By Solveig Nilsen-Goodin, Wilderness Way Community, Portland, OR
“I heard something…” she said.
I had just spoken the final, “Amen,” closing the prayers at our weekly gathering as the Wilderness Way Community on a sunny Sunday afternoon in early June. But she had heard something. And she needed us to hear it too.
It was a message from the bees.
Continue reading “When Bees Talk…We Listen”
By Ched Myers, for the 16th Sunday of Pentecost (Mk 8:27-9:1)
Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.
Roughly midway through the season of Ordinary Time, and a week before the Fall Equinox, our lectionary series in Mark’s gospel arrives at the midpoint of the story.
The first half of the narrative began by heralding a “Way” (1:2), and closed with a question addressed to the disciples and the reader: “Do you not yet understand?” (8:21) The second half opens “on the Way” (8:27), with yet another query: “Who do you say that I am?” (8:29a). Do we really know who Jesus is, and what he is about?
It is a shock to discover in this Sunday’s reading that Peter’s “correct” answer (8:29b) is silenced (8:30). This issues in what I call a “confessional crisis” (8:30-33), followed by Jesus’ second call to discipleship (8:34ff). This sequence represent the fulcrum upon which the entire gospel balances. Mark’s thesis is most clearly revealed here: discipleship is not about theological orthodoxy, but about the Way of the cross.
This Way will be explained by three object lessons, both positive and negative. The architecture of the ensuing narrative section consists of three “portents” about Jesus’ impending arrest, which the disciples fail to comprehend, and three teaching cycles. This structure has a catechetical character, representing a “school of the road,” as Jesus and his disciples journey from the far north of Palestine to the outskirts of Jerusalem:
Geography Portent Incomprehension Teaching
1) Caesarea-Philippi 8:31 8:32f 8:34ff
2) Galilee to Judea 9:31 9:32-34 9:35ff
3) to Jerusalem 10:32-34 10:35-37 10:39ff
This catechism is neatly framed by two stories in which the blind receive sight: in Bethsaida (8:22-26) and in Jericho (10:45-52). Here we see master story telling indeed.
Since Mark’s first storm episode (4:41), the issue of Jesus’ identity has been lingering in the background; now Mark turns to address it directly (8:27). The public’s perception of Jesus parallels the three misinterpretations reported earlier concerning John (8:28; see 6:14-16). But when the disciples are asked for their opinion, Peter hails Jesus as “Messiah” (8:29).
We meet this politically-loaded term for the first time since the story’s title (1:1). Messiah was understood by many Jews in first century Palestine to be a royal figure who would someday restore the political fortunes of Israel. Based upon Mark’s title and the centrality of this confession in the church, we are likely to approve of Peter’s identification. But to our chagrin, Peter is immediately silenced by Jesus (8:30), as if he were just another demon trying to “name” Jesus (see 1:25; 3:12)!
Since this lection has already come up this year (on the Second Sunday in Lent), I refer to my comments there concerning the crisis of expectation that punctuates Jesus’ exchange with Peter, and the meaning of his teaching on denial and the “Coming of the Human One.”
By Ric Hudgens, a sermon at Second Baptist Church, Evanston, June 28, 2015
Text: Psalm 30 (Fifth Sunday of Pentecost, Year B)
INTRODUCTION
What does it mean in this Kairos moment that we have a God moved by our lamentations?
The events of recent months are too familiar to need rehearsing. We are living in a kairos moment. The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos was chronological or sequential time; the time that we track on our watches and cellphones. Moment by moment time.
Continue reading “Lessons in Lament”
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” -C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
By Ched Myers, for the 14th Sunday of PENTECOST (MK 7:1-23)
Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.
After a lengthy hiatus in John, the RCL gospel returns to Mark, though it piecemeals this Sunday’s text (I’ll read it whole, and suggest you do as well).
Continue reading “Open Borders!”
By Gloria House, SNCC Field Secretary in Lowndes, 1965-67
August 10, 2013 Lowndes County, Alabama
Good afternoon, Everyone. I would like to express my gratitude to the planners of this year’s pilgrimage for inviting me – especially to Claire Milligan, who first approached me about coming for this event a couple of years ago. Thank you to everyone. And I would like to acknowledge Ruby Sales, who is an integral part of this pilgrimage, as well as the presence of my SNCC sisters, Joann Mants and Gwen Patton, and other friends from the Lowndes County and Selma communities. And, of course, I acknowledge Jonathan. I remember him as a man of extraordinary warmth, clarity of mission, and commitment to justice. His spirit is certainly here with us today.
Continue reading “Homily for the Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage”
From David Wilcox’s “Deeper Still” (2000)
In this life, the love you give becomes the only lasting treasure
And what you lose will be what you win
A well that echoes down too deep to measure.
By Ched Myers, for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (Mark 6:14-29)
Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.
This Sunday’s gospel is Mark’s account of John’s execution by Herod (that is, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilea and Perea from 4 B.C.E.-39 C.E.) This “flashback” belatedly explains the circumstances surrounding John’s arrest, which was reported in passing at the outset of the story (1:14). Mark tells us that Herod believes that Jesus is John coming back to haunt him (6:14-16). Insofar as Jesus took up the Baptist’s mantle (preaching repentance and the Kingdom of God), Herod is not wrong. But the disturbing implication for the king is that this proclamation persists despite his having gotten rid of one of its messengers, suggesting that there was a more serious popular movement to be reckoned with. It is to the sordid tale of John’s demise that Mark now abruptly turns.
Continue reading “PROPHETIC GENEALOGIES AND THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP”
By Ched Myers, the 6th Sunday of Pentecost (Mk 6:1-13)
Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.
At this point in Mark’s narrative we are given some background on each of the three major “protagonists” of this story: Jesus (6:1-6), the disciples (7-13) and John the Baptist (14-29, the gospel for 7 Pentecost). These three episodes each concern “rejected prophets,” which opens up a central theme of the second half of the gospel: the cost of discipleship.
This narrative sequence begins with Jesus’ return “to his own country” (6:1). For a third time, he teaches in a synagogue on the Sabbath (see 1:21ff; 3:1ff), and for a third time he encounters opposition. But this time it is not from the authorities, but from his neighbors and kinfolk. They are suspicious of this local boy’s notoriety, objecting that he has no distinguished lineage (6:3). Because of the domesticating constraints of nationality, kinship and household expectations (6:4), the “prophet without honor” is unable to effect change in his hometown, and returns to his itinerant mission (6:5f).
Continue reading “WHAT IS EVANGELISM? STRANGER AT HOME, AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS”
Radical Discipleship 