Author: appadmin

13 July 2014
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 10A (RCL)
Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

If the writers of the gospels lived close to an agrarian culture, the parables of Jesus either don’t show familiarity with that culture, or challenge the assumptions of that culture. Any decent farmer hearing this story would immediately think “What an idiot!” Cultivation was a common metaphor for education in the ancient world. But the metaphor usually focused in the preparation of the soil and then the tending of the plant as images of preparing the student to receive the teaching and then guarding the neophyte in the early stages of adopting the taught philosophy. This teacher simply squanders a good deal of the seed. The parable leaves us asking why. Continue reading “Squandering seed”

6 July 2014
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 9A (RCL)
Genesis 24:34-38; 42-49; 58-67
Psalm 45:11-18
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on this Sunday. In our Old Testament reading, we have a story of one of the patriarchs (or his stand-in) meeting his wife at a well. Jacob meets Rachel at a well. Moses meets Miriam at a well. When John tells the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, he has these episodes in mind. It’s also fascinating that each of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob marry cousins (Rebekah’s grandfather is Abraham’s brother; Rachel’s is Laban’s daughter, Laban is Rebekah’s brother). This tangles the lines of inheritance: it seems that the Canaanites were matrilinial — that is that property was passed from uncle to nephew through sister/aunt. Sacrifice disentangles these lines and makes sure that inheritance passes from father to son — that is an important point in this story. Isaac has inherited all of the wealth of his father Abraham. This is one of the reasons Rebekah consents to go, and one of the reasons it is important that Laban agree, because her son would ordinarily be his heir. One wonders of the dedication of the first born male to God has anything to do with this shift in modes of inheritance. Continue reading “Yoked to Jesus”

8 June 2014
The Feast of Pentecost
Pentecost A(RCL)
Numbers 11:24-30
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Acts 2:1-21
John 20:19-23

The gift of the Holy Spirit is never quite predictable. All four of the readings from scripture appointed for today seem to have that in common. The passage from Numbers is often read at ordinations, but I think it runs counter the neat expectations that the spirit operates through clearly ordained channels. Moses has complained to God that he can’t manage this people by himself. In the verses just before, he challenges God, “Did I conceive this people? Did I give birth to them, that they should be my concern?” God agrees that the problem is too big for Moses alone, and arranged to give some of the spirit which rests on Moses to seventy elders of the people recognized to be elders among them. Continue reading “A little bit of chaos”

1 June 2014
Seventh Sunday of Easter
Easter 7A (RCL)
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4: 12-14; 5:6-11
John 17:1-11

I always chuckle a little when I think of Jesus’ disciples standing there giving him and “upskirt.” I wonder if Luke intended the humor. Luke knew enough about the iconography of empire to cast the picture of Jesus’ ascension in terms recognizable as the apotheosis of Caesar. By having Jesus’, instead of his effigy, ascending into the clouds, Luke may have wanted this to seem silly, to extend the silliness to Caesar’s apotheosis as well. After all, one of the angels says to the disciples, “why do you stand staring up into heaven?” The point is not to watch the bottoms of his feet disappear. Continue reading “Where is Jesus now?”

25 May 2014
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Easter 6A (RCL)
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

This week, we have a frustratingly short little snippet of Jesus’ farewell discourse in the Gospel of John. If we could have added on the end of last week’s lection about doing greater works than Jesus and asking anything in his name, we might have more to work with; or even adding on the next bit about Judas, not Isacariot, wondering how it is that Jesus will reveal himself to us but not the world would help. As it is, we’re left wondering, “What are Jesus’ commandments, and who is this Paraclete?” Continue reading “What the world cannot see”

18 May 2014
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Easter 5A (RCL)
Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5,15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14

Last week, we heard Jesus say, “I AM the door.” This week, we hear him say, “I AM the road.” Commentators look at various contexts for the source of this metaphor. Is it the gnostic way of knowledge (the saying about knowing the father might suggest this). Is it hermetic? I believe the background is Jewish. The Johannine community understood themselves to be on the desert way, the new community of Israel, bereft of the Temple and expelled from the synagogue. Jesus, after all, is the passover lamb, eaten before leaving Egypt on the way to the land of God’s promise. After the resurrection, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene that he is journeying to his God and our God, his Father and our Father.

That helps make sense of the statement, “In my father’s house are many resting places.” Continue reading “Jesus the Road”

11 May 2014
Fourth Sunday of Easter
(Good Shepherd Sunday)
Easter 4A (RCL)
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 19-25
John 10:1-10

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday, and in the RCL, the Gospel reading always comes from the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel. We expect to hear Jesus say, “I am the Good Shepherd,” but in Year A, we hear him say, “I am the door.” We do some violence to the Gospel by placing the chapter division just here. It makes it seem like this passage can stand on its own, when in fact, this discourse continues immediately on from the story of the healing of the man born blind. Jesus has just told the Pharisees that because they insist that they see, their sin remains. The blind man has been put out of the synagogue, and has encountered Jesus. The story makes it clear that everyone who confesses the Christ is to be expelled from the synagogue. Jesus then immediately says, “Truly, I tell you, the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs over the wall is a thief and a bandit.” Are we to assume that the Pharisees are thieves and bandits? Continue reading “Jesus the door”

4 May 2014
Third Sunday of Easter
Easter 3A (RCL)
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 17-23
Luke 24:13-35

The story of the Road to Emmaus is one of the most recognizable stories in the Gospel (Luke is the consummate story teller — more of his stories have names than any other Gospel writer). There are paintings depicted it, poets refer to it (T. S. Eliot’s, “The Waste Land” has one of the more famous and oblique references), and we all know it. oAnd with good reason: it’s a great story.

The irony in the story is part of what makes it work so well. We, the readers, know something that the characters in the story don’t know: the third companion is Jesus. As readers, we can see the outcome and feel a huge relief with the veil is lifted and the two companions recognize Jesus. But the irony also invites us to compare our stories with the story we are reading: it invites us to take an ironic perspective on our own lives. Continue reading “Seeing Jesus”

27 April 2014
Second Sunday of Easter
Easter 2A (RCL)
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

We call Thomas “Doubting Thomas” — unfairly. Thomas does not doubt. He resolutely refuses to trust, unless he can touch the wounds. Jesus shows up, speaks peace to his disciples, breathes on them and charges them to release or hold the sins of whoever they will. They tell Thomas, and his proclaims, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will never, ever trust.” It is one thing to believe in the resurrection, to be convinced mentally that it happened. It is altogether another thing to trust it, to stake one’s life on it. This is what Thomas refuses to do, unless he can touch the wounds.

Thomas is often the spokesman for a gnostic kind of Christianity (see the Gospel of Thomas). Continue reading “Touching the wounds”

20 April 2014
Easter Sunday
Easter A(RCL)
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-21
Colossians 3:1-4
Matthew 28:1-10

All four Gospel accounts of the resurrection begin with the message of an angel (or two) to a woman (or two or three). Interestingly, in his account of the resurrection appearances, Paul never mentions a woman (1 Corinthians 15), though he does list women among the apostles (Romans 16). Paul, likewise, never mentions the empty tomb. The testimony of women would not hold up in court, regardless of the number of corroborating witnesses (women). Are the Gospel writers telegraphing to us that the testimony to the empty tomb wouldn’t hold up to forensic standards? If so, what is the point of the stories of the empty tomb? Continue reading “In Galilee”