minute Friday • From


Additional Comments

All four gospels were written long after Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension; by then, quite a few scrolls with details of Jesus' ministry had been making rounds and getting edited along the way. In addition to events in Jesus' life, the individuals and communities that produced the gospels intentionally wrote quite formal theology to convey their own testimony of Jesus and to address concerns people they wrote to might have had.

Although Matthew includes a Sermon on the Mount and Luke's somewhat similar version has Jesus speaking on a plain or level place, those almost definitely were from itinerant rabbi Jesus' stock sermons he used dozens of times with different variations for different audiences. It's similar with Jesus' words in our current chapter 6 of John's gospel. They got written down because (often the same) people heard them often and the content was so incisive it stuck with them.

Two weeks ago when we began considering Jesus' bread of life talk that includes the first of his "I Am" sayings, I cautioned don't assume too quickly that every instance of bread in this scripture passage refers to the bread of Holy Communion. Most scholars today believe verse 51 in today's reading, "…the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh" is not about the Lord's Supper, but about Jesus' body broken open for the life of the world at his crucifixion.

Our opening prayer, Psalm 34:1-8, tells us to taste the graciousness of the Lord. Ever notice how much God loves to come into our lives in ways our senses can taste, hear, see, touch, and smell?

Next Sunday

John 6, part 4: John 6: 51-58

Pentecost 10B

Bread for the Journey
(John 6:24-35)

Jesus, Bread of life,
reveals God's love most clearly,
born as one of us.

One who did good works
and called those who would follow
to believe in him.

One by whom we live
(not satisfied but sustained),
this Bread of heaven.

This strange metaphor
has pre-Christian origins
yet still somehow works:

"You are invited!"
to life in all its fullness,
the way of Jesus.

© Jeff Shrowder, 2021, on The Billabong, A worship resource following the Revised Common Lectionary

John 6:24-35

²⁴So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. ²⁵When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" ²⁶Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. ²⁷Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal."

²⁸Then they said to him, "What must we do to perform the works of God?"

²⁹Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." ³⁰So they said to him, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" ³²Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

³⁴They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." ³⁵Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

Bread of Life

Today's gospel passage continues Jesus' Bread of Life discourse, homily, or talk from last Sunday. My gospel of John and John 6 notes from Pentecost 9B also relate to this week.

John's Gospel is famous for Jesus' double Amens (so be it, be it thus, may it be, for sure); chapter 6 includes four in verses 26, 32, 47, 54. Surprisingly the old Roman Catholic default Douay-Rheims is the only English version I know that retains the original. Others tame and dilute it: Verily Verily – Truly Truly – Most Assuredly.

In 2 Corinthians 1:20 the apostle Paul describes Jesus Christ as the fulfilling Yes! [never ever a no] for all God's promises! Paul continues by saying we respond to Jesus' authority with our own "Amen!"

"For as many as are be the promises of God, in Jesus they all are yes; therefore also by Jesus we say Amen to the glory of God through us."

It feels as if Jesus himself echoes this in John's gospel!

Knowing Jesus as bread of life means being connected to him, as John's gospel says, we "abide in Jesus" so we can't become separated. When we abide in Jesus, the bread of life feeds us as whole people, we're "in Christ" as Paul would express it; we become part of Jesus who becomes part of us, and we instinctively walk in the way of Jesus with love, mercy, and justice.


Today's Reading

Jesus (sort of) chided his disciples for seeking him out because he'd given them enough to eat. More than one commentary said Jesus' followers had eyes in their stomachs, but how is that even negative when food, water, air, and shelter are necessary for survival? (I'm not sure any of them did say it was negative.) For us, also, but especially in that time and place with no social or economic safety net, with exorbitant taxes, with women and children needing to rely on income-producing males, with food being necessary for the bodily health that's necessary for employment? It's people being "realistic," yet Jesus offers and provides nurturing sustenance that's more than physical.

For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:33-35

Interpreting Jesus' Bread of Life sayings can be tricky because it's easy to assume Jesus is all about spiritual and spirituality, yet scripture, Jesus, and our own experience demonstrate how earthbound, physical, and material life in the Spirit is. God created humanity from the substance of creation, out of dirt (hummus—not sure if the word human derives from that or not) beneath our feet. Christianity's central proclamation is that in Jesus of Nazareth God came to earth in a real human body like ours—not the appearance of one. In addition, sacraments mediate God's presence with elements of creation – water, bread, fruit of the vine, though any liturgical scholar will say that's much too shorthand. We can't have sacraments unless we have a healthy creation. In the creeds we affirm "I believe in the resurrection of the body" (Apostles Creed) or "the resurrection of the dead" (Nicene Creed). The apostle Paul tells us the risen Christ is the first fruits of the new creation. The resurrected Jesus' body was fully physical and even retained scars of crucifixion—yet a resurrected body has an additional dimension. Scripture reports Jesus entering spaces without going through a door, yet he was fully embodied. Christianity's central proclamation is… physical death and bodily resurrection.


Abiding in Jesus

Terminology in any language can be confusing; translating or interpreting one spoken language into another is more art than it is science. A Hebrew perspective would insist you don't have a soul—you are a soul. How you express in English our divine Ruah/Ruach/Spirit, life-force, godly spark, heart (a wonderfully comprehensive Hebrew concept) depends on the scripture passage, the religious tradition, the author's original language and other factors. In any case, most would insist we don't disconnect Mind (is "mind" philosophical, spiritual, psychological, religious? Anyone ready to write a series of books?) and Spirit from Body because we can't separate all the facets of being human.

Everyone has been with someone who has a serious illness, possibly a terminal one. We've observed a frail, failing body, yet many times we've noticed the essential person still is there, with their usual emotions, intellect (even if a little slower), and sense of humor. We've also encountered (at times probably been there, done that) someone so discouraged and debilitated that even if their body looks and functions okay, they can't think straight and their emotions may be confused, inappropriate, or non-existent. Despite the necessity of our physical bodies, these experiences show our essence may be more spiritual than it is physical—or they're at least equal.

We refer to spiritual practices that primarily focus on connecting with God's presence and God's ways, but they're always about us as whole people. In the creeds we affirm "We look forward to the resurrection of the dead" [Nicene Creed] and "I believe [trust] in the resurrection of the body" [Apostles Creed]

We abide with Jesus the bread of life that nourishes and feeds us as whole people; with Jesus as our bread of life, we walk with love, mercy, and justice.


Next Sunday

• 08 August, Pentecost 11B – John 6:35-51

Pentecost 9B

John 6:1-15

¹After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.

⁵When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" ⁶He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." ⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, ⁹"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" ¹⁰Jesus said, "Make the people sit down."

Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹²When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost."

¹³So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."

¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

The Gospel According to Saint John

Each of the three synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – has a distinctive style with a particular audience in mind, yet all three view Jesus' life and ministry with a similar perspective. John, the latest of the biblical gospels, is the rogue outlier that almost didn't make the canonical cut. Jesus' Beloved Disciple John and the community gathered around him compiled this account around 110 C.E. Scholars believe they they mostly drew upon two written sources referred to as the Signs source and the I Am source.

All four gospels proclaim the inbreaking reign of heaven on earth, but more than the others, John brings us the here-and-now of God's presence in Jesus. We sometimes call that "realized eschatology," meaning the fullness of salvation and redemption already is a done deal. You may remember Jesus' first act of public ministry in John is a wedding party, where water not only flowed like wine, and where water had become wine? In both the Hebrew and New Covenant scriptures, flowing wine is an image of the reign of heaven. Bounty, excess, and celebration set the mood for John's entire gospel.

This is Mark's year B in the Revised Common Lectionary that provides our scripture readings, but with Mark being the shortest of the synoptics, during Mark's year we have quite a few readings from John. Today begins five consecutive Sundays from John 6, the Bread of Life discourse.

It would be easy to confirm this (though I didn't yet), but I believe today's account of feeding at least five thousand people with very little food is the only story found in all four gospels:

• Mark 6:32-44
• Luke 9:10-17
• Matthew 14:13-21


Interpreting Scripture

To the extent we can figure it out, the historical setting and original meaning of a passage always is our first question when we read scripture, even before we discern it as God's word to us and for us. Just as every mention of water doesn't refer to baptism, every mention of bread and/or fruit of the vine doesn't correlate to the Lord's Supper, yet they still remind us water is life and food is essential. At this beginning of John's long Bread of Life section, I agree with the commentator who said do not jump in right now and associate this feeding with the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, the Eucharist right away, even though here in John's account Jesus takes the loaves, gives thanks, and Jesus himself feeds the people. Did you notice there's no mention of water, fruit of the vine, or wine…?

Jesus' disciples would not have heard Jesus' words in this chapter in terms of the Last Supper/Lord's Supper or related to a post-resurrection Eucharistic meal with the risen Christ. Although Jesus' original long discourse would have been more scattered and piecemeal than what John's community gives us, as he wrote down his gospel John was very theologically intentional about the order of Jesus' words, and today's reading doesn't yet have Jesus' proclaim I Am the Bread of Life where Jesus not only gives the food, Jesus is the food, so let's wait on it.

Most of scripture closely aligns all facets of life. In fact, separating out sacred and mundane, religious and profane is somewhat post-enlightenment, which partly helps us appreciate (for example) Martin Luther's close alliance with political electors and royal princes in ways that horrify us today, and probably would even if we didn't live in a country where "religion shall not be established."


Bread and Fish Notes

This chapter happens during Passover. Just as at the first Passover, there's been a sea crossing, followed by bread in the wilderness. John 6:9 "Five barley loaves and two fish." Barley was one of the seven agricultural gifts of the promised land; barley was the coarser, less expensive poorer person's grain, and the barley harvest had the advantage of being ready before the wheat! Barley bread provided sustenance for the poor, and some in that culture considered fish a food of the gods.

To prepare for this blog, I listened to an oldish sermon by James Howell, whose blog is chock full of resources for scripture study, prayer, and daily Christian life. He mentioned "leftovers and baskets full" are the same words in Greek, but whatever happened to those leftovers? He added well… they just now fed the poor, and they didn't have plastic wrap. aluminum foil, to-go containers or really any safe long-term food storage options. Pastor Howell told us St. John Chrysostom suggests those extras went to people who were't present, possibly Judas Iscariot!

Howell also put out the idea the leftovers might have been thrown away. Maybe to feed birds or wild animals? I'd hope so! Jesus and his disciples lived in a mixed economy, with Roman taxes that helped maintain infrastructure and line politicians' pockets, and similar to our own economy of scarcity, too much money chased too few goods, so supply and demand determined prices. Bartering was a third aspect of their economy, to a greater extent than exchanges like babysitting for garden produce some of us do. We only can guess what happened to those leftovers, but we have very good knowledge of God's abundance, generosity, grace, supply—as in you can't out-give God! You've probably heard, "There's enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed?" More next week!


During distribution of the sacrament, the contemporary church often sings Sr. Suzanne Toolan's "I am the Bread of Life" musical setting of John 6.

I Am the Bread of Life

I am the bread of life
You who come to me shall not hunger
And who believe in me shall not thirst
No one can come to me
Unless the Father beckons

Refrain:

And I will raise you up
And I will raise you up
And I will raise you up on the last day

The bread that I will give
Is my flesh for the life of the world
And if you eat of this bread
You shall live forever
You shall live forever

[Refrain:]

I am the resurrection
I am the life
If you believe in me
Even though you die
You shall live forever

[Refrain:]

Yes Lord I believe
That you are the Christ
The Son of God
Who has come
Into the world

[Refrain:]

Scripture: John 6
Songwriter: Suzanne Toolan, RSM

Pentecost 8B

Psalm 23

¹The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
²He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
³He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For his name's sake.

⁴Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
⁶Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalms

The Psalter is the hymnal of the synagogue; some psalms even indicate specific instruments to play for accompaniment! The Psalter was the hymnal of John Calvin's Geneva Reform, and American Puritans sung only psalms during worship. Even now when hymnals of virtually all church and theological traditions include songs as diverse as plainsong, German chorales. ethnic folk tunes, classics from people like Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, twentieth-twenty-first century compositions, (etc.), some of those are either musical settings of psalms or psalm paraphrases.

Hebrew scripture roughly divides into three categories: Torah, or Pentateuch (five books of Moses); Prophets; Writings. The Psalter is part of the writings.

The Revised Common Lectionary includes a psalm for each Sunday. Technically the psalm is a response to the first lesson or reading, and not a standalone lection. The sung or spoken psalmody often reflects concepts or vocabulary from the first reading.


Psalm 23 and Shepherds

In the ecumenical 3-year long Revised Common Lectionary many churches follow, the fourth Sunday of Easter always is Good Shepherd Sunday, and the RCL appoints Psalm 23 several other times in the three year cycle. Including today! There are many MANY musical settings of Psalm 23 that include hymns, choral anthems, and hymns arranged for choir. I no longer blog YouTube links because so many are here today, gone tomorrow, but my own favorites include Virgil Thomson's "My Shepherd Will Supply my Need" to the Southern Harmony tune Resignation, along with Marty Haugen's more recent, "Shepherd Me, O God."

In the Ancient Near East, shepherd was a common image for a monarch or a god. In the bible we've met Moses and David as shepherds; in last Sunday's reading, the prophet Amos was a shepherd. Jesus declares himself the Good Shepherd. In Luke's gospel, shepherds (abiding in their fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night) first heard the good news of the birth of a Savior. Similar to many employment categories today, shepherds could belong to what we'd call a social underclass (as the Bethlehem sheep herders probably were), or they could have been part of a relatively affluent elite, as many scholars believe Amos, the prophet we studied last Sunday, may have been.


Psalm 23 – Word Pictures

Psalm 23 has a calm and restful reputation, but listen to the verbs, and you'll know it's full of action. Psalm 23 is familiar funeral scripture, but don't get sentimental! This ain't sweet repose, but assurance for rough tough times when valleys are deep, prospects bleak. Do we need hope for the post-COVID journey? With recent infection surges and new variants emerging, we may need more hope now than we would have imagined only three or four months ago.

Verses 1–3 talk about God; verses 4 and 5 are addressed God. Verse 6? Outcomes of God's actions, but "goodness and mercy will follow me" is much too tame; the Hebrew says goodness and mercy will pursue me, chase me down non-stop. "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" is part of what makes Psalm 23 popular at funerals and memorial services, but again the Hebrew conveys a slightly different perspective with "I shall return into the house of the Lord for length of days." This return isn't finally reaching a settled place as much as it is going home again. And again. It's not only Southern novelists who obsess about homecoming—we all yearn for and need places and people that know our name, where we can feast on favorites, where we can rest a while before we continue the journey.

After a year and a half and counting of COVID-19, let's take to heart Psalm 23's promises of God's presence and provision.


Write Your Own Psalm

Psalm 23's images and icons easily would have resonated with its original readers and singers. USA and Canada no longer are mostly rural; most readers of this blog probably grew up and currently reside in either a city or a suburb, but even if you haven't spent much time tilling soil, you've seen pictures and you know the planting – growing – harvesting cycle.

What words and visuals would you use in your own poetry to describe God's constant presence and provision? How would you paraphrase Psalm 23?

Pentecost 6B

Mark 6:1-13

¹Jesus left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. ²On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! ³Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. ⁴Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." ⁵And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. ⁶And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. ⁷He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. ⁸He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; ⁹but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. ¹⁰He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. ¹¹If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them."

¹²So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. ¹³They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

So far in Mark

So far in Mark, the shortest of the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) that view Jesus with a similar perspective, we've heard the opening announcement of Good News – "Gospel" – followed by Jesus' preparation for public ministry by receiving John's baptism of repentance, spending a time of solitary prayer and temptation, and then ministries of healing, exorcism (casting out demons, evil spirits, and what we might consider mental or psychological illnesses), calling followers or disciples, demonstrating the inclusive reign of God by eating with all comers, teaching theology with parables or comparisons, demonstrating his lordship of all creation by taming a storm, *even* restoring life to a young girl "at the point of death."


Today's Gospel Reading

Jesus returns to his hometown and his disciples follow him. He's on his own turf, with his own people—both family and friends. His teaching on the Sabbath in his home synagogue causes friends and family (not religious experts this time) to wonder about the source of his authority; after all, this Jesus is a regular person like everyone else. We also need to remember Jesus and his siblings would have grown up learning scripture, probably memorizing long passages. Any Jew in that time and place would have been scripturally and theologically literate. It wasn't unusual for a regular person like Jesus to read and teach in the Sabbath assembly; as in synagogues today, they had a custom of inviting congregants to read Torah on Sabbath.


Models for Ministry

We could say a lot about Jesus' friends and relatives not "getting" who he was, about how it feels when people don't understand us, the loneliness of not belonging; of being rejected or simply not welcome. Those can be important discussions in light of scripture. But for today, we hear about Jesus sending disciples to do the same ministry he has done. Jesus doesn't wait until their understanding and actions all are perfect; Jesus trusts and sends them as they are. They go out as sent people (apostles) because Jesus has authorized them.

At this particular time, Jesus sends his disciples out in pairs of two. He instructs them to go with only basics: sandals to protect their feet, a walking stick to help trudging over rough terrain—maybe to chase away snakes and vermin. He tells them not to take food or money! By the way, this is far from the only model for ministry and reaching-out evangelism, yet many follow the two by two, minimal supplies example.


Guests and Hosts: Where We Live

verse 10: Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place (locale).

Preaching, teaching, and healing are important aspects of twenty-first century Christian ministry for individuals and for larger entities like congregations, schools, and hospitals. All in all, we love to host other people. Every city has at least a dozen church-related food ministries and several housing/shelter services. Why not count ministries of music, visual arts, and dance in ways we host others, whether they're in the audience or we're instructing them? We're still the hosts-givers; they're our guests-recipients. And most of us strongly tend to do things in ways we'd appreciate, in a manner that resonates with our own background.

But here Jesus tells his disciples to let other people host them! Enjoy their hospitality; let them give to you. He tells them to make themselves at home among strangers.

Especially as cities and towns have become more culturally diverse, we've been aware of the need to contextualize our offerings to relate well to others' cultures and experience, that they'd consider welcoming rather than puzzling or offensive. How can we learn to host in ways they relate to… maybe by letting them host us?! We can learn about their food (eating it and preparing it), their table manners, their music, their traditions, geography and features in their countries of origin. We can learn basic words and phrases in their native languages.

If because of COVID, room capacity, and other concerns activities can't happen in a family's home, when protocols permit we can invite them to offer a meal or other activity in our church building. I'll add in here it feels absolutely okay to offer to help offset the cost of cooking or other supplies. Cash gifts can be tough to take, but we currently have a valid reason of almost everyone being at least somewhat financially challenged.

Pentecost 5B

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

⁷Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. ⁸I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. ⁹For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

¹⁰And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something— ¹¹now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means.

¹²For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. ¹³I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between ¹⁴your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. ¹⁵As it is written, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little."

All Who Love and Serve Your City

1. All who love and serve your city,
all who bear its daily stress,
all who cry for peace and justice,
all who curse and all who bless,

2. In your day of loss and sorrow,
in your day of helpless strife,
honor, peace, and love retreating,
seek the Lord, who is your life.

5. Risen Lord! shall yet the city
be the city of despair?
Come today, our Judge, our Glory;
be its name, "The Lord is there!"

Tune: Charlestown, from The Southern Harmony. Words: Erik Routley © 1969 by Stainer & Bell Ltd., administered by Hope Publishing Co., Carol Stream, IL 60188


Epistles / Corinth

An epistle is written communication – basically a letter – addressed to a person or group, although these days some blogs probably qualify as epistolary. Examples? Dispatches from the Front Lines online or in print. Lead article in the church's or organization's newsletter in print and/or on social media.

In addition to seven letters the Apostle Paul wrote to various churches, the New Testament contains other epistles attributed to him, as well as letters that cite Peter, John, and James as author. Back then when they didn't have elaborate and necessary copyright laws, attributing your writing to a well-known person was commonplace and not considered dishonest. Besides, a famous name probably would get more readers. New Testament epistles received editings and annotations as they circulated to different churches, so every word and phrase might not be from the original writer. Paul's letters were earlier than any of the gospels, predating even Mark's Gospel that scholars consider the first one written down. Over the centuries, the church has derived a whole lot of its more formal theology from Paul.

Today's second reading from 2 Corinthians addresses the Church at Corinth that famously was full of vanity, competition, and divisions that reflected the opulent, worldly style of the city of Corinth. Particularly as it relates to money and finances, this passage is a default go-to for stewardship campaigns. However, Paul doesn't focus on balancing the budget of the Corinthian Church; instead, he's concerned about connections and relationships between local churches. In this section of the letter he wants the mostly gentile Corinthian congregation to provide financial assistance to the mostly Jewish Jerusalem church. Twenty-plus centuries later, different denominations have different polities or governance structures, but whether highly centralized like today's Church at Rome or almost autonomous local churches like some free-standing Baptists, we're all inter-related and interdependent in Jesus Christ.


Grace and Economics

All of 2 Corinthians 8 says a great deal about grace; for today, Greek for "generous undertaking" in verse 7 is gracious endeavor and charges the Corinthians to excel or abound in grace because of Jesus Christ's "generous act" that's simply grace in verse 9 – "though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor" – and echoes Paul's earlier Philippians 2:6-7:

[Christ Jesus] had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!
The Message (MSG) © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson

In Greek, economics literally is the law of the household. Although verse 14 reads, "…so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance…" Christian economics is both material and spiritual and it's never zero-sum with one party depleted if they give to another. For Paul of Tarsus, the gospel is death and resurrection, so not surprisingly he relates the meaning and impact of gifts of cash in the light (and in the shadow) of Jesus' death and resurrection.

This reading easily expands to spiritual and material gifts of service, prayer, compassion, food, presence, clothing, facilities maintenance, knowledge, and other specialties as COVID-19 hopefully wanes and the world opens up. Stewardship and giving need to encompass (1) cash ("legal tender") to exchange for stuff we need but can't produce ourselves; (2) time we need to get things done; (3) talents we apply (spend – you may remember a talent was a chunk of money in Jesus' day) toward ongoing or one-time only ministries. And, of course, stewardship of God's gracious gifts incorporates intelligence, prayer, scripture study, and – to all outward appearances – doing nothing as we wait to discern and learn what's next for us.

I love how we see this scripture in action as G7 democracies pledge to gift COVID vaccines to less developed countries that can't produce or afford to buy their own.

Pentecost 4B

Prayer for Pentecost 4

Hello God,

Thanks for bringing us through the past year and a half into the beginning of a post-COVID reality. We've been reading Mark's gospel that often shows us Jesus in unexpected places. Mark's Jesus welcomes everyone into the Reign of Heaven on Earth and changes (much for the better!) the world people have known and expected it always to be. In Mark, we've seen Jesus speak hope into situations of need that aren't all that different from what we're experiencing now. Mark opens his gospel with "the beginning of the good news." Jesus calls us to continue his ministry. Thank you for trusting us to continue the good news!

Amen

©Leah Chang

Mark 4:35-41

³⁵On that same day, when evening had come, Jesus said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." ³⁶And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.

³⁷A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. ³⁸But Jesus 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?"

³⁹Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. ⁴⁰He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" ⁴¹And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Today's Good News

As we number Sundays after the Day of Pentecost, the Church's Year of Grace continues in a 6-month long green and growing season of Ordinary Time. "Ordinary" is common to all of us; it's structured, organized, ordered with a regularity about it.

This event happens "on the same day" as the scattered seeds and mustard seed agricultural parables we discussed last week. Today's gospel reading brings us water and the word. And yes, that provides more than a hint of baptism's power to drown old established systems and summon the new creation. This same story's also in Matthew 8:23-27 and Luke 8:22-25; Mark, Matthew, and John include a related narrative of Jesus walking on water. The actual body of water in this reading is freshwater Lake Galilee, but Mark always calls it the Sea of Galilee. In the Old Testament a sea or ocean often is a symbol or sign of chaos and disorder. Untamed waters in Genesis 1 and in Psalm 104 are the womb of creation. You remember the sea of the Exodus. Noah's flood. Jonah's ocean. And quite a few rivers besides the iconic Jordan. Check out today's reading from Job 38:1-11.

Jesus tells everyone they're going "across to the other side." That other side was where mostly non-Jews lived. Including everyone by bringing outsiders into the inside is a particular hallmark of Jesus' ministry in Mark.

This meteorological event is a great storm surrounded by great (mega in Greek) fear, with Jesus' word leading to great – mega – calm. "Fear" here really is frightened, terrified, scared, and not the "awe" fear of Luther's Small Catechism and some Psalms. In today's gospel reading, Jesus' word that subdues the water is the same word he used to exorcise the demon.

• Mark 1:25 Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit
• Mark 4:39 Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind


Into a Future

In our families, affinity groups, and communities we often encounter borders and boundaries. As COVID-19 cases have lessened and vaccines have rolled out, cities and states in the USA have been opening to almost pre-pandemic normal. We're now at a border between COVID and post-COVID. "A world in the wake of COVID" probably would be more accurate than "post-COVID." People only can imagine what their places of business, schools, churches (and yes, families) will look like a few months from now. We know God has gone to our futures before us and waits for us there.

Mark's gospel was written down around the time of the destruction of the second Jerusalem Temple, which served as a cultural, social, economic, and religious landmark for everyone. The J-Temple was THE reference point for every Jew. No more temple meant the end of the world as they'd known it.

Without being too cliché and without risking a merely "metaphoric" reading of scripture, although paintings of this sea scene by Rembrandt and other artists picture Jesus and disciples in a smallish boat, this scriptural account approaches a cosmic scope that can encompass memories and hopes of the Temple and other establishments. No more temple meant the end of the world as Jesus followers had known it. In this year 2021, we easily could parallel environmental devastation, cyberhacking, racism, democracies struggling against totalitarian governments (you easily can add to this list) as the end of worlds we had known and expected to continue. In addition, it's no stretch to equate the destruction of the J-Temple with ways COVID-19 has changed the shape and extent of the world as we'd known it. On some level most of us expected most of our worlds to remain static and stable, with any disruptions being gradual and humanly manageable.


Reflecting

• Mark 4:38 They call the sleeping Jesus "teacher."
• Mark 4:41 After Jesus tames the storm, the disciples ask "Who is this?"
• Who is Jesus for us?
• Who are we for Jesus?

Pentecost 3B

Mark 4:26-32

²⁶Jesus also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."

³⁰He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ³²yet 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."

The Good News According to Mark

As the church's year of grace moves into the green and growing Season of the Spirit or "Ordinary Time," we continue in the gospel according to St. Mark, the main gospel for Revised Common Lectionary Year B, Mark's year.

This gospel probably is not by Peter's ministry companion John Mark, but from an unknown author. Current consensus says Mark probably was compiled between 60 and 70, close to the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple. As the shortest gospel, Mark is the one for texting and tweeting.

Prior to Mark, good news or gospel was the returning Roman general's announcement of annihilating the other army's troops. This gospel according to Mark subverts that into the Good News of God's victory over the powers of sin and death, the triumph of the reign of life. The gospel of Jesus Christ is economic, political, religious, social, and cultural. The gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims life and brings new life – resurrection out of death – everywhere.

Mark has no birth narrative; no resurrection account. Mark particularly asks and answers where do we find God? We find God not in established religious, economic, political institutions, but outside the city limits, in the wilderness. We discover God in the stranger and outcast. On the margins rather than at the center. In, with, and under all creation. We supremely find God in the openness, exposure, and vulnerability of a condemned human dying on the cross.


Agricultural Parables

A parable is a comparison, analogy, illustration: the kingdom of heaven is like; the reign of God is like. Parable means to put something alongside something else, to make a parallel. Sometimes it feels as if Jesus had a particular meaning in mind; other parables lend themselves to a variety of interpretations. Teaching and explaining with comparisons was common in Jesus' rabbinic tradition and in the Hellenistic world. Please note… a parable is not an earthly story with a heavenly meaning; if anything, a parable is a heavenly story with an earthly meaning.

As necessary as it is to plan, plant, and tend crops to feed and nurture people and animals, this Sunday's pair of parables of the Kingdom of God demonstrate the role of God's grace rather than human endeavors in the growth of the reign of heaven among us (and in the growth of some fruit of the earth).


Scattered Seeds

This simple story about scattered seed in Mark 14:26-29 is unique to Mark's gospel. Jesus says someone scatters seed (they don't carefully plant it) and while the farmer sleeps "…the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself…"

14:28 "the earth produces of itself" literally is automatically; "spontaneously" also works. I found a couple of internet meme-worthy phrases: "While you sleep, the gospel will grow." "We sow – God grows."

It's important to stick to what the parable actually says and not expand it to what it doesn't say. Of course farmers need to take care of the earth; planters need to pay attention to seasons and agricultural cycles; most crops need to be watered; different types of crops do best in certain kinds of soil; some need particular fertilizers, but that's a concern for another time.

Both this scattered seeds account and the mustard seed story mainly describe God's inbreaking realm with images Jesus' agriculture-savvy audience easily could compare with their direct experiences or observations of farming. For sure we can equate the scattered (not carefully planted) seed with telling people about the good news of Jesus, with small gestures of love, caring, compassion, and service. All of these tend to multiply in close to imperceptible ways. People often resolve to pay forward a kindness or goodness, and they usually do, and that typically leads to further expansion of the Good Stuff.

Last week we mentioned Jesus calls us to be apostles, as people Jesus sends out (an apostle literally is a sent person) to continue his ministry of loving and reconciling the world. The Greek for "goes in with his sickle" in 14:29 derives from apostle.


Mustard Seeds

Besides Mark 14:30-32, synoptic gospels Luke 13:18-19 and Matthew 13:31-32 include the renowned Mustard Seed parable. You've likely heard the mustard seed is far from the smallest seed and doesn't grow into "the greatest of all shrubs," but it does get big enough to provide shelter for birds and small animals. Remembering this is a parable about God's kingdom or reign rather than a farming handbook, just as mustard seeds expand from something small and hard to notice into a big bush that's impossible to miss, the tiny seeds of love, hope, and care we (mostly randomly) plant ultimately grow into something big enough to fill the world. Like the sower in the first parable and the mustard planter in the second, we don't need to do anything more than take that loving action. We don't need to engineer, plan, or add on additional value. God's grace takes care of the outcome, which frequently is far disproportionate to the original input.

Maybe Jesus was being ironic with this story, because few people would intentionally plant mustard seeds. Mustard already was "there," and prolific most places, though just as now, mustard had medicinal value and culinary uses for seasoning and salads. Small mustard seeds grow into a shrub (technically mustard is a vegetable-not-a-shrub, "plant" will work) big enough to shelter birds and small animals and it can't easily be eliminated. I'm not sure invasive is the proper term, but from this non-gardener's perspective it appears invasive as it doesn't honor pre-determined boundaries or limits. This is a parable of the Kingdom of God, of the gospel that ultimately spreads everywhere, ignores established limits and conventions, and becomes part of every facet of existence.

Related to God's constant reminder for us to remember (I led you through the desert, I quenched your thirst with water from the rock, I fed you with manna, I zapped your enemies, I made you my chosen), I recently heard, "Remember! God runs in my direction when the whole world walks away." Like mustard plants that spread everywhere and can't easily be rooted up and done away with, God's boundless mercy and love is here to stay. Like mustard plants that spread everywhere, we can show God's mercy and love everywhere we go.

This is a parable of the gospeled reign of God in Christ Jesus. In the Old Testament, trees and sheltering branches are metaphors or images for political rule and sovereignty, and not always of the desirable divine kind. Jesus' audience would have recognized the symbolism and considered this parable a hope-filled promise of God's reign: a heavenly story with an earthbound outcome.


This Week's Questions

• What tiny seeds or other inputs can you think of that often result in a big outcome? I read the size of a COVID-19 vaccine dose is about the size of a teardrop. As more and more people get vaccinated, protection against getting infected will spread further and further, so herd immunity may become possible, after all.
• Birds can nest in the mustard tree's shade. What biblical images of shade do you remember? Especially consider the psalms. What are some contemporary twenty-first meanings of shade?
• Question to gardeners and famers: is there actually such a thing as a weed, or does calling a plant "weed" depend entirely on context?
• What part of nature would you compare or parallel to God's Kingdom or reign? An animal? Tree? Plant? Biome such as mountain, prairie, or desert?
• Around here mustard plants interspersed with California golden poppies create such visual beauty! Most California mustard is Brassica tournefortii (known as Asian, African, or Saharan Mustard), so a different variety than Jesus' who probably talked about Brassica nigra or black mustard. The mostly Southern cuisine I grew up with often served mustard, dandelion, collard, or other greens. My research into the mustard seed parable reminded me mustard is a cruciferous veggie and part of the cabbage family.

Pentecost 2B

Prayer: Hearing the Word

Gracious God, illumine these words by your Spirit that we might hear what you would have us hear and be who you would have us be, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Amen.

By John Wurster; used with permission

Mark 3:19b-35

¹⁹Then Jesus went home, ²⁰and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind." ²²And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons."

²³And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. ²⁷But 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.

²⁸"Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; ²⁹but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"— ³⁰for they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."

³¹Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. ³²A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you." ³³And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" ³⁴And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

Sundays after Pentecost

Today the Church's year of grace moves into a half-year of Ordinary Time, and we start counting Sundays after the Day of Pentecost. Ordinary refers to ordered and organized rather than mundane or commonplace, but we hold these Sundays in common with most denominations, church bodies, and traditions. During this green and growing Season of the Spirit, time of the church, we especially emphasize the contemporary Acts of the Apostles (that's us!).


The Gospel According to Mark

This is Mark's year in the Revised Common Lectionary that provides our scripture readings. Mark is the earliest and shortest of the four canonical gospels; Mark is particularly apocalyptic. An apocalypse is a revealing or uncovering—something like an epiphany. Apocalyptic typically employs contrasting dualism: light-dark; heaven-hell; empty-full; good-evil; near-far. Signs, imagery, and symbols in apocalyptic literature sometimes have an easily discernible meaning; other times it's best to consider its context within an entire passage.

Mark's gospel brings us the inbreaking rule or reign of God—the end of the world as we've known it. Mark answers the question "Where do we find God?" Not far away in an unreachable heavenly location; not enthroned in the temple; not in conventional religious, economic, political, social, and cultural persons and establishments. Especially in Mark's gospel, we find Jesus outside the city limits (remember the location of the Calvary cross), outside the center of almost everything, on the margins, in the stranger, the outsider, and the outcast, even in those falling off the edge of the edges. More than in the other gospels, Mark's Jesus acts outside of regulation and convention as he offers limitless mercy, inclusion, forgiveness, and grace. Jesus in Mark erases old boundaries and redraws them to include everyone.

Just as with Luke, Jesus' journey to the cross in Mark is especially intentional and incessant. Particularly for Mark, the cross is the ultimate revelation of Jesus' identity and mission; the cross also reveals our identity and mission as the church, as people Jesus sends out (an apostle literally is a sent person) in the power of the Spirit to continue his ministry of loving and reconciling the world. Related to the gospel reading for today, in The Interpreter's Bible Commentary, Lamar Williamson, Jr. makes the noun apostle into a verb, and declares we have been "Apostled for proclamation and the removal of demons."


So Far in Mark

Mark 1

• Good News / Gospel announcement (no genealogy, no birth narrative). "Gospel" is a short form of Godspell or God's Spell you may remember from the musical Stephen Schwartz and John Michael Tebelak based on Matthew's gospel.
• John the Baptist in the Jordan River wilderness
• Jesus joins John's riverside assembly and John baptizes him.
• Forty days of temptation in the even deeper desert wilds
• Back in his hometown Galilee, Jesus announces now is the time! The reign (kingdom) of God has come near.
• Jesus calls fisher brothers Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John Zebedee as his first disciples.
• In his first act of public ministry, Jesus drives out a demon after teaching in the synagogue during services.
• Jesus heals Peter's mother in law.
• Casts out "many demons" who recognize Jesus
• Heals a leper

Mark 2

• Another healing (the scribes don't like this)
• Calls tax collector Levi
• Eats with sinners and tax collectors (once again, scribes don't like this at all)
• Question about fasting
• About doing good deeds on the Sabbath

Mark 3

• Heals / does good on the Sabbath again. After this the Pharisee religious leaders conspire to get rid of Jesus
• More healing – this time by the water feature that's technically Lake Galilee, not a sea or an ocean
• Jesus specially calls and appoints twelve apostles. A rabbi would need ten disciples or followers to be credible; Jesus added two more to that number.


Kinship, Authority, Family

Today's gospel reading continues chapter 3. Cast of characters include a crowd, Jesus' family of origin, and hyper-religious scribes from Jerusalem. Verse 23 tells us Jesus spoke in parables, a type of story we know from Mark and from the other synoptic gospels Matthew and Luke. A parable makes us listen – and hear – beyond the immediately obvious.

In Jesus' time and place, biological family or household determined a person's social and economic trajectory. Family would be comprised of several generations and stretch horizontally to include cousins. It was far removed from the nuclear Western family of parents, grands, and offspring that started at the turn of the twentieth century, eons away from the post-World War II mid-twentieth century phenomenon of parents and kids that prevailed for (maybe) a couple of decades.

In Jesus' time and place, Jerusalem scribes were highly-regarded experts on everything Torah and Temple; they had extremely high religious and social standing. In this reading, Jesus has gone home to Galilee; that means those scribes had journeyed a distance to scope out and engage the itinerant rabbi who'd been making radical claims and causing crazy commotions. In this anecdote, both family and religious leaders mis-identify Jesus' person and purpose. By looking only at the surface, they simply perceive his actions as being outside of conventional kinship and religious behaviors and apparently never wonder about a meaning beyond the obvious.

Mark's Jesus brings us the inbreaking rule or reign of God—the end of the world as we've known it; Mark's gospel or good news often describes the world newly reordered by the Word in vividly contrasting apocalyptic images. In Mark, Jesus especially engages religious, economic, and political institutions: The Establishment. Mark particularly unmasks the systemic brokenness and sin that's within all institutions and structures that yet remain necessary for the world to keep spinning. In Jesus' first act of public ministry in Mark [1:21-26], he exorcises or expels a demon in the midst of a synagogue service. Talk about conventional, established religion! It even has its own fixed meeting place!

Although "house" in this scripture can mean a domestic dwelling, it equally applies to any structure or infrastructure that needs to cohere and function in order to function as intended. Thus, Jesus refers to a kingdom divided, a house divided, Satan against himself. (Satan is the prosecuting attorney in Hebrew anthropology, and not necessarily a personification of evil). As we've especially been learning over the past few years, systemic and institutional injustice, inequities, sin, ineffectiveness, and brokenness happen because of far more than inept actions of individuals, occurs from much more than good or bad or indifferent organizational or institutional pronouncements and activities—a type of dysfunctional disease pervades them. No single action or decision of an individual or corporate entity has caused them to break; no righteous move or loving resolve has enough power to breathe life back into them.

Today's reading doesn't say Jesus expelled another demon or incubus, but he spoke in understandable religious and cultural terms. Whatever our own location in time and place, words like "demonic, satanic" describe forces outside our control very well.


Where We Live: Today's Gospel

"A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to Jesus, '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, Jesus said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.'" Mark 3:32-35

During this green and growing Season of the Spirit, time of the church, we especially emphasize the contemporary Acts of the Apostles (that's us!). Jesus invites us to join his new family configuration by claiming our baptismal gift of the Holy Spirit and following him into the world where he waits for us. Jesus apostles us to proclaim the end of the broken, death-dealing, dysfunctional world as we've known it and (in the power of the Holy Spirit) to remove demons. Yay!