Category: Lectionary

17 July 2011
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 11A (RCL)
Genesis 28:10-19a
Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

This is one of my favorite parables, but on of my least favorite interpretations. Matthew assigns each element of the parable an interpretation; in other words turns it into an allegory. Matthew’s interpretation of the parable of the weeds and wheat sees the weeds as “bad seed” people (perhaps in the Church) whom God will separate out at the end of the age. So, of course, we should try to be good seed. Perhaps, as Matthew sought to accommodate a growing church, he needed to explain how not everyone could count on being among the children of the kingdom.

But try reading the parable without the interpretation. Continue reading “Weeds?”

10 July 2011

Pentecost IV
Proper 10A (RCL)

Genesis 25:19-14
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Matthew has a tendency to interpret the parables he receives into allegories.  If you read on to the next parable (the weeds among the wheat), you see that he gives each element of the parable an interpretation, turning it into an allegory.  He almost does the same here (of course, in keeping with Mark).  The bits we leave out are not at all nice — the purpose of speaking in parables is precisely to prevent people from understanding the message of the Kingdom.  That sounds to me like the sour grapes of Mark’s community, at the failure of their evangelism.

So, what if we read the parable without Matthew’s (or Mark’s) interpretation.  A sower went out to sow.  Clearly, this man is not a farmer.   Continue reading “Sowing wild oats”

19 June 2011
Trinity Sunday
Trinity A (RCL)
Genesis 1:1 — 2:4
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

A lot of preachers don’t like preaching on the Trinity: perhaps because they know they will never explain it (that’s sort of the point of a mystery, isn’t in?). So, one wonders why the Church developed the doctrine in the first place. What does it explain? There is language that hints at the Trinity in the New Testament, without expressing a completely worked-out doctrine. It’s too bad we don’t read the passage from 1 Corinthians we had last week (12:3ff). I think that is the clearest Trinitarian language in the NT (besides the passage from Matthew we read today — which could be a later insertion). There are varieties of gifts, but one spirit; varieties of services but one master; varieties of work, but on God who energizes everything in everyone.

Continue reading “Communion of Being”

12 June 2011
The Feast of Pentecost
Pentecost A (RCL)
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37b
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
John 7:37-39

For starters, the NRSV does a hatchet job on this passage from John’s Gospel. Richmond Lattimore translates as follows: “On the last great day of the festival Jesus stood forth and made a declaration, saying: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. For one who believes in me, as the scripture says, streams of living water shall flow from deep within him. This he said concerning the spirit, of which those who had put their faith in him would partake; but the spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The NRSV punctuates the Greek so that the phrase “the one who believes” qualifies the one who will drink. That is a strained punctuation. If John is quoting Isaiah 55:1, which he seems to be, there is no qualifier. Everyone who comes will drink freely. So, why limit the waters to those who believe?

And then, secondly, the word which Lattimore translates “deep within” and the NRSV “heart” is “koilia”. It translates roughly “innards.” BUT, in the New Testament, it is used for womb. Continue reading “Living water”

29 May 2011
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Easter 6A (RCL)
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

It’s interesting to think that most of the older folks in our congregations are orphans. We tend to think of orphans as children, but, technically, if your parents have died, you’re an orphan. Of course, Jesus (according to John) delivers these words at his last meal with his friends, who will soon be bereft of him. Losing parents in the order of things (at a good age), I don’t suppose we feel abandoned exactly. A friend of mine observed when her last parent died, that there was now no one between her and death; she was next in line. Maybe that’s the final step of growing up.

Jesus promises his friends they won’t be orphans, Continue reading “Loving the world for God”

1 May 2011
Second Sunday of Easter
Easter 2A (RCL)
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

Our translations of the Bible have perpetrated a big misunderstanding of the story of Thomas. After Jesus has invited Thomas to touch his hands and side, he says to him (in the NRSV), “Do not doubt, but believe.” What Jesus says in the Greek is, “Do not be untrusty, but trusty.” We have come to see doubt as the opposite of faith. This story makes it clear that fear and faith are opposites.

The disciples meet on the evening after Mary Magdalene has encountered the risen Jesus. They lock the doors, “for fear of the Jews.” Continue reading “Be trusty”

10 April 2011
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Lent 5A (RCL)
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

This week’s Gospel lesson is sorta the reverse of last week’s. In last week’s reading, Jesus dropped out of the story after healing the blind man (who never asked to be healed!), until the very end, when he meets up with the blind man again. Most of the action took place between the blind man and various interlocutors. In this week’s lesson, Lazarus doesn’t even enter the story until he comes out of the tomb. Jesus is front and center here.

So, why is that? In the story of the blind man, he helped others see what is important in the relationship to Jesus, where truth is. He takes on the “ego eimi” for himself (Jesus doesn’t say it in that whole miracle — only refers to himself in the third person). So, people entering the Johannine community receive their sight, and become one with Jesus (I and the Father, etc.).

The Lazarus story appears to answer a question about what the resurrected life looks like. It does not look like Lazarus, a resuscitated corpse. Lazarus comes out of the tomb, still wrapped in his burial shroud. When the disciples arrive at Jesus’ tomb, the shroud is lying off to one side, neatly folded up. Jesus appears to Mary under the form of a stranger. So, the resurrected life is something we encounter in the everyday.

Hmm. Jesus delays before coming to heal Lazarus — John’s ironic way of poking fun at other christian communities bothered by the delay of the Parousia?

27 March 2011
Third Sunday in Lent
Lent 3A (RCL)
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42

The Gospel reading is very rich. At the level of narrative, it works well: a woman, out at the well at noon, not the usual time for women go to the well — indicates her shame (five husbands, etc.), yet Jesus is willing to speak with her, and ask her for a drink. Of course, I don’t like the way the story (at the level of narrative) ends — we no longer believe because of what you said, but we have heard for ourselves. Dissing the woman once more.

But Continue reading “Drinking the spirit”

20 March 2011
Second Sunday in Lent
Lent 2A (RCL)

Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17

The passage from Genesis is cryptically short. If I were Abraham, I might ask God to stop showing up in my life: promises and challenges go together. God tells Abram to leave his country, his kindred, and his father’s house and go to a land that God will show him. There is no destination laid out before hand, no Google map. Just go. Continue reading “Movin’ on”

13 March 2011
First Sunday in Lent
Lent 1A (RCL)
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

God put the human being in the garden to till and tend it. The human being desired the knowledge of good and evil. We want to sit in judgment on God’s world, deciding what is good and what is bad. Interesting, since God had already declared everything God had made to be good. So, on what criteria do humans judge things to be evil? We decide things on our own criteria, rather than the mind of God. Because of that, we got kicked out of the garden, and for ever after have to earn out bread by the sweat of our brow. I suppose one could read this as a coming-of-age story. When we get old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, we learn we are going to die, and are going to have to work.

When Satan tempts Jesus, he tells him to turn a stone into bread: to short circuit the process of tilling and tending the garden. We humans get impatient. We want to solve our problems by magic: by new technology, by power, by the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus refuses to fix things by a shortcut. Later, when he feeds the 5000 and the 4000, he uses resources at hand, rather than turning stones to bread. He also refuses to test God with a show of power, and refuses world domination. He opts for the patient tending of God’s creation.

God has declared the whole creation good. We are called to tend to the good in creation, patiently to draw forth the goodness already here, to bring out the best in others, to help them meet their own needs. God has asked us to tend to the divine in the world, not to pass judgment on it.