Category Archives: Scripture

Boundaries and Transitions

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This coming Sunday we celebrate the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle B. After several weeks during which we took our Gospel readings from the Bread of Life Discourse in John, last week we returned to the Gospel of Mark. When we picked up again in the Gospel of Mark, we bypassed accounts of the death of John the Baptist, Jesus walking on the water, and the healing of the crowds in Gennesaret. Last week we picked up the story with Mark’s account of the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees and Jerusalem scribes. Given the conflict at the end of the Bread of Life Discourse, that was probably a good segue. Continue reading →

Where from here?

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. In this week’s posts we returned to our consideration of the Gospel of Mark. Before we continue, it is perhaps good to consider a “bigger picture” and gather our thoughts. As Van Linden points out, Mark’s gospel had presented a series of six miracles and then suddenly we are in the midst of a controversy that at first seems like “making a mountain out of a molehill.” Why break up the flow? The miracles demonstrate the power of God and for the attentive, the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, but is there more that Mark is attempting to present? With that I will leave you with some final thoughts. Continue reading →

Jesus Summons the Flock

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. 14 He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. 15 Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”…. 21 From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. 23 All these evils come from within and they defile.” Continue reading →

Shepherd and Teacher

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”

In Mark 6:34 and following, Mark represents Jesus as the true shepherd of Israel. One easily hears the echo of Ezekiel 34:10 in which God promises that he himself will shepherd: “Thus says the Lord GOD: Look! I am coming against these shepherds. I will take my sheep out of their hand and put a stop to their shepherding my flock, so that these shepherds will no longer pasture them. I will deliver my flock from their mouths so it will not become their food.” While this passage is normally considered in the context of the kings of Israel and Judah, in the post-Exile period the “shepherding” of the people to the Covenant became the responsibility of the religious leaders of the nation. Continue reading →

Tradition of the elders

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. In yesterday’s post we addressed the topic of Sacred Tradition and its role within the Catholic Church – as a prelude to the gospel for this week when the topic of the “tradition of the elders” is part of the dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees/scribes.

1 Now when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. 3 (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. 4 And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles (and beds).)

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Tradition and traditions

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. In yesterday’s post we refocused our attention to the Gospel of Mark, last proclaimed on the 16th Sunday as we focused on St. John’s “Bread of Life Discourse.” In this week’s gospel Mark 7:8, refers to “human traditions,” a verse which non-Catholic folk will often hold up as proof text of the manner in which the Catholic Church has gone astray, introducing all manner of non-Biblical beliefs. The usual list includes the veneration of Mary, her Immaculate Conception and her bodily Assumption into Heaven. There is also the transubstantiation, praying to saints, the confessional, penance, purgatory, and more that make their topical list of errors. Continue reading →

A Return to Mark

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, lectionary cycle B. After five consecutive Sunday gospels addressing the Bread of Life Discourse in John’s Gospel, we again return to the primary source of gospel readings for the year: the Gospel according to Mark. When we last proclaimed this gospel we did so on the 15th and 16th Sundays. In those Sundays Jesus had sent the disciples out on mission “two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick— no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.” (Mark 6:7-9). Continue reading →

Grace and Will

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This coming Sunday is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.  But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. (John 6:64-66)
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Eucharist or No?

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This coming Sunday is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time. “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (6:63)

John 6:63 is often a verse that one arguing against any Eucharistic interpretation of the whole of John 6 brings forward. The logic goes like this: “Jesus is saying things that are confusing.  His disciples think he’s being literal.  Jesus clears it up by saying “No not at all. I’m not saying that you should eat my  flesh.  My flesh profits nothing!  I’m speaking with Spirit and life, which is metaphorical in nature.”  Continue reading →