Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for June 23, 2019
First Reading (Track One): 1 Kings 19:1-15
The long, green-vested season after Pentecost now begins, and will continue through the end of November, focusing on Jesus’ life and work as told in the Gospel of Luke.
Heilung des Besessenen (Healing of the demon-possessed), medieval illumination in the Ottheinrich folio, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library). (Click image to enlarge.)
Our first readings during this time will present the prophets of the Hebrew Bible; our second readings will draw from the letters to the Galatians, the Colossians, First and Second Timothy, and Second Thessalonians. Sunday’s Track One first reading shows us the prophet Elijah, a bold man in violent times, who spoke truth to power while the Kingdom of Israel was falling apart. Now, worn down by his work and on the brink of despair, afraid of angry Queen Jezebel’s revenge, he hides under a broom tree and begs God to take his life. But God sends winds, an earthquake and fire to get Elijah back to God’s work.
First Reading (Track Two): Isaiah 65:1-9
We now return to the long season after Pentecost. Although it was once called “ordinary time,” we should not think of it as a less important liturgical season than the Incarnation at Christmas or the Resurrection at Easter: Now the life and works of Jesus come to the fore. In our Track Two first reading we are near the end of Isaiah’s great book of prophecy. God, speaking through the prophet, is angry because the people who returned from exile are already breaking the covenant, ignoring the Law, eating unclean food, and even worshiping idols. God is beyond anger and is ready to kill them all. But God will be just: Those who have been rebellious, who have provoked God’s anger, must pay with their lives. But God will not destroy them all. A remnant will remain to inherit Zion, God’s holy hill.
Psalm: (Track One): Psalms 42 and 43
Today’s two connected Psalms, the first two psalms in the second of the five books within the Psalms, sing with beautiful poetic language. They are filled with lamentation but end at last in hope and faith. The Psalmist’s soul longs for God as a deer longs for water; his soul thirsts for God. But when faith falters, the Psalmist asks over and over why God has forgotten him. Finally, though, faith wins as he begs God to send out light and truth, and lead him to God’s holy hill.
Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 22:18-27
In words that seem consistent with God’s response to Isaiah’s plea not to slay all of Israel, today’s Psalm calls on God to stay close, to protect the people from danger, from the sword and from wild animals. Let all the congregation praise the lord, we sing. Let Israel stand in awe of God, and know that God works justice and righteousness to all who seek and praise God, not least the hungry poor who seek God for protection and food.
Second Reading: Galatians 3:23-29
In his letter to the churches of Galatia (a region in central Asia Minor near what is now Ankara, Turkey,) Paul makes a strong argument to the communities’ largely Gentile new Christians: Gentiles are welcome into the infant church, and they need not strictly follow Jewish laws. They need not keep kosher nor be circumcised. Gentiles are in no way second-class Christians, Paul proclaims, in beautiful, inclusive language that rings through the ages: There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of us are one in Jesus. All are heirs to God’s covenant with Abraham.
Gospel: Luke 8:26-39
Having just landed in a Gentile community on the far side of the Sea of Galilee (following a stormy trip in which Jesus calmed the fierce waters that frightened his disciples), Jesus encounters a noisy, scary man, naked and in chains. The man, or perhaps the legion of demons, recognizes Jesus as “Son of the Most High God.” Jesus sends the man’s demons into a herd of pigs, who rush into the Sea of Galilee and drown! This raises so many questions! What were Jesus and the apostles doing in a graveyard in the first place, which would have made them unclean under Jewish law? Why did the demons talk to Jesus, and why did he answer them!? Why did the whole business prompt the neighbors to ask Jesus to leave town? And why, when the healed man wanted to join Jesus’ followers, did Jesus tell him no, go back to your people and tell them what God has done? This remarkable story leaves us wondering. So many questions!