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Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 22 August 2021; Proper 16B (RCL); 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69.
Last week, we heard Jesus say, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” This week, we hear him say, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.” So, which is it?
Continue reading “Words of life”26 August 2018
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 16B (RCL)
1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69
The way the Hebrew Bible comes to be arranged (as distinct from the Christian Old Testament), it serves as an etiology of the Second Temple, ending as it does with Darius’ decree at the end of the second book of Chronicles. Here, the story of David ends, and that of Solomon begins as an etiology for the First Temple. In the reading we had last week, all of David’s crimes are whitewashed, and he becomes the ideal king, and Solomon prayer for wisdom, and God granted it, despite the fact that he used to offer hecatombs at the high place at Gibeon, married foreign queens, set up an Asherah, and all the rest that subsequent kings would be accused of. I guess as long as you build a beautiful temple, you can be forgiven much. Continue reading “Gnawing flesh, drinking blood”