September 2021 – A Preacher’s Ponderings

Fruitfulness

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 3 October 2021; Proper 22B (RCL); Job 1:1, 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16.

The modern preacher always feels the need to tread carefully with this Gospel reading, knowing that a fair number of the congregation will be divorced persons. Shame is not always a helpful homelitic aid. And this is the only saying of Jesus (besides the last supper) quoted by Paul, so it seems pretty firmly fixed in the tradition. What to do?

Impediments

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 26 September 2021; Proper 21B (RCL); Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50.

I did my Clinical Pastoral Education as a chaplain intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital. I was assigned to the rehabilitation floor, so we dealt with patients who had longer stays than most. One of the young men I encountered was a teenager (maybe 16), who was having his hand reconstructed. He had taken this passage literally, and laid his hand on a railroad track, because he did what teenaged boys do. I have a hard time hearing this passage, without recalling that young man.

Whose wisdom?

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost; 19 September 2021; Proper 20B (RCL); Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13 -4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37.

Wisdom literature is typically addressed to an audience of young men of means, who are getting ready to make their way in the world, and often at court. It provides life lessons in how to avoid messing up. The book of Proverbs opens with Lady Wisdom inviting the young men to submit to her, rather than following Lady Folly. And the book ends with a paean to the good wife — perhaps Lady Wisdom in the flesh.

The challenge of difference

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 5 September 2021; Proper 18B (RCL); Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37.

The story of the Syrophoenician woman has always made Christians uncomfortable. Since when does Jesus insult people (besides religious authorities)? It doesn’t fit with our picture of Jesus. And to deny a healing, no less.