Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Nov. 17, 2024 (Pentecost 26B/Proper 28)

The destruction of the temple of Jerusalem (1867), oil painting on canvas by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882). Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, Italy. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): 1 Samuel 1:4-20

At the beginning of the season after Pentecost back in June, we read about the Prophet Samuel, who followed God’s commands to find the young shepherd David, who would become Israel’s king. Now, as the Pentecost season nears its end, we return to the first book of Samuel to hear the story of Samuel’s mother, Hannah, who was anguished and suffered verbal abuse because she couldn’t bear a child. She opened her heart in prayer and discovered that God remained with her in her time of trouble and pain. Her prayers were answered. She found joy, giving birth to Samuel, who became the last of the great judges who governed Israel before the time of its kings.

First Reading (Track Two): Daniel 12:1-3

The long Pentecost season is drawing to its close. In two weeks, Advent will begin, starting a new Lectionary year. Sunday’s readings foreshadow a central theme of Advent: our hope of resurrection and new life. Our Track Two first reading is from the book of Daniel. Its narrative reflects Israel’s persecution under Greek rule in the 2nd century BCE. This reading begins Daniel’s lengthy “apocalyptic” vision – a genre similar to Revelation – that envisions ultimate triumph. It introduces the idea of a general bodily resurrection of all the dead, the first time that this theological concept is raised in the Hebrew Bible.

Psalm (Track One): 1 Samuel 2:1-10

In place of a psalm, this alternative Track One reading steps forward a page or two in 1 Samuel to sing the prayer of Hannah, celebrating her joy at the birth of her child Samuel. These words of hope and strength clearly foreshadow the Song of Mary, the Magnificat, that the mother-to-be of Jesus sings in Luke’s Gospel. Both Hannah’s and Mary’s prayers celebrate the God who lifts up the lowly and the poor while casting down the rich and powerful. But Mary won’t echo the strong words of vengeance against enemies that we hear in Hannah’s song.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 16

Just as the first reading from Daniel promises a heavenly reward to those who remain faithful, Psalm 16 reassures the people that God will not abandon those who always follow God. But, the Psalmist goes on, a different, harsher fate awaits the unfaithful, those who follow other gods: They may see their troubles multiplied, and God will not so much as speak the names of their gods. God will never abandon those who remain faithful, though: The hearts of the faithful will be glad and their spirits will rejoice.

Second Reading: Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25

We come to the end of our seven-week journey through the letter to the Hebrews. This passage concludes its lengthy narrative describing Jesus as a great high priest who offered himself as one sacrifice for all times, superior to the sacrifices by the priests in the Temple of Jerusalem, who had to perform sacrifices again and again. Echoing themes in Sunday’s other readings, this passage calls on its audience to hold fast without wavering, provoking each other to love and good deeds, encouraging one another all the more as they see the Day of the Lord approaching.

Gospel: Mark 13:1-8

Jesus’s words about wars, earthquakes, and famines in Sunday’s Gospel give us a taste of the apocalyptic prophecies that will draw our attention through Advent. These verses follow immediately after last week’s account of Jesus watching the poor woman giving her last two coins to the Temple treasury. Jesus, still angered by the hypocrisy of the scribes, utters his own version of an apocalypse, declaring that the Temple will be destroyed, thrown down, not one stone left upon another. As Mark’s Gospel now turns toward the cross, these words will soon be held against Jesus before the Temple’s high priest.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Nov. 10, 2024 (Pentecost 25B/Proper 27)

The widow’s mite (1876), oil painting on canvas by João Zeferino da Costa (1840-1915). Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Ruth, a recently widowed young Moabite woman, has settled in Bethlehem with her Israelite mother-in-law, Naomi, who is also a widow. In the tough world that widows and orphans faced in those times, one of them needs to find a husband to save the family from poverty. Through a bit of trickery suggested by Naomi, Ruth persuades her kinsman Moab to marry her. It works, and the couple has a child named Obed. Why is this little story placed in context with the books about Israel’s evolution as a nation that bracket it in the Hebrew Bible? The final verses of this reading reveal the answer: The child Obed will become the grandfather of King David, placing Ruth and Moab in the ancestral line of Israel’s Messiah.

First Reading (Track Two): 1 Kings 17:8-16

Both tracks of Sunday’s first readings introduce us to tough widows who do what needs to be done; and they foreshadow another generous widow in Mark’s Gospel. In this Track Two first reading, God commands the prophet Elijah to go to a poor widow – a foreigner, not an Israelite – who will feed him. When Elijah arrives, the widow is, quite reasonably, reluctant. She has nothing but crumbs, she says. The region is suffering a famine, and she and her son are near death from hunger. But they all trust in God, and a miracle ensues: She follows Elijah’s instructions, makes cakes from the paltry provisions, and her tiny supply of oil and meal feed everyone and last until the drought ends.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 127

Resonating with the themes In the passage from Ruth, Psalm 127 celebrates the importance of maintaining home and family. In the ancient Near East, it was difficult for a family to survive without strong sons to build the home, grow crops, and protect the family from invaders. Sons like these are gifts that can come only as a blessing from God, the Psalmist sings. God builds the house, watches over the city like a watchman keeping vigil, and provides children as a gift to God’s people: a quiver full of God-given arrows to help protect against enemies.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 146

Psalm 146 begins as a hymn of praise to God, but it soon turns to earthly matters: God can be trusted, but earthly rulers cannot. “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, the Psalmist warns, “for there is no help in them.” We should place our hope in God, our creator, instead, who gives hope to widows and orphans; help for the poor, justice for the oppressed, freedom for the prisoner, and help for those who are disabled, alone, strangers in strange lands. God shall reign forever, through all generations.

Second Reading: Hebrews 9:24-28

The Letter to the Hebrews continues its extended discourse contrasting Jesus favorably as the great High Priest, against the writer’s view of the deficiencies of the Jerusalem Temple’s earthly high priests. The Temple, in this account, is merely a copy of God’s domain, and its high priests found it necessary to sacrifice animals on the people’s behalf repeatedly, year after year, in a ritual that does not last. But, it continues, Jesus sacrificed himself once for all. When Jesus returns, there’ll be no need for further sacrifice to deal with sin – that work has already been done. Jesus will come to save his faithful people who eagerly wait for him.

Gospel: Mark 12:38-44

Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem on his final journey, and he is challenging the religious and political establishment in ways that will turn them angrily against him. First he scorns the scribes for their arrogance and hypocrisy. He mocks them for flaunting their wealth and power with ostentatious dress and prayer while they “devour widows’ houses.” Then, as Jesus sits near the Temple treasury, watching believers make their donations, a poor widow appears. She has little, but in contrast with the scribes, she gives two small coins: all that she has. Jesus praises her, not for giving all that she had, but because she gave it from her heart. It was not the quantity but the quality of her giving that mattered.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Nov. 3, 2024 (Pentecost 24B/Proper 26)

Christ Among the Scribes (1587), triptych by Frans Francken I (1542-1616). Cathedral of our Lady, Antwerp, Belgium. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Ruth 1:1-18

In the midst of the Hebrew Bible’s books that tell the stories of Israel and its kingdom, tucked in between Joshua and Judges, Samuel and Kings, we find the short, charming book of Ruth. These opening verses tell a love story about Ruth, a young Moabite widow, who follows her beloved mother-in-law, Naomi, back home to Bethlehem after Ruth’s husband’s death. In today’s verses – a passage often chosen for use in weddings – we hear Ruth promise Naomi that she will loyally stay with her: “Where you go, I will go; you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

First Reading (Track Two): Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Foreshadowing Sunday’s Gospel, our Track Two second reading tells of Moses giving the people the Shema, the short prayer that is central to Jewish worship in Jesus’ time and on to today: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” God commanded that the people keep this prayers in their hearts, teach it to their children, bind it to their hands and foreheads, and fix it on their doorposts.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 146

Singing the praise of God who cares for God’s people and loves us deeply, the Psalmist calls us to look beyond earthly rulers, who cannot help us in the long run. Rather, place our hope in God, creator of the earth and all that is in it, who reigns forever, the Psalmist sings. God’s caring justice favors the poor and the oppressed, those most in need: Hungry people, prisoners. those who are blind; the stranger, the widow, the orphan; those weighed down by life’s load. In caring for the least among us, as Jesus would later call on us to do, God cares for us all.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 119:1-8

Psalm 119, the longest of all the Psalms, devotes all its 176 verses to a consistent message: God’s decrees, God’s law and teaching given in the Torah, are wonderful, and following them makes us happy. The ideas that we hear today in the first eight verses of the Psalm continue throughout, and they echo the covenant between God and Moses at Mount Sinai: Those who follow God’s teaching and walk in God’s ways will be rewarded. Keep us steadfast in following this teaching, the Psalmist prays, asking in turn not to be forsaken.

Second Reading: Hebrews 9:11-14

We continue reading in the letter to the Hebrews, and the author is sticking with the theme we heard in last week’s passage: In his effort to bring backsliding Jewish converts back to the infant church, the author of Hebrews continues to lift up Jesus as a great high priest superior to the old high priests of the Temple. Jesus serves as priest in a perfect tent that is not part of this creation, we are told; he entered the Holy Place not through the blood sacrifice of goats and calves but with his own blood. Through this sacrifice, we are told, we all are purified in body and soul.

Gospel: Mark 12:28-34

A lot has happened since we left Jesus with the no longer blind Bartimaeus in Jericho last Sunday. We have skipped over Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem amid waving palms and high hosannas; Jesus has overturned the money changers’ tables and gotten into several arguments with the Scribes and Pharisees, who have started plotting to kill Jesus. But now another kind of scribe emerges. This scribe approaches Jesus kindly and asks him to name the greatest commandment. Jesus replies, as a proper rabbi should, with the Shema. Then he adds a second: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The scribe agrees, adding that all this is greater than burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Oct. 27, 2024 (Pentecost 23B/Proper 25)

Christ Giving Sight to Bartimaeus (1799-1800), tempera, pen and black ink on canvas by William Blake (1757-1827). Yale University Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Job 42:1-6, 10-17

The cosmic conversation between God and Job comes to its happy conclusion. Earlier we have heard Job angrily wondering why God would not respond to him. Then we saw Job standing awestruck as God spoke from a whirlwind about the magnificence of the divine creation, in comparison with which Job is tiny and insignificant. Now, in the last chapter of the book, Job responds. He quietly, faithfully accepts God’s power. Having seen and heard God, he can only despise himself, repenting in dust and ashes. But then the world turns and the story ends in restoration: God ensures that Job’s fortunes are double what they had been before. Job lives a long life amid riches, a big family and the respect of his friends.

First Reading (Track Two): Jeremiah 31:7-9

When God is with us, when God saves us; when God makes us well and showers grace upon us, we can hardly help but express our gratitude and joy with shouts of thanksgiving and praise. Hold this theme of gratitude and grace as we reflect on Sunday’s readings. First, we turn to Jeremiah after having heard Isaiah’s meditation last week on Israel’s Suffering Servant carrying the pain of exile. Now we hear Jeremiah speaking to Israel in exile with loving words of comfort and joy. God will bring the remnant of Israel out of exile, the prophet foretells. The weak and the strong, mothers and children, those who can’t see and those who can’t walk, all will return home together, weeping with joy, praising God and giving thanks.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22)

A good thematic fit with the Track One readings for the day, this portion of Psalm 34 meshes nicely with the story of Job. Titled “Praise for Deliverance from Trouble” in the New Revised Standard Version, it begins with a song of praise, singing our intention to bless and praise God at all times. When King David, imagined as the author of this Psalm, found himself in a dangerous place, he prayed for deliverance from his terror. God indeed saved him from all his troubles, and he responded with joy: “Taste and see that God is good; happy are they who trust in the Most High!”

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 126

The pain of exile and the joy of return resonate through many of the psalms, as they do in Psalm 126. Its joyful verses harmonize with Jeremiah’s hopeful prophecy of return and repose. The Psalmist celebrates Israel’s restoration on Mount Zion, the home of the Temple in Jerusalem: “Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.” In a striking agricultural metaphor, the people sing in memory of ancestors who sowed with tears but reaped with songs of joy. They went out weeping, carrying seed, but then brought home ripe sheaves of grain, joyfully shouting thanksgiving.

Second Reading: Hebrews 7:23-28

Seeking to bring Jewish converts back to the infant church, the author of Hebrews compares Judaism unfavorably to Christianity in words that sound less than generous to modern ears. These verses, building on those that went before, declare that Jesus is a far greater high priest than the old high priests of the Temple: The Jewish high priests were mere mortal, sinful humans, who had to purify themselves repeatedly through constant sacrifices because they were weak. Unlike the other high priests, this passage concludes, Jesus has no need to offer sacrifices day after day: Jesus did all this for everyone when he offered himself.

Gospel: Mark 10:46-52

Like other disabled people in Jesus’s time, a blind person had little option but to beg for basic sustenance. Their neighbors often assumed that their disability was punishment for some grievous sin. Even now, physical blindness remains an enduring metaphor for willful refusal to “see” or believe. So Bartimaeus’s neighbors had little but pity to offer Bartimaeus as he sat at the side of the Jericho road begging for alms. So when Bartimaeus heard Jesus passing by, he yelled as loud as he could, asking Jesus to have mercy on him. Jesus listened and healed him, declaring that his faith had made him well. And Bartimaeus, his sight restored, chose to follow Jesus.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Oct. 20, 2024 (Pentecost 22B/Proper 24)

James and John stand on either side of Jesus in this Orthodox icon of Jesus and the apostles. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Job 38:1-7, 34-41

Job has been loudly lamenting his condition and looking everywhere for God, angrily demanding that God come out of hiding and hear him. Now Job gets his wish. God speaks to him out of a whirlwind in power and might, and quickly sets Job in his place, hurling poetic words at Job like thunderbolts: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” There is no promise that chaos and disaster will not occur in wind and flood and starvation. Nothing in creation is greater than its Creator.

First Reading (Track Two): Isaiah 53:4-12

Throughout Sunday’s readings we hear of servant leadership, sacrifice, and walking humbly with our God. Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant,” who we meet often in our readings (most recently only last month) may make us think of Jesus in his willing sacrifice to bear the sins of many. In its original context, though, Isaiah writes of the servant’s suffering in the past tense, remembering Israel itself as the servant, the sacrificial pain of its sad exile now finally come to an end.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 104:1-9,35, 37c

Psalm 104, a hymn of exaltation, surely rang out over the ancient Temple in Jerusalem amid blasts on the shofar and shouts of praise. The Psalmist envisions God clothed in majesty and splendor, wrapped in a cloak of light that crosses the heavens. God rides across the world on the wings of clouds, spreading out mountains and valleys, oceans and rivers, setting Earth immovably on its foundations and separating the land from the water.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 91:9-16

In Psalm 91 we offer grateful thanksgiving to God as our protector and provider. In a striking catalogue of the many bad things that can happen to good people – evil events, plague, injury, even attacks by lions and venomous serpents – the Psalmist reminds us that we live in God’s shadow. We recognize God as our refuge and our stronghold. God will help us because we are bound to God in love. When we call on God, God will answer.

Second Reading: Hebrews 5:1-10

These verses from the letter to the Hebrews presents Jesus as the perfect high priest, a new high priest with a new covenant and new sacrifice. But this high position did not come easily. Because Jesus was fully human, he was not immune from suffering; he suffered “with loud cries and tears.” He learned obedience through his suffering, even as God’s own Son and the perfect image of God. Thus Jesus became the greatest of the line of priests that began with King Melchizedek, the first high priest named in Genesis.

Gospel: Mark 10:35-45

Jesus nicknamed James and John “the Sons of Thunder,” and they do seem to be a fiery pair. We saw them thundering just a few weeks ago, when they complained that other people were casting out demons in Jesus’s name. Now they are acting clueless again. They don’t ask Jesus, they tell Jesus that they want to sit at his side in God’s kingdom. Jesus has news for them: To follow Jesus we must be servants, not those served; if we wish to be first, we must become the slave of all.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Oct. 13, 2024 (Pentecost 21B/Proper 23)

Christ and the Rich Young Ruler (1889), oil painting on canvas by Heinrich Hofmann (1824-1911). Riverside Church, New York. Ironically, this painting was purchased for Riverside Church by John D Rockefeller Jr., one of the richest men in the world. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Tormented beyond imagination, Job has lost everything. All his possessions and much of his family are gone. His friends, seeking to console him, have done a very poor job of showing compassion. He must have done something wrong, they scolded him in the verses just before this reading. Did his lack of piety or his great wickedness anger God. Now Job responds with bitter, angry words: He deserves a chance to lay out the facts. He has a right to argue his case before God. If only God will hear him, he is sure that he will prevail. He looks in every direction, he can’t find God anywhere. Terrified, he wants to vanish into darkness. Next week, we hear God’s reply.

First Reading (Track Two): Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

We are called to subject ourselves to God, to behave justly, and to give generously to the poor, never stealing from or harming those who are less favored than we are. Listen for this theme through Sunday’s Lectionary readings. In our Track Two first reading the Prophet Amos warns Israel’s Northern Kingdom that its practice of living well while trampling the poor will lead to disaster at the hands of the Assyrians. “Seek good and not evil,” urges the prophet. Indeed, just a few verses after this passage, Amos will utter this familiar call to the people of God: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 22:1-15

When Jesus was dying on the cross, in his final agony he cried out the words that begin Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Psalmist’s pain revealed in these verses seem to echo Job’s lament. This is the cry of one who has suffered as Job has suffered, mocked by those around him and sunk in the depth of despair. He thinks that he has no place to turn. And yet God remains, the creator who knew him as an infant and who, he prays, will remember him now.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 90:12-17

We jump in to the middle of this Psalm in Sunday’s readings, skipping past the first portion in which the writer – held by unlikely tradition to be Moses himself – has warned of God’s anger with a sinful people. In these verses we plead with God to return, to show loving-kindness, to teach the people to be wise, and to replace our adversity with gladness. Through God’s works, grace and splendor, we pray, may the people be wise, turn the work of our hands to God’s purposes, and enjoy prosperity as the result of our handiwork.

Second Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16

Perhaps this passage from the letter to the Hebrews unintentionally reveals its roots in Roman persecution of the early church that had led some Christians to abandon their faith out of fear. It speaks of Jesus in terms that we seldom associate with the Good Shepherd: “sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow … before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare …” And yet, though we are called to account before God, we know that Jesus, as fully human, knows and understands us: Through Jesus, the living and active word of God and our great high priest we receive God’s mercy and grace.

Gospel: Mark 10:17-31

“Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor … then come, follow me.” Really? Stewardship season is coming soon, when we will be invited to pledge our support of the church. Luckily for us, however, we’re not expected to give everything we own – are we? Perhaps these verses, like the Sermon on the Mount, challenge us by setting Jesus as a standard of perfection that we can aim for but won’t likely reach. Or perhaps we are meant to squirm, remembering just how rich we are, and ask ourselves if our possessions in any way stand between us and real love of God and neighbor.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Oct. 6, 2024 (Pentecost 20B/Proper 22)

Job on the Ash Heap (c.1630), oil painting on canvas by Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652). Sotheby’s, New York. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Job 1:1; 2:1-10

Why would an all-powerful, loving God allow bad things to happen to good people? The Book of Job is often held up as a guide to understanding this theological quandary, but this approach may leave the hopeful reader less than satisfied. What are we to make of its clear impression that God actually caused Job’s suffering because, incredibly, Satan talked God into testing Job as a sort of bet? As we read through Job in Track One this month, recognize it as an important part of the Bible’s wisdom literature, the books that unveil the authors’ ideas about life and God, seeking to explain the inexplicable.

First Reading (Track Two): Genesis 2:18-24

Think about relationships through Sunday’s unusually difficult Lectionary readings, trying to read them faithfully yet generously. Our Track Two first reading, for example, singles out the Genesis legend about God making Eve from Adam’s rib as a helper for the first man. Over the ages, this has often been interpreted to place women in a secondary status to men. Then in this week’s selection from Mark’s Gospel we hear another troubling passage: Jesus rejects divorce in words so strict and uncompromising that they have often been invoked outside their first century context to hold people in abusive relationships.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 26

Just as Job, we are told, was “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil,” Psalm 26 declares before God that the Psalmist has lived with integrity and trusted in God without faltering. Considering the trials of Job, we might wonder if the author of this psalm is tempting fate when he invites God to “test me … and try me.” We may also hear a hint of Pharisaical self-satisfaction in the writer’s desire not to be counted among the evildoers or to suffer their punishment. But in the end this plea is humble. It promises integrity and asks only for God’s pity and redemption.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 8

This beautiful psalm feels appropriate to a day when many congregations bless companion animals in memory of St. Francis of Assisi. It begins as a hymn of praise, celebrating the glories of God’s creation. In lyrical poetry it declares the beauty of the universe and all that populates it as testimony to God’s majesty: The heavens, the moon, the stars, all the work of God’s hands, are so great that mere humanity seems small in comparison. Even so, for better or for worse, we are given charge of all the wild and domestic animals and creatures of the sea.

Second Reading: Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12

Now we begin seven weeks with the letter to the Hebrews, a journey that will carry us to the end of the Pentecost season. The letter to the Hebrews is thought to be an ancient letter to Jewish Christians who had gone back to Judaism for fear of persecution. While it is fervently pro-Christian, we should take care not to read parts of it as anti-Jewish. The verses we hear this Sunday recognize the stewardship over creation that God assigned to humanity in the Genesis creation stories, crowning human beings with glory and honor, “subjecting all things under their feet.”

Gospel: Mark 10:2-16

Jesus’s strict command against divorce is difficult to hear in modern times, when divorce has become acceptable, if unhappy; a troubled end to a relationship. In the patriarchal culture of Jesus’s time, divorce was even worse, because it was inequitable: A man could set aside his marriage for any reason, or keep his wife trapped in an abusive relationship. A woman had no recourse, could not practically initiate divorce, and worse, a woman alone was likely to end up homeless and hungry, shamed and reduced to begging. Should it surprise us that Jesus spoke firmly against that unequal practice, using language that recalled the words of Eve’s creation from Genesis?