Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Sept. 29, 2024 (Pentecost 19B/Proper 21)

Season of Creation: Bless Sunday

Jesus with the little children (1620s), partially restored painting possibly by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) or by Jan Six I (1618-1700). Private collection. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22

Creation Focus: Plotting death backfires on schemer
There’s something unique about this reading: It offers the only time that the three-year Lectionary draws from the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Esther … and even this is only for those following Track One! This passage comes near the end of this exciting story that, in Jewish tradition, is read in its entirety on the feast of Purim. In these verses Queen Esther of Persia reveals at a banquet feast that she is Jewish and thus would herself be killed with her people if the wicked plotter Haman carried out his plan to kill or enslave all of Persia’s Jews. The king, angry about Haman’s plotting, orders him hanged on a giant gallows, and justice is served. This event is remembered in Jewish tradition with feasting, joy, and gifts of food for each other and the poor.

First Reading (Track Two): Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Creation Focus: Greed destroys; find contentment
Listen! We listen for the voice of God. We ask God to listen to us when we pray. We listen to each other, and sometimes we hear. Listen for themes of listening and hearing in Sunday’s readings. In our first reading we hear the people in the desert, sick and tired of manna, hungrily remembering the good food they enjoyed in Egypt; so hungry that they would eagerly return to Pharaoh’s slavery for something good to eat. God is angry. Moses is angry! Fortunately, God offers a practical solution: Moses may name seventy elders to help him carry the load of leadership. Then, two men who had remained in the camp started prophesying without supervision! Moses’ assistant Joshua wants them punished, but Moses says no: He wishes that all the people could prophesy and share God’s spirit.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 124

Creation Focus: Raging waters destroy; follow God’s way to calm them
Remembering another time when Israel feared death at the hands of enemies, Psalm 124 sings joyous thanksgiving for God’s protection, when God parted the waters of the Red Sea when they escaped Pharaoh’s bondage in Egypt. If God had not been on their side when the enemies rose up against them, we sing, the waters would have overwhelmed them! The torrent would have gone over them! But God did not give them up. They escaped, singing, “Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.”

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 19:7-14

Creation Focus: Find joy in following God’s good path in Creation
Listen and hear, as we sing this psalm that calls on us to pray and tells us why we should pray. God’s commandments are good, and to follow them does us good, we sing. Sweeter than honey and more desirable than gold, God’s laws and commandments enlighten us and keep us on a straight path. How do we pray? The answer is so important that we repeat it twice: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength, my rock, and my redeemer.”

Second Reading: James 5:13-20

Creation Focus: Pray for Creation’s healing, save each other
As we reach the end of our month long visit with the letter of James, this powerful epistle has called on us to care for our neighbors, to protect the weak, and to do the work that God has given us to do. Now the letter ends with a call to prayer: Are we suffering? Pray! Are we happy? Sing hymns of praise! Are we sick? Ask our friends to pray for us! Prayer works, the author of James says. When we bring our brothers and sisters back to God’s way, we save them from death. God works through us as God worked through the prophet Elijah when the prophet prayed for an end to a killing drought and famine.

Gospel: Mark 9:38-50

Creation Focus: Ally with any who heal Creation; support youth
The Apostle John seems angry and perhaps a little possessive in this Gospel passage. “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us,” he yells. We can imagine him running up to Jesus and demanding, “Make him stop! He’s not authorized!” But Jesus isn’t bothered. “Do not stop him,” he tells the apostles, adding, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Jesus, perhaps using an old rabbinic tradition of contrasting an act with an extreme alternative, goes on with some pretty scary language about staying on the right path or else. But his point is clear: If people are with us, don’t throw them out.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Sept. 30, 2018

Jesus Exorcizing a Demon. Folio in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (1416); Musée Condé, Chantilly, France. (Click image to enlarge.)

Sunday offers us the only reading from the book of Esther that we hear during the entire three-year lectionary period. We come in toward the end of the book, just in time to hear the ending of this story that, in Jewish tradition, is read in its entirety on the feast of Purim. Esther is the only book in the entire Bible that doesn’t mention God, but it tells a stirring, albeit legendary, story of the Jewish people. We hear Queen Esther of Persia reveal at a banquet feast that she is Jewish and would herself be killed with her people if the wicked Haman carried out his plan to kill or enslave all of Persia’s Jews. The angry king orders Haman hanged on a giant gallows, and the event is remembered with feasting, gladness, and gifts of food to each other and to the poor.

First Reading (Track Two): Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Listen! We listen for the voice of God. We ask God to listen to us when we pray. We listen to each other, and sometimes we hear. Listen for themes of listening and hearing in Sunday’s readings. In our first reading we hear the people in the desert, sick and tired of manna, hungrily remembering the good food they enjoyed in Egypt; so hungry that they would eagerly return to Pharaoh’s slavery for something good to eat. God is angry. Moses is angry! Fortunately, God offers a practical solution: Moses may name seventy elders to help him carry the load of leadership. Then, two men who had remained in the camp started prophesying without supervision! Moses’ assistant Joshua wants them punished, but Moses says no: If only all the people could prophesy and share God’s spirit.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 124

Remembering another time when Israel feared death at the hands of enemies, Psalm 124 sings joyous thanksgiving for God’s protection, parting the waters of the Red Sea when they escaped Pharaoh’s bondage in Egypt. If God had not been on their side when the enemies rose up against them, we sing, the waters would have overwhelmed them! The torrent would have gone over them! But God did not give them up. They escaped, singing, “Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.”

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 19:7-14

Listen and hear, as we sing this psalm that calls on us to pray and tells us why we should pray. God’s commandments are good, and to follow them does us good, we sing. Sweeter than honey and more desirable than gold, God’s laws and commandments enlighten us and keep us on a straight path. How do we pray? The answer is so important that it’s repeated twice: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength, my rock, and my redeemer.”

Second Reading: James 5:13-20

As we reach the end of our monthlong visit with the letter of James, this powerful epistle has called on us to care for our neighbors, to protect the weak, and to do the work that God has given us to do. Now the letter ends with a call to prayer, listing several conditions in which we might choose to pray. Are we suffering? Pray! Are we happy? Sing hymns of praise! Are we sick? Ask our friends to prayer! Prayer works. When we bring our brothers and sisters back to God’s way, we save them from death, for God works through us as God worked through the prophet Elijah when he prayed for an end to a killing drought and famine.

Gospel: Mark 9:38-50

The beginning of Mark’s Gospel this Sunday seems to echo an element of the Track Two first reading: Just as some of Moses’ followers, and Joshua, were angry about two seemingly unauthorized members of the community who started prophesying, the Apostle John tried to stop a stranger who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. But Jesus tells them to be glad, rather, that others are speaking in his name: “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Then Jesus offers a series of scary warnings about doing things that cause others to stumble: “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off … And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out.” Fortunately, this was surely not literal advice. Jesus, as he often does, is following an old rabbinic tradition, illuminating everyday actions by comparing them to their most extreme alternatives.

What are “Track 1” and “Track 2”?
During the long green season after Pentecost, there are two tracks (or strands) each week for Old Testament readings. Within each track, there is a Psalm chosen to accompany the particular lesson.
The Revised Common Lectionary allows us to make use of either of these tracks, but once a track has been selected, it should be followed through to the end of the Pentecost season, rather than jumping back and forth between the two strands.
For more information from LectionaryPage.net, click here.

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Oct. 4, 2015

Christ Blessing the Children, 1540s; Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1472–1553. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Today’s readings don’t seem easy. First, we hear a part of the creation narrative in that some have interpreted to diminish the status of women. Mark’s Gospel reflects those words in a rejection of divorce so strict that it has been invoked to hold people in abusive relationships. Can we read these faithfully, yet more generously? Perhaps they speak more broadly of creation and the universal call to men and women to take responsibility for our relationships with plants, animals and each other. This is a good thought to hold as we celebrate St. Francis’ day with our Blessing of the Animals.

Psalm: Psalm 8

A psalm that begins as a hymn of praise turns to a catalog of the glories of God’s creation: The heavens, the moon, the stars, all the work of God’s hands, are so great that mere humanity seems small in comparison. Yet we are given charge of all the wild and domestic animals and creatures of the sea. Surely we are called to exercise the same careful and loving stewardship over this creation as we count on God to provide for us.

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

Today we begin seven weeks with the letter to the Hebrews, a journey that will carry us to the end of Pentecost. Hebrews is thought to be an ancient letter to Jewish Christians who had returned 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. Today’s verses echo Psalm 8 in recognizing humanity’s God-given stewardship over creation. We should be mindful of creation as God, through Jesus, is mindful of us.

Gospel: Mark 10:2-16

These are hard words to hear in a modern society where divorce has become acceptable, if unhappy; a difficult end to a relationship. In the patriarchal culture of Jesus’ time, though, it was even worse: A man could set aside his marriage for any reason in a world where a woman alone had no option but to beg, risking homelessness and starvation. Of course Jesus came down hard on that! Further, most modern theologians agree that Jesus quoting Genesis on “male and female” addressed relationship, rather than today’s understanding of same-gender love. Finally, when we look at the innocence of a child, we begin to grasp Jesus’ idea of God’s kingdom. Don’t judge others. Don’t be unkind.

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012.

First Reading: Job 1:1; 2:1-10
“Oh, no, a month of Job.” A lot of people find the story of Job and his troubles disheartening. But let’s be positive: Job is a great short story and an important part of the Bible’s “wisdom literature”, books that teach us about life and God. And don’t we all ask why bad things happen to good people? Listen and ponder over the next four weeks.

We hear the beginning of Job today, and it starts off like an ancient folk tale. Remember that at the time Satan was not a red devil with horns, but a sort of prosecutor, or questioner, within the heavenly order.

Psalm 8
This beautiful psalm offers a hymn of praise to the glory of God, our maker. In lyrical poetry it celebrates the beauty of the universe and all that populates it as testimony to God’s majesty. And what better day than our Blessing of the Animals to celebrate “ all sheep and oxen … the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea”?

Second Reading: Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
Why does God care for mere mortals so much that he sent his son to live and die among us? This letter is thought to have been written to coax back Jewish Christians who had returned to Judaism in the face of persecution. The writer makes the case, says Texas pastor Alan Brehm, that the incarnation “really and truly does show us what God is like” in the form of Jesus.

Gospel: Mark 10:2-16
This is one of those difficult gospels that makes it hard to find the love. Churches that take a hard line on divorce have brought much pain to families trapped in abusive relationships. But is that what we have here? No, it’s Jesus arguing with the Pharisees again, outwitting their plan to trap him. He turns the argument on them by pointing out that their “hardness of heart” should earn them a stricter rule. It’s no coincidence, then, that Jesus smiles and turns to the innocent children.